I’m headed off the grid next week to report a backwoods story for Travel + Leisure, and I realized I need to upgrade some aspects of my travel pack—especially after last week, when I had a couple days of urban reporting and found I’d packed the wrong charging cable, my backup battery croaked, my headphones went missing.

Here are some things I’ve had recommended by friends, or I already appreciate. No endorsements, no pay-to-play, but all being strongly considered:

• The $20 bargain that is Apple’s wired EarPods

• A new back-up battery with a kickstand, for watching the new UK seasons of Love Is Blind on the plane. Review here. (I’d look at this Anker model if I wanted something slimmer. )

• Some lightweight pouches to carry things: dopp-kit size, also something tiny

• If I needed a new insulated bottle, perhaps an Ocean Bottle

• A broken-in XL LL Bean boat-and-tote from eBay, long live TJ and Jacki or maybe not

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Saturday evening, possibly the night of the day you’re reading this, I’m attending a concert that should prove to be a nostalgia vortex for a teenager who grew up in the 1990s in a New England suburb, who spent many nights driving his mother’s station wagon around town, delivering pizza while listening to pop radio.

The venue is the Hollywood Bowl. The lineup is Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler. We’re going an hour early to tailgate, and I hope the unofficial merch is good, but that might be expecting too much.

If you don’t expect too much from me
You might not be let down

What is nostalgia anyway? The sad pleasure. Sentimental time travel. Internal yearning to be healed, triggered by loneliness?

I found out this week it was originally considered a disorder, possibly deadly. From this white paper on the history of nostalgia, regarding the 17^th-century medical student who coined the term:

In his dissertation, consisting of a handful of interviews with Swiss mercenaries in the French army, Hofer concluded that nostalgia is a medical or neurological disease, manifesting symptoms like emotional lability (from despondency to weeping), anorexia, and even suicidal ideation. In the ensuing centuries, nostalgia was reclassified as a psychiatric disorder (symptomatic of sadness, anxiety, insomnia, and fever), a clinical malady (labelled obsessive mental state, repressive compulsive disorder, or immigrant psychosis), or an undesirable affliction confined to a few populations (e.g., seafarers, immigrants, soldiers).

None of that really lands with me. I respect sentimentality, but I’m not inclined to it. For example, I don’t have photo albums. I keep a diary but don’t consult it; the idea of rereading one of my books causes a twitch—at the thought of how much I’d find that I would want to rewrite.

But I do appreciate aching, and I think I experience nostalgia as a social emotion, a group reckoning, practically a patriotism; I saw everyone waiting for hours outside Yankee Stadium last Sunday to catch night three of Jay-Z and I easily pictured myself there.

It’s also everywhere in culture. It’s The Great Gatsby. It’s the Bible’s primary story, post-Eden. It’s the historical nostalgia of Midnight in Paris, or Don Draper’s carousel pitch.

Leading up to the concert, I’ve wondered if teenage me and today me will reunite at the Bowl and be friends. In high school, my skater buddies liked bands that never would have played the HORDE festival: Jane’s Addiction, The Smiths, Nine Inch Nails. And in my twenties, those neurotically self-conscious, yearning twenties, I learned to feel bad about that; I definitely looked back on my love for David Matthews and felt shame. A kind of reverse-nostalgia: loathing a past that actually was.

Thankfully those days are gone, and tonight I’ll sing my head off. I’ll buy a T-shirt, maybe two.

Tell me do you think it’d be all right
If I could just crash here tonight

Or as the Bible has it: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.”

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• New gear I’m considering for upcoming off-the-grid travel

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• New singles and new reads

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❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.

Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.

What the what

“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.

Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.

Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.

We’re reading short stories this summer at the Tournament of Books, and I’m really enjoying this week’s selection: My Dear You by Rachel Khong.

Sci-fi scenarios, online-dating disasters, plus a woman in China struggling to train a sex doll (and not fall in love with it). Lively, thoughtful, fun! Also, I’ve heard people who are reading ahead are loving, loving, loving Python’s Kiss by Louise Erdrich.

Reading shorts has also got me returning to two collections that mean the world to me: Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme and Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis. Perfect books in their ways.

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Last Friday, on a drive, my phone told me Cape Verde had scored against Argentina.

This seemed unlikely, possibly dramatic. I decided if there was a parking space outside the sports bar on the next block, I would park. There was a parking space. More miraculously, there was an empty seat at the bar. My neighbor had on a Cape Verde jersey. The bartender said he found the Cape Verde’s 40-year-old goalkeeper extremely hot. Practically everyone in two solidly-packed rooms was a Cape Verde fan, or at least an anyone-but-Argentina fan.

Later, when Cape Verde scored an equalizer, to level the score at 2-2, and the room went berserk, the bartender squeezed his plastic water cup so hard it erupted.

If you don’t know the story, Cape Verde was this year’s little-guy fever dream. One of the world’s smallest nations, a group of islands west of Senegal, they achieved a draw against Uruguay and held back Spain. At the bar, before the delirium, I overheard a woman say to her companion, “I don’t really care about them, but I always root for the underdog.” And I thought about why that’s so often true.

I think one beauty is that, conscious or not, we see ourselves in the underdog. We’re born defenseless, tiny things among giants. Later, we have an idea of ourselves as single beings in vast space; rooting for the underdog is rooting for ourselves.

Cape Verde in soccer. Arthury Frey at Wimbledon. Look at New York City’s ecstatic dancing for the lunchpail Knicks.

To quote Wikipedia:

In British and American culture, underdogs are highly regarded. This harkens back to core biblical stories, such as that of David and Goliath, and also ancient British legends such as Robin Hood and King Arthur. This is also reflected in the idea of the American dream, where someone from a low social class can achieve success through hard work.

At the same time, what about underdogs who aren’t resourceless? Pro tennis player Jessica Pegula, for instance, is the daughter of a billionaire, and I’ve noticed people’s sympathies extend less.

And that success through work bit, is that still true? Underdogs are presumed to try harder, and trying is what our society supposedly rewards. But is our underdog-romanticism so much delusion, a nice thing to tell ourselves while living in a system designed to make sure that ninety-nine percent of the time, the underdog loses.

Blessed are the gullible have-nots? Then there are all the tall poppies who get chopped, all the schadenfreude expressed.

Underdogs deserve our hearts until they don’t.

But when they do deserve them, the glow is real. At the bar, Cape Verde lost to Argentina, but no one was too sad. A bunch of us took several minutes to praise the goalkeeper, so poised (and hot). And on the drive home, I thought of Rocky in Rocky and how, in the end, Rocky loses. And it doesn’t matter, it wasn’t the point. So often we repeat ourselves, we walk in circles. Underdogs, win or lose, are stories of change

𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for members:

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• A favorite new coffee roaster for your pour-over routine

• The best tech advice discovered on the internet this week

Join the community and enjoy great books, travel/fashion picks, new music and cool stuff generally.

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❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.

Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.

What the what

“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.

Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.

Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.

☞ Lots of new music to get excited about if you enjoy rock and pop. Some singles I’ve enjoyed lately—

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I was lost, overwhelmed. The curvature was never-ending, a concrete bow. I exited one room, entered another, and had little sense where the art started or stopped.

I wondered if the great swing of the thing was to remind us that time bends.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aka LACMA, recently reopened after a years-long overhaul. Critics have weighed in, mostly raving, some upset. To me it’s tremendous. Some initial impressions:

—Richly minimal, mostly concrete and glass. Syncing with a city known for being horizontal and paved.

—Previously, the galleries were a box, now they’re a suspended blade.

—Don’t Chris Burden’s street lamps look even more impressive.

—The new structures seem resolutely, permanently strange, at least as permanent as possible in an earthquake zone. Also, the fact they’re installed next to the only active paleontological research facility in a major city adds to the uniquely L.A.-oddness of it all.

Where art gets experienced changes the experience. Recently, in this city, we’ve had art in a 99 Cents store and a gallery in a laundry room. I saw a new show the other week in an old storage shed.

Seeing new art is one of my favorite parts of living in a city, though when I lived in New York twenty years ago, I remember feeling intimidated, going around galleries in Chelsea—white vaults, high desks, severe gallerinas—to a point I stopped going.

I saw my friend John recently, whom I met during that period. Back then he would hit multiple openings each weekend. Now he never goes, doesn’t care. “Do you remember a single thing you saw during that period?” he asked me over coffee. “I sincerely do not.”

The art currently on view in the new LACMA galleries is curated with deliberate slapdash; rather than a themed show, it’s all about how things sit side by side—ancient Tibetan artifacts opposite a wall of video art—either out in the open, or in rooms where the walls have been washed in ways to emanate color. In a way, the beauty of the architecture is too illuminating: it points out how LACMA’s holdings don’t exactly rival (in depth or focus) places like MoMA or The Broad. Now housed in a piece of edge-setting architecture, the collection’s spottiness seems more evident.

The day I visited, I was driving over from a different, more intimate way of seeing art. The painter Sayre Gomez, fresh off his blockbuster show at David Kordansky, had invited me to Boyle Heights to visit his studio, where he and his assistants were prepping for an exhibition in Europe. We walked around the rooms, drinking coffee, while he explained different techniques, his new ideas. What I loved most, I think, was seeing the works in progress in the studio’s shadows, or finished paintings simply leaning against a wall. There was all the evidence of the artist at work: experiments, drawings, things he liked, things he hated. Meanwhile, the World Cup played on a television, there was a bench press in a corner. Drawings by Gomez’s kids decorated one wall.

In a studio, art is alive. In a museum, it needs to be brought to life. It’s yet to be revealed how LACMA will handle upcoming shows, but I’m excited to see.

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Join the community and enjoy some great books, travel/fashion picks, new music and cool stuff generally.

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❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.

Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.

What the what

“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.

Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.

Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.

Science nonfiction that made me feel more informed: At the Edge of Time: Exploring the Mysteries of Our Universe’s First Seconds by Dan Hooper.

Scientists in recent decades have made crucial discoveries about how our cosmos evolved over the past 13.8 billion years. But we still know little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. At the Edge of Time focuses on what we have learned and are striving to understand about this mysterious period at the beginning of cosmic history.

Crime fiction that taught me about a historical event: Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel

Madrid 1939. Carlos Tejada Alonso y León is a Sergeant in the Guardia Civil, a rank rare for a man not yet thirty, but Tejada is an unusual recruit. The bitter civil war between the Nationalists and the Republicans has interrupted his legal studies in Salamanca. Second son of a conservative Southern family of landowners, he is an enthusiast for the Catholic Franquista cause, a dedicated, and now triumphant, Nationalist.

World Cup-suitable nonfiction that’s a page-turner: Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin’ Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England’s soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.

☞ For summer shopping, a couple things I’ve had my eye on. No funny business, no endorsements, hence no links, all easily searchable.

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Quick programming note: There are now 17,000 of you subscribing to these meditations. Thank you. To celebrate the number, here’s a quickie forever discount to the Sunday supplements for members: great books, travel gear, style picks, and cool stuff generally. Thanks again.

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—It’s a small, dark room with wooden beams, two chairs, two barbers, a bench and hatrack. There’s a TV playing an old Western, often black and white. The restroom is equally rustic.

Every three weeks for nearly a decade, I’ve visited the same barber, the same barbershop, and nothing about that description has changed.

—Smells are pomade, leather, a lot of dust, occasionally my barber’s vape and whatever wafts in through the door, or the smell of coffee from a shop down the block.

—The reason there’s a movie playing is because the barbershop is Western-themed, nearly every inch, drawn from the barbers’ collection of memorabilia. Cowboy boots, Navajo weavings, a cow skull, a deer’s head. I seem to spot a new picture of John Wayne every time.

Today on the TV is an episode from Have Gun – Will Travel, starring Richard Boone as Paladin. “My favorite Western TV show of all time,” my barber says.

—Both barbers are maybe a decade younger than me. Similar to the visual density of their shop, their bodies are tattooed, every inch. Mine speaks with a slightly formal, precise diction conveying a genteel politeness, making him sound a touch mannered, not like he grew up on a SoCal ranch.

—My previous barber was deaf. The first time I went, I immediately noticed how quiet the shop was: no music, no chatter, despite three barbers and multiple clients. Then a couple people started communicating with sign language; it was a deaf barbershop, deaf barbers for deaf clients. I’d found his shop online, I didn’t know. My turn came up. I apologized for not knowing how to sign. My barber shrugged; he could read lips perfectly well, plus we had our phones.

Great haircut, and I went back several times, I would’ve kept seeing him but the shop was a 30-minute drive.

—To be clear, these “focus aerobics” sessions are meant to last an hour, and my haircut doesn’t need an hour. It’s a routine trim, no shampoo, nothing about my beard. (Occasionally he does the eyebrows.) But I always arrive early, leave late, mainly for the shit-talk, and sometimes I run into friends; by this point, nearly half of my male friends see the same barber, including one friend’s wife.

—Also to be clear: Western TV shows from the 1950s contain racist moments. We’re halfway through the cut when a Mexican character gets called a “chile picker” by one of the bad guys. I recalled one time I got a haircut in North Carolina, and the barber, an older gentleman, a white barber in a small-town white barbershop, casually dropped the n-word. I said I wasn’t cool with that, and we spent the next couple minutes, while the rest of the shop went mute, discussing racial politics before switching sports.

Anyway, in Los Angeles, a moment after his “chile picker” comment, the bad guy steps into a trap and gets yanked off the ground. Take that, racist!

—How loyal are we to our hairstylists and why? Hair is culture, hair is complicated. Hair can be controlled—cut, colored, removed, implanted—but sometimes not. The world’s wealthiest man seemingly felt compelled to get a hair makeover to seem youthful; China’s politburo is both elderly and perfectly black on top. Not to make too light of things, but in Louisiana prisons, good luck keeping your dreadlocks.

At some point maybe we’ll control our hair with peptides, like so many volume dials, but the medicine isn’t yet there.

—I know I wish my dentist was more like my barber. I like my dentist, but visiting him for an appointment is similar to other experiences I’ve had with other dentists: I sit in the chair and things start happening, no explanation, no head’s up, just various mechanical tools I don’t recognize, don’t know the intent of, suddenly get activated and begin making loud sounds that vibrate in my skull.

Whereas my barber always starts with a conversation about what I want. Even though I see him every three weeks and my haircut hasn’t changed in years, he explains beforehand he’s planning to do, demonstrating how it’ll all play out. Then, when I accede, he says, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you brother.” Thirty minutes later, he whips out a three-panel mirror to exhibit what he’s done, showing me the sides and back , quietly whispering an explanation of how the cut went, wondering if I like what I see.

Thankfully, I always do.

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❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles.

Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website.

What the what

“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.

Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.

Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.

☞ We’ll start with a couple new R&B singles because why not. All three great.

Then to crime. For me, there’s so much good crime fiction from Europe, it’s hard to choose. One angle: I haven’t gone wrong yet with the Soho Crime imprint, and they’ve actually got a map so you can select by locale, for a little armchair crime travel.

But my favorite of all is French author Jean-Patrick Manchette. Hardboiled, disillusioned, violent, sometimes wildly. (Reader Alex, I saw your comment yesterday, I believe you and I may be in the same boat when it comes to summer reading.)

A couple favorites—

• Fatale

• Nada

• No Room at the Morgue

Though I haven’t hit a bad one yet. And if you prefer your crime in graphic novel form, there are the beautiful Manchette-Tardi collaborations, great gifts for any Francophiles who don’t mind a bit (a lot) of blood.

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Crime is not beautiful, and I’m lucky I haven’t experienced much worse than being robbed: car broken into, bikes stolen, clothing stolen, a Sony Discman nabbed on a train. But no attacks, no break-ins. Lucky.

That said, though I know people who’ve suffered violent crimes, really horrible stuff, and also I feel …

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☞ First, to the music: Three songs from three new, slightly obscure albums all worth checking out, that I’ve been enjoying depending on the mood, whether dark/melancholic, hard/upbeat, or sleazy/fun.

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I hadn’t done a list here in a while, and I wondered this week what an interesting list might be. I settled on one I already maintained in an app on my laptop: things I find beautiful that I might write about here, but haven’t gotten around to yet.

• Ripe fruit

• Golden hour yellow

• Dusk blue

• Paths that people make across public…

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People have all sorts of things to get them through, and maybe it’s a personalized path for each of us: melatonin, cannabis gummies, reading with a cup of herbal tea when it’s still dark outside.

For me, the game-changer—in addition to not drinking alcohol too late, and occasionally taking melatonin—has been this big-ass eyemask.

It is silly big, silly looking. It’s also comfortable, light on my face, and it does the job. Assuming I don’t go to bed with too much alcohol in my stomach, I’m consistently getting seven or eight hours a night, and I didn’t need to invest in blackout curtains.

Who knew? Probably you, but I did not.

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Early Thursday morning, I listened to people talk about it on a podcast.

All week long, I listened to announcers talk about it on the radio while I worked.

Lunchtime or at night, I read newsletters, caught up on social media, YouTube, I texted with friends who were similarly enthused.

Twice, late a…

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Nathan is a former editor at Rolling Stone and the author of Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East. I asked him for some examples of travel stories he loves, and he was generous enough to share.

I kinda hate travel writing. Such an embarrassing genre, the conceits outdated, the power dynamic so ugly. Which is ironic, because that’s pretty much all I’ve ever written, whether it was from Iraq, Yemen, Russia, or the west side of Los Angeles.

Lately it’s remained extra challenging to muscle my way into offering a good travel writing syllabus. This is the third spring I’ve redesigned the course and I’m still noodling. Here are a few stories that have stood up:

1. “Ticket to the Fair,” David Foster Wallace. The late master, love him or hate, offers some seriously iconic work in this visit to the Illinois State Fair in the mid-1990s. Key line: “The corn was as tall as a tall man.” Come for the insights about humility and almost pornographic descriptions of livestock and cheerleaders, stay for the final section about crowds, among the best ever writing about the Midwest.

2. “I Got High With My Mom at HempCon,” Taffy Brodesser-Akner. The comic genius whose novels I don’t love has a supernatural ability to render even the smallest adventures super funny, such as this 2010s visit to a weed conference. Key line: “My mother (not her real name) and I get out of the cab at the corner of Kill Me Street and Carjack Avenue.” A visit to a weed thing? Sure. But do it with your Orthodox mother??? Who also happens to have partied with Ginsberg??? Yesss.

3. “A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof,” Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. The award-winning masterpiece about a South Carolina church shooting is also a chilling example of yet another kind of bravery in travel writing. Key line: “This black body of mine cannot be furtive. It prevents me from blending in. I cannot observe without being observed.” This piece rocked the world when it came out and remains a sly masterclass in deciding how to behave and how to write about being on location during a very difficult assignment.

The image of the swashbuckling, probably-male, obnoxious adventurer, bravely going somewhere new (where people already live???) and just barely surviving—all for a good and misleadingly insightful tale. It’s over. But what do we replace it with????

Thanks, Nathan. And not in response to his last question there, but if I was shopping for a new travel lit book and I happened to want one about life in Japan, I’d take a strong look at volume two of The New Japan, just out, edited by W. David Marx.

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Tuesday afternoon, I visited a class at UCLA to talk to a dozen-plus undergraduates. The subject was travel writing. Beforehand, the professor and I commiserated over the things we dislike about the genre. When there’s no story, but a lot of homilies. When the conceit is extra contrived. When cliché…

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☞ Is it summer yet? In Los Angeles, it’s gray May, soon to be June gloom, and a vegetable-facing pasta seems like a nice way to pretend the sky is not constantly overcast.

This week I heard about a zucchini carbonara via favorite radio show Good Food and it’s now in the rotation; put the guanciale aside and opt for vegetables. Basically it’s carbonara but with sautéed zucchini instead of pork, ziti instead of bucatini, plus torn mint.

• Giulia Scarpaleggia’s Zucchini Carbonara

Very simple and really good.

☞ Speaking of food…

As a home cook of twenty-plus years, I’ve got a dozen pieces of equipment I feel are essential, that some person told me about and I am grateful—and I’m talking about more than the stuff we all love and need (pots and pans, tongs, a big knife, a small knife, etc).

Note: no expensive chef’s knives here, because I get it, but c’mon; for the home cook, getting a $50 knife sharpened twice a year goes a long way.

For me, the list goes:

1. A Gray Kunz sauce spoon. It’s the Pyrex measuring cup of cutlery? It does everything. Though I also grab wooden spoons at yard sales to replace the old ones I’m always snapping.

2. A Dexter-Russell serrated knife. Super cheap, lasts forever, great for tomatoes, citrus, so many uses.

3. A digital scale. So many uses! Whichever scale you like/have budget for. Same for an instant-read thermometer.

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I don’t think I’ve missed a week here in the years I’ve been writing these meditations, and I don’t intend to start now.

Still, it was a week of unexpected business things, unexpected personal things, also unexpected dental surgery, and my meditative powers escaped me.

However, I read as much as usual and bounced around th…

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☞ As per usual, the Tournament of Books returns for a summer pop-up, and this year we’re reading short fiction.

We’ll be hosting weekly video chats to discuss the stories. You’ll find more info over here. The reading list, chosen by the ToB community—

• June 16: Brawler by Lauren Groff

• June 30: The News From Dublin by Colm Tóibín

• July 14: My Dear You by Rachel Khong

• July 28: Python’s Kiss by Louise Erdrich

• Aug. 11: The Typing Lady by Ruth Ozeki

• Aug. 25: It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez

☞ My favorite tote bag for short- to medium-length travel (seven days or fewer) got me to New York this week, and I was reminded of why I like it: comfortable, sturdy, handsome, unobtrusive. Not waterproof, not festooned with pockets, but still my go-to, even though it’s far from perfect: the “perfect weekend tote” by Alex Mill.

Other bags I like the look of when a Trader Joe’s bag won’t cut it (and no, Klein tool bags are not allowed)—

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Wednesday morning, I took an airplane to New York City.

I hadn’t been on a long flight in a while. For the last three years I’ve gone to an airport at least once a month, this time the experience felt renewed. First off, people are different on a plane. Human rhythms are different. Time feels different, there’s…

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