Welcome to Your Week (Belatedly)

Also, I wrote you something.

Aug 06, 2024

A Few Words

I’m sitting on one of my two used armchairs, watching the waves of Lake Michigan crash against the shoreline. I am still, nine months in, shocked that I live by a lake, much less a gigantic lake that has waves.

Where I come from - tiny, crowded, splendid New Jersey - lakes do not have waves. Back home, you can also see across our lakes quite clearly, and they do not have shipwrecks. They are mostly ponds on a light dose of steroids.

There are certain weather events that lead to waves of a size that can actually be surfed, at least briefly. There are surf clubs out here in America’s most prosaic region, the Middle West. I am confused and delighted by this. I am confused and delighted by many of the joyful surprises that unfold in my life.

I’m on two FREE live events coming up in Chicago. They will be fun and wacky. One of them is Saturday, August 17th at The Paper Machete at the historic Green Mill, a fabulous jazz club that is definitely haunted. If you’re a Chicagoan, or just in town early for the DNC, come on by.

Let’s get into some Things To Read And/Or Contemplate And/OR Do This Week! Thanks so much for being a free or paid subscriber, or just a casual viewer who would surely love to become a free or paid subscriber.

Ideas and News You Can Use (Or Discard, Up To Youse)

Oh hey, it’s Tim Walz!

OPE! Kamala Harris Picks Tim Walz To Be VP Of Calling Those MAGA Bastards Weird via

Wonkette

Gojira are French and metal as fuck (they performed with Headless Marie Antoinette at the Olympic opening ceremonies, which I admittedly didn’t watch except for clips.)

What to do immediately when the stock market drops (hint: nothing)

A Taco Bell Cantina opened in a former church that is also a former funeral parlor and combination theater/methadone clinic. I fucking love Chicago.

Ever wanted a friendship divorce? (via

Wonkette

)

A lovely interview with an 86-year-old artist (via

Oldster Magazine

)

Apply for this artist residency in the Catskills (via

Roxane Gay

)

RIP Lewis H. Lapham, 1935 - 2024 (via

Austin Kleon

)

Yves B. Golden’s The Burden opens Sept. 21 as the first Artist in Residence exhibition in the new space of the Feminist Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles. I wish I could go in person!

Also check out FCCW’s past and present Inqlab (Urdu for “revolution) programming. I haven’t attended any yet but it always sounds compelling and designed to provoke lively discussion.

The annual Printer’s Row Art Fest is this weekend in Chicago.

Enjoy this recipe for DATE AND NUT BALLS.

And now, with aloe vera undereye masks glamorously affixed, I gaze out upon the horizon and reflect on how lucky I am to get to greet you here in this odd, funny little newsletter. I appreciate you immensely.