You know the kind: What do you do, when did you move here, how about this weather, what are the ins and outs of Liam’s travel baseball schedule?
The only thing smaller than the talk is my interest. Spare me, I beg you.
I am spiritually united in my grouchiness with Mrs. Matthiessen, whose very French list of Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About should be gospel. The list includes: diet, common ailments, how you slept, and longwinded explanations of how you got where you were going. (It also includes money, which is where I dissent; we should all be talking a lot more about that, actually.)
Here is a list of increasingly unhinged “medium talk” questions that I like to turn to when meeting new parents in the neighborhood. Just invasive enough to throw someone off balance when deployed in what you’d expect to be a small-talk conversation. The goal here, obviously, is to scare them off (ideally) or identify (grudgingly) who might be a kindred spirit.
What’s something you wish people more people would ask you about?
Where did you grow up, and what did you eat?
What was your first job?
What would you like your “third-act job” to be?
Where do you hope to live one day?
Got any scoop on the PTO drama? (An instant way to make a friend is to share a secret with them.)
What’s something you’re unreasonably snobby about?
If you had to teach a class on something unrelated to your job, what would it be?
What’s something you changed your mind about recently?
If you could pass one piece of non-partisan legislation, what would it be?
Is cereal soup? Are Pop-Tarts ravioli?
What’s the minimum amount of money you’d need to let a stranger look through your phone for an hour?
Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
Here’s your homework:
Reply back or comment with the “medium talk” questions in your own arsenal.
Answer your favorite question above — or as many as you’d like. I genuinely would like to know!
away we go.
Forget the bullet train – the best way to see Japan is by classic car
By David Coggins for Financial Times
My take: As a staunch Pyrrhonist when it comes to cars — and having recently become quite smitten with Japan’s excellent public rail system — I found the premise of this article to be suspicious. But I’ve be damned if it ain’t pretty to look at.
Best line: One morning our cars were blessed by a monk at the Suwa Taisha shrine, which is more than 1,000 years old. The stones in the courtyard were overgrown with gentle green spring moss; the monk emerged in an elegant ensemble and stood beneath an ancient carved wooden transom to bid us good health and good fortune. Then we returned to our cars – parked smartly in a row, resembling the lineup at a Concours d’Elegance. If there was a dissonance in that moment between the sacred and the material, nobody commented on it.
Every Year This New York Family of 5 Does Summer Camps in Europe. Here’s How They Pull It Off by Terry Ward for AFAR
Best line: For Novich, swapping her family’s NYC home for one abroad for several weeks at a time during the summers, when her university job is on break and her husband can work remotely, has paid dividends by making the family’s trips not only more affordable but also more authentic.
“By living in a local home and putting our kids in a local day camp, you can do the touristy thing, but you can also do the local thing. I’ve uncovered so many beautiful and amazing places by simply living like a local, so it’s very rewarding. The kids get a really authentic cultural experience that they might not have otherwise,” she says.
What They’re Gossiping (And Complaining) About in the Hamptons by Stephanie Krikorian for Curbed
Best line: Residents have argued about the placement of a large cell tower for years even though making a phone call, even to 911, is nearly impossible. Now, instead of one large tower, as many as 200 mini-towers will go up over the course of the year.
10 ways you can help kill Mike Lee’s land grab by Travis Hall for Field & Stream
Best line: In a revised version of the bill obtained by Field & Stream, Lee still mandates the sale of more than 1 million acres of public land in the same 11 western states mentioned in the first version. "It' still a pile of dog st, just a slightly different pile of dog st," said Fresh Tracks host and prominent public land advocate Randy Newberg in a recent Instagram post explaining Lee's amended land grab. "He doesn't get it. He thinks we're going to give up. We're not going to give up."
home tour
Overbrook Overlook: An Architect’s Barn-Turned-Tiny Home ‘Operates Much Bigger Than It Is’
By Fan Winston for Remodelista
Best line: The farm—corn and beans are its main crops—has been in his wife Mary Anne’s family since 1961. During the COVID pandemic, their son took to camping with his friends on the property, just an hour and a half from Kansas City, where the family resides. Inspired by his escapes, the couple decided to restore the barn—”the only remaining vertical structure on the farm,” says Steve—and turn it into their little house on the prairie.
Seth Putnam is an editor and writer in Chicago. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in a 1920s home that is the epitome of a work in progress.
"Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." —Mary Oliver