Welcome back to this weekly roundup of things I’ve enjoyed in the last seven days, as though I have any authority to have such a list. First three are free, and the final seven — which include a simple recipe and two excellent comedy videos — are behind a small paywall. Consider supporting this newsletter this week! (Or don’t: the Angela Lansbury video alone will carry you through the whole week.)
This Angela Lansbury workout video:
I heard about this on an episode of the podcast “Maintenance Phase" — one of my favorite episodes because it wasn’t about how everything is garbage and everyone is terrible. (I’m not mad at the “Maintenance Phase” people for this btw; it seems like they’re just telling it like it is.) This video was cited and pulled from multiple times, and listening to the audio was so soothing and calming, so I found the whole thing and put it on in the background. What a joy! This is so gentle and kind and watching it passively makes your whole body feel nice. Just a taste: she talks about the health benefits of puttering around the house.
Flatbread night.
Trader Joe’s sells fresh pizza dough (as I’m sure you know) for something like $1.99. As a kid, I found all homemade pizza to be a little disappointing, and this $2 dough provided no exception. So we renamed it “Flatbread Night,” which is NEVER disappointing. It’s always a damned delight.
We have Flatbread Night every Sunday. We buy the herbed pizza dough, and spread it out on a baking sheet (see above) into whatever shape it wants to take. A layer of tomato sauce, and then we add whatever vegetables we didn’t eat that week that are in the fridge. I usually crumble some soyrizo on top, and then we add olive oil and salt and pepper, and 10 minutes later, we have THIS FLATBREAD. Our one-year-old loves this food, and WE love this food. We look forward to it every week. It is cheap and easy and wonderful.
Issy is a radical cartoonist I met while living in New Orleans whose work keeps getting better. She did this great piece for The Guardian about the labor market (excerpted above), and there was a terrific interview with her in Narratively recently. Here’s something she said in that interview that I couldn’t agree with more:
Cartoonists complain about how long it takes to make comics and then how fast they are to read, but I think there’s something generous about spending a lot of time crafting something someone else can experience or engage with quickly – I feel really appreciative when anyone takes the time to read a comic I’ve made. The time we are not working or preparing/resting in order to be able to go back to work tomorrow is so precious, and I like that the free time is less of a barrier to reading comics.
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