5 Quick Things, #194 ☀️

dead people still alive, accordion allergies, hedgehogs, & papyrus

Jun 04, 2021

Hey there,

How are you? The past few weeks I’ve been around a number of fellow fully-vaccinated, maskless friends and it feels …weird. Good. But weird. It’s wild how quickly wearing masks became the norm, and now returning more permanently (🤞) back to how we’ve lived prior to the pandemic feels wild and crazy.

I know this isn’t the case for so many other places in the world, so my prayers continue daily that we see an end to this thing. India, Argentina, Canada… Lord, hear our prayer. If you’re in one of the places with necessary continual restrictions, my heart goes out to you. 💛

Lava erupts from Mt. Etna, Europe's largest active volcano, seen in Sicily. #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. 👉 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 👈 Our culture loves the here-and-now: the latest trends, the newest relevant art, the loudest and most attention-getting current Thought Leader™. But… Will this work and these ideas endure? It’s good to notice what stuff has stood the test of time — there are SO many dead people who still live through their phenomenal work. Seth and I unpack whose older work affects us today, and who we've grown to appreciate the older we get.
2. Do you have a familect in your household? Because we 100% do around here.
3. A gorilla and human mom bond over their babies at the zoo. This is precious.
4. Want to read more this summer but aren’t sure where to start*? Anne’s annual summer reading guide is now out, with more ideas than time (so just pick one and enjoy; no need to overthink).
5. And finally… Emily Post’s post-pandemic etiquette. “When attending the cinema, the opera, or a theatrical performance, it is always inappropriate for a theatregoer to pull out a phone and start playing TikTok videos at full volume. Nor should a theatregoer loudly announce, ‘I’ve seen this one. It’s the one where Ross and Rachel can’t get their couch up the stairs.’ It’s not that one—it’s the one where Lear is driven mad by grief. There’s no couch.”
*But start the season with our Commonplace Summer Book Club! More details below.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

This Beautiful Truth, by Sarah Clarkson

Quotable 💬

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald #

From inside The Commonplace 🏡

ICYMI, in June we’ll be reading together the beloved, comically noir Swedish short work An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, by Helene Tursten! It’ll be a quick read, and then we’ll have a live book club chat via Zoom on June 28 at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST.