PicoBlog

JUNE HYMN Here's a hymn to welcome in the day Heralding a summer's early sway And all the bulbs all comin' in To begin The thrushes' bleating battle with the wrens Disrupts my reverie again Pegging clothing on the line Training jasmine how to vine Up the arbor to your door And more Standing on the landing with the war You shouldered all the night before But once upon it

The first season of the Knowledge Matters Podcast—called Reading Comprehension Revisited, and hosted by me—has now reached a significant milestone: over 100,000 downloads since the six episodes were released this summer. I’m thrilled that the podcast is reaching so many people, and I think it’s a testament to the power of the voices featured in the series: mainly teachers and district leaders who have made the transition from the typical approach to reading comprehension to a curriculum that builds students’ knowledge by going deeply into topics in history, science, and the arts.

Thank you so much for visiting my Substack. If you’re here, you’ve likely seen the exciting news that I have signed a book deal with Del Rey at Penguin Random House in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK for my debut novel, Alchemised. In these early days, Substack updates won’t be kept to much of a regular schedule, but if you’d like to be among the first to know as I have news to share, please feel free to subscribe.

Exactly a month ago on my 36th birthday, I tweeted about having something Resident Evil fandom-related to share in the near future, and I’m happy to reveal today that I am starting my own Resident Evil-focused Substack called Complete Global Saturation! For years, I’ve thought about running a blog or news site offering written Resident Evil content. I just wasn’t sure how to execute on the idea; I started my own personal blog back in 2016 with the intent to focus on games and travel, but it never got off the ground and I only use it sparingly.

For the last six months I’ve been fielding questions about when Josh Barro and I would be launching a new podcast to replace “All the Presidents’ Lawyers,” the show we hosted for three years. I’m very happy that I finally have an answer. “Serious Trouble” launches today with its first episode. Fans of “All The President’s Lawyers” will find it familiar but expanded. Josh and I (with the help of our exceptional producer Sara Fay) will be addressing a wide array of legal controversies and dilemmas, each week asking “is this person in Serious Trouble?

The SEC had the most All-America selections in the exercise I posted earlier this week. Now, we’re taking an in-depth look at the conference to build three All-SEC Teams for the 2023 season. Keep in mind, these selections are based on performances from this year alone and don’t factor in past success. Before getting into the All-SEC Teams, here are my picks for the conference’s two greatest individual honors. Quarterback: Jayden Daniels, LSU

Greetings Beer Friends and welcome to Friday Night Beers, First the good news: It’s milestone of sorts here, with this being the 100th published edition of Friday Night Beers! I’ll be toasting that tonight. Now the bad news: It’s a common refrain these days: “craft brewery goes into liquidation” and the latest to officially wear that tag is Cowabunga, who were based in Morningside, Auckland. The official liquidation is largely a tidy-up from a decision made in November last year.

A piece was recently published by a betting website purporting to show the “most dangerous NBA arenas.” There’s a data component and a survey component to this piece and both are worth a closer look. Taken individually each part is largely nonsense, but taken together the two parts are also largely nonsense. There are numerous reasons to be extremely wary of any list like this. The primary reason to be extraordinarily skeptical of a list like this is that the crime data comes from NeighborhoodScout and NeighborhoodScout’s data is made up.

The NHL “mourned” the death by suicide of Chris Simon. So did the Ontario Hockey League, where Simon played four seasons before embarking on his NHL career. The NHL Alumni Association was “devastated” to hear the news. The Washington Capitals, for whom Simon scored 29 goals one season, were “deeply saddened” over it all and Zach Leonsis, an executive with the company that owns the Capitals, was “heartbroken.” The Calgary Flames, with whom Simon came within one game of winning a Stanley Cup in 2004, went with the ever-popular “thoughts and prayers” because you can never go wrong with thoughts and prayers.