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Friday, July 14, 2023

The essential primer for Barbieheimer

Do I really need to put "Friday" in these issue titles? I publish on Fridays. It's always Friday. Something to think about.

I  enjoyed this Washington Post article by Rio de Janeiro Bureau Chief Terrence McCoy, about how the Outback Steakhouse restaurant chain has taken Brazil by thundie (what they call storms, "down under"). Always fun to be reminded that the restaurant founders had never been to Australia and any connection to actual Aussie culture is completely accidental. But as popular as it has become in America, it's an absolute phenomenon in Brazil, a country that is rather well known for its own beef tradition.

For five years running, the chain has been voted Rio de Janeiro’s most popular restaurant. The polling service Datafolha has named it São Paulo’s most popular shopping mall eatery. In the past three years, as the coronavirus pandemic decimated Brazil’s restaurant industry, Outback expanded rapidly here. Brazil now accounts for 83 percent of the chain’s international revenue.

As they say in Melbourne, "zoinks!"

Item 2: a list

Movies I watched in April, ranked:

  1. Heaven Can Wait (1978)
  2. A.I. (2001)
  3. Beau is Afraid (2023)
  4. Bound (1996)
  5. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
  6. The Elephant Whisperers (2022)
  7. The Outsiders (1983)
  8. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
  9. Quasi (2023)
  10. Poison Ivy (1992)
  11. Homicide (1991)

I recommend everything from John Wick 4 up.

Item 3: a media recommendation

John Prine: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Legend.

Item 4: word of the week

Syzygy

They always seemed like a great couple, but in retrospect I really should have seen the breakup coming when they announced their wedding theme was "syzygy".

Item 5: a photograph

The first anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

Related: The Atlantic has collected a bunch of great images released in the first year of the James Webb. Good telescope imo.

See ya!

Thanks for reading. I'm traveling next week but will publish something on Friday, like I do every Friday. See you then.

Published by:

Jacob Wolman

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