PicoBlog

Monopoly is a staple in homes across America. Copies of it are plentiful — I have one in my house, too. It’s a Star Trek: The Next Generation edition, and it has delightful pewter miniatures. I don’t know the last time I played it — I was probably 10, maybe? I have fond memories of looking at that, playing with the miniatures, flipping the box around. Playing it? I don’t have fond memories of that.

"Seattle's hills have been its pride and they have been its problem; they have given the city distinction and they have stood in the way of progress," wrote Sophie Frye Bass in her 1947 memoir, When Seattle Was a Village. As the granddaughter of city founder Arthur Denny, Bass was in a good position to witness the early history of Seattle and her book is often credited with popularizing the romantic notion that Seattle was built on seven hills, just like ancient Rome.

I’ve seen in the last few weeks a lot of PRO/REL advocates angry at USL Championship growth. I discussed this on Twitter the other day, but I realize that isn’t the place for long-form content or fleshing out the entire picture with multiple perspectives. Therefore I am expanding that discussion here and giving more background on what is actually happening. I understand the sentiment that demands instant promotion and relegation and have sympathy for it, but several key factors have to be worked through by USL before they institute a system of promotion and relegation.

This review originally appeared on Forbes. I’m revisiting it because another piece I was working on reminded me of how truly disappointing this sequel was after a really strong five seasons of the main show. Enjoy! The Last Kingdom is one of my favorite Netflix shows, though I watched its five seasons spread out over the course of eight years, having only just finished Season 5. The story of Uhtred son of Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) based on the Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell reached a satisfying, if slightly rushed, conclusion in its final season.

Released 55 years ago, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet became a zeitgeist-capturing hit. Later generations almost invariably first encountered it in English class, where it would become a supplemental staple to units covering Romeo and Juliet, the first Shakespeare play most people encounter as high school students. That’s where I first watched it and, having not revisited it since, I decided to watch it again after receiving the new Criterion Blu-ray, which the company released on Valentine’s Day.

[Sorry for the delay on this post. Moving was, unsurprisingly, completely all-consuming and in my spare moments, I was busy rewatching “Sex Education”!] Netflix’s “Sex Education,” which released all eight episodes of its third season a few weeks ago, is one of the best shows about teenagers on television today—or perhaps ever. It perfectly encapsulates the genre of “woke” Gen Z television in terms of its message, characters, representation, and themes.

It’s been a quiet few weeks here at Strong Paw. When I’m not publishing the newsletter, it’s usually because I’m spending my morning writing hours doing other things. In this case, I’ve been doing a fair bit of public facing writing that will be bubbling up in the near future. Some of it is co-writing about food with Jan that isn’t out yet, including a long-form and programmatic essay on the future of “lab grown” cultured synthetic meat and a review of Mark Bittman’s new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk.

Hi friends, Hope you had a great weekend. Before I dive into today’s recommendations I want to thank Leigh Kamping-Carder for shouting out What To Read If as the one newsletter she always reads in Inbox Collective last week. Leigh writes , a fantastic newsletter for people born with heart conditions (and those who care about them). Check it out!And, now, what to read if… Tomorrow, April 23, would be William Shakespeare’s 460th birthday, but journalist and book critic Elizabeth Winkler would likely say it’s the birthday of random man, not the writer of the plays and sonnets that remain beloved today.

American Dreaming contributor Johan Pregmo has a new piece out in Queer Majority about his journey down the gender-nonconformity rabbit hole: “NB, or Not to Be.” It’s quite good. In the 2001 Farrelly Brothers romantic comedy “Shallow Hal”, Jack Black’s title character, a shallow man purely interested in women for their physical attractiveness, is hypnotized to see only people’s inner beauty. Through these inner-beauty goggles, Hal sees people not as they appear in reality, but as they figuratively look on the inside.