Basic pleasantries
10 things worth sharing this week
“Beware the Ides of March.” Here are 10 things I wanted to share this week:
We are less than a month away from the total solar eclipse on April 8. Since Austin, TX is in the path of totality, there are all kinds of events happening here. (So many people are expected to flood this area that Travis Country has already declared the day a disaster.) If the kids’ school doesn’t get canceled, I plan on watching it with them, otherwise we’ll be on our street or in the backyard — one thing I learned during the last annular eclipse is that I like seeing the eclipse in my everyday environment. (Related reading: artist Kelsey Oseid’s lovely little book, Eclipse: Our Sky's Most Dazzling Phenomenon. Good for all ages.)
The 11-year-old wanted to stay up and watch The Oscars, and I was glad he did because Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie made me laugh and laugh. I don’t take the Academy Awards or any awards seriously, but I thought it was a good crop of Best Picture nominees this year. (This week Meg and I finally watched Poor Things and Past Lives, both of which I liked a ton.)
Runtime: My biggest quibble with movies these days is that every movie now seems to be 2 hours and 20 minutes long. If you, too, struggle with this, I highly recommend my “Intermission” method of watching 1/2 a movie now and 1/2 a movie later.
New Pen: Adam Koford recommended the classic Pentel Sign Pen and my whole family has gone nuts for them! I had to buy another box because they all disappeared.
Sound machine: We live in an uninsulated bungalow a block away from a grocery store that gets early morning deliveries. We’ve slept for years with a sound machine going, but its hiss never really masked the sound of trucks idling. Then I slept in a hotel by a highway that had one of these Douni White Noise Machines. It has has a lot of low end and a fan setting that masks engine noise pretty well. Meg instantly ordered one for our bedroom and we’ve been sleeping a lot better since it arrived.
“I just play. I’m playful. And I became increasingly more playful with age.” How to grow old like Isabella Rossellini.
”Whatever style pants look like shit to you are the pants you’re supposed to wear, and as soon as they start to look normal to you, those are not the right pants anymore. You should always be wearing pants you think look stupid.” I loved this article because I have literally stood at school pickup recently and wondered why pants are so big again.
“I could never be friends with anybody who wasn’t curious and didn’t have a sense of humor.” RIP fashion legend Iris Apfel. I highly recommend Albert Maysles’ documentary Iris.
RIP comedy legend Richard Lewis, who was born in the same hospital three days before his best friend Larry David. Their scenes in Curb Your Enthusiasm are some of the show’s funniest.
Basic pleasantries: I am no saint, but I’ve been shocked lately by how saying “Hello,” “Please,” and “Thank you” to workers in service industries often elicits surprise and wonder and gets me treated like the Pope. I don’t know what is going on with most people, but it seems like a large number of us are becoming assholes, either downright mean or totally oblivious to others. I probably don’t need to tell you lovely subscribers this, but just in case: Try this week to acknowledge your fellow human beings and treat them with basic dignity and respect. The Golden Rule not only works wonders, it heals the soul! (“You’ve got to be kind.”)
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xoxo,
Austin
Also, with regard to basic pleasantries, I’m wondering whether it relates to views of abundance and scarcity. I might be going too deep, but I’m thinking of my grandparents, who owned a grocery store in rural Iowa during my childhood and what I learned from them when I worked there each summer.
I’ve often thought that everyone should spend one year working in the service industry.
I love all of this, but wanted to comment on the pleasantries. Just yesterday I was walking out of a Safeway and an older man coming into the store stopped dead in his tracks and asked me if the person stacking carts was my employee. While I was staring at him and trying to understand what was happening, he started yelling at the young man returning carts saying, "is this how you are going to leave these!!! You're blocking the door!!!" The poor kid said, "yeah, that's how we do it." and he kept yelling at him like he was the worst manager ever, but really just there to shop. I see this in small ways every day. More anger, less gratitude. I say thank you a lot and send hand written thank you cards every week for exactly this reason. In my mind, gratitude restores hope.