Sometimes a potential Good List item ends up scrapped because it turns out not to be that good. Such was the case with a bit of trivia I was intrigued to learn recently: Some dogs’ feet smell like Fritos. I consider Fritos a superior chip, and the fact that one’s mutt could provide reliable access to their scent seemed promising.
I don’t have easy access to a dog, so I texted my parents, requesting that they assess the tiny feet of their miniature dachshunds, Reggie and Ray. “They smell like them, which is a little doggie, but not offensive,” came the report. No Frito scent detected. Then I read that the corn chip smell is caused by bacteria, and that not everyone likes it. Alas, not for the List. Herewith, the items that did make the cut.
On this week’s list:
1. Aggression cookies
2. Dancing the seasons
3. A game for crate diggers
4. ‘Hard to explain but easy to enjoy’
5. Groovy, sun-dappled tunes
6. Why not type the entirety of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’?
Niche communities that geek out over arcane passions are one of the internet’s most durable gifts. To wit: an entire subreddit devoted to old recipes from church cookbooks, newspapers, grandma’s handwritten index cards. It’s like a highly specific online museum, with myriad devoted curators and an exhibition that is constantly renewing.
Here, one can peruse relics like “artillery pie” (from an 1896 “Manual for Army Cooks”), “donut prunes” (stewed, stuffed with cottage cheese and served, of course, with mayo) and something called “aggression cookies” (“The more you knead, mash, squeeze and beat the general bejunior out of the dough, the better you feel”). Bejunior!
I’m forever entranced by the German choreographer Pina Bausch’s “Nelken Line,” a looping sequence of four gestures, each corresponding to one of the seasons, performed while walking in a single file line to Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues.” It’s an extract from Bausch’s 1982 work, “Nelken,” German for “carnations,” and it’s simple enough that anyone can perform it, no training needed. When I saw that there was a recent performance of “The Nelken Line” in London, I was reminded of how much I’d like to participate in one. I eagerly searched “Nelken Line near me,” but no luck.
I did, however, find a lot of mesmerizing videos of people doing the dance. Here’s a group of over-55 beachgoers on the Isle of Wight. Here’s kids, dogs and a small horse at “Cecily’s summer camp.” This one takes you on an architectural stroll through Rome. Dancing Through Parkinson’s on the Santa Monica pier. At Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Should you be inspired to learn “The Nelken Line,” here’s a very good tutorial. As simple as the movements are, I did wonder if I’d be coordinated enough to execute them all while walking. That’s the genius of the line, I suppose: You can copy the people in the procession in front of you. Who’s in?
3.
A game for crate diggers
If you loved the old board game Concentration, or you’re a vinyl collector — or, even better, both (be still my heart!) — you’ll love Cover Story, a game in which you try to guess an album cover by turning over tiles obscuring it. I don’t mean to brag, but I did solve No. 71, Building a Barrier, by removing just one corner tile. Maybe I do mean to brag just a little.
4.
‘Hard to explain but easy to enjoy’
“I like a show. So few people are capable of putting one on,” Kerry Howley laments in the opening of her review of the new novel “Riverwork,” which she calls “a collection of labyrinthine acrobatic lexical maneuvers delivered with the unadulterated confidence of the unhinged.” I immediately wanted to read this book: I like a show too, and, at least in literature, I like the unhinged.
I also very much like the novel’s author, Lisa Robertson, whose work I encountered for the first time a few months ago, via her wonderful poem “Monday.” The Times once called Robertson’s poems “hard to explain but easy to enjoy.” So rather than try to explain “Monday,” I’ll just tell you this is a poem that begs to be read aloud: “The sky is complicated and flawed and we’re up there in it, / floating near the apricot frill.” If you like that, you’ll love “Proverbs of a She-Dandy,” in which Robertson explores the idea that “menopause turns women into dandies.” A provocative premise!
Oh, and as long as we’re talking about people who can put on a show, check out Howley’s book about security and surveillance, “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs.” It was one of The Times’s best books of 2023; our critic called it “riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable.” Or, one might say, “hard to explain but easy to enjoy.” I loved it.
5.
Groovy, sun-dappled tunes
More lexical maneuvers, from Kevin Morby, whose new album, “Little Wide Open,” I’ll be bold and predict, will be one of my most listened to of the summer. “Am I a has-been? Am I a husband?” he wonders on the song “Javelin,” the video for which features him on the back of an ATV piloted by the comedian Caleb Hearon. That video, that song, the whole album has this sort of groovy, sun-dappled abandon that characterizes my aspirational fantasy of summer.
6.
Why not type the entirety of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’?
This is either a rad tool or a terrible idea. Pick a book and type the whole thing out on this website. It tells you when you mess up. It’s like the old learn-to-type software Mavis Beacon, only using classic novels instead of simple sentences as practice text. If you (or your kids) don’t know how to touch-type, this seems like a possible “two birds, one stone” situation. It might, alternatively, be a recipe for turning reading into torture, in which case, I apologize. Turns out I read much, much faster than I type.
One more thing: Vanita Wagner and her husband, who live in Connecticut, have a philosophy: “Celebrate the small things in life, because the big things may not come around so often.” Here’s what she wrote me:
People often ask us, “What are you celebrating?” when they hear us say “Time to celebrate” at a random moment. Our response to those who don’t know us well: life. Those who have spent any amount of time with us have come to understand that this is how we operate. We celebrate that our daughter has returned home safely from a trip overseas, that our dog has behaved well during a visit by new friends or that we have finished a long, productive day of working in the yard.
My husband leaves me index cards at random times with R.T.B.H. — Reasons To Be Happy — written on one side and some actual reasons numbered on the other. My collection has grown to over 200 cards. Occasionally, I read through the cards to see how we have grown as a family and all that we have experienced, overcome and celebrated.
Perhaps there’s something you’ve experienced, overcome and celebrated that you’d like to share in the comments? Here’s my email if you’d prefer. If you want to get The Good List in your inbox, sign up here. Check out our archive if you’re craving further good things. — Melissa
The editor of The Good List is Jodi Rudoren. Eli Cohen handles the photos.
