Check Yourself

Are checks good or not? If you’re an American and they’re stimulus checks, you love them, unless you’re a Republican in Congress, in which case you hate them and you’re proud you voted against them and also proud of the much-needed relief they are finally bringing to your district and did you hear about Dr. Seuss? If you’re British and they’re Irish border checks, you’re not quite ready for them just yet, old man, don’t you know, while you frantically wave Piers Morgan out the checkpoint. If you’re the E.U., you’d be writing checks to your lawyers except it’s all chip-and-pin in the modern world. But whoever you are, you always need to check the weather, so welcome back Tom Scocca’s classic Awl Weather Reviews, now at Brick House.

I know tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day1 but for some reason there’s more Irish news today so let’s just go with it. A walrus washed up on Ireland’s southwestern Valentia Island, long considered by geography experts to be nowhere near the dang Arctic. And yesterday the Washington Examiner gave us this absolute roller coaster of a tweet:

Good luck in the upcoming Irish-American War on China, everyone!

Bijan fact-checked my claim that the Beeple auction winners seem nice 😎. Turns out, as Amy Castor explains, they’re just crypto grifters working on an NFT-based ICO pump and dump. Jumping Jehoshaphat! Tom Cleveland checked how the New York Times A/B tests its headlines. Paul Brody checked some of the common revolutionary claims about cryptocurrencies, and found them lacking. One of my favorite genres of post is “crypto guy almost realizes that crypto serves no purpose except money laundering.” But if you need to check your meme stonks, The Memeberg Terminal is here.

The Lost Shall Be Found: @_arp made a Twitter bot to keep track of Scarcity. The new Jesus bars dropped. “What art thou doing!? I never sayeth any of that,” read the newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Architect Michael Arad discovered a “submerged 19th-century stone dam” in the Central Park reservoir, while working on a Covid memorial concept for Curbed. Also in the series, Daniel Libeskind turns the Statue of Liberty into a Fortnite glitch.

And The First Shall Be Last:

• Greg Gutfeld’s gotta pee.

• Matt Zoller Seitz has convinced me to see the Zack Snyder Justice League with this four and a half hour long “arthouse tailbone-killer” of a review.

• Emily Sundberg’s “The Female Founder” is the best short story I’ve read in recent memory.

• Let’s all chip in and buy this place in Montana and start a cult. Bunkbeds and rainbows for everyone!

Today’s Song: Titus Andronicus, “Tried to Quit Smoking”

~ It is not that I wanted to tab you, I just didn’t care if I did ~

Apologies to Gideon Lichfield who I called “Gordon” yesterday. I actually do one whole dedicated edit pass every day where I only check names, but as Molly Cyrus famously sang, nobody’s perfect! Hey get yourself a classified ad! Follow the brand on Twitter @TodayinTabs. And if you’re not a subscriber yet, that’s still on sale! Check you tomorrow.