from the desk of the brain cell formerly known as annie!
send with loud effect
Hello to subscribers new and old!!! It’s the one-year anniversary of a bat winning the New Zealand Bird of the Year competition and I’m taking a break from festivities to say that I love you and I am happy you have signed up for my irregular and rambling life updates. Voltaire once said “the secret to being a bore… is to tell everything” and I’m about to put you to sleep but before I do, here are the places where I’m doing Depths of Wikipedia shows. Not all the ticket links are up, but the MOMENT they are, I’ll post the links everywhere, absolutely everywhere! I hope some of you can come!
Philly 12/8
Washington DC 12/11
Salt Lake City 1/24
Omaha 1/28
Things I’ve done in the six weeks since I sent one of these newsletters:
I made Jesse Eisenberg improvise a one-man one-act play of the 1904 Olympic men’s marathon at my NYC show. I wrote for Defector about the hot pink bitch named Breakfast (he is living out his golden years in Western Massachusetts and doggie diapers). I watched Wayne’s World for the first time and liked it so much that I immediately watched it again. I ate probably 40 breakfast sandwiches. I posted a YouTube video with 8 minutes of spinning food gifs (you can play it when you want to fall asleep or you can project it on the wall at parties!). I went to the dentist for the first time since before covid (I know this is very bad, and I am ashamed). I got my first cavity. I got a tiny section of one of the world’s 486 underwater fiber optic internet cables and then I got several million TikTok views for posting about it. I got questioned by TSA about why I had cable, and I had to explain that I bought it because I thought it would be a cool thing to have. I visited my best friend Hajin in Seoul! I visited the Seoul “Discovery” store, which is an outlet in the mall that sells merch for the Discovery TV network. I bought a sweatshirt from the Discovery store that said “THE WORLD IS JUST AWESOME. LIFE IS AN EXPERIENCE.” I accidentally left the sweatshirt on the subway and stopped believing that the world is awesome. I joined Randall Munroe, of the brilliant web comic xkcd, for two of his Midwest book tour stops (I was a BIT of a downgrade from Conan O’Brian, who joined him on his LA stop). I posted a thread of funny Amazon reviews for pet-safe hair dye. I started doing this new thing where I quiz my friends and family on world capitals when there are lulls in conversation (I love to be annoying!). I ate a ton of tteokpokki. I met the Gregory Brothers, the audiovisual meme dynasty also known as shmoyoho behind the ubiquitous earworm“It’s Corn” (and Bed Intruder) when they performed various Wikipedia songs at my last NYC show. It rocked. I spent some time staring out the window and thought about that Lebron James Instagram story that says “Smiling through it all: Can’t believe this is my life.”
Links that are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
It’s a great day to revisit that Lourde/Jack Antanoff slideshow, especially paired with Defector’s interview with Jack Antanoff’s biggest hater. It’s also a great day to test your skill as an umpire in this interactive New York Times article. It’s also a great day to read the Bloomberg article about Citi Bike Angels who make as much as $3000 a month moving bikes from full docking stations to busy ones. It’s a great day to snitch (since 2019, New York City’s Citizens Air Complaint Program has compensated people who send a video showing a commercial vehicle idling for more than three minutes, paying a 25% cut of the $350+ fine collected. One guy has made more than 36k!). It’s a great day to read the surprisingly wholesome September 2020 NYT article titled “This 84-Year-Old Gamer Has More Than 900,000 ‘Grandkids’” the Vice retrospective on the batshit 2010 TV show “Fat Familes” by Amelia Tait, a features writer I really like who buys random film on eBay and develops it. It’s a great day to spend 10 minutes or maybe three hours on the Audobon Bird Migration Explorer, which will prepare you to play the Wordle-esque game “Birdie” where you identify North American bird species (“birdle” was right there, I know!!!!). Speaking of birds, I really enjoyed this delightful newsletter about how the bluebird (New York’s state bird) avoids NYC like the plague. Still speaking of birds, I am now roommates with my brilliant friend Peter McIndoe of Birds Aren’t Real fame whom I first met on an eventful Instagram livestream (he choked on a Saltine cracker).
I moved to Los Angeles yesterday
I moved to Los Angeles yesterday for no real reason and I’m cobbling together a separate newsletter about the 33-hour drive (I hit a deer! I ran out of gas and hitchhiked in Utah! I reached nirvana!). So far, LA is great in terms of breakfast burritos and bad in terms of I miss biking everywhere (although Sony Pictures Studios, where I’m seeing a live Jeopardy! taping on November 14th, is within walking distance of my house.) I don’t think I’ll stay here for more than a few months, so let me know if you’ve got any LA-area recommendations that I must see before I leave.
That’s about all I have to report. Thanks for sticking around! I have a few cool newsletters in the works that I’ll send out in the next ~week that are a little more involved, and I added a “paid” option where you can pay me $30/year for the exact same thing. If you want another way to support my life as a part time niche internet Wikipedia microinfluencer, you can buy a beach towel of “a cow lying on her side is not immobilized; she can rise whenever she chooses,” which would allow you to lie on your side on a cow lying on her side and arise whenever you choose!!!
Anyway, I hope you’re surviving, eating breakfast burritos, lying on your side, arising whenever you choose, snitching on idling commercial vehicles, mixing metaphors (it’s not rocket surgery), sitting on benches and eating berries, calling your friends and reading books aloud, smiling through it all (can’t believe this is my life), and being hot pink bitch named Breakfast. If you’re new here (or not new here), leave a comment with a little introduction!
Love, Annie
I decided to retire since last time you wrote. Probably can't afford to do it but I'm going in anyhow. I have been working for 52 years and it's time for a break. Don't exactly have a nest egg, but even at my age life is an adventure.
Just remember: If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're built upside down.
Peace and thanks for the linx.
Thank you. Please don’t stop. I will be reading these and clicking on every single hyperlink when I am 87 and collecting $5 a month in social security benefits.