Thanks for subscribing to my occasional US Mail updates. Here’s what I’ve been up to since I left my full-time job at Slate in August.
I’ve played a lot of soccer and basketball, and have tried to resume the tennis habit I let lapse after the pandemic. My backhand has really gone to hell. I played one media league softball game, for Slate against the New Yorker; I made a couple of routine plays at third and went 2-for-4. Boy do I miss playing softball.
The New York and DC offices of Slate both threw me farewell karaoke nights, which I just loved. I sang the following songs: “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “Age of Consent,” “Don’t Let’s Start,” “Cannonball,” “Sunday Girl,” “The State That I Am In,” “Somebody That I Used to Know” (Elliott Smith, not Gotye), “He Said,” “Shameika,” “Hot Topic,” “Life During Wartime,” “Christmas in Hollis,” “The Best Ever Black Metal Band in Denton,” “November Rain” (Jon Fischer challenge), and “All My Friends.” I’d never sung 11 of the 15 songs before, for a batting average of .733.
I wrote two new essays for a collection forthcoming from Duke University Press. One of the essays is about the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater; the other is about contemporary civilian responses to Ulysses. That essay gave the collection its title: “My Friends Have All Been Offended By It.”
I took my kids to college, one for her junior year, one for her freshman year.
I make Slate’s daily word game, Pears. I’ve also made a couple of mini-crosswords.
I co-hosted Slate’s Culture Gabfest in September, discussing The Girlfriend, Spinal Tap II, and Robert Redford.
For the New Yorker, I went to Oakland to profile the chef Samin Nosrat.
For Slate, I co-wrote a package about the 25 Best Picture Books of the Past 25 Years, including a Q&A with Mo Willems and another with Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson.