PFBNOW ADVENTURES!

 

 

 

 

  Stupidity is a concept that dates to Socrates’ time. Yet many new kinds of stupidity have been invented, or discovered, since antiquity, Joshua Rothman writes.

 

 

    No N.F.L. fan cheers when their team’s punter jogs onto the field facing fourth and long. His job is to concede possession—to send the ball back into the control of the opposing team, and to put them in the worst possible field position.

  Why overnight oats are a breakfast for grownups who get things done, from New Yorker Humor.

 

  But the Grimms wanted to preserve the culture of the common folk, not to make the folk sound cultured. Their aim in collecting folklore—alongside the fairy tales, they published legends, songs, and myths—was to create a cohesive national identity for German speakers.

  Travelling can be full of unexpected twists and turns. David Sedaris bumped into a few hiccups on his way back to New York City, following a vacation on a small island in Maine with his longtime partner Hugh. Thunderstorms in the New York area led to the last-minute cancellation of their flight, so the pair opted to drive back to the city—with a fellow stranded passenger. Had Sedaris proposed earlier that he invite the stranger to come with them to New York, Hugh would have said no. But the woman, who had to be at work the next morning, was “so grateful that there was really no way for him to back out,” Sedaris writes. In a Personal History, Sedaris writes about the pains and pleasures of travelling with Hugh and what he learned about himself and the stranger he invited along on their long, strange journey from Maine to New York.

After her friend’s father died, leaving his loved ones to sort through his things, Ann RTL Patchett decided it was time to get rid of some of her own belongings. “The closer I got to the places where I slept and worked, the more complicated my choices became. The sandwich-size ziplock of my grandmother’s costume jewelry nearly sank me, all those missing beads and broken clasps,” she writes. Later, Patchett packs away a dozen etched crystal champagne flutes, collected during her 30s and long abandoned on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet. “Had I imagined that, at some point, 12 people would be in my house wanting champagne?” Patchett writes. “Who did I think I was going to be next? F. Scott Fitzgerald?” At the link in our bio, read Patchett’s essay on parting with her possessions—and ideas of who she once aspired to be  

  The actor Paul Mescal, who stars in the new film “Hamnet,” shares a movie, an album, a book, and a TV show that have had an important impact on his life and career.