Friday Flames | 5.17.24
A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about the tyranny of our bodies, our parents, our children, and our general anxiety (also: nature, grief, capitalism, publishers, and Cherry Garcia).
Does anything say "I'm in my 50s" like setting a top weekend priority to battle weeds in your yard? Of course, a "weed" is just a plant that lives where you don't want it to live. But the unfortunately mild winter in Massachusetts has allowed the flourishing of some pernicious invasives like white mulberry and Asian bittersweet that weren't a big problem before. That's in addition to the bindweed, Norway maple, and dock that Mike and Magda have been keeping at bay but now might assume their ultimate form and really take over. It's enough to make a person long for apartment life.
Doug is also especially unnerved by his relentless back yard, which always chooses this time of year to grow six inches a week but be entirely too swampy for the lawn mower. The first complete cut of the year is always a war of Rapidly Aging Man vs. Nature, which only leads to the need for a second complete cut of the year about 72 hours later. Surely, there must be more to life than tick checks every 45 minutes.
Embers in the News
Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle this week:
Dow doubles The Dow broke 40,000 this week, more than double its lowest point in March 2020, when the WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.
Black holes, Sun The Webb telescope has revealed two merging black holes, each of which has a mass that is 50 million times that of the Sun.
Eat 50 pints of Cherry Garcia … Researchers estimate it takes a diet of nearly 50,000 calories to carry a nine-month pregnancy to term.
… but not all at once If you love ice cream and/or are pregnant, here are the physiological reasons why you get a brain freeze.
This week on the podcast
On our first birthday, we consider the four primary subjects that our midlife guests think about most. Then we geek out over what we think we'll learn in Year Two.
Episode 45: "The four horsemen of the Fiftypocalypse."
We have limited data on this, but based on a sample size of one we can confirm that the second first anniversary is a lot more fun than the first. It turns out that—once you’ve set aside the burden of synthetic romance—it’s really great to relax and chat about how we manage to pilot our little boats through the riptides of middle age.
Currently reading
Magda can't stop snickering about the perfect, jewellike, diabolical novella The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt and is actively recommending it to everyone she knows. She just started Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez and is delighted that it also begins with a chapter about fabrics and wealth and taste. The right books are finding her, even when she isn't the one choosing them.
Inspired by what he watched this week (see below), Doug is deep into Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, about the deranging power of grief. He also thinks Sally Jenkins is spot on to focus not on the NFL kicker, but on the lazy hyperbole and "wicked, false fervor" that St. Benedict himself warned against.
Currently watching
Doug has three strong recommendations for this week: the Joan Didion biopic The Center Will Not Hold; the Oscar-winning American Fiction, which many more people should have seen; and Staged, the very funny and innovative comedy with David Tennant and Michael Sheen that was shot entirely on Zoom during lockdown.
Mike has Disney+ for another month and urged Magda to watch anything she wanted while they still had it. But the listings of the shows and movies are so many and so small that she's visually overwhelmed. She can't parse any of it, and is just deciding she doesn't need to watch anything on Disney+.
Currently cooking
It's time for the Friends of the Library Book Sale Bake Sale again, and this time Magda is making saltine brittle—a/k/a matzoh toffee brittle but with saltines (she obviously left out the nuts). Let's hope these sell like hotcakes and net more money for the Friends of the Library to do ... something ... with.
Doug is confronting the sad fact that he rarely cooks anymore. Meals are idle grazings throughout the day. He runs the dishwasher once every couple of weeks. His kitchen counters are stacked with sorted clothes earmarked for donation. He thinks he has to up his game soon, if only for the sake of this section of the newsletter.
Next on the podcast
After a somewhat accidental life in academia, Shannon Reed talks about becoming a best-selling author at 50 and the books she couldn’t possibly write until now.
Thanks for reading and here’s to more Tick Talk,
Magda and Doug