Bird Mail 036
Hello friends of Bird Mail,
It has been a while.
If you have forgotten—and I wouldn't blame you—Bird Mail is a little bit of non-political delight in you inbox. (Make sure you watch that with the sound on, it’s adorable).
This issue of Bird Mail might be a surprise to you, and if it isn’t a pleasant surprise you can unsubscribe right now. The Bird Mail club will miss you, but you do you.
There is a new word in my vocabulary: “sus”. Used when you think someone is behaving suspiciously, I picked it up playing Among Us, a free-to-play, multiplayer, social engineering game that is a ton of fun. The New York Times has a great write-up on how it works and its rapid rise in popularity over the past few months.
Best Line: Since we can’t really congregate in a public area like the park, Among Us allows us to be online social distancing.
If anybody would like to try a round or three, reply to this email and I’ll round up some other club members and set up a private game and we can play!
I have done a pitiful job reading real books during quarantine (I can’t blame it entirely on Among Us), but I am excited about Craig Mod’s latest book Kissa by Kissa is a collection of essays devoted to pizza toast and the places you might find it walking Japan. Every detail of this book has been lovingly thought through, from the fonts to the cardboard masterpiece it arrives in (to protect the book’s corners). I was lucky to get a signed first edition before they sold out in 48 hours, but you can still get a second edition if you hurry.
In other book news, photographer Noah Kalina—perhaps most known for taking a photograph of himself everyday for twenty years— has a beautiful, small print run, book of chicken portraits, yes, chicken portraits called Tiny Flock that is still available.
There is research that shows that the music we listen to as teenagers is what we come back to the most. * Musical nostalgia, in other words, isn’t just a cultural phenomenon: It’s a neuronic command.* One of the bands I have the strongest musical nostalgia for is blink-182 (I’ll chalk it up to my obsession with Travis Barker’s endlessly complex drum tracks that I dissected and learned to the best of my mediocre drumming ability). Blink-182 is partially best—or worst—known for one of the strangest accents in pop music. I recently stumbled upon an article where the writer had a linguistic professor analyze the accent and the result was far richer than I could have ever expected.
Thank you for being a reader of Bird Mail. I know it has been a while. It is nice to be back with y’all.
Reply to this email and share anything cool you’ve found since you last heard from me, I’d love to add it to the next issue of Bird Mail.
Your friend,
Bruce
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