Please roast me.

Your newest Friday email

For getting a Substack 5.5 months into 2022, long after “get a Substack” has become a punchline that somehow sums up our media ecosystem. I know, I know.

But back in my day this sort of thing was also known as a blog, of which I’ve had many versions of. And despite writing every day to pay my bills, I wanted an opportunity to connect differently.

Twitter can be a miserable place. And I’ve found myself lately enjoying many different newsletters — from one that reviews off-Broadway shows to a weekly roundup of underground music in New York City , to a newsletter about love. I of course get a lot of my news from newsletters. You can expect a little of that in here, too.

And why have I called it this? I often greet my friends with “what’s good?” which I’m told is a very New York City thing (just like the all-inclusive “you good.”)

When I ask someone “what’s good” I want to know how they’re doing and what is the latest thing that brings them a little joy, which we all could use more of.

You can expect recommendations on things I’ve been reading, writing, thinking about, watching, eating, and listening to. And please send me your own recommendations — maybe a photo you took that you liked, or an episode of a podcast you listened to. I may also include a weekly feature called “Herb of the Week,” where I will take your submissions. (This week I’m the Herb of the Week, for doing this.)

So what’s good?

READ

Last month I noticed the former official Twitter account of former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson — @SpeakerCoJo — had been removed from the platform. I didn’t know why but it sent me down a rabbit hole to find out what happened (the current speaker took it down) and what it could mean for transparency and digital archiving.

I had fun reporting this story because I connected with people who are obsessed with what we keep, both digitally and in real life. I learned Councilwoman Gale Brewer, a self-described hoarder, is introducing a bill that would further codify the city’s social media archiving policy (she has her own personal archive of government physical documents, including an extensive one on the early days of 311.)

I also spent a lot of time on one of my favorite sites, the Internet Archive (an amazing resource for everything from TV news clips to live music to old video games.) The Wayback Machine even compiled a book of the former speaker’s tweets for all to see.

Read the story here (and sign up for THE CITY’s newsletters!)

WATCH

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project was released a few years ago but I rewatched it this week after finishing the story on Corey Johnson’s old tweets. Marion Stokes lived in Philadelphia and began recording live television 24 hours a day during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Stokes was incredibly intelligent and engaged in politics and wanted to capture everything being shown about the situation as a check to both the government and the media. She died in 2012, on the day of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, and in the decades in between captured hundreds of thousands of hours of television.

“She hit record, and she never stopped,” her son said in the documentary.

Stokes’ archive of more than 70,000 VHS tapes is currently being digitized by the Internet Archive, which will be available for free to the public.

What Stokes didn’t know as she began her own recording was broadcast TV stations did not keep their own archives, often taping over what they aired. So her obsession has yielded one of the most comprehensive archives of television at a pivotal time.

The film is completely engrossing and it paints a picture of Stokes, who was brilliant but difficult, and the ways in which her obsession effected her own family.

Streaming lots of places.

LISTEN

My songs on repeat lately:

“Dynamite” by Saint Sister

“Love is Everywhere” by Pharoah Sanders

“Take the Child” by Shudder to Think

EAT

Have you heard about The Sandwich? If you’ve seen me at all over the last few weeks, you probably listened to me talk to you about The Sandwich. It’s an artichoke parm hero from a very old-school place in Brooklyn and it’s completely taken over my life.

The story: I was visiting a friend in Prospect Lefferts Gardens last month and saw the sign for Mama Louisa’s Hero Shoppe on New York Avenue, right by his apartment.

It’s an old-school sign in both cursive and block letters, and in the window there was a handwritten sign advertising 3 and 6-foot heroes. It looked legit.

When I left my friend’s house I stopped inside and thats where I saw ARTICHOKE PARM listed alongside the parms I’m accustomed to (chicken, eggplant, shrimp.)

My first thought was, how the fuck do they do that? I asked an older man who was also in the deli if he’d ever seen an artichoke parm before. He assured me it was good, so I ordered one.

I drove back home with the sandwich in the passenger seat. I unfolded the artichoke parm, and took a bite, and from then on out I have been a total evangelist of The Sandwich.

The Sandwich is simple: drained artichoke hearts, sauce, cheese. I think some ricotta mixed in. Good bread. Filling but not too filling. It has been described to me by the friends I’ve convinced to go as “amazing” “not too heavy but still robust” “so simple, well executed, I can’t stop thinking about it” and “it’s a beautiful thing.” I brought one to my family last weekend and both my parents were completely amazed. “Artichokes? Parmesan? Why?,” my mom said early Saturday morning. But she loved it.

What interests me most is its uniqueness. I’ve asked around, and even done research, but it seems the only place selling an artichoke parm hero (and also over ziti and spaghetti!!!) is Mama Louisa’s, at 609 New York Ave. — where it’s been for more than 100 years. (In the words of my mom, when asked if she’d ever seen one before: “Neva! Neva!”)

Please go get The Sandwich, and let me know what you think! I have no financial stake in any of this, other than a burning desire to let everyone experience the same sudden joy I did after eating it.

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Thank you for making it this far! Don’t forget, you can submit your feedback and your suggestions for things to eat, read, watch — and for Herb of the Week!

(say hi to dolce on Arthur Avenue)