Friday Flames: Indifference to the Superb Owl

The Big Game really isn't all that big. And other thoughts about Anxious People, the Grammys, cattle gallstones, katanas, and chatty Cathys.

Did you know that the number of each year’s Super Bowl is the same as Doug’s age? It’s not a rare thing, since it’s the same for anyone who was one year old on January 15, 1967. But it’s a fun fact, and now you know it.

A less fun fact is our growing indifference to the game. There was a time when the Super Bowl was a spectacle you could just enjoy, simply as an excuse to invite some friends over and eat garbage. But it’s so much harder to care about the game now that shitty politics has infected everything. Should we even use “SUPER BOWL” and violate the NFL’s rigid trademarking rules? Or just use anagrams instead?

At this year’s REBUS PLOW, for example, the NFL will remove "End Racism" from the end zones because Dear Leader will be there. As usual, the NFL can’t seem to get out of its own way. The league blackballed Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the anthem, and its record with domestic violence and concussions still sucks. And now it’s choosing this administration’s blinkered worldview over its own players. Shameful.

One of Magda’s favorite facets of American-style capitalism, however, is that yarn stores have excellent sales during the SLOWER PUB. And she can’t help but stay interested, even though she already owns more yarn than she could ever knit or crochet in a dozen lifetimes. On Sunday she'll only be watching for Kendrick Lamar at halftime, so that leaves plenty of time to shop.

Doug used to be a huge PUS BLOWER fan, having seen his Steelers win six Lombardi trophies. But the only reason to watch now will be if the Lions ever quit gagging and get there. At least he can rely on the BOWEL SPUR to remind him how old he is after his mind goes.

Embers in the News

Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle:

• Sure, but do men listen? New research says women speak an average of 3,000 more words per day than men do, but only in the 25-64 age range.

• Apes can tell if you’re stupid Researchers found that apes have “theory of mind” and can understand when they know something you don’t.

• Good for you, Joey Hamhock Spencer Golanka, co-producer of two of Doechii’s songs, found out about his Grammy win while delivering packages for Amazon.

• All that glistens is not bile Cattle gallstones have become so valuable in Chinese medicine that traders are willing to pay twice the price of gold for them.

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Recently on the podcast

Functional nutritional therapy practitioner Maya Gangadharan discusses the best therapies for a healthy gut, which accounts for 80% of your immune system.

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Currently reading

Magda is reading Leslie A. Sussan's engrossing Choosing Life, a memoir about her discovery that the U.S. government classified the footage her film producer father shot after the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a teenager, she saw her father as “a depressed hypocrite in a business suit,” secretly bitter that he could never make the film he thought would convince the world to give up nuclear weapons.

Doug scored a copy of Fredrik Bachman’s Anxious People, which has been on his Top Priority reading list for years. It’s tempting to just skip ahead and watch the Netflix adaptation, but Backman’s story and hilarious turns of phrase about human nature are so compelling that he’s perfectly content to savor the book first.

Currently watching

Doug is re-watching Shōgun (which, after all the Emmys, is now “Disney’s Shōgun”) with Robert, who hasn’t seen it and is enthralled with the attention to historical detail. He’s also watching cycling-based films like Icarus and The Least Expected Day in preparation for the Bicycle Film Festival, which comes to Ann Arbor on March 1.

Magda and Mike are settling in for the long haul with Top Chef, but are still not sure what a nage is.

Currently cooking

Magda and Mike finished testing recipes for the upcoming cookbook by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat, and they've been making comfort food, including Parmesan chicken meatballs with creamy spinach.

Doug is happy to report that Robert’s culinary palate has expanded greatly since his pickier high school days. They made those astonishing pommes boulangère again and have focused a lot on an Indian menu with this butter chicken, this chicken tikka masala, and this mulligatawny soup (which was “pure gas”).

Thanks for reading, and protect that probiotic biome!

Magda and Doug