This episode arrives during what feels like a very weird confluence of confluences. Mercury went back into retrograde on April Fool’s Day (the same day when Germany legalized weed). The Great American Eclipse—which every U.S. state will at least partially experience—will occur the day after the moon reaches perigee, its closest orbit distance to Earth.
And next month, billions of double-brood cicadas will rise up like bug zombies and eat Illinois, for the first time since before Illinois became a state.
How’re we supposed to concentrate on mundane things like Schedule C’s when it’s so much more fun to contemplate why all these phenomena might be related? It’s enough to make you read about something Ron DeSantis stands for and not be completely disgusted by it.
We also manage to skate around a bunch of other loosely-related topics, like religion, that emoji Connections puzzle, Match Game, when science fiction is just too unbelievable, and how great it is that a writer named Lisa Stardust anchors the Today Show’s astrology coverage.
Other links:
The enduring influence of Ames and Ilg
How Wyna Liu writes Connections
How Michael Chabon solves Connections
The rebus puzzles of Classic Concentration
Episode 40: "A big phase of disequilibrium."