1. Another good find from Laura Olin’s newsletter: a compilation of works by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, an Ethiopian nun (she’s still alive) who sounds like Chopin, if he played a hybrid of blues and jazz. I’ve had it on repeat since last weekend.
3. I got a new PR on deadlifts yesterday at the gym–190 pounds! This is accurate, as you’ll know if you ever talk to me for more than 15 minutes.
2. The Princess Bride memes are the best memes:
1. Sea shanties are all over social media and I am here for it. In fact, I’m about ready to sign up for TikTok, since that’s where they’re all starting. This bass dueted a solo this Scottish postman put up:
@_luke.the.voice_##duet with @nthnevnss love this 🥰🥰##stitch ##viral ##sing ##fyp ##foru ##foryou ##xyzbca ##xyzcba ##blowthisup♬ original sound – N A T H A N E V A N S S
And then it spread:
@jonnystewartbass##duet with @the.bobbybass SHANTY TIME once again! Adding a lower middle harmony 🙂 @nathanevanss @_luke.the.voice_ @apsloan01 ##shantytok ##wellerman♬ original sound – N A T H A N E V A N S S
And now everyone is doing it:
@majin.bae##duet with @sampopemusic I- uh, *smoke bomb!* ##literalduet ##seashanty ##rowmebullyboys ##piratecore ##apple ##fyp ##MoneyTok ##larpersoftiktok
♬ original sound – Sam Pope
2. He has a point:
3. It’s been a long two weeks (remember the coup attempt?!) but I have Monday off. I’m taking Tuesday off, too, so I will be back on Wednesday–a day that’s going to be great (Inauguration Day) and terrible (the second anniversary of my mom’s death). Such is life, I guess. Have a good weekend, friends.
1. This is perhaps the best use of the internet I’ve ever seen (also the Animaniacs reboot is so good):
Animaniacs is the key to all of this pic.twitter.com/uXcUbf3ARh
— schmoyoho, accent on the ho ho hooooooooo (@schmoyoho) January 7, 2021
(Original video for context)
2. I had a project start up this week that requires video interviews and wow I am not used to seeing and talking to people.
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3. Remember:
“If you’re reading this, you do too.“
1. Today is my last workday and then the agency is closed until 2021. I’m going to sew a coat and eat a lot of cookies and not post anything, so here’s some things to read until then.
2. Watch this before it gets taken down: The full 1986 special “A Muppet Family Christmas.” I didn’t see it in 1986 and it wasn’t even on my radar until I read this Paste Magazine article about it (which includes the best summary of the Muppets ever: “The variety show icons remain, at their purest, a family of co-dependent anarchists”). We watched it last week and I nearly died from happy nostalgia–the Muppet Show cast! The Sesame Street cast! The Muppet Babies! The Fraggles!!
3. If you think about it, training an AI to do classical voice leading makes sense. Blob Opera from Google Arts & Culture is a lot of fun (and can play Christmas carols if you want, too).
4. Don’t fall for any articles coming up about how productive people were in 2020. We went through a pandemic that didn’t have to be this bad and oh, also an attempted coup and a whole bunch of other rage-inducing stuff, on top of whatever we were dealing with personally. As Anne Helen Petersen says:
“Whatever you’ve done this year in your personal or professional life, it’s enough. […] You are beloved and worthy of rest. Not because of your capacity to work, or your relative capacity to subsist on fumes. You are beloved and worthy of rest because you are human, not a robot. This year has emptied us. Give yourself permission to continue to seek fullness.”
5. And finally, even in a year that wasn’t full of exceptions, every single one of them bad, Christmas is hard for a lot of people. Maybe it’s bad memories of early family trauma. Maybe it’s missing someone who isn’t here now. Maybe it’s thinking, like Charlie Brown, “I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.” Guess what? Whatever you are feeling is how you’re supposed to feel. Feelings are just feedback, like being cold or hungry. So be nice to yourself. Listen to that feedback. Do you need to not do that holiday thing that makes you feel bad? Don’t do it! I, a person on the internet, give you permission to feel and do what you need, rather than what you think you “should,” this Christmas (and always).
1. I just discovered the Cheese by Numbers Instagram and site and I am obsessed. When I want to mindlessly scroll, I scroll through the archives and just…look at cheese plates. Rules to follow + food that you arrange instead of cook? I’m in. Check it out. 
2. It’s dark, there’s a pandemic, it’s nearly Christmas, then it’s my birthday, and after that it’s the second anniversary of my mom dying. Things are rough. I appreciated this thread about grief, written by a mom 14 years after she lost her son, but… I’m not to the point of really believing it yet. You can read it on Twitter or read a compiled version.
3. From Doc, and this is the Christmas spirit I want all year:
1. If you read anything today, read this: How to Be an Active Bystander When You See Casual Racism. “God, I hope someone says something, you think with increasing desperation. And so does everyone else.”
2. Swole Woman wrote a long piece about finding motivation to work out, and I copied many quotes into my Quotes email draft. This one, though, got put in bold: “Sometimes not feeling like working out is actually feeling overwhelmed by our expectations.”
As a perfectionist, as someone with anxiety, as someone who’s still a beginner-level lifter: THIS. I’m still learning to manage just…taking it one day at a time.
3. As the tweet where I saw this says, “This should hang in every classroom.”
1. Wow, time flies when you’re catching up from a week off and also all the clients realize they need to spend their budgets by the end of the year! (Busy week.)
2. Horse girls, reconnect with all the horse media you loved in your tweens and teens with the Horse Girl Canon. Morgan Mine! Man O’War! The Last Unicorn movie! The My Little Pony movie!
3. I can’t stop singing this song:
What’s that?!
Look out!
Dog on the road!
(how to make an ACDC-song in 30 seconds) pic.twitter.com/5QiBo1XTuO— Niels (@NielsAppelo) November 18, 2020
1. Please enjoy one of the best things I’ve ever seen:
Male opera singers dubbed with ship’s horns pic.twitter.com/XZDOo9jotw
— Olaf Falafel (@OFalafel) November 19, 2020
2. This, from this fantastic artist:
3. And on that note, I’ve got all next week off, so I’ll also take a break from posting. My family’s not doing Thanksgiving this year so Doc and I are going to watch movies all day. Stay safe, everyone. Wear your masks.
1. Enjoy reading about the feminist history of the cardigan.
2. I thought this was really helpful: If You’re Already Dreading Winter, Here Are Some Small Ways to Prepare Now. Guess it’s time to buy some twinkle lights and add them to dark corners:
If you are resisting getting string lights for some reason that is slightly snobby, I implore you: get the damn string lights! They help so much when it gets dark at 4 p.m.!!!!
3. Please enjoy perhaps the best gif to come out of the election. The “this is fine” dog feels like he’s actually going to be fine now.
Mood: pic.twitter.com/DgVBpdcDWA
— Alex de Campi (@alexdecampi) November 7, 2020
1. Still trying to hope but not hope too much and constantly refreshing the news and also considering this:
2. My family’s already decided against Thanksgiving together this year, so I liked this: 22 Ways to Make Thanksgiving Into Your Own Weird, Perfect Holiday. It includes a Baskin-Robbins turkey ice cream cake and this phrase, which I’m adopting: “Tiny enrichments are what moor us through Fuck Times like these.”
3. OK! Have a good weekend that is completely normal with nothing to worry about!
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