Just A Peck 0033 // Board Games, Blizzards, Big Apple
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here! New issues come out most Sundays. Unsubscribe at any time.
- Journal
- What I Read This Week
- Memories
- Quick Links
- What I'm Excited About
- My Favorite Quote of the Week
JOURNAL
We had a game night with friends on Monday. Brandy took home the trophy (“First Purr-ize”) for dominating in warmup game of Rack-O. (Something we haven’t played in many years.)
Jody was off for winter break, so we had a short NYC trip to visit Spencer, see his new place, and catch a few shows. Our original plan was to leave Wednesday morning for our afternoon flight, but we decided to leave on Tuesday night instead to avoid the weather. It’s a good thing we did. Even though driving the Prius through a blizzard wasn’t pleasant, there is no way we would have made it out through the several feet of drifted snow in our driveway on Wednesday morning. Our flight on Wednesday was a little delayed because the amount of de-icing required, but we felt reassured that they weren’t rushing the process.
We made it to New York without issues. On Thursday, the first of our six scheduled shows was cancelled, so Jody and I got to Carnegie Hall instead. (We didn’t even need to practice!)
We grabbed lunch at a cozy little nearby ramen place with a Manga drink menu.
We met up with Spencer afterwards and we were able to spend two lovely days with him.
We visited the New York Public Library and saw the original stuffed animals that belonged to A.A. Milne’s son Christopher Robin.
On Thursday evening we saw Maybe Happy Ending which was the big winner at the Tonys last year winning six awards, including Best Musical. It was sweet. (This is not my photo.)
On Friday, it rained all day. We visited Spencer’s new digs in Harlem. It’s a basement space that I don’t think was intended to be an apartment, and I’m not certain of its legal status, but it’s a huge space that Spencer and his roommates have made into a really awesome home. There are two living rooms, a music nook, three bedrooms (including Spencer’s which is the size of some full apartments), a closet-slash-recording-booth, two bathrooms, art on every surface, a semi-private courtyard, and a weird grotto entrance filled with alley cats that feels equal parts European and dangerous. It’s a phenomenal spot.
Then we tried some mixed-reality theater at The Shed–a piece called An Ark. It was an interesting experiment, and it’s fascinating to think about where the edges of theater actually are.
After the show, we headed to NoHo to check out an amazing little used bookstore called Codex.
We met our friend, Alyson, who is in town for a couple of months, grabbed dinner, and then saw Bug. It was outstanding. We all grabbed a drink afterward to discuss and saw the Delorean from Back to the Future pass us on the street. (Production photo of Bug is not mine.)
We had two more shows and another day to spend with Spencer, but once again an impending blizzard forced us to leave early, so we said a quick goodbye, and grabbed an early flight back to the midwest. As we were preparing to take off, the pilot let us know that we’d be “flying a little crippled” since one of the generators wasn’t working. (We made it back without issues.)
It was sad to lose a day with Spencer, and weather related travel issues both on the way there and on the way back (plus the rainy weather while we were there) made things less than ideal, but it’s always awesome to spend time with Spencer, regardless of the quantity or dampness of the time involved.
WHAT I READ THIS WEEK
In Progress:
- Playground, Powers
- Middlemarch, Eliot
- Hollywood: The Oral History, Bassinger, Wasson
MEMORIES
Five Years Ago:
Five years ago, Jody and I went to visit some huge piles of stacked blue ice at Stony Point.
Ten Years Ago:
Ten years ago, Spencer and I were on a long car trip to an audition and recorded the first of our Car Trip Raps, using Siri doing long division as a beat. (You can see the video of that rap, here.)
That was also the trip where Spencer had let his grow out into a crazy orange Bob Ross-esque fro for a show.
QUICK LINKS
- Modern collective nouns
- Early photographic fakes
- How far back in time can you understand English?
- 26 useful concepts for 2026
- Peter Strausfeld's linocut posters for classic cinema
- Chris Arnade walks Duluth
- Seeing Theory: A visual introduction to probability and statistics
WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Mathematicians believe fervently that their work is as elegant, subtle, and rich as any work of music. But everyone can appreciate music, even if they lack the slightest knowledge of how to read a musical score. For outsiders to mathematics--which is to say, for almost everyone--advanced mathematics is a symphony played out in silence, and all they can do is look befuddled at a stage full of musicians sawing away to no apparent effect.
The headphones that would let everyone hear that music do exist, but they can only be built one pair at a time, by the person who intends to wear them, and the process takes years. Few people take the trouble."
-- Edward Dolnick
That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!