buildings…

what are all these plants around me?! oh they’re weeds mostly. ok. got it. i LOVE weeds. i mean, i don’t love them like i love my kids or my wife’s anxiety about their discomfort or honeycomb by van leeuwen or northern michigan or brian eno. but i love them in the context of their interaction with humans otherwise. the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT is anti-weeds. subsidizing roundup and all. i mean, srsly. the most powerful country in the history of the world has it out for them. ... but i like how they really green up a sidewalk crack.

and i sure am glad for native plants, to blow it out a bit. and the work those plants do to outcompete the more harmful among the less welcome plants—aka weeds. and for the people who plant and care for them nativists.

that eat-your-neighbor meeting still stands out! that and the aldermanic Q&A w daniel la spata. two real fun ones!

thanks so far. to all of you. for being good and fun neighbors! and coming by to say hi!

-----

but summer is over! and our next meeting is HAPPENING TOMORROW!!

so, what’s to come?

well, we get to ask “WHAT ARE ALL THESE BUILDINGS AROUND ME?” and andy from logan square preservation will be here to answer us. what did LOGAN SQUARE look like 100 YEARS AGO?!?!?! was it just michael shannon wandering around—looking for ammo and scaring people with his insecurity? prolly. come THIS WEDNESday to find out. (michael shannon might (not) be in attendance!)

and what about 300 years ago? we’re hoping for the chance to understand the native american land uses and stories this coming november.

and in between the two. in early october. join us as we scheme for how best to have a positive impact on the midterm elections happening on nov 3. letter writing campaigns? trips to rural michigan communities to help GOTV during early voting? all of the above? stay tuned.

-----

meantime: see you weds!

it was summer. i know this because contra the current state of childhood affairs summertime was not filled w camps. …

like, there’s a fucking cutthroat freak-out by every fake-chill mid-millennial npr-curious mostly-sustainable-until-it-comes-to-travel but actually really truly nice and enjoyable parent every, say, february when camp registration happens. (one day i’ll write the substack about how one can only truly ever write autobiographically. my subaru is like 16mpg. and every time i rent a car i change every single preset to 91.5 before returning it. i digress. too much i do.) but in the early 90s, there was one (1) camp. maybe. usually not. but then at a certain age when all your friends are signing up for basketball camp and you’re trying to make the “A” team as a 9 year old (wtf; them social media boomers were even weirder back then) you absolutely CANNOT miss basketball camp at brother rice high school. the one summer camp we altogether as friends could afford in ‘91. the year the chicago bulls reign began.

summertime, and my ma picked us all up in her minivan. from bro rice. all my friends in the back of the van. breaking shit. screaming “schlong!” in unidentifiable voices to stress out my mom and embarrass me. and we stopped at a strange shop in a strip mall to return some infant clothes for me baby sister. and at the checkout line we all saw a candy bowl full of single serving bazooka joes. and the move at the time was: theft. natch. we all snagged at least one. …

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my mom knew, of course. and waited on it. that night we were meant to go to the white sox game with the neighbors. one of the social media boomers rented a big yellow bus to take us all down. and the bus pulled up. and i had my mitt ready. and my jersey. my first white sox game! ozzie guillen! lance johnson! holy fucking shit! i was skipping around the block just stoked about the night. my dad pulled up around the same time as the bus. and my mom told him. about the gum. which had already joined the pile of pink synthesis in my lower abdomen. …

“get in the car”, he said. and we drove back down harlem to the cal sag channel. past riley’s trick shop. back to that weird store w the drop ceiling and carpet throughout. and we walked up to a random cashier (the boss, to my juvenile mind).

“i was here earlier and stole sum gum,” i said as i reached out my hand with one of my fucking nickels and gave it to him. he tucked it into his pocketed, falir’d out vest. he couldn’t possibly have reported the sale to the state, since he didn’t charge me any tax. in hindsight, who’s the real fucking thief. we drove back to my suburb, 3.5 miles and 6 years away.

apart from saying “sorry, dad” in my head, i said nothing else. just white knuckled it for the entire trip back. hoping to mother mary and her insolent kid, jesus, that the bus hadn’t left yet.

life changing. literally life changing, as maggie (^^^) says. that day, i became the guy who refused to steal. who became totally, morally opposed to it. novel! … two weeks prior, i stole 2 boxes (boxes!!!) worth of baseball card packs by shoving them into the kangaroo pouch of my starter jacket, through the hole in the bottom of it, and up into the lining of my sleeves. earlier that very week, i woke up at 5a to steal 40 dollars from my dad’s wallet so i could beat my friends to owning the special edition pencil of every single NFL football team. but now: theft was immoral. and you bet your ass i had fucking morals. i almost missed the time of my fucking life for a single serving bazooka joe? with a comic i had already seen before? never happening again… i wouldn’t even touch a single skittle from a pack my friend stine stole from walgreens the next day. and on and on through life… definitely the downer of a free candy party. but all my guys came around after two friends went to jail over a baby ruth. (no joke. cops w free time give free lessons.)

but also: that trip to comiskey park made me a die-hard white sox fan for the rest of my life. a couple years later, my parents got me tickets to a game for my birthday. oct 6. maybe 1994? i woke up at 5a that day. and jumped on my schwinn dirt bike. and rode around the block until something like 9a. so much energy! anyway. around 9a my grandpa pulled up—he was joining us at the game. i walked back into our house w him, dropping my bike on the ground of our garage on the way in. hyperactively recounting a dozen stories in as many yards en route back in.

when we got inside, my mom and dad were gathered around the tv. watching a press conference. michael jordan was retiring. if any chicago kid had a hero, it was him. a super fucking superhero. and he announced he’d be leaving basketball. forever. on my….. birthday. my 11th birthday.

devastation. the worst baseball game of my life. the worst special dinner at michael jordan’s restaurant of my life. (srsly. the timing…) … the servers came out singing happy birthday and i buried my head in my mom’s lap and punched her repeatedly in the stomach from sadness. and embarrassment.

but i recovered. frank thomas took over. we got season tickets to the sox games. i knew every stat for ever player on every team through most of the 90s.

and these days, i go to a game once every year or two. and hear “BEER HAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRR”.

my jaw starts aching. and i clench it. and feel the bazooka joe ball. still sitting in my lower abdomen.

ARMITAGE COUNTY FAIR CONTESTS!!!

please enter today.

best “BEER HERE”. think you can “BAAAAIIIIIIIRRRRRR” better than a baseball vendor? surely one of you can. the winner, i mean.

best DOG dressed as a farm animal? is that yours? i bet. cuz your dog is cuter than everyone else’s. *everyone* wants to pet it. *all* the time.

best LOOKALIKE? does your baby look like jb pritzker? does your husband look like jason sudeikis? does your wife look like minnie driver? we know there are at least 10 entries for each of the above celebs. we know. cuz we see about 4,000 chicagoans each week.

best DRESSED at the fest? we also know a good grip of you think you’ll be. so enter the competition now. we WILL NOT draft you into the contest. you WILL NOT be photographed on the street unless you enter the contest. the world is not your stage! the blue ribbon stage is, tho.

have a terrible chicago TATTOO? show us! you might win the worst in the county! or is it actually pretty good? enter! make everyone nod in begrduging support of yours, the one truly good and unique and wise chicago tattoo!

have a niche TALENT? show us! you might win best in the county!

can you eat a lot of HOT DOGS? or giardiniera? start fasting. ... can your kid eat blueberry pie real adorably so? enter and win the award for most doting parent jk jk tis trophy will be the kid’s. but you can put it next to the “pick up your dog shit” sign in your front yard!

“this, weirdly, is probably what made middle brow.”

i think i was 17. when i got a job at nordstrom. selling men’s shoes. i was terrible at it... but the money (base pay + commission—which was $0 most paychecks) was far better than anything else i could earn whacking weeds in the neighborhood or working cashier at a cops-and-criminals-and-steroids gym (some of my other jobs in high school and college). but the real treat: driving *downtown* from the suburbs. 4-5 days a week. and parking for free near michigan avenue. and exploring randolph street and all its restaurants as a 17 year old in 1999.

this, weirdly, is probably what made middle brow. i went to lula for a dumping (my own) in 2000. sat at the cute window table. wiping away the welling. ... i burned some nordstrom money on blackbird. even before that. and vevo! anyone remember marche?

but i also spent time after work at whatever street fest was happening. an easy place to drink underage. easy, relatively speaking. back then, at least. and to try dozens of *new* restaurants w my girlfriend (or my inner dialogue) while my buddies were whipping wendy’s chicken tenders at our slow-eating buddy’s head for fun.

but the soul! the variety! the randomness! the urgency! at these festivals. .... it was real! over time, of course, the difficulty and low margins in producing street fairs led to the entry of middlemen. and efficiency. and monotony. and now: a large number of festivals *feel* the same. it doesn’t mean they are! it doesn’t mean they don’t offer something real and truly beautiful to the communities behind them. they do! they absolutely do! but there’s undoubtedly been some saturation. and less reason to travel across town for a fair when you’ve got one coming up in your own hood in, like, 2 weeks time. and, really, there’s not much need to go to more than 1 or 2 per year.

and this is all ok! but!!!!! we’re also living in a time where street-level experience is so fucking important. so: we see it as our duty so make some street-level experiences. which means, for *our* street fair, we’re trying to express some corner of our soul. and the souls of our neighbors.

this longing made for a KILLER lineup! two stages of free music all day! but it also motivated us to invite all our food and bev friends to the fair.

we’re *very* excited to announce food by:

giant
le bouchon
table, donkey & stick
parson’s chicken and fish
lonesome rose
bar parisette
gretel
bang bang pie
pretty cool ice cream
the fish guy
and osteria langhe

we’re *just as* excited to feature our bev buddies:

middle brow with lagers and wines
solemn oath brewery
hopewell brewing
marz brewing with THC and NA

sorry i don’t have any picture of this yet… but did you notice that we just opened up our armitage county fair JB PRITZKER LOOKALIKE CONTEST ……………………………………………….. TO BABIES!!!

that’s right.

a JB Pritzker lookalike contest. for babies. no pritzker heirs allowed. to enter.

SIGN UP for that and our other fun-as-f county fair contests here!

it’s not a baby contest. it’s babies against adults in this jb pritzker lookalike contest.

enter yours. or your friend’s. now.

NEW WINE // a new kind of new wine party

“beddia cheese…”

also: did i mention we’re hosting JOE BEDDIA at bungalow on sep 3? haven’t really announced this one to the public yet. but the pizza eating part of it is sure to be stoked. ... snag up your tickets now! if you like pizza.

but also! if you like wine. as it’ll be our quarterly NEW WINE party. 6 wine sampels for $10. food for purchase. the famous BEDDIA cheese. and white pie. and italian hoagie on mb bread.

but what wines?!?! you ask. ... a michigan albariño. a michigan chenin. a michigan gruner. to start. yikes.

get yr tickets here. on resy. for JOE BEDDIA at MIDDLE BROW.

sungold season

“an average taco will taste transcendent if…”

i did this thing. this old thing. i mean, it was THIS NEWSLETTER SO I’M STILL DOING IT IT’S OLD AND I’M OLD AND EVERYTHING IS STALE ESP A MORNING BAGUETTE BY THE EVENING. but once upon a time i included interviews. in the letter. ... i’ll get back to it. but since it’s tomato season, and our sungold pizza is an absolute downright museumic and s.b. referenced in movies and have its own entry on urbandictionary.com and if not well then at least an exposition on rap genius. because of that. i’m including the interview i did with the tomato talker, jerry boone. of froggy meadow farm. it was a two parter, originally. we talked and talked. mostly about things other than tomatoes. but read this! it’s inspiring. inspriring enough to get you out of bed and over to green city market on saturday morning to buy whatever of his tomatoes you can. i mean: his sungold tomatoes are truly legendary. and taste nothing like any other fruit or vegetable grown by anyone in this middle western land.

here it is. from november, 2022.

—

thanks for taking time our of this super busy season to sit with me here at bungalow. so what's up for thanksgiving?

i'm just a farmer. i just work everyday.

what's work like on thanksgiving?

today i'm still doing field cleanup from the last season. we've still got radishes to pull, and a lot of other winter crops that i'm harvesting. i'm building a wash house and packing house. where you wash and pack vegetables. i have to clear some forest. i have a lot of forest on my land so i have to do a lot of tree work and then split the wood for firewood. i don't have much in the way of utilities on the farm so i have to rely on firewood for heat. there's endless things to do. i'm still planting garlic and shallots for next season.

so you're clearing forest for the health of the forest?

sorry. clearing was definitely the wrong word. it's maintenance. trees die or fall prey to some disease, and i take them down for firewood. i squeeze it in wherever i can. i don't have time to do forest management because i don't have time to think ahead. thinking ahead is way outside my ballpark. i don't think ahead for anything. everything is reactive. in 12 years i haven't run out of immediate problems to solve. much less ones to get ahead on.

it's been 12 years for us too! and i feel the same way. you try so hard to say "every monday i'm gonna focus on finances. every tuesday i'm gonna do maintenance." but you just end up putting out countless fires and never get to live an organized work life. the life of a small business owner i reckon.

i think i do financial planning once a year and it's when taxes are due. half the time i don't even know what happened last week,

you said you don't have much in the way of utilities so you use firewood for heat. is this in a stove in your house? do you have a farmhouse? is this in a barn?

my farm didn't have electricity until 2-3 years ago. also: there is no house. so up until last year when i bought a small travel trailer to stay in. before that i lived in a tent for 11 years. i put it up inside an old rickety barn. there's a wood stove in our small workshop. up until last year that was the only heated place on the farm at all.

wow. do you live there full time?

yes, unless i'm traveling. i travel in the winter for 1-2 months. i usually go to japan for a month or so. and i have sons all over the country and i visit them. and that gets me through the worst of it. in the past i lived in the tent full time but it can be harsh in jan and feb.

here's an interesting fact about my farm: there's not a single light switch on my farm. basically, there's an old house that's uninhabitable. it has an electrical panel and 8 outlets. and then there's extension cords running all over the farm and a few underground cables. this new trailer brought me into the 19th centrury. away from the tent.

well at least you were in a barn! you weren't exposed to snow overhead. does the barn have walls?

right. the barn is completely unheated. has one wall missing. so it's just a shelter overhead. that was rough. i learned a lot about living like that. it's not really too uncomfortable until you're under 20º. and then below 0º it's almost uninhabitable. it's hard to sleep at night.

do you have a bunch of good sleeping bags?

not really. i had multiple sleeping bags. the trick is a lot of insulation. just keep piling them up. i had 3 cheap sleeping bags and a few comforters. and my dog would stay with me there for a long time. and we'd just get under the covers and snuggle up. but it gets really cold. when it gets below 0º you just roll around the whole night.

but that was the price of farming. a lot of farmers retire into farming w money. other farmers start young from scratch. i started old from scratch.

why farming and what's your background? are you from this area? why here?

i grew up near frederick, maryland. on the east coast. and it was a farming area at the time. my grandfather was a dairy farmer and my father worked in a mine but had a 50-acre farm that he worked when he wasn't mining. when i was young i hated farming, like most people who grew up on farms. didn't want anyhting to do with it. so when i was 17 i ran fast away from frederick. and became a ship captain. so i did that for 25 years or more.

how do you become a ship captain? do you have to start by sweeping the decks?

yeah. i just started from scratch. i worked on some yachts. then i worked on some dinner boats. then i got my captain's license. then i started working on tugboats and offshore supply vessels. i ran fast ferries. worked in the gulf of mexico. and i'm easily bored so i would switch jobs a lot; so even among ship captains i've run a huge variety of ships.

when i was 52 maybe, it started taking a physical toll. people don't understand how tough it is. i ran smaller ships. 200 feet or so. which is not big when you're out there. so you take quite a beating. and i have kids so i'd miss them. you're gone for long periods of time.

where were you based then?

my family was moving all around at the time. we had just moved out of minnesota and my wife had moved down here in illinois. and i was tired of all the flying back and forth and other ship captain problems. so i made the crazy decision to buy a farm.

it's hard to get away from your upbringing. even though i hated it, my father laughs. because i used to be vociferous in my hatred of farming. i started off aiming to be a self-sufficient farm, not a commercial farm. that was the only concept. i got this small 10-acre property with a bunch of falling-down buildings. it was gonna be my last hurrah. i was gonna fix up this property and turn it into a base for my family. but it only took me a year or two to realize that i had to pay property taxes. which meant i had to make money which meant i had to pay income taxes. and to make enough money for that i had to have better and better equipment. and to pay for the equipment i had to have a steady source of income. which meant farming commercially. which grew into what it is now. now we're a tiny but very powerful farm.

does your family live there with you?

no! they have actual careers that earn them money. one's a mechanical engineer and the other works in international economics. in seattle and at west point.

i studied a lit bit of international economics. i merely studied it. and studying something is pretty meaningless compared to teaching or working in it. but reading it alone made it clear how complex it is. there's so much group decision-making theory and that's one of the wildest frontiers in knowledge. you're not just analyzing the brain, which is famously poorly understood, but you're analyzing several brains that are trying to work either in concert or against each other. i studied engineering first and then moved on to international politics and economics and was surprised at how much harder the latter was than physics. this, i guess, is why people management is so difficult. so... good for your son! that's impressive.

ha! i don't know what he's talking about half the time.

so you've got both coasts, huh? you really have to travel a bit in the winter when you see them?

yeah. it's nice. i get to stay with them for awhile each winter. but they like me. we have zero of those family issues.

so that brings us to wisconsin, but it sounds like it was wisconsin because you were in minnesota when you made that decision.

the farm itself was not planned. it was an opportunity. my wife was working in beloit wisconsin, which is where the farm is, and one of her patients told her that he was trying to sell his home because he was getting sick and old. we took a look at it. it was getting foreclosed on and it was very inexpensive. so we decided we'd buy it and see what happened. we had a lot of ideas as to how to make use of it that didn't involve farming. then the crash happened. and it ended up just sitting there. and i was between boat jobs and i thought "hey! i used to farm with my dad. i'm gonna do this. look how expensive the food is at farmers markets! i'm gonna get so rich!"

ha! i like that. that's exactly what we said when we started the brewery in 2010. "beer's so expensive. we're gonna give away half our profits and we'll still make money." and then, you know, the first beer came along and our "profit" was negative. so we made donations from our pockets.

but now i got a trailer!

and heat?!

yeah. i have an electric heater. last week when we got that major cold front i got the trailer up to 52º. but to me that's now pure luxury.

---------------

so why japan for a month?

back in 1999 i traveled there w my son. he graduated from high school then and i thought i'd take him there for graduation. and i was much taken by the culture. i've been back every year since. maybe 25-30 times. i consider it my second home. every year i explore deeper and deeper. i usually fly to tokyo. catch a flight to another little city like fukuoka. and then i rent a car and drive up into the mountains and farmlands and just wander around. i love the food. i love the culture. i love the attitude of the people. it's a place where you can be alone and not be strange. it's a place where you can be a solo foreign traveler and not really be in danger. people only speak to you in japan if they want to speak to you. not just because they want something from you. it's really refreshing there. it seems cold to outsiders but it's not.

one of the purposes of this year's trip is that i'm gonna buy a house. there's a lot of movement from the rural areas to the city. and many rural areas are becoming depopulated. deeply. i can find a house with a small amount of land there for less than the price of my van. i have a friend there, a college kid who worked for me when he was studying at beloit college a few years back. who is from japan and lives there now. but who stayed at my farm this past summer. and we're gonna partner up and he's gonna run the place when i'm not there. i can't emigrate to japan because i don't have a college degree and for an american it's impossible to get a work visa without that. and so froggy meadow is not my last hurrah. but this farm in japan is gonna be.

he wants to be a farmer but doesn't have any money. i don't have much but i can get the place. he'll live there and farm. and we'll have an airbnb. he's actua,lly an english teacher. and my knowledge of japan dwarves even a lot of japanese. so our thinking is that having english speakers with a base in a remote area that also involves farming, we can really make something of it. most people fly to japan and get an awesome train pass. they go tokyo. to osaka. maybe hiroshima. but there's a whole world out there. and people are getting the itch to explore it. it's like people flying to the US and going to nyc, chicago and maybe the grand canyon. it's rare that foreign tourists would travel to rural wisconsin. but tourists are branching out a bit more there, too.

through farming i've met so many interesting people. another person who works on the farm, sylive, is a former pastry chef. she lives here in chicago and drives all the way to my farm twice a week because she loves it. and we're thinking about hosting seminars on american cooking for japanese people.

is agricultural tourism growing there the way it is here?

yeah. mostly for japanese people. but there's potential for it to grow among foreign travelres. it's really difficult for foreign travelers to do, though. how many japanese farmers speak english? probably the same number of american farmers in wisconsin who speak japanese. so a lot of americans probably want to visit farms in japan, but they're not gonna because of the language barrier.

and what's restaurant tourism like in japan?

japanese cuisine is a thing. most of the famous places are out of my means. but more importantly, it can be really difficult even to get a table at most of the famous restaurants. it's like french restaurants.

well, better if you're just wandering the countryside and stumbling upon good food at roadhouses.

just like here: the bungalows and cellar doors. they might not be as well known as some of the world famous places downtown. but these are the interesting places! so i just want to come here and eat your pizza. that's what i do in japan, too. i'm looking for stuff that people don't know about.

there's all kinds of amazing things. a few years ago i was traveling in a very remote southwestern region and i pulled into an area. there was an island. i heard you could walk to it at low tide. i pulled into a parking lot and saw the island and it was immediately clear that that i was not going to be able to walk to it. so i hung around the parking lot for a bit. there was nothing else around but a tiny cafe. where the local police were having their coffee. and i was staring at this island wondering what to do next. and the owner of the cafe just walked out with a tray with some coffee and some treats. i told him i wasn't hungry because i didn't want to spend money on that. but he said: no! it's a gift. he answered some of my questions about the island. and just wasted his time. he had no customers in the hour i was standing there. but he brought me a gift. that was one of the most special cups of coffee i've ever had. who does that?!

it's true these days that there's 40 alinea. and alinea may have been unique at some point. and a pioneer. and it's still incredible. but at this point w reddit and blogs and food cutlure and etsy and ... i used to say: every brewery is getting pretty damn good. we used to make only yeast-forward beers as a way to stand out. to do something that no one else was doing. and to do it well. and that lasted a long time. but a few years ago we realized we couldn't distinguish ourselves on beer alone anymore. i mean: we make super special beers that nobody else in the world can make. our solera foeder beer, * s o m e d a y *, has a 6-year old culture in it! nothing else in the world can ever taste like it. but the brewery down the street who used to make almost exclusively IPAs ****also has foeders and is 1-2 years into there solera program and is likely right now building a better marketing plan for it than we could ever dream of***. product differentiation is super difficult in this environment. which makes it really hard to spend a lot of money for an experience that's almost entirely built around a dish or 2 or 10.

everything is becoming homogenized. an average taco will taste transcendent if the experience around it is more unique. and i'd rather have that taco than the best meal in mexico city. on the same plate we have at bungalow. food is among the *least* important things a restaurant sells these days. sad, we suppose, maybe, but true.

j: and in business it's self-deconstructing. you started with a beer. and you decided to sell it and quickly found you weren't making enough money. so you had to make other beers. and sell them. and make compromises. and then you became popular and to afford those other beers you had to bring on workers and you had to pay them and you had to pay their insurance. and then you needed a bigger building. and the next thing you know you're pumping out beer and you haven't even been in the brewery in forever. you're not what you were. it's something i fight on the farm all the time. it's hard! i had to live in a tent to do it! i'm working by myself up there. it's a 5-person farm and i've been running it alone for 5 months apart from sylvie who comes up twice a week. *but*... i haven't gotten trapped in the circle. and i'm still focusing on the little things. i'm not blowing my own horn. but that's the life i want to live. that's the stuff i want to see.

if it's on the internet i don't wanna see it.

—

next week, we'll discuss seed selection, as froggy meadow is famous for having the most unique table at green city market.

a real music and food festival. on a street in your neighborhood.

“dada, what happened when you were 4?” ... “well, my dad sodded over a tiny pile of earth. ... wait, let me back up. he built our split-level with his hands and friends. and before you start building a house, first you have to dig a giant hole and fill it with something reallllllly strong. like cement. like the sidewalk. and alllllll the soil and rocks and clay that comes out of that hole is called “earth”. and usually you have to get rid of that earth to make room for the house. pile it into big dump trux. and take it some place far away. but my dad and his friends, they left just one tiny pile of unearthed earth around. on the land near the finished house. and then laid sod, or grass, over it. and when i was 4, this tiny lump of earth. under the rich, green sod. felt, to me, like the wasatch mountain range where mama grew up. and i rode my big wheel up and down it all day and night. the end.”

“dada. tell me what happened when you were 4 and a half.”

... why is the boring recitation of history so fucking compelling? i mean, when you’re small, it’s that simple. new narrative and description. new words and concepts. it just blows a little mind. a brain firing off. it’s like…. the 4th of july at some americana michigan town in there. all day long.

when you get old, you stop appreciating the tiny crevices in every inch of moss. you want drama! negativity! real grist! we’re murdering our earth! will we ever be happy in this city? what should i do with my life?!

well.... too bad for all of you! i’m gonna recite history. the history of our block party, that is.

in 2019, shortly after we opened, max and julien from the band whitney approached us about their new record. they were releasing it in the summer. and mayor lori lightfoot (A.T.I.P. (adjunct-teach-in-peace)) had declared that august 30th would be WHITNEY DAY. they wanted a basketball net for a game of knockout. and bleachers. and dj sets. and a few other fun little tids. and we said “f yes!!!” maybe the biggest chicago band since wilco. a band full of super nice guys in the neighborhood. who we’d partied with many times before. what an f’ing dream. ... we’d have to close the street. but we were considering doing this for such a party anyway.

and we did it. and it was good. it was our biggest day of that our first year open. the biggest party we’d ever thrown. and so: it was also like childbirth. we were full of joy and heartbreak at the same time! the way every single second of a new baby’s life is the last such second you’ll see. our whitney block party was over! and would never happen again!

and then 2020 hit and further deferred any dream for a second party. and then… we had an actual baby in 2021. and traveled to show her the actual wasatch range. and some red dirt in capitol reef. and on the long drive back from capitol reef to salt lake city, the folks from secretly canadian called us. about a roving record store idea. numero group and secretly and ghostly and etc. they were traveling around the country w a million records in tow. and some cute tents. and DJs. and they wanted us to host them. in our street. at the end of summer. and ok. ok ok ok ok ok. we’ll do it!

that, we thinks, was the moment our block party was born. and every year. year after year. it got bigger. we added a slice shop. we added more DJs. we added 4 more food vendors. neighbors in this chicago restaurant scene. we added special pizza guests like le bouchon and kasama and nine bar and etc. we added a kids and art zone. and artisanal vendors. and it grew and grew and grew. our little block party served something like 4,000 people last year. in the year of our board, 2025.

so finally, after years of advice against doing it, we decided to damn the torpedoes and move it to ARMITAGE AVENUE. w the help of the logan square chamber of commerce. indeed: the logan square chamber of commerce was aiming to throw a street festival. and i’m on the executive board of it. and, you know, synergy.

introducing... ARMITAGE COUNTY FAIR. september 26—27. from cal to humboldt. feat. music all day, both days. on two stages. and tons of logan square food. and a full bar w logan square breweries. and comedian maggie winters on the county fair contest stage. click HERE to see all about it.

saturday:

la luz
ariel zetina
cabeza de chivo
sen morimoto
free range
al scorch
oyeme
bcmc

sunday:

sun ra arkestra
dj damon locks
hazel city
glyders
sitzpinkler (melkbelly & friends play krautrock)
bach & bitney
the sidepieces
sacred heart academy

sponsored, so far, by middle brow. and yeti. and ivy hall. and toast pos. many more super-supportive sponsors tba.

--

and we’ve got some amazing food and bev friends rolling through. serving food in the street. we’ll announce these next week. so please stay tuned.

and shoot dang we’re so so psyched to see who wins the JB Pritzker lookalike contest. we’re punching WAY UP over here!!! only ever!

it’s gonna be a fair for the ages. in armitage county.

--

ok.... also tho. like i said. we’ll have MAGGIE WINTERS hosting our county fair contest stage. think................ best baseball game beer call instead of pig suey. a jb pritzker lookalike contest, as mentioned. a giardiniera-eating contest. a talent show, incl your friend in 3N who juggles vintage remote controls while balancing on a fence post. county fair fashion king and queen. etc etc etc.

oooo! best dog dressed as a farm animal!

want to join? want to volunteer your cutest-in-the-county baby or dog? click here to sign up! prizes include gift cards to killer restaurants and bars around the neighborhood.

click here!

pizzeria beddia

hoagie-ria beddia? ria-sling beddia?

and hey!! even before that. we’ve got something super special happening. JOE BEDDIA of the legendary pizzeria beddia in philadelphia will be joining our NEW WINE party. you can book tickets RIGHT NOW on resy. it’s SEPT 3. 5—9p.

remember: our quarterly new wine parties work! werk work! it’s 6 brand new wines. sampled out. for $10. and food for sale! this time, tho, the menu is CONNECTED! joe beddia x middle brow. on pizza slices. and hoagies. and soft serve. and vom boden will be sittin’ in the back-middle seat. chiming in between the pilots. w fine-but-loose german wines.

and do you know about magazines??? i mean, if you’re part of our millenial fan base, then surely you’ve spent hours in a borders or b&n in a prior life just stealing magazine letters. reading and reading and reading and pretending to buy until you gave up and just laid on the floor in between the stacks filled with “hobbies” books cuz nobody was ever in them aisles.

well, magazines made of paper are BACK and more BEAUTIFUL than ever. and our pal at stand magazines is making a project of showing and selling’m.

and she’ll be here!! at middle brow!! live and in the flesh just like her magazines!

that’s STAND MAGAZINES i said. here. at bungalow. this sunday. august 9. at 9a. along w bagels and 50s beach music.

wethinks. … it’s exceedingly weird—everyone can agree—that so many of us are reduced to “selling” our personal “vibe”. like, is AYOH mayonnaise that good? sure. it’s great! the inclusions are terrific! it’s co-packed in a facility hundreds if not thousands of miles away from former bon appetit writer molly baz’s home. by people she’s surely never met (or, at least, by the time her next batch is made, a totally fresh emulsification machine operator). but her vibes are killer. her reach is broad as hell. her instagram captions have so much SOOOOOUUUUULLLL. we know the drill. we drill it, too.

we think about instagram. and our beer posts. how poorly they tend to do. beer is an object we’ve made for 15 years. we’ve mastered so many of them. they’re beautiful. they’re difficult. simple. fresh. deep. thought-provoking. conversation-provoking. party-provoking. they derive from local sources—wemeans, hyperlocal. caleb is a grain farmer and like-minded and shared-reality bud—i.e. a rare farmer not playing maga team sports. he also malts the grain. and mills it. and raises his family with his partner and wife and fellow central-central bad ass, whitney. (indiana is perfect NESW amirite tho?)

and our hops! from a recently shuttered hop farm that took southern michigan wine country by storm in the craft beer era. and our yeast! literally fucking captured by us in our garden, and propped up over half a year. and fed periodically in our large wood’n foeders. over the course of the last seven.

wesays: BEAUTIFUL SHIT. but does it photograph well? can the ‘rithm read it? is there a face in this glass of beer? no. no. no. alas.

so we don’t photograph beer much. not even * O A K F O R E S T # 2 *. a flanders red. brewed with peruvian purple corn. aged on french oak. with cherries. this is our ed’s baby. ed brady’s baby. a fucking beverage genius if ever we knew one. a true artist. an artist-technician. this thing will make you look up. will change your view of craft beer in this city. will change your view of “craft beer is dead”. but then: will it even feel cool? does it have a vibe? is anything not currency worth remembering?

this beer does. and is. we dare you to come drink it. to experience something THAT CANNOT BE CAPTURED AND SHARED. something for which the context will never collapse. this beer will feel different at home than it does here at bungalow. it’ll feel different alone than with your friend carly and her brother in the back of the overflow room at church.

markets in everything, right? the market for incredible sourcing and technique in craft brewing is indeed dead. but no!!!! there is no market in the actual lived experience of consuming a beautiful beer or pizza or glass of wine. it’s an objective good that cannot be removed from context. or flattened by context. you just gotta do it. drink it. and live w the idea that nobody else can feel what you felt when you did.

meantime, stand by for some attempts to sell you images of the experience of tasting a beer. pictures and videos that’ll be hard not to buy. w your eyeballs as cheddar.

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brěd clüb

foxes.

meantime, here’s a vid of something that IS NOT market-poor. our charred sungold-ramp focaccia. look at those bubbles look at that crumb look at the nearly fried bottom does it crunch you bet it does can you hear it in this picture if you know your italian foxies you can hear the crack w your eyes and smell the texture w your fingers. crispy. oily. umami. sweet. bright. earthy. soft. …everything.

but substack is hardly a place for sales. i mean, it’s all fucking sales! as i said above. if we ain’t literally linking to a product and integrating a pay-app into our substack yet, we’re using our opinions and lessons and the like to generate attention. and that attention is indeed money. you know it yourself! you do it, we reckon!

so, what can we say about this focaccia instead of “click here to pre-order one there’s only 28 4 remaining before it sells out because it surely will!” we can talk about how we like to eat them. WAIT HOLY F is this the first mb listicle did u think u’d ever see it here?!

here are the ways we like to eat focaccia.

1. out of the bag it came in. just reach in there, grab a fistful, and pull. wipe the oil on the side of your driver’s seat. unless it’s leather. in which case, grab a stack of napkins from us. they’re (truly only slightly) cheaper than your leather audi seats.

2. cut into thin slits. still, just eat it and lick your fingers then wipe them inside your pants pocket then lick them and wipe them once more so you can get back to typing.

3. cut into thicker slices and load up w tooth butter (thicc enough to see your tooth marx).

4. cut into thicker slices and broil on high. get some fire on the open crumb of that fox. fry the f’er. crispy tops and bottoms. blackened wisps on the sides.

   1. grill worx here 2.

5. cut in cross-ways and make a sandwich out of it. if a fox is done really right, you could put a single slice of g’damn baloney in between the bread and it still snaps.

   1. but don’t hold back an herb-pile and chevre from blakesville and smoked black pepper from middle brow.

   2. or make a leftover steak sandwich w butter and lemon and parsley.

6. cut a square. cover it in pizza sauce. right there on top of the charred bubbles. and cover that in low-moisture mozzarella. and pizza sausage. and low-broil a rich-man’s d-troit pizza in your home oven.

we could go on. but we’d rather talk about the sourcing and the humans from meadowlark who grow and care for and blend the nicest upper-midwestern grains we know about on their driftlesswisconsin farm. rather than endeavoring constantly to achieve that pure, neutral wheat “flavor” in their blends, they take the “flaws” as they come each season. a wheat w terroir. that’s why our pizza crust tastes like grass in april and cinnamon in july and malt in november. that’s why our bakers are tactile virtuosos. the dough varies drastically from day to day—despite a perfectly consistent recipe and process. but we adjust! and we end up almost always with slightly better dough than the day before. every single damn day of our existence now.

and then: the sungold tomatoes from froggy meadow farm. which are grown in the most bat-shit way imaginable. increasing jerry’s risk to the point of near-failure year after year. but boy do they taste different than every other sungold out there.

and tropea onions from tim frillman. slowly building a veggie empire outside berrien springs, michigan.

click over and buy our focaccia. our first ever for brëd clubbers.

we FULLY bake.

we bungalows. and cottages. and sawyer party stores.

are you a long time pal? hope so. cuz whoever you are. reading this substack. you get the first view of our michigan winepub. coming …… soon?

this is taking, as my 2yo son says, a loooong toime. but in an era when everything—literally everything like incl political movements and presidential speeches and studies on longevity and etc.—is massively underbaked, we’re happy to take our time getting it how we want it. (image by range architecture and design.)

i keep wanting to write about ........ things. i mean the other day i sat down w my digital idea book to dump a quick prompt that would be fodder for some future rant and i ended up shitting out a solid 1/3 of the rant i reckon. and so, so, so many of you are new here! we’re so happy you’re here with us! but you have no idea what you’re in for. what these newsletters tend to be...

ok fuck it let’s sift some of you out yoga and self care are republican. ok ok this is aggro and surely not true and do i do yoga you bet your ass i do and i even go into saunas and steam rooms and i spent too much money last year on massages trying to work out some subscapularis tension that rendered dead my left shoulder for years and years but i sure as shit ain’t republican so should you self care? YES YES YES!! should you talk about it openly? i mean, sure. in certain spaces. among friends. should you emphasize it? no. not even among friends. BUT!!!!!!!!!!!! should you do COMMUNITY care? YES YES YES. and you should always talk about it. and emphasize it. everywhere and all the time. ... self care without community care is like putting your oxygen mask on first and then neglecting to put one on your toddler. i mean, YOU are the most important person in this moment. breathe. feel your breath. feel your body. your body forgives you if you give! give to it. with intention. breathe into your fingers and toes. and look next to you. just to your right. observe the woman choking for air. in seat 13B. now take a deep breath. make your neck loooooong. and your shoulders wiiiiide. now exhale. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. now don’t take the focus off your fingers for 3, 2, 1. and take those fingers and grab the oxygen mask in her hands. she’s passed out now. peaceful. loose. now turn. ever so slightly and carefully. feel the supine twist. and all the stress exiting your body. as you slowly put the mask over her head. pull the strap back around her hair. keep your crown to the sky. adjust your shoulder blades. make sure you’re not squeezing them together for this move. and let the mask drop slowly over the mouth and nose of the folded, prostrate woman next to you. watch her come to life. as she takes a looooong, gasping breath inward, remind her to pause at the top. to breathe out sloooooowly. a long, slow exhale will remove all of that near-death stress from her chest. and her collarbone. and now center yourself. feel the space between your eyebrows. open your ribs and sit up tall. feel the energy in your belly button as you close it. and open it. and close it. and open it. and now leave it open and release from the bellyhole alllllllll of the trauma that that selfish woman who nearly caused you the trauma of observing a traumatic death. as the plane descends. at 800 miles per hour.

so, i guess, let’s all do more community care. let’s all emphasize community care more. let’s all deprioritize self care in favor of it. i mean: dare i say that community care is self care? that’s the real thing there.

come to our next NEIGHBORs’ meeting? next weds! 530p. we’ll have angel la luz from the american red cross’s community disaster program here with us. to talk about preparedness. for weather. for autocrats. whatever!

(o! now do protein bros and rogan doctors! ...... i already have! but..... ok! stay tuned!)

american bread

our america!

our america isn’t flags and colors. it isn’t LED lights flashing “250”. it isn’t p/u trucks and t-shirts and tiktok and clever quips. our america is the armitage crossing guard who recently remarried and who’s having his second of two kids with his new partner and who’s seen nearly every day of our oldest daughter’s life. our america is the woman fixing the downed power line before all of our dough for the weekend overproofs. our america is the two polish immigrants who do HVAC work for our landlord, and who changed their schedule this week to help install a new rooftop unit before next week’s heat wave. and the self-described hillbilly from crown point who’s coming out on a saturday at 6a to connect it to power. our america is the super kind dancer who drives down from winnetka once a month to drink coffee and meet friends on our patio. and who has done for 7 years. and who are commie staff loves despite her $120K car. our america is the principal of chase elementary, who taught herself spanish after feeling helpless to some of her underresourced students. our america is the camo-and-jnco zoomer who works at 4 restaurants and spends all his money on stick-and-poke. our america, yes it’s true, is the tech bro who parks his cybertruck in our slanted spots at least once a week.

sure: other countries have, uh, people in them too. but those countries replace our diversity with rules and walls. and sure: other places in america, with fewer rules and walls, have this kind of neighborliness. but liberal, hellhole chicago is a distinctly american place. affordable enough to establish roots. to become neighborly. with a bunch of people. who are nothing like you.

we celebrate our son’s birthday on the 4th of july. and we’ve grown weirdly fond of a day we’ve historically ignored. but we see a bit more clearly now. or with a wider aperture. and this is the america we love. that we’re proud to live in. (and on july 5 we’ll rave about maternity leave in canada.)

so... dive in! be american this coming week and weekend! come buy our american bread for it. i.e. our HOT DOG BUNS.

tap over to our LITTLE store. american buns. … and other deals on dranks!

DIRT CHEAP WINES

and beers

and what would america be without consumption! make yours conspicuous if you’re a real patriot. overbuy for every party you go to. we’ll make it easy! we’re making our beer and wine super cheap for the week and weekend.

all cases of beer for $40; all 4pks $8.

select trios of wine for $50; select single bottles for $20.

here’s another link to THE BEER AND WINE SHOP

ever in the middle. of a middling analysis.

wtf does an r-circle even mean meaning is overrated feeling is everything we package feeling and eat and drink it don’t it feel like this is a MAJOR product launch that we’ve been planning for thousands of minutes?

middle brow wonders. i mean: constantly. is that plant edible? african smokebush? daaaaanggg... it’s all mango and meyer lemon and actually called golden spirit smoke bush and toxic. glad for the wondering. the ceaseless wondering. just give me a tic while i walk my mug of “african” smokebush and strawberry-top tea to the nearby sewer down mozart.

ok. digression complete! i mean, i got distracted halfway through the phrase anyway. it’s middle brow wonders bread. WONDERSBREAD by MIDDLE BROW. for quick little things for camp. or for work. wanna make a cheap lunch one or three days next week? and just walk out to some nearby plaza and sit on a concrete block in the sun and eat your simple sandwich? of baloney and mayo? mortadella? or a triple stack of pbj?

get WONDERS BREAD by middle brow. we’ve sold a cinnamon toast crunch version of this bread. you can tell: we embrace nostalgia. for jewel’s bakery. the best fucking bakery in the cityland of chicago. and for gas station pastries. and for 90s children’s cereal. when the food scientists were still having fun. ... but this stripped down version of whitebread allows for sara lee honey baked ham and land o’lakes american cheese sandwiches. w mayo. or mustard. or mayo AND mustard. that combo ain’t no slouch. i johnny-came-lately to it as a freshman in college. when my top-secret crush and my girlfriend’s friend, pizzo, made 2a sandwiches for everyone.

wondersbrėd by middlë brow. available in our little community store. right now. for pickup NEXT THURS. june 18.

and then........... watch for the launch of our famous HOT DOG BUNS. just in time for july 4.

thku to all u bred clûb dorks. we’re dorky w u.

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it’s evolution baby

a succession of lifetimes.

so… so many of you know by now that nancy silverton is coming to town this weekend. to receive a lifetime achievement award from the james beard committee. she’s become a friend this past year. and we’re very excited to host her and her team. sunday morning. for a special bagel and pastry brunch.

it felt odd. to have such a big moment. and not to share it. it started to feel a little out of character. selfish. not our style. not in keeping w our neighborist tendencies.

so we reached out to three friends. who we knew would slay a silverton pay (stree). and of course, we’re lapping up drool just reading the text message thread. CELLAR DOOR PROVISIONS w corn cake, vin santo and flowering sage. FLORIOLE w brown butter and toasted oat cookie. and DEL SUR w laminated sourdough, pepita frangipane, fennel namelaka and strawberries.

and we!!! we, middle brow!! we’ve got a bruleed brioche tart w poached rhubarb. and a rye-coriander crostata w foraged serviceberries, mulberries and elderflower buds. and a special aniseed & poppyseed BAGEL w meyer lemon-tarragon cc, strawberries, and soppressata crumbles.

ain’t we all just playing so hard into our type?! nancy influence and super typecast. at the same time. as i like to emphasize to my lil todds.

if you’ve got reservation, great!! we’re booked up for the nancy silverton event. *but*, we’ve got enough pastries for some walk-ups. to be clear: *dine-in* walk-ups. none of these pastries will be available to-go.

so make a plan to come here. and eat well. and well up. w us.

see you, then. in the midst. of all the middles.

nancy silverton

life is funny. the word, not the thing. yeah yeah, wethinks: obv the thing is funny, too. absurd! repugnant, but in the comedic way! it’s a nordic tv show that’s lighthearted but just so... i mean, we write letters for social connection and to procrastinate our darning. until phones come along. and we tell stories and play music to and for and with each other until radios get cheap. and then we still might read a bit. and write a bit. and attend theatre and playmake. but, you know, we humans. and our tendency. to conserve energy. for hunting and foraging. ... flash forward and we’re spending our free 27 minutes every tuesday night admiring the cover art of so many netflix-produced tv shows rather than watching the shows themselves. our modern replcement for sitcoms laced w the sound of *fake* human laughter.

repugnant! absurd! fools! that is, humans.

but life, the word. why’s that funny now? i guess because for some people the above is repugnant enough for reduction. conserving energy is great! yes! but for what? for still more energy conservation? indeed it costs some smattering of energy to conserve it.

hell no!!!! we have other tracks in our mind than those traced for rest.

some people are grateful for how life got easier: the ball of fire burning within their left-chest—moving their blood to and fro—burns no differently than it did 300 years and 7 lives prior. they DO SHIT. ... sure, they use phones instead of writing letters to friends. but then, they write cookbooks after working all day in one of the 4 kitchens they direct in their neighborhood alone. they film. they explore. they problem-solve. they support. they seek and deliver therapy. they execute. they mull. all day and night and day again.

and what of that work? the work they do with their leftover energy? is it mediocre? if it were, it would still be worth noticing. admiring. it would still turn a community over like an internal combustion engine. it’s funny that “life”, beautiful with work, can be so vastly different for two different people. the relevant distinction being the one between creative energy conservation and creative energy expenditure. not the one between excellence and mediocrity. that’s what’s funny. what’s worth noticing.

but what if it’s excellent? does it turn the community over and over and over again? yes. it does. for decades. but then: it turns over the adjacent communities. and regional ones. and national and international ones. the work is excellent, and so it also inspires more work just like itself. it inspires more people with that same fire to wake up. and be grateful. for the convenience of the modern world. and it’s roominess for productivity. that one person, then, deserves credit for hundreds upon hundreds of lives well-lived. inside just one.

unlike mediocrity, excellence is honored by borderless communities. by people everywhere. becasue the excellent expenditure of energy leads to that very iteration i described above. it’s inspirational. it’s life- and community- and culture-changing

nancy silverton is burning with life! and has achieved excellence. again and again and again. she’s inspired thousands and thousands of lives. all inside her one life. and the james beard foundation thankfully saw it fit to honor that little lifetime for all its lives well-lived.

nancy’s become a friend this past year. we feel very, very lucky for her friendship as she’s someone who’s inspired all of us for years. we celebrate the james beard honor with her. the morning of sunday, june 14. come for bagels and pastries and borderless joy and levity. a way to conserve and build energy for bigger things. ... come see her. and you’ll see dozens of lives flowing freely from her limbs and lashes.

tkts available here. sunday, june 14. 9a-12p. $10 reservation deposit will be credited on the final bill. the special NANCY menu will NOT be available to regular brunch service. sponsored by RESY.

note: is it sold out? watch closely. more tickets may open up.

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sway, from county / cordelia, from cle

and speaking of expenditure! as soon as nancy leaves, we’ll welcome our buds from SWAY BREWING AND BLENDING in door county, wisconsin. for a pizza party to honor they’re james beard finalist nod for best beverage program. i mean.... come on?! have you even been paying attention? do you read and read just to make walking less boring? a little challenge for your peripheral vision? but absorb nothing? sometimes, i wonder... as tim buckley says.

these guys are folk after our own hearts and souls. the early 20s middle brow CSA subscribers on this list should go read their menu if they haven’t already. it’ll make you wistful! foraged mushroom beers?! foeder-fermented kolsch?! beers w wine grapes?! ... we do a lot less of this these days. sadly. as wine sort of gets in the way. but we always have something small in our experimental cellar. and we’ll get to work blending our projects with theirs. for a special, one-service-only SWAY & MIDDLE BROW beer blend. sheesh... maybe we’ll even discover a little wine blend works.

but back to SWAY. a brewery in a wood-clad compound on a jut. our favorite aggro lake on all sides. fruit and forageables in the fields around. beautiful grain and flour. ELEMENTAL. naturally, the food that comes from their framers is quite something. and we’ve been bouncing ideas back and forth for a few weeks. ... we’ll make a pizza square from their grilled chicken kebab wrap. also available for one-service-only. on the back patio where the basketballs bounce off the walls. all saturday afternoon. no breaks!

jun 14. 1-4p. no reservations necessary. special menus avail until they’re not.

-----

and CORDELIA. returned from cleveland. for another grandma tavern party.

on the tuesday after the beard awards, we’re hoping to celebrate more than just a reunion. with the entire cordelia team. and with a pizza of their dreaming. pork belly and other sundry items. come together to cohere. like us and them. and all their national friends and our modest neighbors.

together to make some other borderless joy.

tues, june 16. no reservations necessary, but tables will fill! waiting space is ample and rollicking and outdoors. plan accordingly!

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brėd clüb

life is funny........................ o fuq. worry not i ain’t in navel-mode no more. but funny, this: we’re launching “school bread” on the last day of school. school’s out, but we’ve got the bread for your kid’s school lunch! jk jk. if you’re a fam, you still got day care. and lunch for camps. or your teen is ravaging the neighborhood all day and you gotta put something in her backpack so she doesn’t eat chick-fil-a cuz kids spend w their bellies not the millennial moral code. ... but hey! also! if you’re a human. and you need sustenance in the middle day. something modest to get to supper. then boy do we got the bread for you. listen to some depeche mode. grab a grease-lined cylinder of oscar mayer baloney. and some hellman’s (duke’s? is that even mayo? ayo? is that even relevant once the PE money dries up?). and reminisce. soak up the UV cancer. sweat from your forehead. be in the sandwich moment.

maybe grab a yellow gatorade while you’re at it. and some jay’s.

schoolbred. it’ll last a week. it’ll stale like you’re used to. slowly from the crust inward. slowly, we emphasize. it’ll make for a squishy pbj the first night. shit, you might eat half the loaf then.

buy a loaf now! before it disappears.

substack. the middle of everything.

without any more do:

“first, thank you for coming! i had tons of fun talking about the plant life all around us. an underappreciated neighbor, indeed. i wanted to give some folks an update on where SERVICEBERRY trees are on the 606. so here goes:

1. there are three SB trees just to the west of Washtenaw on the north side.

2. there’s a bench looking north on talman; there are SB trees on the east side of this bench.

3. if you take the california/west entrance , the last tree on the ramp before you hit the trail. and then again, going west, on the south side about 50 yards west of that same entrance.

4. bookending francisco on the north side.

5. there’s also a catalpa tree on the west end of the richmond overpass (north side). it’s hung w tons of catalpa beans currently. the flowers on this tree smell and taste terrific. of course, wait until they’re about to fall.

6. more SB trees! if you take the humboldt/east entrance and walk east, there are three SB trees on the north side after the benches.”

and THAT. up there. is our first substack. holy f. it wasn’t about politics. or the dregs of millennial culture. or self-care as maga-lite. or the comedy of athleticism. or the scourge of better ideas.

all to come, theethinks. and thee’d be way on.

sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue.

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in the meantime, tell your friends!