constellations #107: ringing endorsements no. 2

Hi again.

A couple years ago, I sent out a newsletter with recommendations from friends. I asked a handful of beloved pals to each send me a recommendation for one thing—a book, a song, a food, an activity; anything, really, that they wanted to share. The results were varied and delightful. So this month, I decided to do it again. Below, you’ll find a suite of endorsements from some people I adore. Enjoy!

(Remember last month, when I was like, I want this newsletter to be more focused on the world outside my own head, not just my own nostalgia? Look at this: nine lovely entries from people who are not me. True to my word!)

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Courtney Pasko is a writer and library worker in Baltimore. She has a newsletter called The Country of the Story.

I recently moved to a house with a front porch. The elderly man next door tosses handfuls of birdseed out on the front walk each morning, and I like to sit outside with my coffee before work and watch the local birds go about their business. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to meditation, a habit that doesn’t ask anything of me or the world except attention and existence. I try to stay off my phone, including music, and use a trusty field guide to identify the birds. There are regulars: finches, mourning doves, a young cardinal couple, and a common starling that hauls comically oversized weeds to his nest in the eaves of one of the rowhomes. Last week I spotted a bluejay. Birdwatching hikes and excursions are great but I want to particularly suggest something more passive and ritualistic (and tech-free). I recommend returning to a particular window of nature over time, often enough to observe what changes and what persists.

Sean Hagerty sells vintage in Upstate NY via Swan Shop Vintage.

I’m still young but I’m aging and I’m feeling it. No serious medical issues, thankfully, but some low-level indigestion and a steadily receding hairline. The New Balances have been getting more foot-time than the engineer boots. I always come to the shows with my custom earplugs, and I hate to admit it but — I’m asking how many bands are on the bill. I’m losing my edge. 

So you can imagine my excitement when I started to get into Cameron Winter’s album Heavy Metal. It came out in December so it’s not NEW-new, but for a geezer like me to connect so deeply to an album put out by a 22-year-old, it’s got me feeling like Grandpa Joe hopping out of that 4 person bed. I’m hip again.

The track that hits me the hardest is “Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed).”

Christina Casillo is a photographer who also writes a newsletter called Burger Diva where she’s been eating her way through the burgers of NYC and beyond.

When I was going through Big Breakup back in 2023, I was constantly on a quest to fill my brain with things that weren’t my own thoughts. The bulk of these distractions came in the form of podcasts, but there’s one that has stuck with me, which is the podcast Perfect Person — to this day it’s the only Patreon I subscribe to. Perfect Person is an advice podcast that was started by Miles Bonsignore, who was previously a podcast producer with The Try Guys. Listeners leave a voicemail with the issue they’re facing and Miles and his guest of the week call the listener back to work out the problem. It’s a comedic podcast at its core with questions like "how do I tell my roommate that her cat keeps leaving skid marks around the apartment?" or "I threw up in my crush’s car, now what?" but has its heartfelt moments, too. My personal favorites are the bachelor episodes where Miles has his friends and callers go on silly simulated dates. I was even featured on an episode (paywalled, sorry!) to get advice on my burger Substack.

Thamy Almeida is a historian of Latin American media and popular culture and writes a newsletter called Raised by TV.

As someone who loves coffee but does not love to stare at the ceiling wide awake at one in the morning wondering why on earth I decided to have a coffee at 2:30 p.m., I often need just a lil caffeine treat around lunchtime. During the winter months that’s usually an oat cortado, but as the days get warmer I opt for an espresso tonic: enough caffeine to help me through any afternoon writing/reading tasks without making me feel dehydrated and over-caffeinated. It’s certainly an acquired taste, as evident by the fact that I have (hopelessly) visited four coffee shops in three different cities over the last week searching for it. [Ed. note: One of these was with me! I felt so bad when the barista told Thamy they had taken espresso tonics off the menu.] But if you haven’t yet, then I recommend trying it. (And if you own a coffee shop, I recommend adding it to your menu!)

Olivia Horn writes about art and music, and is an editor at Artsy.

New York Liberty tickets have been getting more expensive by the season, and now that our girls are WNBA champions, safe to say the days of decent seats for $30 are gone. My second-favorite NY sports team—the most fun for the least money—is the Brooklyn Cyclones.

There’s the scenery: Maimonides Park looks out over the ocean!! There’s the pageantry: The Cyclones are, frankly, not that good (65-67 last year), and they really up the entertainment value with shtick. The emcee is a man with strong used car salesman vibes and a stronger fake tan who calls himself  “King Henry.” There are a lot of recurring skits and contests between innings; my favorite is the foot race between some guys in ketchup, mustard, and relish costumes. 

On Fridays, a ticket and two beers are just $25. There are fireworks on Saturdays. You can ride the rides at Coney Island after. Imo, no better way to spend a summer evening.

Elle Mannion is a producer for NPR Music.

The card game Swoop

A few years ago, my aunt taught me a card game called Swoop. (Or, I guess, called Swipe, Swoosh or Swish, depending on who you ask.) I then taught it to a group of my friends, and we have been playing it every Monday night since. It has all the makings of a perfect card game to me: very easy to learn, a healthy mix of luck and strategy, sometimes thrilling, but not so consuming that you can’t hold a conversation during it. I think it’s best learned from playing it with someone who’s played before, but I also found this funny website with instructions that are pretty close to what I was taught. (Note: I don’t play with jokers and believe a swoop can be made with four or more cards.) My friends and I have been spreading the good word of Swoop for a while now, and have yet to teach it to someone who doesn’t love it. [Ed. note: Elle taught me to play Swoop last year and now I’m obsessed. She’s a great teacher and it’s a great game.]

Mac Edgerly is a writer and comedian who publishes the newsletter Mild News. He also makes music as Celebrity Apartment. 

I’ve never done a pull-up in my life. I’ve never been able to. Part of me has always been a little bit disappointed that I can’t do one, and so lately I’ve been practicing. Getting ourselves up is a one of the foundational parts of the human experience. It’s one of the first things we as babies learn how to do. “Uppies” is one of our first requests. We beckon for our parents, anyone really, to take us from the ground and put us somewhere else. Somewhere up. It’s one of our earliest recognitions that there’s a world beyond our basic needs. We recognize that there is down and there is up, and one is definitely more preferable.  

As I’ve continued to age I’ve had these moments where getting up feels like a chore. Rising from a seat or maneuvering off of a couch sometimes takes a little bit of thought. Do I actually want to get up? Is it even worth it? When I have these moments I foresee a desperate future; I don’t want to be one of those old people who can barely get around, who gets trapped whenever they stop standing up. I’m trying to do a pull-up because I want to be independent. I want to be up whenever I want. 

So far I’m halfway there. I can either sort of hang for thirty seconds or pull my whole body up about four inches. In these moments I see myself among our ancient ancestors thousands of years ago hanging around in the trees at dusk, not a cell phone in sight. And so I guess I’m endorsing the concept of Up even though I actually think I’m just bragging that I can almost do a pull-up. I feel like it’s been good for my posture and maybe that’s a good enough endorsement too. 

Nina Corcoran is an associate staff writer at Pitchfork.

The documentary Secret Mall Apartment by Jeremy Workman

It’s best to go in as blind as possible, but the gist is that we follow eight Rhode Islanders who, true to the title, created a secret apartment inside the Providence mall in 2003 without anyone knowing. The majority of the film is self-shot footage by the friends themselves, and it’s unbelievable to watch as their story comes together in real time through grainy point-and-shoot cameras. What the documentary does best, though, is capture the contagious high of hanging out with the most free-spirited artists you know (if you’re lucky to have such friends) and the ways they inspire you to create for the sake of creating, without caring about or even knowing what step comes next. Technically the documentary premiered in 2024, but the director has been elongating the rollout, hopping from one indie theater to the next and back again, all across the country. There’s no streaming plans yet. Even that aspect of it—the patience of slowly touring your documentary, prioritizing human connection, exemplifying the experience of being present in a theater without phones—struck me. As someone who dreads change, I wasn’t prepared to be so moved by the way impermanence is viewed and lived by the people involved with this project. Take 90 minutes out of your day to go see this movie (and the very fun, very nostalgic pre-show credits) in a theater. [Ed. note: I saw this earlier this month and it moved me to tears, several times!]

Matt Stieb is a reporter at New York Magazine.

Planet Fitness

I think it’s fifteen bucks. I saw a guy FaceTime a parrot here. Like America, it’s a scam and a deal at the same time and you can wear anything you want.

Red Rocks!!!!!

Here are some other things I have been consuming lately: The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman by Niko Stratis (whom I interviewed for the Los Angeles Review of Books); See Friendship by Jeremy Gordon; the second half of Like Love by Maggie Nelson for my long-delayed two-person book club with Madeline; The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young; a really great birthday dinner at Pickerel in Providence; so many cookies from Sweet Maresa’s in Kingston, NY; Horse Jumper of Love and Boo Boo Spoiler at Tubby’s; Kim Gordon and Kassie Krut at Pioneer Works; DJ E and YHWH Nailgun at Elsewhere; Rilo Kiley at Red Rocks, plus two absolutely perfect days in Colorado with a lifelong friend—wow! friend vacations are so good!; my little sister’s wedding :’)

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This time last year I was: suffering (lol); and before that, drinking Diet Coke, daydreaming, and thinking about self-respect

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Thanks for reading, and thanks to all my precious friends for their recommendations. See you next month.

xo,
M