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You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.
This week, in the Life
“I had cancer when I was fourteen and went through eight treatments of chemotherapy. The doctor told me then that I might have trouble getting pregnant. I had a miscarriage the first time we tried. We decided to wait a few months before trying again, because we were planning our wedding, and I didn’t want to be showing during the ceremony. But then we went to Rome for his birthday. And everything about him was annoying me. So he jokingly said, ‘I think you’re pregnant.’ We went and bought a pregnancy test but everything was in Italian, so we had no idea what it meant. So we actually learned that we were pregnant from Google Translate.”
Happy Earth Day, mortals.
— Dunk-a-roos, about 5 pounds’ worth
You may remember these from the early ’90s — packs of kangaroo-shaped cookies with chocolate or vanilla frosting used as a dipping sauce. The fridge had at least 10 different packages of the things, including out-of-print vintage varieties (double fudge cookies with strawberry frosting, for example).
About the Dunk-a-roos, he wrote:
“Don’t know what 2 say about Dunk-a-roos. They’re just good! Sometimes you want a food that is comfortable and takes you back. For me, it’s those crazy little kangaroo crackers.”
— Homemade kimchi
A large jar, clearly actually buried in someone’s back yard at some point. About a gallon.
“This stuff is AMAZING.”
— 18 varieties of mustard
Including German, Wisconsin, Californian, and Texan brands, plus a raspberry-flavored variety. The big question this raised: Is Prince a mustard collector? Does he hang out at Madison’s Mustard Museum? It’s worth noting that almost every container had been opened and showed signs of being enjoyed.
“I don’t collect it, but LOL yeah there’s a lot in there. U gotta love mustard. The raspberry kind is the best. You wouldn’t expect it but that’s how it goes.”
— Soy milk-based coffee creamer
“No cows were oppressed 2 make this righteous creamy creamer, U know? It’s really good! In coffee or whatever.”
— Microgreens, about one cubic foot’s worth
“So good with fig balsamic and a really good olive oil. I just munch on this stuff.”
— Braunschweiger
We asked Prince, a known vegan, what he was doing with a log of Wisconsin Braunschweiger, a traditional German smoked pork liver sausage. We got no response. Maybe it’s for guests?
— Half a loaf of challah bread from Cecil’s Delicatessen
“Manny loves this stuff, that’s why I keep it around. I guess it’s good with any of the mustards, he says?!?!”
Editor’s note: We do not know who “Manny” is.
— Yak milk, one quart
“This stuff is TOO AMAZING. It clarifies your skin and your mind. It is given freely by the yak, so U can truly enjoy it. Great with Chex – Rice Chex, Wheat Chex, whatever!!!”
— Real maple syrup, one gallon
“People say U can’t tell the difference, but U know, it’s the real deal. It’s a cut above. It’s about 100 cuts above. This is the only thing that touches my waffles.”
“Something terrible happened to you in outer space. All you can remember are the last few moments, the sun fading to a speck as you and your crew broke free from the solar system, the ship’s systems suddenly shutting down, the panic and blackness inside, shouting and sobbing, outside the phosphorescent fringes of the wormhole as it opened up in front of you—and then you woke up, sweat-slick in your own bed at sunrise, with the birds singing outside, in another universe. You are trapped in the world of the popular TV astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and you know this, because here the sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all.
In fact, the earth is a sphere orbiting the sun, so the sun does not in any sense actually ‘rise’—it’s just that you happen to be positioned right on the moving line, known as the ‘terminator’, that separates the illuminated portion of the planet from its dark side. And the birds singing aren’t really singing—actually, they’re just emitting a series of noises without any of the tonal qualities that distinguish singing from other vocal emissions. And the bed isn’t yours, because scientists have never been able to find any way of isolating ‘ownership’ in the physical composition of any object. You jump out of bed and start banging frantically at the walls. Is there no way out? Where are your crew? You rush to the window, and almost collapse in horror. It’s all there, spread out in front of you, exactly like home: everything is exactly the same, but in this sick parody of a universe it’s all been twisted into something hollow, meaningless, and mercilessly dull.
Pink strands of cloud fizzle up from the horizon, and you know that actually the horizon is just the curvature of the earth, and that the clouds, which were once believed to be inhabited by angels, house nothing of the sort. A few people are already outside in the streets below you, jogging, going to work, but they’re not really people. Actually, they’re just apes of the family Hominidae, most closely related to the genus Pan, going about their ape-business, which remains primarily motivated by the ape-needs of food, shelter, and sex. There is nothing that isn’t instantly boring. It’s too much. You rush into the kitchen, rattling the drawer in sheer panic (actually just dyspnea, tachycardia and dilation of the pupils caused by a surge of epinephrine in your body), pull out the knife (actually just a piece of metal attached to a piece of wood), and open your wrists. The blood (which was once thought to be one of the four humours, governing personality traits, but which is actually primarily used to transmit oxygen) glugs out, darker in colour and slower than you’d expected. It’ll be over now, you think. But actually, you’re not dying: you’re just a collection of atoms, and every single one of those atoms will remain. Not only are you in this universe, this universe is in you.”
Happy Earth, DailyOverview
Happy Earth, Matthieu Paley
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