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Available on Hoopla and Kanopy. DVD at Barnes & Noble

I’m grateful for the documentarians sharing the depths of these performers and their positive impact of society. 2019’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was very important to me as someone who still gets emotional thinking about Fred Rogers. Possibly the best documentary (series) I’ve seen on Jim Henson was via Defunctland.

Now Shari & Lamb Chop has helped me add context to an old group of friends from my childhood, when it has often felt like I made them up in a fever dream.

Realizing just how prominent Lewis was as a celebrity and the fact that Lamb Chop’s Play-Along was itself a culmination of a long career was fascinating. There do seem to be some omissions of Shari’s impact, including reducing her advocacy for children’s education to a couple of sound bites. But it ends on a very emotional note and has expanded my understanding of how dedicated this woman was in sharing her craft molded by the ever-relevant roots of vaudeville.

We went to my kid’s first physical therapy appointment this morning. There doesn’t seem to be anything severely wrong; he’s just simply not very motivated to practice balancing on his own.

The physical therapist put this interesting toy in front of Otto (not his real name). It’s like a VTech/Fisher Price piggy bank that chirps numbers at you when you put big plastic coins inside him.

It seems Otto needs a lot of distraction when practicing standing, getting otherwise uncomfortable. I’m not panicking yet – maybe I’ll never panic, what use would that be – but we’re going to get lower furniture for him and practice pointing his toes inward.

I feel like I’m not being totally fair to the book, because I started judging it based on its reputation and hype versus its own merits. On its own, it’s a spirited attempt to present a complex interpersonal relationship amidst the backdrop of an industry that is more and more relevant to the average reader with the passing of the years. Ultimately, I was really hoping for more integration of these digital worlds that Zevin envisioned, Mapleworld and Pioneers. The characters themselves….were tough for me to stick with. Sam ranges from really nasty to awkwardly solipsistic in his attempts to reach out to his best friends. Sadie is ready to stop all forward progress in character development at the first sign of Zevin setting her up for trauma. Basically, I thought this book would evolve us past the need for books like Neuromancer, but we’re still waiting for that day.

This inaugural post is about news websites and health inspection reports.

Earlier this year, the Orlando Sentinel accidentally threw a grenade into a vegan restaurant’s operations when it reposted flawed state data, effectively putting The Hammered Lamb on blast for roach violations that they had never earned.

The quote from the Poynter article that piqued my interest was from State Representative Anna Eskamani from Orlando, who tweeted about the incident. She called The Hammered Lamb “one of our best restaurants in town” and said the Sentinel was publishing “click-baity articles that are no better than posting mugshots.”

State of Florida incorrectly labels one of our best restaurants in town for having a bad inspection which the @orlandosentinel posts in click-baity articles that are no better than posting mugshots. Turns out the state made a mistake & now the small biz has been suffering. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/pq1gKoyzUC

— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) April 16, 2024

It’s interesting to me because I’ve clicked on equivalent stories for restaurants in the Triangle area. It really does seem to be like a thing that the algorithm is trained to push on folks. So, in theory, folks are really interested to know which restaurants are failing their inspections.

It’s never about a restaurant doing well, though. Go figure.

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