Can’t you just hear the “tap tap tap” of his brush? “Two hairs and some air” to blend it all.

For example, I–a lifelong Dune fan who feels confident I could win any trivia game about the books and wants to get a “Litany Against Fear” tattoo–did not know until last week that National Lampoon did a satire of the first book in 1985.

The  entire plot summary on Wikipedia is just…wow…but clearly I need to track this book down:

Arruckus is also known as “Doon”, and is additionally known as the Dessert Planet. Covered entirely in sugars, it is a harsh unforgiving environment, where not an entree can be found; the natives live entirely on whatever they can import, produce from the sugars, or produce from soy protein (the native food experiments known as the Mahn t’Vani).

Duke Lotto accepts the fief, aware that it may well be a death trap but also conscious of the importance of Arruckus’s only export, the wide-spectrum intoxicant known as beer. Found naturally on Arruckus as a result of natural processes and nowhere else, it is the engine on which commerce runs; the Schlepping Guild, who has a monopoly on space travel in the Imperium, will not run without it. Who controls the beer controls commerce.

By the end of last year, when Mom was really sick, I had stopped paying attention to politics. I haven’t really gotten back into it, which at times can make me feel I’m not “doing enough” to be a good citizen. (Yes, we’re working on that in therapy. Yay therapy!)

This article published on Man Repeller made me feel a little better about being out of politics:

When we live our lives online, inundated with new developments and challenges to debate with people we ideologically agree or disagree with, rushing to have a hot take on every last thing isn’t always productive. It’s perfectly okay to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion on that” to those who are desperate to engage in some bad faith discourse on the wild headline of the day. Because tomorrow that wild headline will be gone, and all you’ll be left with is your own exhaustion.

My criteria for close friendship is not that complicated: You should love at least one of the things I love exactly as I love it. I’ve been lucky enough to find a handful of people who do. (My work buddy is reading Dune for the first time and–fortunately–loving it).

There’s nothing like connecting with your fellow hyper specific oddballs, as Sarah Anderson shows us:

Yesterday was a hard day anyway and then to watch Notre-Dame burn just made it harder. Mom and I went to Paris together in 2006; it’s still one of my favorite memories.

Here’s Olivier Latry, one of the Notre-Dame organists, playing a version of La Marseillaise (from a service after the 2015 terror attacks).

I found this via Austin Kleon on Twitter and I was hooked after the first two paragraphs. “The Miracle of The Mundane“, from Heather Havrilesky’s essay collection What If This Were Enough?, has Mozart and connection and acceptance and is well worth your time. I had a hard time picking a pull quote, because the whole thing is so good.

Living simply today takes work. It takes work to overcome the noise that has accumulated in our heads, growing louder and more pervasive since we were young. It takes work to overcome the illusion that we will arrive at some end point where we will be better — more successful, adored, satisfied, relaxed, rich. It takes hard work to say, “This is how I am,” in a calm voice, without anxiously addressing how you should be. It takes work to shift your focus from the smudges on the window to the view outside.

[emphasis mine]

Also this:

We are called to resist viewing ourselves as consumers or as commodities. We are called to savor the process of our own slow, patient development, instead of suffering in an enervated, anxious state over our value and our popularity. We are called to view our actions as important, with or without consecration by forces beyond our control. We are called to plant these seeds in our world: to dare to tell every living soul that they already matter, that their seemingly mundane lives are a slowly unfolding mystery, that their small choices and acts of generosity are vitally important.

I was on the hold list for this book for a long time and finally picked it up from the library last week. It’s fascinating!

Granted, I’m reading it with a certain sense of smugness–since I started lifting last summer, I’ve made sure to get eight hours of sleep a night (because sleep is when your muscles rebuild and grow, bro!)–but it makes me want to make sleep even more of a priority.

In other words:

(From my second favorite episode of Adventure Time ever. [“Thank You” is my first-favorite.])

In addition to worrying about Toby’s ear (which is really slow to respond to medicine), this week’s stresses included a trip to Instacare Monday because I was afraid I’d broken my toe. The good news: it’s not broken. The bad news: it might be a neuroma, which is chronic.

I’m sitting out the gym this week–so my shoulders won’t be immediately getting broader–but I thought this piece of Instagram wisdom was good. It’s all about building resilience. And getting cannonball shoulders.

(via)