Your Mid-Week Experiment
Welcome to all the new subscribers to whom I owe a pre-emptive apology about last weekend’s essay. This newsletter rarely covers Port Angeles, though maybe it should more often. On the weekends, I write about whatever idea I’ve been wrestling with, and on Wednesdays I send out the mid-weeker with things to read, watch, do, and listen to. Sometimes there are even recipes, like this one for tomato sauce recommended by longtime subscriber E.J.
Anyway, on with the show:
When I moved to Texas at the age of 23, my pop-culture association to the Alamo wasn’t Fess Parker. It was Pee-wee Herman. So it’s with a not-insignificant emotional payload that Forget the Alamo got mentioned in Dan Solomon’s lovely obituary for Paul Ruebens. (Texas Monthly)
Kate McDermott wrote Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life, but for health reasons she can’t eat pie. So how does she know if a pie is done? By the sound it makes when it’s done baking. She calls it the “the sizzle-whump.” (The New York Times)
Richard Reeves is one of my favorite poets, and now he’s out with a book of essays. Here’s a free sample. Terrific stuff. (Granta)
This one’s got your snow monkeys, for starters, and then you’ve got South Texas. And if that’s not enough, I’ll add in one of my favorite writers, Sarah Bird. (Texas Monthly)
This is an interesting way to examine what it’s like for extremists to take over a political party. Definitely worth reading. (Paul Kane)
Normally I need to give a new show two episodes before I know if I like it. I didn’t even need to give The English a full one before I knew I loved it.
We set up a merch table in the back where you can get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even tote bags now. Show the world that you’re part of The Experiment.
We’ve also got a tip jar, and I promise to waste every cent you give me on having fun, because writing this newsletter for you is how I have fun.
Buy the book Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick banned from the Bullock Texas History Museum: Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of the American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and myself is out from Penguin Random House. The New York Times bestseller is 44% off and the same price as a paperback now!