Grandpa’s Basement House, Strong Towns, Johnny Sanphillippo, August 13, 2021

I have never seen or heard of the building type that sparked this article: a house whose basement was built first, and finished into a living space, before an actual house was built on top of it. As the family living there saved up, they would eventually build an above-ground floor or two on top.

This kind of thing is frowned on today for aesthetic and regulatory reasons, but it also allowed people the flexibility to grow slowly along with their home without taking on debt. But as Sanphillippo often notes, this sort of thing is a dispatch from a lost world. It isn’t going to happen again, at least not the same way or anytime soon. What does this kind of incrementalism and flexibility look like today? Can it be made compatible with the economic and cultural expectations of a rich country? I think that’s a really big question here.

Toys R Us to make a comeback with new toy shops inside more than 400 Macy's stores, USA Today, Kelly Tyko, August 19, 2021

This news story is a fascinating little bit of modern capitalism. Toys ‘R’ Us itself, the actual company that was founded in 1948 and more or less invented the “category killer” retail concept, is basically dead. The company that is engineering this comeback is called Tru Kids, a new entity which purchased all of the Toys ‘R’ Us intellectual property and launched in early 2019.

This reincarnation of the toy giant will now exist as stores within a store, effectively acting as a toy department for Macy’s, enhancing their status as genuine department stores rather than merely clothing emporiums. Toys ‘R’ Us already has a section on the Macy’s website. For me, this raises a “Ship of Theseus” question: is this really Toys ‘R’ Us, or not?

Oktoberfestbier vs. Märzen vs. Festbier, Craft Beering

My wife and I like to try different kinds of beer and are big fans of the craft beer scene in Virginia and Maryland, but we actually don’t know much about the currently ubiquitous Oktoberfest-style beers. We’ve only tried a handful over the years, and for some reason most American attempts at the style don’t review that well, and the few we’ve tried haven’t been great. But we’re still trying them out, and I did some reading about the style.

As far as I can tell, Festbier is what’s currently served at Oktoberfest in Germany, for the last 20 years or so. Before that, going back to the 1800s, Märzen was considered the Oktoberfest style. In America today, what’s marketed as Oktoberfest-style beer is still Märzen, despite that no longer being the flagship Oktoberfest beer in Germany. If this interests you, read the whole thing. (And if you like beer, support your local craft and microbreweries. These are seriously creative small businesses. Many are even quite family friendly!)

Bucatini Is the Best Long Pasta There Ever Was or Will Be, Bon Appetit, Alex Delany, February 5, 2018

Yep, we’re heavy on food and drink this week. This makes a fun pairing with a piece on the 2020 bucatini shortage, but first things first. Bucatini is basically hollow spaghetti. I don’t like it, myself—it doesn’t twirl around the fork, and the mouthfeel is kind of weird, but it’s definitely an innovative pasta design, and it’s a real Italian pasta, with similar uses as spaghetti.

According to the author, the little hole that runs through a piece of bucatini (which literally means “little hole” in Italian) fills up with sauce, and thus bucatini holds twice the sauce that spaghetti does. The one time I tried it, it didn’t do that—but maybe my sauce, or my luck, was off that day. Maybe I’ll try it again.

Related Reading:

New and Old #5

New and Old #6

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