Books and Ghosts

does the body ALWAYS have to keep the score? maybe we could just have a friendly game this time. maybe we can just have fun without putting numbers on it

the flesh is weak and the mind? also not so strong

Also they have the power to ruin the lives of citizens who they think don't respect them enough. The best that incompetent festival organisers can usually do is try to cancel them online.

you solve the mystery of what to have for dinner one night and you think "hell yeah case closed forever" WRONG there is a dinner mystery the next night too

"endangered eating" by sarah lohman is a must-read for foodies. the organization slow food international maintains a list they call the "ark of taste." think of it as the criterion collection for food. if they agree a food or preparation method has unique cultural significance they will work to preserve and promote it. ms lohman picked some American entries that interested her off the list and traveled to the communities that grow and serve these heritage foods to write a book about them. so she has a chapter each on Straits Salish reefnet fishing, coachella valley dates, Hawaiian sugarcane, Navajo-Churro sheep, longhorn cattle, wild rice, filé powder, buckeye chickens, carolina runner peanuts, and heirloom cider apples in New England. the reasons these foods are in danger are complex, with most of them simply not viable on a modern commercial scale, but a lot were specifically targeted due to being cultivated by Indigenous and enslaved communities. like reefnet fishing is not a food per se but it was the primary method used to gather the staple food of the Straits Salish (salmon) until white people tried to force them out. so it's a food-related cultural legacy that was in danger of being lost. just thought it was so interesting! I love food

The core conceit of Lord of the Rings is pretty funny. You are a twenty three year old in a suburb of Maine. The little bracelet in your grandpa’s attic has an inscription on it that is the password to the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. It is up to you to walk to the only hydraulic press in the world, located in Arizona, before the FBI finds the bracelet, kills you, and enslaves the suburb of Maine you currently live in

Also the 90-year old hobo that your grandpa beat in a rap battle for possession of the bracelet while hiding from the Romanian secret police really loved the bracelet because it was coated in small amounts of LSD and tried to hunt and kill your grandpa to get it back. He was then apprehended by the FBI and instantly gave them your grandpa’s address. Seal Team Six is about to break down your door and shoot you, says your local congressman who can also do cool magic tricks

There's a guy in NY who MIGHT be capable of destroying the codes but won't coz he simply wants to spend time with his wife. So it's up to your grandpa's old friend in rural Ohio to get you the friends capable of finishing the task.

And we must not, at any point, remember the existence of aircraft and ask aloud why we can't just fly to Arizona

The aircraft are all under the command of the Australian government, which has declared that the nuclear arsenals are not their problem and that no aircraft will help anyone out with that problem. Your grandfather did fly with the bracelet one time, but he only got away with that because no one involved knew what the bracelet was and it would have been a huge deal if anyone had realized what was up. If you charter a flight towards the world's only hydraulic press, the Australians will know and throw lightning at the plane.

You can't fly to Arizona because the FBI has a massive radar installation located right next to the hydraulic press, and part way through the story Seal Team Six gets upgraded to also being fighter pilots.

Amazing moments in Dads: my friend’s dad’s critique of Frankenstein was, “I just don’t think the author had read science fiction before.”

How careless of her