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SHOWS: I’m coming to Austin! Ticket links to come!
Weds. 11/16: The Creek and The Cave (Austin TX)
Thurs. 11/17: Native Hostel (Austin TX)
Friday 11/18: Hudson’s Bar (Dripping Springs TX)
Saturday 11/19: Pure Yoga Downtown (Austin TX)
Hello Sternal Journalists!
I went on a trip to LA mountain escape Big Bear this weekend with some friends. Not hugely relevant to the trip, but I saw this liquor store—
—with this sign:
I love it. Bold, blatant, and maybe tries to cutesify itself but certainly doesn’t apologize.
While traveling to and from Big Bear, I also got to frequently see one of my favorite things in Southern California, the Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorney Billboards.
Russ Brown is a motorcycle attorney. I only this because I see it on billboards all over LA and the areas around it. I assume he is an injury attorney focused on motorcycle accidents, but we can all wish he was a sentient motorcycle who passed the bar.
I would actually be angry that they don’t capitalize on this idea within their marketing, but their marketing is so much better:
That’s right. It’s a goddamned eagle flying to the rescue with a couple of motorcycle pistons. (I did think until just a few moments ago that this was actually an eagle riding a motorcycle which would be significantly cooler, but I can still rock with this).
Anyway, I see these billboards all over town and they’re sort of a part of the LA ecosystem just as much as the palm trees on my block and the seagulls who’ve ventured too far east and have a ball at the pizza place in my back alley.
So I wondered: is there a word for this kind of thing? Flora is flowers. Fauna is animals. What’s the word for the man-made things so ubiquitous they almost seem naturally occurring? What do we call these little fragments of our habitat?
I couldn’t find one that exists already (tell me if there is!), so after a few stabs at English-to-Latin Google translate aiming for something alliterative, I found that “creations” translates to “FACIENDA.”
And I’m not saying a billboard is as beautiful or important as a daisy or a sparrow. I’m just saying that it probably makes our days and lives better to elevate the ones that make us feel a tad bit more.
So sniff a flora, wave at a fauna, and smile at some facienda this week.
Recommendations
Andor. Television Show. I’m loving this new Star Wars show. For a prequel to a prequel to a prequel, it’s got some great satire about the hubris of institutional power.
Don’t Worry Darling. Movie. Listen, I do not disagree with the 39% Rotten Tomatoes score this puppy has. But I also haven't stopped thinking about it. It looks cool, I actually like the acting even though the full theater I saw it in broke out in near-unanimous cackles at certain high points of drama, but it’s got a trash-ass twist that would better bit a worst-season-of-Black-Mirror episode than a feature length film. I want people to see it more so I can talk to them about it than because I think they should. That being said, I might watch it again.
Heavyweight. Podcast. I’ll always recommend a new season of probably one of my personal top three podcasts of all time.
Welcome to Wrexham. Television. Four episodes into this Hulu docs-series about Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny buying a Welsh football club and trying to do right by the people of its small working class town. It’s Ted Lasso with real world stakes. If you love that, you’ll love it. If not, maybe not.
Alrighty, one more time because it’s fun to say: facienda!
Love,
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.