How John Wilson Made the Quirkiest, Most Transcendent Show on Television

That’s probably because Wilson’s face has yet to appear on his own show. Viewers merely hear his narration — voice nasal, tone deadly dry — and catch glimpses of him in mirrors as he wanders around New York City with a camera, interacting with everyday people. Episodes like How to Put Up Scaffolding, How to Cover Your Furniture, and How to Make the Perfect Risotto begin with Wilson attempting to learn something practical. But each time the effort spirals into hilarious, sometimes poignant, and impossible-to-predict chaos, taking him everywhere from the home of a nude foreskin enthusiast to a beach resort in Cancun packed with college students on spring break.

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Andy Greene — Rolling Stone

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A Horse’s Remorse

Most radically, there was the show’s obsessive circling around its accumulated past, whose visual summary might be the whiteboards in one of the final episodes (“Sunk Cost and All That”) on which BoJack, together with Todd, Diane, and Princess Carolyn, tries to list all his many crimes and misdemeanors. That kind of unruly frame-breaking isn’t necessarily something you might associate with poignancy or sincerity. But it was this continued backtracking attention to its own making that finally allowed BoJack Horseman to end up showing that cartoon might be the most truthful model of our landscape. A person, you might conclude, is also an outline infested by other selves, a vehicle for mournful self-criticism and recomposition. We’re all fantastical now, it seemed to argue, in the multicolored digital light.

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Adam Thirlwell — The New York Review of Books

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The rules of coronaspeak

Covidiot.

Start with the coronaverse, which people everywhere now inhabit, or the quarantimes, the era in which they now live. Early fears of the total breakdown of society in a coronapocalypse have proved, thankfully, too pessimistic. But viral anxiety reigns, as do complaints of Zoom fatigue. Participants appear on screen for meetings with a quaransheen of unwashed sweat on their faces. Feelings seem to be on an emotional coronacoaster. Meanwhile, covidiots are spurning lockdown restrictions in ways likely to make the pandemic worse, amid an infodemic of dodgy news and half-informed coronasplaining. At least there is a locktail hour at the end of the week (or, for many, at the end of most days).

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The Economist

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WHY I AM RESIGNING FROM MY TECHNOLOGY COMPANY AND KEEPING ALL THE MONEY

Funny!

When I first got hired to work as DMM at Zikkler, I did so with two simple goals in mind: to make the world a better place and to purchase a house near Lake Tahoe that was bigger than my brother-in-law’s. I have definitely accomplished the second goal, as you can see from the many photos I passed out comparing the two homes from multiple different angles. However, it is time to admit that I have not accomplished the first.

This job simply turned into something I did not expect, starting with my title. I was under the impression that I would be the Digital Media Mastermind, but after about two weeks, I learned that DMM actually stood for Data Monetization Manager. I probably should have figured out what it stood for before I accepted the job, but my contract just had so many zeroes in it, making it hard to focus on the details.

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Eddie Small — McSweeney’s

How Trump’s Hair Works

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One of the great mysteries of our time.

2. “All ends are drawn up to meet in the center…”

What we know: The problem with this alleged procedure was that it left that “contained island” of bare scalp, which still called for a comb-over. According to Wolff’s theory, Donald would gather up the fringe surrounding his bald spot, as if he was going to put it in a high pony.

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David Swanson — The Village Voice

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I LOST TEN POUNDS AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS EAT OUT OF THIS DUMPSTER LIKE A RACCOON!

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Today’s needull is a humorous take on the hundreds weight loss stories that float on the net.

I’ve found winter is the hardest time for me to keep off the weight that determines my entire self-worth. Luckily, these masked mammals have that figured out too — just completely shut your body down! From first frost to the early spring rains, my alley dwelling neighbors and I cease all physical exertion and consume only enough to keep our hearts pumping blood through our bodies — which are an ideal 15-20% smaller than the males of our species. The raccoons do this because frost prohibits them from effectively finding food. I do it because society has made me loathe my natural body shape. Same-same!

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Cait Bladt — McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

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