Oh No! A Clip Show!
Happy Birthday Happy Wanderer!
Younger readers may be wondering what a clip show could possibly be, and why the prospect of a clip show might evoke feelings of aggrieved disappointment. Gather ’round the campfire, kids, to hear a harrowing tale of the days before streaming and the internet. Back then, if you missed a favorite show, it was gone forever. And if a new episode wasn’t airing, there was nothing else to watch (except for syndicated episodes of Hogan’s Heroes, which for some mysterious reason were broadcast around the clock). We accepted summer reruns, albeit reluctantly, because we understood that TV people need vacations too. However, imagine our outrage when we settled ourselves in front of the TV during the regular television season, eager to find out what Fonzie and the gang were up to on Happy Days (or fill in your own favorite show), only to discover that, instead of a new story, we were getting an awkward and perfunctory framing device and a series of clips of previous episodes, which we had seen twice already (because of the aforementioned summer reruns).
The injustice! (Here is a fun Wikipedia article about clip shows.)
To be fair, in the days before we could access any show at any time—or read plot summaries—online, networks would air clip shows because they needed to catch audiences up on what had happened in the story thus far, after a break or before a season finale. So in that spirit, and in honor of the Happy Wanderer’s second birthday, I’d like to offer clips of two of my favorite posts from my “first season,” which newer subscribers might not have seen before, as well as a couple of terrific recent Substack posts, a new podcast, and two magazine articles. Happy reading!
Happy Wanderer Old Favorites
One of my goals in writing the Happy Wanderer is to explore ways we can be happier in our daily lives. Sometimes this means offering practical advice. For example, if someone asks or expects us to do something we’re not sure about, we may wonder whether we are allowed to refuse in good conscience. I put together a simple diagnostic test we can use, which I call the Eggplant Principle. In this post you’ll read about various kinds of social pressure and ways we can resist it. Plus there is a recipe for eggplant caviar:
Next, in this follow-up post, I apply the Eggplant Principle to a special case, what to do about picky eaters. I challenge readers to reject expert advice and instead allow kids to refuse any food they dislike:
Fair warning: This post has spiders in it, plus a recipe for kale that even picky eaters will like. (Of course, I love both spiders and kale. If you are not a fan, I invite you to read the post anyway and see whether I make a convert of you.)
Two Highly Recommended Substack Posts
When we lived in New Jersey, we planted a Princeton elm in our yard. What is a Princeton elm, you may be wondering? There is a miles-long road that leads into Princeton, and it is so dense with elm trees that their canopy makes the road feel almost like a tunnel. The trees carry a mutation that makes them resistant to Dutch elm disease, and so they are the lone survivors of that terrible extinction (which I’m old enough to remember). Arborists are now cultivating that species to bring elm trees back. A few years after we planted our small Princeton elm, it was split by the weight of an early, wet snow, which fell when the leaves were still on the trees. We repaired the tree with duct tape, and it somehow managed to survive.
I was prompted to think about our feisty tree by the following beautiful essay, “The sun and the rain and the appleseed,” which reflects on the meaning of trees in our history and our lives. As Sarah writes, “You plant a fruit tree in the hope that in fifty years, somebody who may or may not be you will have more than they know what to do with.”
Or, for some motivation to work together with other people for our common good, even when we disagree about some issues, check out “guilty by association.” Ed laments that “We have created a sort of incentivized belief that knowing certain people or being friends with certain people or even reading what certain people wrote is enough to indict you for their sins.”
A New Podcast You Will Love
We diehard fans of the Reply All podcast were devastated when it all blew up about a year ago. Even if you are not a Reply All fan, you will love PJ Vogt’s new podcast, Search Engine, which investigates baffling questions, both minor (Wait, should I not be drinking airline coffee?) and major (What’s going on with Elon Musk?). I always learn something from these episodes, and I find them particularly helpful in countering the all-too-human tendency to think there is a simple answer for complicated problems, and to be irritated at people for not just fixing things, already. For example, I used to grumpily wonder why we didn’t solve the housing crisis by putting homeless people in vacant offices. The solution seemed so obvious! In Why can’t we turn all the empty offices into apartment buildings? PJ sets me straight, but in an entertaining, well-reported, and convincing way. I’m so glad that PJ is back to podcasting, and you will be too.
Recommended Reading from the Mainstream Media
Readers may have noticed that I complain about the New York Times on occasion; I aim my ire most fiercely at the Well section, which is biased toward health perfectionism, at the expense of such ordinary pleasures as the occasional dessert, glass of wine, or lazy day on the sofa. The Well reporters are especially dismissive of people who choose to take medications to treat their problems when there is a difficult, unpleasant, and ineffective lifestyle approach available instead. So imagine my surprised delight when I read What Obesity Drugs and Antidepressants Have in Common. The author, Aaron E. Carroll, has struggled with his weight for years, and he has found the new obesity drugs to be life-changing. As he notes,
Mental health disorders and obesity fall into a bucket of diagnoses that, amid a lack of complete knowledge of their causes, are subject to societal moralizing and stigma. We make assumptions that people with depression aren’t trying hard enough, that people with obesity lack willpower.
The article encourages those of us who are lucky enough to be naturally thin and happy to have some compassion for people who don’t have our advantages.
Finally, as a cheapskate who hates shopping, I was unaware of the practice of purchasing multiple items online and then returning most of them—until, that is, I read David Owen’s article What Happens to All the Stuff We Return? in a recent issue of the New Yorker. I was aghast to learn that
A forest’s worth of artificial Christmas trees goes back every January. Bags of green plastic Easter grass go back every spring. Returns of large-screen TVs surge immediately following the Super Bowl. People who buy portable generators during weather emergencies use them until the emergencies have ended, and then those go back, too. . . . People who’ve been invited to fancy parties sometimes buy expensive outfits or accessories, then return them the next day, caviar stains and all—a practice known as “wardrobing.” Brick-and-mortar shoppers also return purchases. “Petco takes back dead fish,” Demer said. “Home Depot and Lowe’s let you return dead plants, for a year. You just have to be shameless enough to stand in line with the thing you killed.”
People excuse themselves for this disgraceful behavior because they believe that the items they return go straight back on the shelves to be sold again (well, maybe not the dead fish and plants). But this is almost never the case. Most returned items go into landfills or are stripped for parts—and the detritus goes into landfills. The remainder of Owen’s fascinating article investigates what happens to all this stuff, and it makes for a dispiriting tale.
But this is a problem we can fix: We can confine ourselves to buying only what we need, and returning only what is defective—and we can encourage our loved ones to do the same. We can shop the old-fashioned way, at a physical store. Why not take a friend along and make a day of it? Finally (stepping onto my soapbox now), when we are invited to a special occasion, there is no need to purchase multiple dresses, suits, and pairs of shoes online and return the rejects—or, worse, the used items. Let’s make it socially acceptable to wear our fancy outfits over and over again. Other people are not surveilling what we wear, ready to pounce with reproaches or snickers should we appear in the same garment a second time. I say that as someone who has worn my favorite purple dress to weddings, graduations, concerts, dinners, and parties, and no one has batted an eye. (Or if they have, they are too polite to say so.) Owen’s article will inspire us to try these easy ways to resist consumerism and help repair the world.
How about you, readers? Do you have “clips” of something especially fun or interesting you have read recently? Please share your recommendations and links in the comments!
The Tidbit
Speaking of trees and kale, the cartoon xkcd is not letting botanists get away with their shenanigans!
Happy Birthday! I can't imagine standing in a line like, "Um, my plant died. Can you help me?" Who even thinks of that, lol. Love this blog, Mari. I look forward to reading it every Wednesday.
Of course asking me to post an article I read lately and liked made my brain go blank. So it goes. But I share your dislike of eggplant despite trying really really hard to like it. Also, I lived in Princeton for many years, but didn't know the story of the Princeton Elms, though I loved driving down that street! Happy Birthday, Happy Wanderer! Keep wandering.