What's Not the News: May 22
“Wait, Not the News…but isn’t it Friday?!” Yep, you’ve got it right. Your two humble authors had full schedules, but we’d never forget about you, dear reader. There’s not-news to report!
Read
Pop Culture and the Meaning of “Mrs.”
What’s in a name? Potentially a whole lot. Go back just 50 years and women were often referred to as “Mrs. [Husband’s Name].” Like “Mrs. John Smith.” ?!?
The NYT has a new mini-series examining the meaning of “Mrs.”—both the honorific itself, and what marriage means to women today. One theme: cultural representation matters:
Women aren’t just half of a whole — they are whole themselves, whether they are married or not. And yet wherever we look, we’re presented with fairy-tale imagery of weddings and the idea that a woman’s life isn’t complete until she gets married.
I asked [a sociologist], why are movies and television shows so slow to catch on to how women regard their marriage and individuality in the real world?
She offered me a heavy sigh in response: “One of the hardest things you can do is change a culture,” she said.
Other articles in the series examine the evolution of “Mrs.” and the meaning of “wife” for queer women.
The Work We Do When We Sleep
Sleep: That thing I tell myself I’m going to get more of after reading articles like this one.
Sleep is just as important as you’ve read, and yet less understood than you’d think. What goes on during that third of our lives we spend doing nothing?
Actually, lots of things—including, maybe, encoding memories and thinking through problems:
[An experiment] taught a group of people a relatively complex math task. Few of the subjects spontaneously figured out the solution the first time. Each participant was retested on the task eight hours later; some were allowed to sleep and others had to remain awake. Just under a quarter of the group that took a sleepless break came up with the faster solution.
But the insight rate more than doubled among the subjects who had spent the eight hours sleeping. As we sleep, our brains replay, process, learn, and extract meaning. In a sense, they think.
Man of Letters
We live in a world of cardboard boxes, especially these days. Of course, we don’t spend a ton of time thinking about the folks bringing those boxes to us over that last mile.
But as a former USPS mail carrier eloquently writes in CityLab, postal workers become integral parts of a community in a way few others can:
Delivering the mail gives you a granular insight into America’s growing cultural, political, and wealth divide. North of town, there’s a senior-living mobile home community sitting in the shadow of newly-built eco-friendly condos that sell for half a million dollars.
Residents at the condos subscribe to The Atlantic and New Yorker; residents in the trailer park a few hundred feet away get People and National Enquirer.
As you’ll read, delivering mail is a grueling job. But for lots of people—especially rural communities, where the last mile is expensive—the USPS is an essential service.
Watch
Sunderland ‘Til I Die (Netflix)
Do you enjoy stories about repeated heartbreaking failure? Well, if so, do I have a show for you.
In all seriousness, this is a two-season docu-series on the English soccer team Sunderland and its blue collar fans in a hard-luck corner of England. Once you see just how much the team means to the community, you’ll be fully invested.
Beauty and the Baker (Amazon Prime)
Missing Israel? Better yet, are you missing Israelis? Watch this Israeli romantic-comedy series and warn your roommates that there is A LOT of screaming (it’s just how they communicate!)
A highly entertaining love story between a pita baker and a supermodel that, while not at all close to my own reality, did remind me of my family. And yes, there are English subtitles.
Listen
How I Built this with Guy Raz
Can you tell that Meital lives in San Francisco? Insightful interviews with founders about the stories of some of the world’s best-known companies.
Start with: Impossible Foods -- Pat Brown
City of the Future
Can you tell that Meital and I love urbanism? Made by Sidewalk Labs (whose CEO, Dan Doctoroff, spoke at Excel 2018), each episode explores one idea or innovation that will transform cities.
Join Meital and me in our geekiness so we can start to feel cool.
Cook
Honey Chipotle Shrimp Tacos
This is what I’m making to pretend I’m having a memorial day weekend celebration that isn’t the same as any other day during quarantine.
Literally 50 Popcorn Recipes
Because binging our outstanding streaming recommendations works up an appetite.
Bye for now
See you next Thursday. We promise.
—Charlie and Meital