Morning Brew - ☕️ The eighth dimension

Hello and happy Friday, Essentialistas. Tomorrow, I’m boarding an Amtrak train that will take me from NYC→LA, with just one transfer in Chicago. I plan to make sure everyone knows I am the main character of my life movie by staring pensively out the window for all three days of the trip.

—Jamie Wilde

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Working during a time when I can’t cry out, “Quick! What’s a synonym for ‘unprecedented’?”—or bond with coworkers over synchronized bathroom schedules—means finding new ways to stay connected.

Here’s how Morning Brew’s using tech in a way that’s made me feel like I’ve met fellow writer Toby Howell IRL—even if I have no clue whether he wears Sperrys, Allbirds, Uggs, or Yeezys. Feel free to take any or all of these ideas to your own workplace.

Slack: Morning Brew has always communicated via a labyrinth of Slack channels and threads. But we’ve shaken them up to simulate the kind of water cooler small talk Steve Jobs so highly values for cross-team collaboration. One change: We created a team-wide #what_have_you_been_working_on channel where we share any work wins from the week on Fridays.

Donut: Besides being a natural pairing for a company that secretly supposedly sells coffee, this tool is excellent for connecting coworkers across teams. Donut sets up “coffee chats” between coworkers through an integration with Slack.

• This week, I had the joy of telling Jason, Marilyn, and Theo about how my WFH desk is a beer pong table. Nifty, right?

Zoom/Google Meet: We make sure our team meetings are done face-to-virtual-face, and we set aside five minutes at the start of our weekly editorial meetings for small talk. We were bullish on Zoom at first, but then Google Meet got some upgrades. For instance, in June Google announced “customizable wallpapers,” allowing us to change our backgrounds to embarrassing pictures of each other using either service.

Phone calls: For one-on-one catch-ups, including biweekly check-ins with my editor and quick brainstorming sessions, the humble phone call is king. 

Give back: To anyone affected by this week’s explosion in Beirut, my thoughts and my heart are with you and your family. Anyone who’s in a position to help can donate to the Lebanese Red Cross directly right here. 

• To become more informed about the current state of Lebanon, try reading Brew writer Eliza’s recent piece about what happened and her October piece about Lebanon’s economic uncertainty. For a deeper dive, I recommend this Time article.

Consider this empty space a moment of silence between you, me, and other readers.

Rabbit hole: If I could write a little more like any journalist, it would be Caity Weaver. Her pieces make me belly-laugh. They’re full of biting wit that never crosses the line into being mean, and they’re informative as heck. Here are my favorites:

1. A Review of the Delirious New Diet Coke Flavors (GQ)

• Teaser: "Like a mediocre version of Jesus’ classic miracle, Diet Coke Twisted Mango transforms into Basically Mango Juice if left out overnight."

2. The Particular Sheen of America by Amtrak (NYT)

• Teaser: “Train people are also individuals for whom small talk is as invigorating as a rail of cocaine.”

3. What Is Glitter? (NYT)

• Teaser: “The specific events that led to the initial dispersal of glitter are nebulous; in true glitter fashion, all of a sudden, it was simply everywhere.”

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Elevated noods: I love making instant ramen the old school way with just water (Shin Cup is number one), but I highly recommend learning how to dress it up:

1. Add an egg: You can slip a whole egg under the noodles during or after cooking to poach it or slowly pour a beaten egg through the tines of a fork to create egg drop-style ribbons.
2. Replace the water: Drain your noodles after cooking, and heat up new water for your broth. Some argue this method strips away intentionally added oils, but I personally prefer the clearer, lighter broth it creates. (It's most likely a myth that this removes toxins.)
3. Mix and match: American cheese, scallions, butter, and sesame seeds are all classic additions to this humble hangover food.

• Bonus: You can customize your own Cup Noodles at this Yokohama museum.

Sundrenched tunes: Hiding from East Coast tornados has led me to seek out songs from my homeland: southern California. Here’s a ’90s throwback playlist from my favorite local radio station. If you want to pretend you’re in a convertible cruising down PCH with me, try my personal playlist full of local bands. If you’d rather make fun of my homeland, watch this SNL skit.

• This r/preformances Reddit resurfaces concerts big artists did “before they were known.” My favorite right now is this one of No Doubt at Cal State Fullerton.

+ Not California-based, but Glass Animals has a new album that makes me feel like I’m floating in a pool of holographic jello. 

Claiming that “8D music” reaches eight dimensions may be a bit exaggerated, considering Matthew McConaughey had to launch himself through time and space towards a technicolor bookshelf just to reach five. But the name definitely ups the intrigue.

What is it? When music mixers play with post-processing to make it feel like songs are floating around in your head. Some say it triggers an out-of-body experience or makes them feel like they’re swaying back and forth at a concert. For me, my eyes involuntarily follow the movement around the room and—maybe because I have benign paroxysmal positional vertigo—that disorients me a bit.

• Either way, I think it would be really cool at a socially distanced silent disco.

Why am I talking about it? The genre saw a surge in popularity toward the beginning of the pandemic. Try listening to any of these 10 songs with your headphones on to see what the hype’s about. 

Nicolò Campo/Getty Images

If Ralph Waldo Emerson’s saying that “Earth laughs in flowers” is true, then Earth is doubled over wheezing and snorting at these famed sunflower fields in Tuscany.

And that concludes the 52nd edition of The Essentials, a little newsletter we started to ease quarantine boredom that has become a Boomer in just a few short months. Hope you have a great weekend and, as always, don’t be shy about replying with comments, questions, suggestions, pictures of cute dogs, etc.