After me: the flood.
A report to the membership of a SECRET SOCIETY
Good evening, whenever you are. My name is John Hodgman.
As you know, I think Thanksgiving is a stupid way to waste a perfectly good long weekend, full of offensive historical revisionism, familial tension, and turkey, which is only OK to eat and impossible to cook.
(That said, SOHLA EL-WAYLLY’s cut-up-and-butter-baste method is the only way.)
But even so, I am grateful to YOU for your patience as I took a weekend just to dry-brine and re-season my brain and stare at this moon halo in Maine.
Unfortunately I still didn’t manage to get to the candlepin bowling alley when it’s open. The bowling alley is called D’Amanda’s, which is slightly misleading, because the proprietor is named Autumn.
And she is actually the sole employee, running every aspect of the business, including repairing the 70 plus year old pin setting machines while also trying to save candlepin bowling in general. And she is 20 years old.
That’s why it’s not open every afternoon, say, when you’re waiting for your car to be repaired in Ellsworth.
Part of the reason candlepin bowling is dying is that it’s difficult and boring. The balls are small, so it’s wildly difficult to get a spare, never mind a strike, even though you get three rolls.
As Autumn EXPLAINS, the best possible score is 300, and it has never been achieved. In history.
The one advantage is that the fallen pins are not cleared between rolls, so you can aim your ball at this “dead wood” and hope they ricochet off standing pins.
So it’s all about sublimated frustration, vengeance, and keeping warm near the bar, which means it’s very New England and so I love it. I will get there some day, and YOU SHOULD TOO.
(I also will finally get to the BELFAST CURLING CLUB. I actually saw cars in the parking lot this time).
It gets dark now at 4PM in Maine. And truly it’s dark everywhere. Some other things I sought a little light in this week were:
FOSTER by Claire Keegan. It’s about a young girl in Ireland who is taken away to live with distant relatives for a summer in 1980 or so.
Everyone I know loves it, and they were all right: every word in it is perfect. And you can read the whole thing in one sitting while waiting anxiously in a doctor’s waiting room, which is exactly what I did. All books should be 90 pages long.
The other best book I’ve read this year is actually a podcast: Karina Longworth’s EROTIC 90’s. It’s the latest season of her movie history podcast YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS.
It’s a social history of that ancient time told through the lens of Hollywood’s fatal attraction to sex thrillers, both trashy and sublime, until they basically stopped making movies for horny adults (and adults in general) due to porn and streaming.
That fatal attraction reference would have been better for EROTIC 80s, her equally illuminating, brilliantly researched, and expertly told previous season, which you should also listen to.
But EROTIC 90s ends on a masterful two parter about EYES WIDE SHUT, which is a famous Christmas movie, and I wish I could listen and watch along to the whole thing again, and you know what? I might.
I also was sad to finish KEYS TO THE KINGOM, a podcast by Matt Gourley and Amanda Lund talking about their experience working at Disneyland and Universal Studios.
They also talk to lots of other former and current theme park employees, all of whom have amazing stories and many of whom use aliases and altered voices out of FEAR OF REPRISAL.
Matt and Amanda are the two adorables, and I highly recommend getting even more of them in the bonus episodes on their PATREON.
I’m back in New York now, and I did not expect to have a conversation with my doctor about heaven, but you can hear more about that in the SECRET ROOM if you want.
But if you are just here to hang out on the stairs, I thank you and I hope you are doing as ok as possible.
