Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 12/26/18 🍠
Last night, as part of this year's Chapman Crimcram Extravaganza, my dad and I trundled off with approximately the entire rest of Atlanta to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in order to look at their Holiday Light Experience. Prior to yesterday, it'd been several years since I'd gone, and I had forgotten how truly fucking weird the event is.
My dad got the premium ticket offering (because it came with a drink ticket, A+ would drink schnapps near some orchids again), which advertised that it included 3D glasses. We got our glasses at the entrance and trundled off, and near the first big light display we put them on. It turns out that by "3D glasses", the gardens actually meant "these will make you see owls expanding from every light you can see; if you move your head they will appear to fly; and they are drawn in the art style most associated with Space Invaders". Looking out on the Atlanta skyline and seeing what appeared to be a 40 foot white owl coming from a skyscraper, a million tiny owls coming from an area totally covered in green lights, and spooky purple ghost owls emerging from a light tunnel was a surprise! A deeply weird surprise!
(Right after discovering this I learned that we were standing next to a light-up Atlanta phoenix, which was the point at which I realized the night was probably going to get weirder.)
The signs near the phoenix advertised "orchestral orbs", which obviously we went to check out because what the fuck, and that was how we wound up spending something like 15 minutes just standing and staring at vaguely ominous-looking six-foot-tall spike orbs lighting up in time to music. They absolutely looked like they would be part of some sort of alien conspiracy in a Doctor Who episode, except that they were also playing the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack.
There were assorted sundry other exhibits (a camel made out of moss, an orchid house full of spooky green lights, a very elaborate model train exhibit) but the real highlight was on the way out. A giant, snaking elevated walkway in the forest out front of the Botanical Gardens had had every single tree covered in hanging light strands, with each individual light apparently controlled separately. When my dad and I got onto the walkway, they were playing Christmas carols. But, when we'd gotten about halfway through and stopped to stand on the breezeway and admire the truly sort of dissociative color changing lights, the music pivoted to vaguely ominous weird orchestral tracks that I had 100% never heard, and the trees begin to light up to represent rain and fire and who all knows what else. It was awesome in the old-school, if you'd dropped a medieval peasant there they'd have gibbered sort of way. As soon as we began to move out of the forest they switched back to Christmas carols again.
When we finally wended our way out of the forest of spooky orchestra lights, we headed off to get dinner, and I ate myself ill on shrimp and grits. It was a lovely Atlanta evening.
Shit to read
Hell yeah celebrate Boxing Day with a long read about marriage therapy.
Perhaps too late for this year's boyfriends, but a reminder from next year's.
Yay Demi!
Let your freak flags fly, furby modders.
As someone who's been on OKCupid since she was 19 and who is completely, completely resentful of the rise of swipe apps (I graduated in 2013, the year pinned in this article as the wide release of Tinder) I liked this a lot.
Cool cool cool estrogen can do some fun medical stuff.
A real-life childhood Florida hotel resident.
Amazon owns so much shit, and my industry's use of their servers is apparently subsidizing it.
I watched A Muppet Christmas Carol for the first time yesterday and it was great.
Honestly this 2013 pitch from the Awl about how to improve Thanksgiving isn't wrong.
Obviously I loved this article about a professional safe cracker.
Sad article about gentrification in Japan!
Shit to eat
If you're like me, you probably haven't eaten anything resembling a plant in 3-6 days.
Get in the car and go to Kroger.
Ignore the Valentine's candy that is inexplicably on display now.
Go to the produce aisle.
Find some kale or other substantial leafy vegetable.
Bring it home with you.
Wash it, strip the leaves off it, and sort of tear it up. Don't dry it.
Heat a pan over medium, and add some oil when it's hot.
Add some minced garlic for a minute, before much happens to it, and some red pepper flakes and salt.
Toss in the kale in.
Cover with a lid and leave for five minutes.
When you return, it will have magically cooked itself through. Squeeze lemon juice onto everything, and salt appropriately if more is needed. Alternatively, if no lemon, go back to step 9 and toss vinegar in with the kale.
Fry an egg for it or just put in in a bowl and chow down.
Remember what nutrients taste like.
Shit to listen to
This Joel Kim Booster bit made me laugh.
There is one good song for this interim time period between now and the end of the year and this is it.
Shit to buy
See my screed about kale up above.
I received spices from Penzey's for Christmas, and was charmed by the entire concept behind their frozen pizza spice.
Also received these mixing bowls and they are very beautiful; maybe you would like some, too.