📺 Watched Key & Peele - I Said….

This is a beautiful sketch that heightens literally as high as you can go. Strong one to have early in the show.

🍿 Watched Bert Williams - The Poker Game.

Stunningly good object work.

🍿Watched Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter - Indefinite Talk.

This bit is so fun. Ought to be mentioned in the same breath as Who’s On First?

🔖 Read The Sad Clown Joke That Became a Beloved Meme.

My favorite take on Pagliacci is Rhett Miller’s theme song for the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

📚💬📓 “… being transparent about one’s positionality, and choosing a granularity of analysis appropriate to your actual knowledge and experience, are key choices soneone must make as they enter fan studies.” Henry Jenkins, “Textual Poachers, Twenty Years Later”

🔖 A swirling soup of thoughts in my head about self-presentation after reading these posts:

You know what’s really great for a migraine is the monthly test of public warning sirens in the Netherlands. OH WAIT NO THAT DOES NOT HELP WITH A MIGRAINE.

🔖 Read Is My Child Eating Enough Pirate’s Booty?

Parenting comedy is a microgenre that always lands with me.

🔖 Read “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather."

Took me a little while to get into the format of this short story but in the end I loved it. Big The Hazards of Love vibes.

Today’s adventure: NEMO Science Museum. Very cool, but I’m spoiled by having an awesome science museum in my hometown. I think it would have seemed even cooler were I not so blessed.

Finished reading: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 📚

I’m extremely late to this one. It’s excellent, of course. I love the way Angie Thomas shows that even in the face of tragedy and appalling oppression, there’s room for joy.

🔖 Read Interview with Kelly J. Baker: “I can’t push through when I’m stuck.”

“My writing routine became write frantically whenever I had a chance or had the energy to do so.” Dr. Baker knows.

Another Dutch meal: stamppot boerenkool. This is smoked sausage with sauce on a bed of potatoes mixed with kale. I really liked the sausage but it turns out even mixing it with potatoes can’t make me like kale.

I made a menu of Dutch foods for us to try. They’re sort of home food staples, not anything too elaborate or traditional. This is the first thing we tried: hagelslag, which literally means hailstorm. It’s bread and butter topped with real chocolate sprinkles.

I’m so excited to hang out with my friends for new stories.

🔖 Read WE’VE LOST THE PLOT by Megan Garber (The Atlantic). “Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.”

Chilling. What now?

Finished reading: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo 📚

I love it so much. I left the hardcover at home but bought the ebook to read while I’m traveling, which meant I could highlight without feeling weird about it and I highlighted a ton of stuff.

🔖📺🎮 Read Television Is Better Without Video Games and Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay (Ian Bogost, The Atlantic).

Maybe Ian Bogost should stop playing video games.

My kid made a Kirby and the Forgotten Land fanzine, I am dead from cute.

📺🖖🏻 When I watch TNG or Picard, Data is Data, but anyone else Brent Spiner plays is Brent Spiner doing an awesome job. But Data is, viscerally for me, Not A Character Brent Spiner Plays, but instead A Guy (an android guy but still).

📺 Watched Ares.

Brilliant dark academia horror with all the hallmarks: secret society, dangerously powerful young people, gorgeous fashion, a lower class newcomer, with the spirit of LEGENDBORN or ACE OF SPADES critiquing the aesthetic’s Eurocentrism.

Duolingo really emphasizes the importance of learning the Dutch word “krant,” which means newspaper. I was confused at first because it seems like a specialized term now that print news doesn’t have such a big market share but one of these comes to our house each Thursday, so?

A white woman wearing glasses holds up a Dutch newspaper.

The video of the Pop Culture Dialogue I was part of on inherited fandoms is now on YouTube.

In just a bit I’ll be contributing to the live-streamed Pop Culture Dialogue on Inherited Fandoms, hosted by the Popular culture Studies Journal. You can tune into their YouTube channel at 11 am CST/12 pm EST/5 pm GMT/6 pm CET (where I am!) to watch!

I love your newsletter, whoever you are, but I’ve put it on web-only. Trying to get quiet in here 🧠. I’ll find you when I’m ready.