Odessa’s Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 4/29/2024

Dear friends,

I leave for home this Thursday, and I’ve never been so ready for a semester to be over (although, it’s looking like I’ll still be working on some of these papers at home). This semester has been so joyful and so hellish. I now know enough about stress physiology to know that my blood pressure must be at worrying levels.

Anyway, some week highlights!

Going to a Yankees Game!! Thank you Michael for bringing us as his guests! Even though they lost, it was so wonderful to watch such an iconic team (although, the Giants have my heart forever).

Spring Fling was on Saturday — hereby termed the worst possible Saturday to tour Yale…well, depending on what you’re looking for. Spring Fling is where the game is maintaining a certain level of tipsiness in a festival-esque outfit. There is also music. The student bands killed it. Also Dayglow and Swae Lee. Each performer admitted a little shock that us nerds know how to have fun. As Dayglow put it “you’re smart but you’re also cool.”

I’ve ended up deciding to pass/fail my epics class — I only really took it to read these six epics. But one last final ode to the delicious prose of Ulysses: “Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.” I still need to write a paper on Ulysses. I think I may write something to the effect of the meaning of home and homeland for Joyce’s Jewish main character: Leopold Bloom. In other news, I think Ulysses is basically the Torah. Turn it. Turn it. Everything’s in there.

Oh! Excellent news for us slouchers of the world. All this fretting over good posture actually stems from racist eugenists who were worried we’d become degenerate if we slouch. Also, this false causal relationship between declining rates of tuberculosis and good posture. Read more here!

Also Rube Goldberg. Mr. Rube Goldberg. Why did I always think Rube was a woman? Apologies for misgendering dear Rube. I suppose I can thank my dad for making me assume that obviously, all engineers would be women. I highly recommend this read into the history of Rube Goldberg, and the delightful way it creatively counters our hyperefficient society.

Speaking of engineering, I was reminded of one of my favorite students from when I taught robotics in high school (shout out Reaching Out With Robotics!), Byron. I nicknamed him Lord Byron after the Romantic poet, and this week I learned a lot more about Lord Byron via this book review. Lord Byron was remarkably agile in his poetry and lifestyle.

This podcast from Freakonomics on stories of unintended consequences — well-produced as always. And this review of a new book on the fashion of the French Revolution was fabulous, but aside from the content, I particularly enjoyed how the writer honed in on Prof Higonnet’s “yelp” of discovery.

Happy belated Earth Day! I was especially amazed by this octopus photographer — pretty fucking cool!

On the last day of class, Prof Ehrgoood of Daily Themes quoted Baudelaire: “You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.”

Perhaps my new motto now that I’m 21 —kidding, kidding. But I have also been thinking a lot about the idea of being drunk on virtue.

And here’s a great episode of Decoder Ring on “Making Real Music for a Fake Band” — with all this background into the making of the new Broadway play Stereophonic. Kinda in conversation with this article on how they imitated tennis for the new Challengers movie.

Oh! Can anyone connect me with Jacqueline Lobel? I’m dying to attend a Shtick dinner party feat. here in the NYT — as Lobel calls it “Jewish communal dining experiences that are sexy.”

Last night, I went to an epic final round of a months-long bananagrams tournament to cheer Danya on. There were only banana-themed snacks (banana Pocky, banana mochi, dried banana, banana bread, etc), and only banana-themed music played. I very much appreciated their commitment to the bit.

Underclassmen keep asking me if I’m ready for senior year. I wasn’t sure what to say at first. My immediate response was no. I never think I’m going to be ready until I get to that point. But I do feel ready. I’m ready for senior year. I’m excited for senior year. I want to set new goals, scratch a bunch of things off my bucket list, and cherish all this wild time with people I love.

But first, summer!

With love & curiosity,

Odessa