Your Mid-Week Experiment

Good on you, folks -- we've raised almost $3K for Nina Jankowicz's legal fund

Since we published the account of how Nina Jankowicz, the head of the Disinformation Governing Board, was brought down by a disinformation campaign by Fox News, you — you glorious, good-looking, and well-mannered people, you — have contributed $2,785 to her legal fund. Well done. Please share the link to her GoFundMe page to get her story out.

Read on for another great opportunity to be a part of something truly remarkable:

In 2006, Bryan Burrough, who then lived in New Jersey and didn’t know any better, started a fantasy baseball league. He’s been playing every year faithfully, usually making the most moves and always trying his best. But every year, someone else has won the championship, making this perhaps the longest streak of futility in all fantasy sports. (Heck, my team, Uncle Louie’s Terror Babies, won the first year I joined the league, though I’ve since rebranded my team as the Merrick Garlands.) If you want to have a hand in extended Bryan’s championship drought stretch to 17 years this October, email him to join this 12-team H2H league.

But enough of Bryan’s sad Vipers, the losingest team in all of fake baseball. Let’s get to the good stuff.

All of this—> (George Packer)

Absolutely loved Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011. h/t on the recommendation and the book loan to Bryan, who is very successful at other things that are just as important as fantasy baseball.

“Someone gets shown an ad and buys something, that’s great. But the people who get shown an ad and do nothing? What a lost opportunity! What a waste of their time and yours. It’s nice for the ego to get profiled in some publication…but it is quickly forgotten. Deciding to make videos, write articles, produce thousands of hours of audio–what I decided to prioritize my work around was making work.” (Ryan Holiday)

I don’t know what feels stranger to me, that Adam Sandler is winning the Mark Twain for American Humor or that I have so many specific memories of him making me laugh since college. (Washington Post)

This song is maximalist bonkers fun:

Good for Ben Barnes for finally revealing how he unwittingly played a role in the real October Surprise, a term coined by William Casey as an accusation that Jimmy Carter would win re-election by getting the hostages freed. Turns out the real October Surprise was that the Reagan campaign was preventing them from being freed by promising them a better deal, which led to Iran-Contra, which led to us supporting Saddam Hussein, which led to the Gulf War, which led to… (Peter Baker)

And now I understand the Silicon Valley Bank thing. “There was … a group of venture capitalists working behind the scenes, quietly with our leaders, to figure out a solution. No all caps, no posing for the algorithms...” (Scott Galloway)

Whosever job it was to tell me that pre-arena rock Kings of Leon were awesome really fell down on the job.

Made Brunswick stew last week. Dial up the heat on this recipe, and I might halve the sugar. (New York Times Cooking)

I was not prepared for this “Modern Love” piece about stuffed animals. It’s good, smart, and will probably make you feel things in all kinds of emotional ways. (Kerry Egan)

Somehow Meet Me @ The Altar, a pop punk band that overtly cites the Radio Disney as an influence, works.

Finally getting to White Lotus Season 2, and boy howdy is it unsettling. We love it.

Cocaine Bear was, in fact, about a bear on cocaine, but it was a blink-and-you-miss-it joke about another animal that will make me adore this movie, and Elizabeth Banks, forever.

---

Thanks to Noom, I lost 40 pounds over 2020-21 and have kept it off since then. Click on the blue box to get 20% off. Seriously, this works. No, this isn’t an ad. Yes, I really lost all that weight with Noom.

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 Bull