PicoBlog

Share Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer who rose to international stardom over the last decade. Peter presents a claim about Bad Bunny to five people in San Juan, Puerto Rico: "Is Bad Bunny a good representation of humanity?" The participants discussed Bad Bunny's philanthropic work, lyrics, stardom, whether he positively represents Puerto Rican culture, and more! ncG1vNJzZmian5y1sL%2FSopinZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe8%2BunKusn2K%2Fqq%2FAp6pmr5WetKl5yKdkqKZdl66lecGupaex

The Pulitzer Prize awards, including the fiction prize, will be announced tomorrow. I have a long history of incorrectly predicting the winner, a track record I am eager to extend by incorrectly predicting this year’s prize. Before I do that, however, I’m going to predict next year’s fiction’s prize: Jamesby Percival Everett. I can’t think of a better example of “distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,” the stated criteria for the prize.

I’m a long-time podcast host, magazine editor (Condé Nast Traveler, Lucky), media exec (former chief content officer of goop), and the author of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good (Dial Press/PRH). I focus primarily on culture, and the way it lands in our bodies: Why do we do what we do? What’s us versus the stories we’re told about who we’re supposed to be?

With apologies to Run-DMC, Puma sneakers are the best. These other brands – the behemoths: Nike, Adidas, Reebok, New Balance – those brands are hot garbage. Not because the sneakers are bad per se, but because they’re not Pumas, which are the best. Take Nike, for example. How many billions do they spend on commercials every year? Many billions. How many billions does Puma spend on commercials? To my knowledge, almost zero billion.

For Cunk On Earth, we wanted to do a version of the gag we liked doing where Philomena’s grand historical story would keeping getting stuck on a repeated overlong clip of the opening titles of Brush Strokes, the show knocked off course like a dog returning to a weird smell. This had been so much fun to drop into Cunk On Britain – the wait-for-it, the idea that the first episode of Brush Strokes going out was, in historical terms, a fixed point of measurement, the same as the moon landing or the birth of Christ.

Happy Friday, friends! These Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies are completely insane, in the best kind of way. They feature a rich and fudgy brownie base with a creamy, pumpkin cheesecake topping. The tender and chewy chocolate brownie contrasts with the light and silky pumpkin-spiced topping, but together they create delicious balance. The brownies are a lesson in contrasts. Contrasts make life interesting. They teach us about what we like and (most importantly) what we don’t.

A warm welcome to the many new subscribers who have joined over the past week. As always, thank you to all subscribers. Glad you’re here. Share Time Travel Kitchen When I asked a few friends who know things whether they’d ever heard of Punch Romaine, their answer was “no”. This made me feel better about myself because the only Romaine I ever knew was part of a Caesar Salad. That all changed after I got my hands on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair Autograph Cookery Book, Favorite Dishes, put out by the Board of Lady Managers of the Fair.

Every few months I ask on Twitter for work I can consider for Pushcart nominations. I’m guessing that if you’re reading this you know what a Pushcart is, but in case you don’t, the Pushcart Prize is an anthology published every year since 1976 that is dedicated to publishing the “best of the small presses.” I’m not going to delve into what “best” means here, but I will say “small presses” means, mostly, literary journals, and that every time I ask I get lots of questions about how the nomination process works, including people who sometimes deride me for only asking on Twitter, when they, the person private-messaging me, might have missed it.

From time to time, I have mentioned my deep fondness for Cynar, the bittersweet, vegetal amaro that is sometimes reductively described as an artichoke liqueur. But I’ve been holding out somewhat.  The truth is that I am a Cynar obsessive, a diehard fanboy — to the point where I spent the better part of a decade playing a Dungeons & Dragons character named Cynar the Bardarian. Yes, I’m a huge dork.