PicoBlog

Ahoy! I’m a week late with this newsletter (ty to the eagle eyes who noticed), but luckily you’re just in time for the next issue of:

Dear lord. Over the past three weeks, in order to hit my most recent mini-deadline (yesterday!), I chewed up and spat out almost 26,000 words. In an ideal world those words would be thoughtfully considered. Instead it’s been more like speed-digging a tunnel, where the words are clumps of mud I’m flinging over my shoulder. No time to look back!!!!

Sorry for the horror gif, but right now writing reallllllly reminds me of a sausage machine that’s shooting out churned raw meat into a casing tube that’s barely wrapping its arms around it:

Last food metaphor I promise: At this stage, I’m just trying to lay out a buffet of all the reporting I have, so that my editor can look at it, point at different lukewarm trays and be like “yes, more of this” and “oh yikes no thanks to this please.” Some day the book will be an artfully plated dish but that sure isn’t today!

I had a rollicking good time writing this feature about the handpan, a hollow metal musical instrument that creates a captivating and mysterious sound. The handpan is in hot demand! But its future is trapped in a bizarre and acrimonious legal feud between its reclusive artist creators and an army of devoted fans.

Behold: The unstoppable forces of capitalism! The futility of trying to close Pandora’s box! The tragedy of killing your own creation! All packaged for you to read and enjoy here.

I have become a compulsive stretcher. When I’m hanging out with friends, this is often the scene: they’ll be doing normal things like sitting on the couch; I’ll be twisting my shoulder around the doorframe or lying on the ground trying to lick the far side of my knee. What! It’s relaxing!

Working from home has only enabled my habit. Freed from the tyrannies of office etiquette and hard pants, I’m constantly flailing my arms around (you know, keeps the shoulders loose) and dropping to the rug for a blessed half pigeon. I just moved my laptop to the floor and typed this sentence while in a deep squat.

Despite all these contortions, I’m not that flexible, and my body still creaks like a haunted house. Stretching nevertheless remains my #1 comfort and my favorite distraction.

If you’re (like me) too lazy to leave the house and still wanna get some stretching in, I highly recommend this YouTube routine, which has such a generic title that I must tenderly refer to it as “that 15-minute one”:

Features:

• zero talking. surprisingly serene. allows for chitchat with a stretching buddy, which helps distract from the pain shooting through your tight hammies

• 15 min (Goldilocks length imo)

• the woman in the video clearly doesn’t quite know what to do with her face during the poses, which provides both comedic relief and prompts you to think deeply about what she might be thinking

• once you’ve done the routine 30 times, you can test your memory by trying to say “beep” at the exact moment the video beeps

• for some of the stretches, you have to lie on the floor and look sideways. you will find pens under your couch that you didn’t even know you had lost. that’s delivering value

P.S. Other contenders include this kind of aggressive back strength routine (made my back feel strong but my hamstrings hurt??) and this three-minute routine (short enough to memorize, and you can’t pretend you don’t have *three* minutes to spare so you really have no excuse). But they do not beat the serenity of the mysterious silent German YouTuber.

My two creakiest body parts are my shoulders (hunched forward like a gargoyle from too much Twitter) and my right hip flexor (tight but like not in a good way). If you have ever suffered the same and have your own favorite stretching/strengthening/posture exercises, I love a good trade

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