The Local Paper + King Arthur+Pickle Juice
May I recommend
Getting your local paper delivered.
I know, I know, this is equivalent to recommending a flip phone or low rise jeans (we are NOT going back there, people!) but hear me out.
I started getting my local paper again this summer and I love it. In the olden days when getting a newspaper delivered to your door was not considered a freakishly antiquated thing, receiving a daily paper stressed me out. There was too much to read in the morning so I’d often skip the whole thing and chuck it immediately into the recycling. Then, the weekend edition would be so thin - with ever-shrinking international coverage, arts reporting and opinion columnists — that its very thinness irritate me.
Times (and I) have move on. American Idol is no longer cultural force and no one gets excited about maple bacon doughnuts any more… Now I love how thin the paper is, because it takes the pressure off. I sit down with my fried egg and I read about all the machinations at city hall, what the Russians are up to (nothing good) and someone’s angry opinion about bike lanes. I skip the recipes, skip the comics, skip the crossword, skip the sports and I’m done - whole thing takes 10 minutes. My egg is eaten, I haven’t been staring at my phone for that period of time and I feel like I have a handle on the salient facts of the day.
Other benefits of the daily local paper:
Delivery right to your door. Every day is like the arrival of a long-awaited Etsy package, but instead of unwrapping hand painted greeting cards or a hilarious t-shirt, you are unwrapping NEWS.
Weird and unearned feeling of having briefly defeated the Internet.
Strong sense of smug do-goodery for supporting local journalism.
Old timey joy of cracking open the paper
Deep satisfaction of working “I was just reading about that in the paper today,” into conversation.
Shout out to my local paper growing up ( one of the very first places I started writing!)
Do you get the paper? Have I convinced you? Tell me about it in the comments below!
Was King Arthur real?
Was King Arthur a Real Person?
The only thing I like more than trying to sort out who all the Elizabeths and Henrys were in the War of the Roses, is wallowing in some good ole Anglo-Saxon/ Celtic history.
Anyway, maybe King Arthur was real.
“Britain was a failed state,” says Marc Morris, a British historian and author of 2021’s The Anglo Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 to 1066. “It was a miserable time to be alive.”
Many historians believe that a heroic warrior likely rose during this period to lead the Britons, who had largely embraced Christianity, against the pagan Saxons.
Pickle juice is sitting right there, waiting for you
I am also pro-pickle juice. You can put that stuff in a soup and suddenly you’ve gone from delicious to DIL-icious.
I’ve come to the conclusion that pickle brine may just be the most glorious liquid the human race has ever engineered.
Why can’t I find a step aerobics class in Ottawa?
Why we keep falling for fitness trends
Oh fitness trends… They do come and go, but I tell you what, I still mourn the demise of step aerobics. Marching up, down and around that stepper while someone urgently yelled at you to “sashay!” to the beats of Madonna’s Ray of Light album were happy, happy times.
Did I do an “Afro-Caribbean Dance” class at the Westmount YMCA during CEGEP that I still think of fondly any time I hear Girl I Want to Make you Sweat? Yes, yes I did.
I am a bit of a sucker for these types of things and have tried my fair share of fad workouts. For a while, I tried Mark Fisher Fitness, a queer-friendly boutique studio in New York that calls its members “ninjas” and is adorned with unicorn memorabilia. I once did a dance fitness class where you put on headphones and rocked out to terrible European dance music in front of the New York Public Library, pretending the experience wasn’t completely humiliating. Another time, I did a spin bootcamp class that was so hard to follow I wanted to walk out, except another guy did first. I tried CrossFit for a week and almost immediately got hurt.
Book Stuff!
A podcast interview I did a while ago just came out. You can check out my chit chat on A BOOKISH HOME.
September 27th, 2022 - 7:00pm. Noir at the Bar - Duke of Kent pub, Younge and Roehamtpon, Toronto). A bunch of mystery novelists doing short readings from their latest works. Expect chunky eyewear and MURDER. Come and say “hi!”
September 28th, 2022 - My piece on the setting of the Eastern Townships in the novels of Louise Penny will appear in this fun newsletter devoted to all things Three Pines (subscribe today if you want your Gamache fix)
October 4, 2022 - Book launch - Perfect Books Elgin Street Ottawa. Come on out and say “hi” and get a book signed.
October 20-24th, 2022 - Reading - Knowlton Literary Festival. Have you been to Knowlton? It’s adorable. There’s delicious food, an amazing book store and scenery that will make you want to punch yourself in the face it’s so pretty. Come to the literary festival! It’s the perfect excuse for a jaunt to the countryside!
TikTok
This captures my feelings about the Queen’s death
Sesame Street
How “clean eating” is elitist
Oxford Comma FTW
Every time I watch this, I see something new
This kid has it figured out
My name is Carton, I’m from Business City
Robert Smith SHUTS IT DOWN
Ha ha ha (True story, I called Bell this week demanding to know why my Wifi was down… The man asked me to check that my modem was on and I was extremely offended until… It was fine in the end, because we had a nice chat and I got to tell him that the Queen had just died.)
Thanks for reading my weekly newsletter.
You can follow me on Twitter here and Instagram here and now check out my website (I’m reposting my old Belgian blog Beer+Waffles there, if you want to take a trip down memory lane! )
Amy Tector, The Honeybee Emeralds (March 2022)