Friday Flames | 9.15.23
A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about wet birthdays, cash-only doctors, and throwing down when it's tilly time.
From Magda: Heading out to Lee
I got invited to go on a weekend trip for a friend's 50th birthday, which is wonderful, and it's a short drive from here to Cape Cod, which is also wonderful. I've been to Cape Cod before, to Provincetown, and loved it. And I’m looking forward to spending time with these women, just birthdaying and talking and laughing and solving all the problems of the world.
But we're also right in the path of Hurricane Lee, which should be downgraded before it hits Cape Cod on Saturday, and might not even hit us at all. But it's still kind of funny that this is happening, especially since the birthday girl just moved up here from hurricane country.
At any rate, I'm concocting my best Coastal Grandma looks for this trip and plan on drinking a lot of coffee (and a medium amount of gin and tonic) and hoping not to get flooded out. We spend a lot of time talking about the weather on our Monday Check-In, but next week I’m going to have an actual story!
This week on the podcast
On the Monday Check-In: Crisp autumn days still make us remember how unbelievably perfect the weather was on 9/11 in New York City.
Monday Check-In: "Two dollars' worth of old-timey medicine."
Listen now (20 mins) | For once, Magda has a reason to be thankful for overcast humidity, in contrast to the all-too-perfect autumn weather that many New Yorkers associate with 9/11. We talk about the vexing disillusion of those months after the towers fell, and how a doctor Magda knew felt the same way as a teenager after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
For Episode 16: Did you know? It takes
longer to travel 2,000 miles to one son in Oregon than to travel 5,000 miles to her other son in London.Episode 16: "Writing is a usually terrible moment of joy."
Listen now (61 mins) | When Wendi Aarons’s first son was born, she never anticipated having to caution him against living in an L.A. rap mansion. She didn’t figure on raising her kids in the oppressive heat (and politics) of Texas, next to this guy. And she never thought her writing would be subject to a “sensitivity review.”
From “uff da” to “oy vey”
Rosh Hashanah begins tonight, and it boggles our aging minds to wonder whether one of the world’s most dangerous wealthy men will sue the Anti-Defamation League for defamation. Dude, you’re killing Twitter all by yourself. Stop blaming the Jews.
Frasier has returned to the building
Kelsey Grammer is about to start his 21st year portraying Frasier Crane. Do we care? Check out the trailer that dropped yesterday and decide for yourself.
Currently watching
For its story alone—an anonymous Twitter feed by a couple guys in rural Ontario that lead to shorts on YouTube, 11 seasons on Hulu, a ton of Canadian Screen Awards, and two spinoffs—Letterkenny is a phenomenon, eh? The comedy derives from its unique tone, pace, and wordplay, so the episodes tend to blend together. Doug watched three and got the idea.
Magda is trying to avoid the overly-suspenseful shows that Mike is watching—such as the gruesome Who is Erin Carter?—because they're too intense for her.
Currently reading
Magda just adored everything—the characters, the setting, the plot—of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. She also had the satisfaction of guessing who the murderer was about halfway through and still enjoyed finding out how and why. She's going to read the Aunties series next.
Doug sees it as a personal challenge to keep up with the book holds that tend to come in all at once on his Libby app. This week it’s Harlem Shuffle by walking Pulitzer machine Colson Whitehead, who assesses race, class, ambition, and negotiable morality with lines like: "Entrepreneur? That's just a hustler who pays taxes.”
Next on the podcast
For the week bookended by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, religious studies professor Eric Mazur lays out some seismic events in the history of American Judaism—including the day Oreos got koshered.
Thanks for reading, and happy 5784!
Magda and Doug