Just A Peck 0042 // Corey, Statesmen, Bookstores
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here!
JOURNAL
Corey turned 32 this week! That’s right 25, which seems wildly improbable since I clearly remember him being born in a crowded University Hospital in Madison only a few years ago. He’s as gentle-hearted, loving, and hilarious as ever. We are so proud of the awesome man he has grown into. We couldn’t gather in person to celebrate him, but we gave him a birthday call, and his brothers joined him virtually for a night of gaming.
More awesome (and colorful) theater this week! The show that Kaylee is stage managing opened at the Playhouse, and it turned out so well. It takes an enormous amount of patience and diligence to be a stage manager, especially for a musical with this many children. She absolutely rocked it. Go Kaylee!
We also saw the production of SpongeBob at UMD that our friend Matthew directed and choreographed. (Jody saw it twice!) It was outstanding. Matthew is brilliant, and this cohort of UMD students is very talented.
One of Alex’s formative university experiences was joining an elite men’s chorus called The Singing Statesmen. The Statesmen had their spring concert this week in Eau Claire and since this year is the 60th Anniversary of the Statesmen, they made it an Anniversary Concert too. 160 alumni returned to sing along with the four living conductors from the past sixty years. Alex’s conductor, Doc Schwartzhoff, conducted for nearly half of those sixty years and returned to conduct one final song—a powerful rendition of Consecrate the Place and Day. The concert also featured some of our favorites, including I Have Had Singing and Mother. We loved it so much.
Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day! I threw on my Oxford Comma Preservation Society t-shirt and spent the day browsing stacks and thinking about books. Such a joy. By the end of the day, I was able to make a purchase at nine bookstores across five cities. Every store was packed, and in so many the curation was excellent. Support indie bookstores all year, everyone! (Also, this was National Library Week! Go check out a book!)
WHAT I READ THIS WEEK
In Progress:
- Where the Axe is Buried, Nayler
- Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter
- Hollywood: The Oral History, Basinger, Wasson
MEMORIES
Five Years Ago:
During her pandemic gap year, Kaylee took a life-changing job at a nature-based preschool inside the Lake Superior Zoo. She went back to school, switched her major to focus on nature-based preschool education, and returned to the Zoo School after graduating. It’s so awesome to see the passion she brings to her work there.
Ten Years Ago:
I got my first glimpse of the floorplans for the NorShor Theatre renovation. Little did I know then how many hours I would spend in the rooms outlined on those poster boards.
QUICK LINKS
- An interactive 3D map of Homegrown 2026
- iPhone video of the far side of the moon
- Interactive Infographic of baby name popularity trends
- The Cheese Map: Charting the combinatorial space of CHEESE!
- xkcd: Types of Board Game
- The working cats of NYC bodegas
- The handmade beauty of Machine Age data visualizations
- Cosmic Odometer: how far have you traveled since birth?
- Mattel's theatrical trailer for the Intellivision
- Extrapolated Futures Archive: SF stories that already worked through real-world scenarios
- A fully searchable 11th edition Encyclopedia Britannica
WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT
This week is the Twin Ports' Homegrown Music Festival—a city-wide eight-day party with hundreds of bands playing all over Duluth and Superior. It’s pretty special. If you’ve never been and want to join the celebration, let me know.
Duluth has one of the best classical ateliers in the world? Of course it does. I go to the GLAFA Open House every year and I’m stunned that this kind of arts education still exists anywhere in the world, let alone here in Duluth.
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“He had no intention of writing. He loved reading, that was all. And he read books that he thought so far beyond anything that he himself could dream of achieving that any thought of writing instantly evaporated into the certainty of failure. How could you even start? Read Dickens, read Dostoevsky. Read Thomas Hardy. Read any page in any story by Chekhov, and any responsible person would go ah lads, put down their pencil and walk away.”
-- Niall Williams
That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!