PicoBlog

Last week, the teachers at my daughter’s wonderful school filled out their own “first day of school” plaques. And just like the kids’ plaques, theirs had a spot to note what they want to be when they grow up. About half said a writer or author. Everyone who loves reading wants to be a writer, it seems. The job has a certain cache. Something about being a writer signals that your ideas are important enough for other people to care about.

Editor’s note: I’ve made this subscriber-level post available to all newsletter readers. If you like my work, career advice, Q&As with journalists and more, please consider subscribing. You’ll get more posts like this one every other Thursday. A big thank you goes out to Kim Kleman, Senior Vice President at Report for America, for her thoughtful answers to a few questions about what it’s like to participate in RFA, which states it’s “looking for talented, ethical, insanely hard-working, gutsy, open-minded, service-oriented journalists to inform communities and hold powerful institutions accountable.

Mental health. Societal optimization. Villainous monologues. Welcome to Affably Evil, where I puzzle out the mysteries of human interaction and organizational dysfunction in between maniacal cackles and dastardly schemes. Updates Fridays at 10am. By Daniel · Launched 2 years agoNo thanksncG1vNJzZmiZlpuuo7jYnq2ipF6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpw

With its stepped-gabled roofline that seems more Flemish than Florida, its candy-cane poles supporting the simple portico, and its gigantic neon sign featuring a chicken and a chick that has a proto “Partridge Family” vibe, Maryland Fried Chicken has long been a cinematic stop along the strip-mall sameness of Colonial Drive — the old Highway 50 — in Winter Garden, Florida, just outside Orlando. The fried-chicken fans who flock here no doubt take comfort in the architecture, but they are really here for the comfort food from one of the last outposts of a chain that could have been a contender and almost was a contender but has still managed to survive in pockets of the Southeast — and, in a small city in Michigan.

Aftersun received four nominations at the Baftas, and writer-director Charlotte Wells won in the catagory for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. It is a father-daughter film, and as such, one might be expected to describe it as poignant and moving. What is different about it is that it is infused with sadness, since the doting father, Callum, played by Paul Mescal, is clearly struggling with depression. Writer/director  Wells says it is based on real people - she lost her father aged 16.

The writing of this story was almost as much of an adventure as the story itself. Cancelled, de-platformed, re-platformed, funded amid national publicity, and rushed to a release. If you’re one of those who volunteered to be part of that story, you’re part of something special. ncG1vNJzZmivmaiysLLHnpirrF6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6ana2doqy8s7CMraZmrJiaeri10p5kqJ5dnbKivtNomqilnZq7tb8%3D

Michael Imperioli is best known for his starring role as Christopher Moltisanti in the acclaimed TV series The Sopranos—which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Emmy Award—and played a lead role on season two of HBO’s The White Lotus. He wrote five episodes of The Sopranos; was coscreenwriter of the film Summer of Sam, directed by Spike Lee; and was anthologized in The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child. Imperioli has appeared in six of Spike Lee’s films and has also acted in films by Martin Scorsese, Abel Ferrara, Walter Hill, Peter Jackson, and the Hughes Brothers.

👋 Welcome to the latest issue of The Jungle Gym – the newsletter that helps you build a more fulfilling career by integrating your work and life. ✨ If you’re a new reader, thanks for stopping by. Feel free to check out this introductory post, which explains what The Jungle Gym is all about. 📬 To get future issues delivered to your inbox, enter your email here: I’m not usually a snarky person. But last weekend, I couldn’t help myself.

Sometimes the smallest of things have the largest effects. Whenever I think about what did the most damage to internet culture over the past ten years, this comic comes out on top: Not Twitter. Not Facebook. This comic that probably took Randall Munroe less than an hour to create. The United States Bill of Rights is not merely a mechanistic document. Yes, we use it, together with the court system, to resolve any disputes we have with the US government.