Things We're Supposed To Do Edition

1. Here's everything I have open in a tab right now but have no desire to read today because who can do anything today? I'm putting them here so I can just save my email for reference/reading instead of keeping these all around.

Manifesto of Surrealism
When the Jewish Bakers of Boyle Heights Were Radical Socialists Instead of Trump Supporters
A Flower in the Debris: The Legacy of Benihana, Rocky Aoki’s All-American Empire
The White Lies of Craft Culture
The Peculiar Math that Could Underlie the Laws of Nature
The Story Behind the Chicago Newspaper That Bought a Bar
Nora Ephron's Apartment: A Love Story
The “natural” beauty industry is on the rise because we’re scared of chemicals
Common Cyborg
All Politics is Olfactory
Sylvan Glades and Forgotten Grotto - Unlock Secret Areas in The Sims 4

I can't vouch for any of them, but most of them came from Arabelle Sicardi's recent free newsletter, which is great and you can subscribe to her whole thing here.

2. I fell into a mobile horror games hole a couple of weeks ago when I was still convalescing because all I ever really want to be doing is playing another game from The Room series. (I have played every single game people suggest when I say this, and none of them come close to the puzzle design and polish. It's a wrench.) I did find and then play every single one of the Rusty Lake games, which are all varying degrees of satisfying, although you'll probably need to find an index somewhere that tells you what to play in what order to have any hope of making sense of the series' lore and universe. (The naming schemes of the games aren't particularly helpful here, but they are all fun. I played Rusty Lake Hotel first, and it remains my favorite of the lot.) I've also played through all three of the Forever Lost games, which are rougher but still atmospheric. I also enjoyed Home quite a bit, but again, it's much more generic adventure game type stuff, although the audio was decent. (Or at least, it seemed decent until Return of the Obra Dinn arrived in my life, and now all other game audio is ass, frankly. Also, I have no idea why only the game's Steam page has the final game while the Itch.io and developer site just have the demo build. I don't understand how indies market themselves.)

I also just started playing the chibi-fied mobile version of Final Fantasy 15, and it turns out that's the only thing I want to do when I'm on public transit. Just running around killing monsters and eating snacks with my pals - the dream.

3. My local library has partnered with Kanopy for reasons I don't need to understand, but the upshot is I can now watch as many Frederick Wiseman documentaries as I want whenever my heart demands it. (We watched THE STORE recently and it fucking ruled. I now need a gold tennis bracelet so I, too, can flag that I'm a gay man in Dallas in the early 1980s. Oh god, the fashion and hair and makeup are just...the end.)

4. This is maybe only relevant if you're around Portland right now, but The Armory currently has a phenomenally-staged The Color Purple, and if you like musicals and/or minimalist stagings of plays, you should go. I would admit I cried twice, except that means nothing because I was bio-engineered in a laboratory to cry at musicals. Aaaah shit, apparently the run ends tomorrow and it's (rightfully) sold out. Anyway, live theater! A thing I used to do frequently as a kid and adolescent, and then abandoned entirely in college like most of my hobbies, because if I didn't have to take it to graduate, I didn't do it. High five, obedient past self! But it's nice to go as an adult, I like it when people sing and feel feelings for me.

That's all for now. I felt like shit and so I figured "why not write that thing you've been meaning to kick out the door for weeks?" so...at least that's done.