Here are ten things.

1. It was my friend Willow's birthday, and to celebrate the event, a bunch of friends and acquaintances got together, ate pizza, yelled at Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, sang, played guitar, discussed the merits of Tommy Wiseau and yacht rock, and otherwise shot the breeze. I'm still not at a point in my life where I'll say no to a classic house party.
2. My friend CJ and her search for Kelly LeBrock's Weird Science shoes. Nike, I know you're reading this: the 40th anniversary of this movie is in a couple of years, and sneakerhead culture is still going strong. Now is the time to bring back the '84 Too Highs.
3. Daywrecker alert: Timeguessr, which is like Geoguessr, but for photography. (via Baio)
4. I love baseball, especially fake baseball, I love podcasts, and I love sleeping. Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio combines all of those things in a single package. Think “baseball radio ASMR” and you're getting close. Kevin Goldstein of Fangraphs wrote up the show last January.
5. Shout out to local pizza chain Slice & Soda and their comically large pies.
6. There's something refreshing about /Film's Top 100 Movies of All Time list. There's the fact that it's unranked. There's the fact that every entry comes with a de facto double bill pairing. And there's the subtle choice of “top” in the title rather than best, because this list has a certain movieness to it; it reads like a who's who of rewatchables and comfort watches.
7. Watchlist roulette: Whit Stillman's acerbic yuppie talkfest Metropolitan and Oliver Stone's brain-melting conspiracy thriller JFK.
8. For absolutely no reason other than I find it wonderful, here a 2019 video of the great jazz guitarist Bill Frisell performing “You Are My Sunshine” as only he can.
9. RIP Tina Turner. She was, as the song goes, simply the best.
10. “Jesus visits my uncle's office” by Andrew Aftel (via Pome):

    Jesus and his disciples
    entered the office of my uncle,
    whose name was Norman, and who sold
    eyeglasses for great profits.
    And Jesus said unto him,
    “Are you having a good day
    at the office?” And Norman replied,
    “It is a fair day.” And Jesus said
    unto him, “Is that right?” Then he
    and his disciples proceeded to
    take hammers, and they smashed all of the
    eyeglasses. Then they opened the
    cages where the secretaries worked,
    so the workers flew away, like doves.

#tenthings

Here are ten things.

1. It was Steph's birthday! Happy birthday!!!
2. Normally, Dairy Queen is known for its hot eat and cool treats, but 'round these parts, most establishments are Treats Only. But! They serve chili dogs at the DQ in Lachine, so Steph and I made an evening out of visiting this particular location on the banks of the canal.
3. For Defector, David Roth on Elon Musk's Twitter:

   It is a miraculous thing, or anyway an impressive one, to invent a platform on which anyone can speak to anyone/everyone else, about anything. But because these people don't really value people or togetherness very highly, or have much to say, or consider the future as anything but a place where they will become richer, they don't really know what to do with that.

4. I keep shouting out Alex Pappademas because he's one of my favourite ex-Grantland writers, and his many of points of obsession (Ween, Keanu, Steely Dan) mirror my own. His recent profile of Dave Matthews for GQ is a corker.
5. Music television institution The Midnight Special has revamped its YouTube page, uploading full episodes and select performances. Check out Donna Summer shoulder-shimmying through “I Feel Love” as the backing band does a pretty good job of interpolating Giorgio Moroder, or Christopher Cross performing “Sailing” in an Earl Campbell Houston Oilers jersey.
6. Australian producer Dankmus, who turns classic Simpsons episodes into chill and/or groovy tracks, returns from a two-year hiatus with a rollicking plastic funk number.
7. Patrick Willems goes Bollywood.
8. The 2023 Cannes Film Festival is in full swing, and I'm thrilled that the notices for the new Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon are positive.
9. In anticipation of Master Gardener, the great Scott Tobias goes long one of my favourite Paul Schrader films, Light Sleeper.
10. “Mushrooms” by Laura Kasischke:
    

    Like silent naked monks huddled
    around an old tree stump, having
    spun themselves in the night
    out of thought and nothingness—
    
    And God so pleased with their silence
    He grants them teeth and tongues.
    
    Like us.
    
    How long have you been gone?
    A child’s hot tears on my bare arms.

#tenthings

Here are ten things.

1. I watched this cute, cozy, barely-good slice-of-life anime movie called Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop on Netflix, and I think I'm just going to have to admit to myself that I have a soft sport for this very specific kind of cute, cozy, barely-good slice-of-life anime bullshit. Is this what growth is?
2. The YouTube algorithm on my work email account is the best kind of fucked up. How do I know this? I fell into a rabbit hole of albums remade with video game soundfonts. Most of these are classic rock staples, because being a young classic rock-obsessed teen, I am very familiar with the mindset that's driven to make this specific kind of thing (hint: it's the same impulse that people made people make anime music videos in the 90s and 00s). Some nuggets: a Super Mario 64 version of Aja, an Earthbound version of Abbey Road, and a Pokémon Emerald version of In the Court of the Crimson King.
3. Speaking of Steely Dan: Jack Hamilton writes about the group's newfound favour among younger fans for The Atlantic, with a big assist from the book Quantum Criminals by Alex Pappademas (shout out Do You Like Prince Movies?, shout out Wesley Morris) and Joan LeMay.
4. I quite like the new Intel One Mono typeface, especially those curly brackets.
5. For The Ringer, Claire McNear on the legend of early Jeopardy! champion Barbara Lowe and why her run was scrubbed from the archives .
6. Jessa Crispin on the superfans who are against the WGA strike. (via Kleon)
7. I'm going to see Beau Is Afraid sooner rather than later, so naturally, my inclination is to watch the first two films by director Ari Aster, Hereditary and Midsommar. But I'm balking at just sitting down and having my mind flayed by these movies that, by all accounts, are visceral fucked-up emotional bruisers. I guess I'm just in my chickenshit era.
8. Things are decidedly not fucked up in the land of Watchlist Roulette: we have Brief Encounter (devastating), Soul (cute, great score), and My Night at Maud's (attractive and loquacious French people, my one weakness!).
9. This is a corollary item to last week's ninth item, which was also about the ongoing Blank Check Buster Keaton miniseries: so far, I've watched all four movies covered so far while listening to the episode in which they're discussed. This is maybe the most decadent thing I've ever done.
10. “Not All of Us Get to Be Ghosts” by Leila Chatti (via Pome):

    In December I watch movies about ghosts
    with a woman I call mama though she is not
    my mother, only a woman who is kind, this all
    I require. We take breaks to lean against each other
    on the porch, her sucking smoke from between
    her fingers, exhaling its skirling; each mouthful
    dissipating, becoming something like air. My breath’s
    a less impressive phantom, fleeting silver
    in the cold light. Standing there
    in our small shadows, we discuss the ways
    of the dead, their metaphysics, as if we were experts
    by osmosis, a certain knowledge absorbed. I say I think
    our ghosts become us, or at least reside in our dark
    like tenants we haven’t the heart to kick out.
    She says, though she hasn’t quite figured it out yet,
    there are rules: not all of us get to be ghosts.