Obsessions This Week: August 25-31, 2024

Petting Zoo Comedy, patios, and a fable.

🐕‍🦺 My friend’s dog, Bo

I’ve been watching my friend’s dog, Bo, over in Jefferson Park this week, where I have been introduced to the magic that is Kurimu black sesame ice cream. Bo is something mixed with a corgi, which you know means those funny corgi legs and backside. WE LOVE A LITTLE JIGGLE. Homeboy did just eat a candle for no reason, though. Are dogs okay?

A friend visited me and Bo out here on the far northwest side, and I forced her to watch Yentl. This is what happens when you spend an evening with me and admit you have never seen Yentl, as many, many, many people can attest. Her review was, and I quote: “Way gayer than I thought it would be.” YES!

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📱 Gen Z humor

If you’ve been following me for a while or know me IRL, you know I’m an aging millennial who sometimes teaches Gen Z. I love their evolving sense of humor, even if it doesn’t always work for me—it’s not meant for me, and in some ways is totally reactionary to “millennial humor.” This video game sketch is a great example. Hallmarks of twentysomething humor right now, as far as I can tell, include purposeful misinfo (“the Bechdel Test was invented in 1912 by Alison Roman”), ahistoricism, and abiding irreverence for the politics of everyone who came before them. It’s the disaffectedness of Gen X with a sort of Dadaist absurdity thrown in. @ me if you want to discuss or debate this! I want to learn!

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⛑️ First aid kits

Do you have one nearby? I fell on the pavement while jogging on Sunday and seriously scraped up my hands and knees, and the first aid kit I got from my dad for Christmas last year really came to the rescue. (Friendly reminder: I don’t use affiliate links and I’m getting zero kickbacks; I just believe everyone should have a first aid kit at home!)

• American Red Cross Family First Aid Kit ($45) - comprehensive!

• First Aid Only ($20) - this is the kit I got for the holidays that helped me out

• Backpacker Medical Kit ($38) - many online articles cite this one as best

I’m also newly aware of the miracle of Tegaderm bandages (not just for tattoos, catheters, and ports! Also for grievous superficial abrasions!). Anyway, I spent a lot of this week convalescing in bed—my favorite thing to do, though not when it’s because of actual injury—reading and gaming and listening to audiobooks and eating an inadvisable amount of sugar, so this week’s Substack is probably going to reflect that and my relative crankiness. As always, I would love your recommendations for ways to pass the time.

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🍿 This year-old Katya-Nicole Kidman parody vid

It’s very well-produced, but I don’t love this vocal impression. Nicole’s Aussie accent is softened by years in the States! You can’t forget this about her! Ah, well.

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🎞️ Two sequels I probably won’t see

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

If you’re happy about this sequel, I’m happy for you! I don’t love this movie the way Gen X former goths do, but that’s my personal failing. I famously once started kissing a man I was watching the first Beetlejuice with in order to stop watching it (and it worked! Still not sure I’ve seen the ending!).

Still, the press tour with Catherine O’Hara, Jenny Ortega, and Winona Ryder has been full of glory. I didn’t know O’Hara met her husband on the set of the first movie! I was charmed by Ortega telling Ryder she didn’t have to listen to the paparazzi telling her to take off her sunglasses! And the fashion has been sort of fun.

Jurassic World Rebirth

If you are in Hollywood, please stop making these! If you go to the movie theater, please stop paying money to see them! It’s no skin off my nose per se, but we need Jonathan Bailey to be free to make freaky gay art house movies instead! Please! Thanks!

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🪧 Jenny Holzer

My favorite old tee-shirt is from the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s 2015 collaboration with the artist Jenny Holzer that says “EVERYONE’S WORK IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT”. It’s so worn that it is filled with actual holes, and it’s no longer appropriate to wear anywhere but to the gym or to bed with a fellow leftist. A recent Substack I read had an interview with the journalist Foster Kamer, who quoted Holzer well:

EMBEDDED: Have you tried any alternatives to Twitter?

FOSTER KAMER: Yeah, and they all suck. For whatever reason, I was just reminded of the Jenny Holzer line: PEOPLE WHO DON’T WORK WITH THEIR HANDS ARE PARASITES. I think about it often.

Now I want a new shirt that says, “WELL, WHICH IS IT, JENNY?”

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🪁 Kids and kites

It’s back-to-school season, and I say this with love in my heart as an educator: let kids play.

Inspired by my favorite Disney movie, I got my godson a kite kit for his seventh birthday this summer, and I heard he and his sisters enjoyed the old-fashioned craft of it all. It made me want to get outside to fly a kite before the weather changes.

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🏦 A sixty-year-old woman died at her desk and wasn’t found for four days

Ashley Ford over on Twitter shared this horror story, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Your job can’t love you back! I still want one, but bear it in mind!

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🍕 North side Chicago patios I love in summer

• Pizza Lobo - I had an impromptu birthday party at the Andersonville location in May, and man, I just love their whole vibe. Housed in a former 7/11, the local Chicago chain has a huge patio, pizza by the slice (rare for this city), and a wide array of drinks on offer. My roommate and I hit up the 99-cent cheese slice with frozen cocktail deal on Tuesday, and it was a grand time!

• Goddess and The Baker - An absolutely ridiculous, overpriced, flowery cafe addition to downtown, replete with fancy coffees and expensive pastry. I’m old enough to remember when the only location of note (Goddess and The Grocer) was in Wicker Park, and when their Andersonville location closed, but I was in the Loop on Thursday and found there are now at least three locations within walking distance of the Art Institute. Comparable to Tatte in Boston, though even sillier in a city that lacks New England’s pretensions. Fun! Go!

• Parson’s Chicken and Fish - Somehow, this Logan Square-based dive has found a thriving third home on the far North Side by me. I had my 2023 birthday there with friends, and it’s become my go-to patio in these ongoing pandemic days. They’ve thankfully expanded their vegetarian offerings since opening a few years ago—the veggie club on pumpernickel is my favorite, although they do have fake chicken on offer if you want to substitute it for the real stuff on their classic sandwiches. The fries and frozen negronis are what most people go there to order.

• Marty’s - This gay martini bar (AND INSTITUTION) is moving locations (to just a few blocks south, off Clark) this weekend! A friend and I tried to go this week to say goodbye, but it was too packed to get in. See you on the flip side, Marty’s.

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🎶 2k24 summer playlist

If you missed Midweek Obsessions, you’re in luck: the music I shared has been collated into an Apple Music playlist by friend and fan of the Substack, MJ.

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🐔 “Fable” by Andrea Cohen

I’m tired of meaning, says the tortoise
to the hare, who agrees. The lions

and crows don’t disagree, and the snake
chimes in: It would be better if we didn’t

have to moonlight as morality lessons.
Exactly, says the chicken. I’d like to let

loose once in a while, I’d like to
stretch my wings, she says. Yes,

says the fox. You should get out
of your pen more, says the fox. You

should let me help, says the fox,
opening the latch to the evening.

It was a fine evening and a fine
conclusion they were coming to,

thought the fox, helping
the chicken out of  her feathers.

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That’s all for this week, friends. Reading it over, I think perhaps my physical discomfort is making me a bit of a pill, so I’m off to take more and ponder the mystery that is dyspraxia. Healing vibes and advice are always appreciated! Much love.