Media Variant Ravages Brooklyn

Case rates in Brooklyn are spiking and New York media workers are haunted by the fear they won’t test positive for SARS-CoV-2 OMGcron, or “the media variant,” in time to be allowed into the 😷🦠Hot Girl Covid✌️💞 group chat. Shawn McCreesh covered the discourse in NY Mag, and Steven Perlberg augmented Gawker’s one-sentence blind item with basic reporting skills to discover that BuzzFeed has a staff epidemiologist, who unfortunately is in charge of the newly-public company’s only rising chart. I would make a “going viral” joke but Katie Notopoulos cannily poisoned that well already. Anyway, Tyler Coates DOES NOT appreciate your jokes, grim scolding only please.

But there are worse things than jokes about the media variant. Like rich people who, ProPublica reports, love to say “there are three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves” but don’t mention that the third-generation shirtsleeves are pulled up to display an “arm festooned with diamond-encrusted watches” that’s shooting a 24 karat gold AK-47. Or the weather in our new garbage climate, which yesterday produced simultaneous wildfires, snow squalls, dust storms, and tornadoes across the North American continent. What about web3, where flagship NFT platform OpenSea is currently hosting the intentionally offensive “Floydies” collection, and even Melania Trump is hawking jpegs now. That last link is by Alexandra Petri and it’s funny but regrettably not made up. Perhaps worst of all is Dunkin-fumbling schlub Ben Affleck, who burned every bit of goodwill his romantic reunion with Jennifer Lopez generated by going on Howard Stern and saying his ex-wife Jennifer Garner drove him to drink. Reached for comment, Jennifer Garner just smiled slightly and tapped the sign.

The Birds & The Bees: “Wisdom, a mōlī (Laysan albatross) and the oldest known banded wild bird has returned to her winter home at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge” reports the USF&WS. Wisdom is 70 years old and still down to clown but “there have been no observations of [her mate] Akeakamai this year and no evidence of a nest cup; so it is unlikely that they will nest this year.” And in St. Petersburg FL, “about 80,000 bees and 100 pounds of honey” were removed from the wall of a shower, and it was another great day saving the bees.

Kickstarter users all hate the new crypto-Kickstarter plan. “We’re listening,“ says Kickstarter. “We’re doing this for you. And we absolutely will not do what you’re telling us you want.” There’s an FAQ now and it’s the opposite of reassuring. Trump-era livetweeter turned social media D.B. Cooper Bradd Jaffy is still alive and dropping unnecessary @ mentions. Here’s some $2-an-ounce granola for idiots. An all-timer of an obituary for “brightly-frocked, frivolous, funny and smart Jewish redhead who is about to grift you” Renay Mandel Corren, “preceded in death by her ex-boyfriend, Larry King.” The Raven Magazine has an essay by C. Thi Nguyen about Twitter and jokes and context collapse. That description sounds terrible but it’s really good. There’s video from the Parker Solar Probe’s trip through the sun’s outer atmosphere. And they found a millipede that has more than 1,000 legs. “There could be one with more legs out there,” says lead author Paul Marek. It could be right behind you. Don’t turn around. It has so many legs.

It’s Thursday afternoon, fire up The Busy Simulator and check out for the week. I know I’m going to, right after I finish tomorrow’s Today in Polly issue for subscribers.

Today’s Song: Butthole Surfers, “Dracula from Houston”

~ cold hands, warm tab ~

I don’t want to over-promise but: if you like things that are good you should subscribe to get Today in Polly tomorrow. But maybe you don’t like good things, who am I to say. In that case I’ll be back next week with the usual trash. It’s December 16th, do you know where your apes are?