1. Oh this is so true (and I’m in that 80%): Chipmunk’s Plan For Future Better Than That of 8 Out of 10 Americans.
“Researchers also repeatedly witnessed the small quadruped stuffing its cheeks with seeds and nuts and depositing them in one of its subterranean chambers for consumption during winter, displaying an inclination toward saving resources for the future that had ‘almost no behavioral equivalent’ among U.S. citizens.”
2. For a long read, enjoy the latest copy of The Dry Down, a newsletter about perfume that has some of the most evocative writing I’ve read about anything. The two authors pick a topic and perfumes to match and then go to town–this past issue was “perfumes of the 90s” and it’s like the author was in my head as a 14 year old:
The mall was where we went to learn what everyone else wanted and bought and looked like. It promised that each question had only one answer. It offered to sand down the edges and soften the sharp high notes. It said that your experiences would contain no surprises, and therefore nothing could hurt you. The mall assured you that your life, the lives of people you envied, and the lives people lived on TV, were truly all one and the same.
…I wanted to smell like the Gap because I knew that the people whom I could neither get to approve of nor understand me liked the Gap.
(That’s about the “Gap Scents” series from the mid-90s, which we’ve talked about here.)