I’ve worked at The Times’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters for several years, but I had never thought to ask after the welfare of the birch trees in the building’s atrium, never mind suspected that “their existence is a struggle,” as our reporter found. I like tales of things that flourish in onerous conditions. Herein, more ideas for flourishing under any and all conditions.
On this week’s list:
1. Stargazing trains
2. Not saying too much
3. Classic rock before it was classic
4. Our Mona Lisas
5. A possibly addictive word game
6. Travel cake
The Bortle scale is used to measure how bright the night sky is in a particular location, from 1 (the darkest, least light-polluted spots) to 9 (big cities). As a resident of a Class 9 spot where Milky Way visibility is “None — Not visible,” I’m drawn to the idea of stargazing trains, after reading about them in The Times. Sign me up for a “rolling night-sky revue” into the New Mexico night, replete with “live music and professional astronomers who share their celestial knowledge and stories as the train rumbles into the vast Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe.” Cost: $139, includes champagne.
2.
Not saying too much
Last week’s Good List included my odes to voice memos and snail mail. In my zeal, I mused about sending a telegram. I made good on my musings and sent one to my dear friend Sarah. We’d fallen out of touch for a few weeks the way you do when life becomes frenetic. A telegram requires an economy of language (you still pay by the word!), so you don’t waste space with excuses for why you’ve been out of touch. It’s a dramatic gesture, an attention-getting means of saying, “I want to be in touch!”
It worked. “YOU SENT ME A TELEGRAM! I love it!” Sarah texted upon receipt. “I thought I was being summoned to an international court or something.”
Though the telegram was more expensive ($34, plus 75 cents a word for delivery within 24 hours) and took more time (you fill out a form online and enter payment info) than just sending Sarah a text, it was paradoxically easier to reconnect in its limited space. When too much time has elapsed, the blank space of the text message or email can be daunting: Do I need to elaborate on how busy I’ve been? Such excuses always seems sort of feeble; who isn’t busy? Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.
The telegram forced me to just communicate the facts without caveats. You can see what I sent in the photo above, signed with Sarah’s old nickname for me.
I tried to mimic the telegram’s urgency in a more economical way. I texted my friend Chelsea, “Give me a five-word summary of what’s up with you.” She delighted at the challenge, replying, “No men, learning Spanish instead.”
Putting parameters around communication is a good way to tiptoe back into contact when the vastness of all you want to say is keeping you from reaching out at all. Try the five-word text update, or maybe a time-limited phone call. Or go ahead and splurge on a telegram, and let me know how it goes. My own telegram worked: Sarah and I are back to our daily texting cadence.
3.
Classic rock
before it was classic
Check out the YouTube archive of the BBC music series “The Old Grey Whistle Test,” which ran from 1971 to 1988. You can see an impossibly young Elton John playing “Tiny Dancer,” watch the sweat bead on Bill Withers’s brow as he performs “Use Me.” But my favorite is David Bowie in red boots with a blue guitar singing “Queen Bitch.”
4.
Our Mona Lisas
The writer and filmmaker David Friedman heard someone refer to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Ginevra de’ Benci, on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, as “America’s Mona Lisa.” It set him wondering what other works of art have been cited as other museums’ Mona Lisas — that is, their most prized artwork, the reason people visit. Friedman found 17 such treasures.
For the National Museum of African American History and Culture, it’s a photo of Harriet Tubman. At the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, it’s a bullet hole-ridden brick wall. Now I’m considering all the Mona Lisas lurking around us. Does your home have a Mona Lisa, something that lures people to visit? Can one’s personality have a Mona Lisa?
5.
A possibly addictive
word game
I’ve just been introduced to Uncrossy, created by the game designer Rob Jagnow. In his bio, he says, “I love games with simple rules and complex behavior that make you say, ‘I should have thought of that!’” I definitely would have never thought of Uncrossy, but I’m grateful he did. (Unlike Parseword, which appeared on the first installment of The Good List, you can go hog wild in this game’s archive. Puzzler beware: Your afternoon may be toast.)
I was introduced to the concept of “travel cake” at a performance by the pastry artist Kristin Worrall last weekend. In a twist on a live cooking show, Worrall constructed a lemon cake while a voice-over explained the components and virtues of a tight-crumbed, near-indestructible dessert, one that would hold up on a long journey.
Perhaps travel cakes are more familiar to regular bakers or those who regularly arrive with treats in their bag. I, for one, was intrigued to learn that the category includes poundcakes and fruitcakes, dense and unfussy, fine if left unrefrigerated, no frosting, maybe a glaze. Of course I knew these cakes existed, but I never considered they were part of a greater taxonomy. I’m now fantasizing about voyaging by stargazing train with a tightly wrapped loaf in my luggage.
One more thing: Last week, I wrote about a tool that finds empty movie screenings near you. David Burt, a reader from Billings, Mont., and his wife, Rebecca, recently found themselves alone at a Wednesday matinee of “Song Sung Blue,” which features the songs of Neil Diamond. When Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson performed “Soolaimon,” one of their favorites, David wrote …
My wife got up out of her seat and walked to the front of the theater and was dancing to the music. She invited me to join her. It was a wonderful experience, and only one we could do since we were alone in the theater.
What we did not know was that the theater had a video camera situated near the ceiling that recorded our dance. We are friends with the manager and the next time we saw him he showed us this video. He said the owner of the theater loved that we danced during the movie. “That’s what movies are supposed to make us do,” he said.
