Scenes from a Bigfoot truthers conference
These are the best things I've found on
Happy Tuesday everybody,
Turns out I kicked a hornet’s nest on Friday with my write-up slash provocation on Deadpool & Wolverine, which has since provoked 42 comments (and counting!) from mostly Marvel superfans getting big mad and calling me an elitist fuddy-duddy. I’m loving reading every single one of them, keep the vitriol coming! As The Coach in The Gentlemen would say, “Make it funny…make it sharp, cut me with it.”
Unfortunately for any returning haters, our Tuesday editions of the newsletter are entirely unrelated. This slot is reserved for what I call my “conversation starters,” a wrap-up of the best, most interesting and most entertaining content from the internet in the past week. The premise here is that no one can read, watch and listen to everything, and oftentimes the good stuff is buried under a mountain of content crap, so I’m doing my best to improve your media diet and give you some things to talk about with others this week. Enjoy!
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you!
The single best photograph taken during these Olympics, maybe ANY Olympics (from an artistic standpoint, I mean, not cultural importance of a Tommie Smith/John Carlos) comes from the surfing competition in Tahiti. Maybe you’ve seen it? A Brazilian surfer suspended in the air with his finger extended after hitting a record-breaking 9.9, that looks so surreal many thought it had to be AI generated. The photographer Jerome Brouillet shares the backstory on how he got the shot on his Instagram.
We’ve all seen the effects of rising retail theft, like rising prices and the fact that everything in a drugstore is now behind lock and key. But you’d never guess who the mastermind was behind a nationwide organized retail theft syndicate — a rich, suburban mother of three who wanted to be an influencer. Our Long Read of the Week comes from Elle Magazine.
One would expect this first person account reporting from the fourth annual Great Florida Bigfoot Conference to be a send-up of the wackadoos in attendance, but here’s the twist — the Paris Review writer is himself a believer in the existence of Bigfoot. The result is a really interesting look into one of what I believe are an increasing number of niche yet passionate subcultures.
This article from The Atlantic is in many ways the magnum opus for one of my common soap boxes — that cities should prioritize pedestrians and reprioritize or restrict cars. When one town in England shut down a road for two hours after school and allowed the neighborhood’s kids to have unstructured play time, it triggered numerous benefits — most miraculously, growing relationships between neighbors, something lost in modern cities. I love everything about this story.
Headlines That Require No Context: L.A. armed robbery crew hit with federal charges after posting cash haul on Instagram.
Ok we’re fast approaching fantasy football draft season, and if you’re looking for an edge over the competition I’ve recently found the Substack of a very smart independent fantasy analyst named Ben Gretch. Fair warning, his posts are very long and often very technical. This is really only a recommendation for the super serious fantasy players out there. But in an industry that’s a lot of fluff and hot air, his actionable advice stands out.
The Dave’s Hot Chicken chain is coming to Ireland and one Irish guy is convinced that hot fried chicken will put the nation of bland food lovers at risk of bodily harm. His rational is hilarious.
Thanks for reading and sharing! On Friday we’re back to movies, talking about M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. Sharpen those knives now and I’ll talk to ya then.