Columns, The Westing Game, and Fallout
This week I plan on sending out that column about electric cars and cultivated meat to my newspaper email lists. Hopefully, it will be published somewhere. If you’d like to send out your own letters or columns, give this a look: https://slaughterfreeamerica.substack.com/p/how-to-write-letters-to-newspapers-6eb
Anyway, it’s time for (Cell) Culture Talk. Here’s what I’ve been reading and watching lately.
Book — The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Most of my childhood books were destroyed after they spent time in a leaky storage container. For whatever reason, this one survived. It’s a fun mystery about a wealthy businessman whose will states his life was taken by one of his heirs. The 1978 text won the Newberry Medal.
Book — A Rocking-Horse Catholic by Caryll Houselander. Richard Rohr began The Universal Christ with a lengthy quote from this 1955 memoir, that piqued my interest. Among other things, Houselander describes her struggle with religious-inspired scrupulosity. It was relatable to me, as someone diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
TV — Fallout. I’ve played all of the 3D Fallout games, except the multiplayer one. In particular, I loved the 2015 title, which I put an absurd amount of time into. This show struck me as a fantastic adaptation of the franchise. Ella Purcell stars as a vault dweller exploring the surface hundreds of years after a nuclear apocalypse.
Sports — Knicks beat Bulls, 120-119. Chicago was playing really hard for a team that didn’t have anything on the line. New York won in overtime. With the victory, the Knicks finished the regular season in the eastern conference’s second seed. Arguably, it would have been better if they lost, as they would have faced the Pacers in the first round.
Sports — Knicks beat 76ers, 111-104. Jalen Brunson struggled in the first game of the playoff series. Thankfully, a bunch of other players stepped up. Brunson credited Deuce McBride, in particular, with helping secure the win. However, Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson made important contributions as well. It’s hard to know what to expect from Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who is playing injured.