August 30, 2024 | Read Online

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Happy Friday! If you're new to Now I Know, you'll notice that today's format differs from the rest of the week. On Fridays, I pause to write the "Weekender," my "week in review" type of thing, or to share something else I think you may find interesting. Thanks for reading! — Dan

How Sharing Fun Facts Changed My Summers

Hi!

A quick note before we get started — Monday is Labor Day in the U.S., and I’m taking the day off. I’ll next be in your inbox on Tuesday.

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer in the U.S. — the autumnal equinox is still a few weeks away, so it’s not the “real” end of the summer — and I’m not thrilled by that fact. Over the past few years, I’ve come to really appreciate the summer months, where life gets a little simpler and, here in the northeastern United States, it’s typically very nice outside. (We tend to get a lot of violent thunderstorms in recent years, but they typically hit in the evenings, so that’s not all bad.) Growing up, I really liked summer because it meant I wasn’t in school, even though I generally liked school. But after a year or two of college, that flipped. Summers became boring and fall was fun — I liked summer, sure, but I appreciated being in school more. I liked to learn (and I probably learned more from my friends than my classes). And that kind of continued as an adult. Law school was more of the same, and once you graduate, the difference between “May” and “July” is that May has typically great weather and July is way too hot to wear a suit. But either way, you’re in the office. I still preferred summer over winter, which can get very cold where I live, but spring and fall definitely surpassed it.

I think this newsletter changed that for me. As a super curious lifelong learner, the summer slowdown gives me time to lean into that; I just needed a vehicle to turn it into a habit. After more than 14 years of writing Now I Know, I think it’s safe to say that this is a habit 🙂. Summer has become a time where not only do I get to relax a bit, but I also get to spend more time learning about new things and sharing them with you.

Fall’s pretty good too (and I’m not a pumpkin spice fan), but I’ll definitely miss the summer. Until next year!

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: A Shark and a Murder, But Not the Way You Think: I circled around a bunch of different titles here and ended up with this one, but it’s a departure from what I usually do. I generally don’t say “oh, this is a weird story, make sure to read it!” because that’s often true and usually lazy. But this one, I think it worked?

Tuesday: Using Small Print to Sell a Tasty Treat: FYI, I prefer A&W to IBC, FWIW.

Wednesday: Why Bird Poop is White: Relatedly, reader John G. shared this old cartoon from The Far Side, shared here because it’s great.

Thursday: A Slippery Way to Win a Football Game: I learned this fact at least a half-decade ago and never got around to writing it up/sharing it. Better late than never!

Long Reads and Other Things

Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:

1) “Turf War” (Toronto Life, 22 minutes, August 2024). The subhead does it justice: “For 148 years, the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club was an ivy-covered bastion of civility with a roster of like-minded, blue-blooded members. Then an old-money-versus-new-money clash erupted.”

2) “How Two Wandering Cows Started a Culture War” (New York Times, 12 minutes, July 2024). This subhead is even better: “When Hornee and Blackee strayed from their pasture, they set off a chaotic chain of events involving death threats, chicken rustlers and Joaquin Phoenix. The town of Newfane, N.Y., hasn’t been the same since.” The link is a gift link; you’ll not need a Times subscription to read it.

3) “Seeding the Ocean: Inside a Michelin-Starred Chef’s Revolutionary Quest to Harvest Rice From the Sea” (Time, 28 minutes, January 2021). A story about seagrass.

Have a great weekend! See you on Tuesday.

Dan

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And thanks! — Dan