PicoBlog

I used to think that the goal was to be the calmest person in the room. In pursuit of this goal, I spent many years attempting to shift my biggest emotions into states of relaxation, positivity, and optimism. Truth is— I’m over the bullsh*t Wellness Culture™ requirement that we should be happy, calm, and positive all the time. For a long time, I thought you could only be a healthy adult if you were happy, calm, and relaxed.

Good morning. Let’s basketball. Venus and Adonis; Francisco Goya; 1771 Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers beat Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets 126-121 on Tuesday. Embiid, the two-time reigning NBA scoring champ, had 41 points to go with 10 assists and seven rebounds. He actually broke his streak of 30-10 games because Jokic soaked up a ton of offensive rebounds. Jokic had 25-19-3 himself. But the win over the fellow MVP-adorned center in an instant classic is probably enough for Embiid to sleep well.

There is a famous stereotype that Belarusians eat only potatoes and are a potato-obsessed nation. As it turned out – I am a very stereotypical Belarusian in this regard, because my favorite food is…drumroll… potatoes! I just don’t think anything could be so versatile, tasty, comforting, easy to cook, and always in abundance. I can definitely eat potatoes every day and never get tired of it. A few weeks ago, as my husband and I were driving somewhere and talking, the conversation turned to childhood memories, and I mentioned how I loved planting potatoes in spring and harvesting them in autumn.

Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's greatest scientific philosophers, is perhaps best known for the falsification principle, a foundation of the modern scientific method.  The basis of Popper’s falsification principle is this: in order for a theory to be objectively accepted as scientific, it needs to be able to be proven false. Popper believed that nothing can be definitively proven without falsification, and he held that theories should always be subject to experimentation and challenged by new information.

I almost fell off my chair last month when I saw that Kim Severson, a New York Times correspondent who covers the nation's food culture, became a paid subscriber. I had to take advantage of the situation. So, I asked her if we could discuss what journalism brings to food writing, and how she does it so well. (I have unlocked all The New York Times stories I’ve linked to.

Now, this may surprise you, but I am not synonymous with Versace. But it’s the fashion house that I’m the most sentimental about, the one that turns me right back into a teenager. And I’ve been Versace-ing hard this week – firstly watching the Super Models documentary with Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell, and following that, an Icons event that Donatella Versace hosted in Manhattan. (The photographs are hilarious: I am the only one in a pink Versace shirt, surrounded by a sea of minxes in black dresses).

A couple of weeks ago, I brought you the news that an Arby’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was closing, a location that opened in 1968 and still retained its original 10-gallon-hat sign. It was a heartbreaker: The hat was in excellent condition and had recently been restored. Well, as many of my kind followers did for me through my Instagram inbox, I'm happy to report that the sign has been saved.

Everything in life has an Alpha and an Omega, a beginning and an end. Alpha Donuts’ beginning was in 1975, when coffee shops in New York City were as common as Starbucks are today, if not more so. Alpha’s Omega came last week when the beloved greasy spoon on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside closed for good. The longtime owner, Patty Zorbas, told the Long Island City Post’s Michael Dorgan that the Omega came not because of a rent hike — it wasn't that bad, actually — but because of the residual damage inflicted by the pandemic.

“Facts don’t care about your feelings,” is probably the most famous thing conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has ever said or ever will say and he wears his own pithy quotation on what is likely the first hoodie he’s ever had the misfortune to wear. He’s wearing it in a chart-topping music video with Canadian rapper and YouTuber, Tom MacDonald. They want you to know—seriously guys—that they do not care, not one little bit, if they offend you.