I am coming to you today Live from South Austin1 at my local spot Medici, starting my week with a bangin Buku Abel from South Ethiopia.
I had most of this week’s edition finished up and ready for a full table read by the weekend, but I left this opening upfront to ensure we had a fresh monologue, and to figure out what I wanted to say about Saturday Night Live before Sunday’s prime time celebration of the show’s 50th season2.
I–along with help from Claude–did some rough math: I think I’ve watched around 700 of the show’s 980 episodes. That adds up to around 1,000 hours3, or around 65 days of my waking life that I’ve spent with SNL.
I remember my parents introducing me to the show (around the SNL 15th Anniversary Special) and my ensuing fascination with live sketch and stand-up comedy, complete with stacks of VHS tapes to prove it; now, I’ve introduced both of my kids to the show and staying up to watch is already a codified weekly routine. And one of my core memories will always be getting into a live taping, just a few days after moving from LA to New York, when Jamie managed to score us two floor seats to see Rainn Wilson and Arcade Fire4 and we wound up in a drum circle with cast members as the band played for 30 minutes after the show wrapped.
(If you watch the monologue, you can see me in the back row around the 0:16 mark.)
The Buku Abel is hitting and I could go on, but as I read all of the SNL retrospectives and thought about my own, I realized that for any of us to talk about the show at length, it inevitably turns biographical. Whether it has remained appointment viewing for decades, or your only exposure is the cultural reverberations of its sketches and performances, Lorne Michaels’ 90-minute weekly block has been one of the only enduring cultural forces in our lives over the last half a century. We have seen entire formats and genres come and go, we’ve witnessed the “death of the great American newsman,” but Saturday Night Live’s take on whatever happens in the world has remained woven into our lives and the cultural conversation.
As we live through whatever you call the transition point we’re going through, facing the start of our own country’s 250th season, looking back on fifty years of SNL offers an interesting lens on how we got to where we are, and perhaps a note of optimism (or at least a sense of humor) about what we’ll wake up to tomorrow.
I couldn’t possibly read everything out there, but I fell deep into the Studio 8H rabbit hole and these are a few highlights I would recommend if you are feeling nostalgic around tonight’s celebration:
Where SNL has found 50 seasons of funny people, and why it matters
How do you create 200 costumes a week? ‘SNL’ designer Tom Broecker takes us behind the scenes
The Story of How ‘Saturday Night Live’ Made the “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup” Sketch
The Intertwining History of the ‘Avatar’ Papyrus Font and the ‘SNL’ Sketch That Spoofed It
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
How deep does the Luka rabbit hole go?
Did the Adelsons actually force the Luka deal not because they were hesitant to pay a supermax deal to the young Slovenian superstar, but because they have inside information that a new Saudi Arabian, LIV Golf-style, rival league is in the works?
There is a seven-layer dip of problems with the comparison to LIV’s entry into golf and the prospect of an upstart league that would be in any position to sign Luka in the next five years5, but thankfully live perpetually online and hyperconnected, so we still had an economist weigh in with his analysis. TL;DR: The long-term threat of Saudi money to the NBA might make the Luka deal look like a savvy one when all is said and done:
The entire market value of NBA assets is predicated on the pre-existing property rights surrounding contracts and draft status. The calculus underlying those values is made astonishingly complex by the byzantine rules of the NBA salary cap.
What happens if a rival shows up with no regard for the pre-existing institutions of the NBA cartel?
Every NBA institution would be up for grabs. The salary cap? It threatens the ability to retain the top talent. The draft? Why would rookies accept pennies on the dollar and a single possible employer?
Mavs fans, you’re not alone. February has also been an emotional rollercoaster for beavers everywhere 🦫.
Tuesday, February 3
"The beavers saved us 30 million Czech crowns. They built the dams without any project documentation and for free," said the head of the nature reserve administration.
Wednesday, February 4
MN senator wants to make it legal to eat beavers again
Redditors on /r/hunting in a 2022 thread also compared the taste of beaver to beef. However, on the Senate floor last year, Senator Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids) mentioned that beavers are referred to as "nature's chicken nuggets."
Real ones know the only acceptable beaver nuggets are anything but natural. Let Uncle Buc-ee handle the nuggs so the other guys can get back to fixing our infrastructure.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the second law of thermodynamics, but in ourselves.
Portland studio launches the ‘Netflix of Maine,’ a streaming platform for and about the state (Portland Press Herald)
The Texas Surf Museum Pays Tribute to Our State’s Most Overlooked Sport (Texas Monthly)
When your town becomes a Nike brand (Fast Company)
Related:
Nike’s turnaround has begun – but it will take a long time (Marketing Week)
Inside Nike's Cultural Comeback (SportsVerse)
Nike’s Huge Super Bowl: From Jalen Hurts to Kendrick and Serena (Front Office Sports)
P.S., I told you 🦅
See also: Can Sports Fandom Be a Religious Experience? (Penn Arts & Sciences)
Fox’s New Scorebug Graphic Design, and Our Innate Resistance to Change (Daring Fireball)
The NBA Has Fallen Into an Efficiency Trap. (Bloomberg)
Are we optimizing ourselves to death?6
Permanent Decline. Leif Weatherby on the long, slow end of Aaron Rodgers:
The story that follows is about knowing, really knowing, that what you’ve done is not a fluke. It’s about the second act of life, and the struggle to accept the beginning of the end, the permanent decline that affects us all, but that men grieve in a peculiar way. It’s about knowing too much, and walling yourself off from the world with that knowledge. It’s about trying desperately not to know too much, and failing.
Why are so many unusual skyscrapers being built in Tirana? (dezeen)
see also: Eight unusual skyscrapers set to transform the skyline of Tirana
Around the Horn
Is Netflix bringing us together, or is its personalisation pushing us apart? (shots)
How to start a great conversation no matter whom you're with (Aja Frost)
Why Bars Matter (David Coggins)
The Bop House Is an OnlyFans Paradise That Pulls Millions Per Month (Vice)
OnlyFans Sticky Business Model (Trung Phan)
OnlyFans is my least favorite form of sex work. I am net grateful for it - obviously it’s fulfilling an important need, and I like that men have graduated from “prerecorded, untouchable porn” to “slightly more interactive porn with a facsimile of a slightly realer girl”. I also like that it gave so many women greater financial hope for the future, more independence, no freedom. I think this is better than it not existing.
But it’s still not great. It’s designed, whether intentionally or by fortunate accident, to scale connection in a way that deeply degrades the quality of that connection. I hope we one day figure out a way to scale connection without losing so much humanity.
Doctor faces inquiry after giving his cat a Cat scan at Italian hospital (The Guardian)
This Week’s Sources
Public Announcement | [SIC] | BRXND Dispatch | Feed Me | Kottke | Channel 6 / A Continuous Lean | Daniel-Yaw Miller | OffBall | Today in Tabs / Trung Phan
Taped live in front of a studio audience*.
* People around me at Medici
We also just finished celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of TV’s other longest-running establishments: Austin City Limits. And this year is YouTube’s 20th birthday. Then next year, assuming it’s still standing, we’ll get to celebrate America’s 250th. So many birthdays.
The equivalent of like three weeks worth of Joe Rogan podcasts.
Season 32, Episode 14
The timeline for this, the number of things that would have to happen, the idea that the Adelsons alone have this information. But I love that we’re reaching Qanon layering of motives now.
Asking for the NBA but lots of other organizations and people too.
SNL definitely had it moments back in the day.