New York Times personal health columnist and wire mother Jane Brody decided that after a long year of fear, stress, and isolation, now is the perfect time to observe that your thighs look like jello and eww, what are those disgusting wobbly bits? Blaming a scientifically questionable rise in ”health-robbing body fat” on our pandemic bread addiction and our boozing like contemptible vagrants, Brody, who has written her pro-ana column since before the invention of margarine, suggested we could all stand to lose about 50 pounds and also wondered if we are ever going to have a baby. Certainly not with a belly like that. This pandemic year has been something of a homecoming for Brody, who kicked off her Times column during the Great Plague Year of 1666, with a breezy and clickable new take on personal health titled “Leech-Peddlars Abjure These Three Trickes for Draining Overmuche Yellow Bile (Ye Know Number Two of Olde!)”
Pairing Notes: this bitter, sour tab contrasts magnificently with the “darkly compelling, herbal notes” of Mark Slutsky’s chat with the Potato Chip Professor.
Quaker heiress and Twitter’s racist granny Joyce Carol Oates also went off yesterday, subtweeting Jessica Winter’s essay about autofiction:
“Wan little husks,” yes, ok, that’s pretty catchy. Still racist though! If you’re not unbearably fat from your pandemic baking, here’s The Breadwinner, an app-powered, wifi-enabled sourdough starter monitor, currently in beta for just $140. The Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee considered voting via blockchain yesterday. In the future you may be able to securely and immutably “mint” your vote, for only $790 in ETH and the energy equivalent of one Luxembourg. The whole meeting is here but… don’t do that to yourself. Shaan Puri wrote an entertaining thread on the rise and likely fall of Clubhouse. Did Grimace have an Irish relative named Uncle O’Grimacey who was fired for his IRA ties? Yes. This is just canon, whatever that tool of the British imperialists Ryan Broderick claims. THE KID MERO has Covid, get well soon buddy. Garamond officially discouraged.
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Substack co-bro Hamish McKenzie talked to Brad Wolverton for a business newsletter called “The Hustle,” so you know it’s gonna be substantive. Among his suggestions is “just sitting down to write a letter every day,” which is apparently the secret to Heather Cox Richardson’s “shitloads of money.” Incredible insight! Meanwhile, thick smoke continues to pour out from under the hood of Our Regrettable Platform. Brian Feldman writes that “from an editorial standpoint, Substack's approach to attracting writers is bad and dumb,” and analyzing Facebook’s impending arrival in the newsletter market, Casey Newton writes that one “reason why Facebook might have an opportunity is that Substack seems intent on giving them one.” In what I guess could maybe be considered a bright spot (?) Anne Trubek writes that she is not planning to leave Substack, but only “because I do not think there is any other option. Turtles all the way down, no ethical consumption under capitalism, all that.” Her analysis is based on the book publishing world, where there are only 5 companies total and every one is using your book’s earnings to directly fund Nazis.
Today, McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi tried again to put out the fires with a more sensitive and carefully crafted explanation of Substack Pro that unfortunately still doesn’t end with “…and that’s why we’re banning Graham Linehan.” It does confess that “we are not comfortable with everything that is published on Substack,” which is a startling thing for the people with moderation responsibility to say. I expect we’ll hear more about this presently.
Today in Tabs isn’t really equipped to report on breaking tragedies, but if you saw the terrible news about the shootings in Atlanta and you would like to do something, you can donate to the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. On the screen after the credit card input you can direct your donation specifically to the Georgia chapter. And whatever Jane Brody says, have some ice cream today.
Today’s Song: Sleeper, “Alice in Vain” (Sleeperbloke 4 lyfe)
~ Hey, don't tab yourself, girl love help yourself ~
No corrections from yesterday, just frickin’ nailed it. Give us a tweet, luv.