“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.
From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.
Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.
Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.
The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!
(David Denby on Norman Mailer’s wartime experiences)
Hey, folks. Just a quick periodic round-up of stuff I’ve gotten up to of late…I guess I could use Linktree but I’m still paying for hosting for TN, so: let’s be here!
And let’s start with a commenter update from a decade-old Vine letter!
“Where else are you?” Still on Twitter at tomatonation; everywhere else, either at tomatonation or at sarahdbunting. You can throw the blog onto your RSS reader, too — and I’ll use this space to highlight all my other lunatic projects, like…
Again With This: Our most recent Patreon ep talked about Grant Show in a short-lived “9-1-1 of the ’90s” called True Blue. (You can hear me and Tara on the History of the 90s podcast here, talking about 90210.)
Best Evidence: Paid subscribers got a deep dive on the life and loves of Dorothy Kilgallen last week. This week Eve and I are talking about Death in the Dorms and Surviving R. Kelly‘s last installment.
Exhibit B. Books: Hardcover sale through 1/10! And I soft-launched, for lack of a better term, the “around the genre in 50 states” mini-project as well; not a ton in stock from Alabama, but some real corkers.
Extra Hot Great: Mullendash!
Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs: We recorded the first episode of our new season, Record Of The Year Showdown, yesterday, and we may not be able to finish the season because we can’t stop singing “Volare” melodramatically at/near our spouses and we’re both and each going to get murdered. As we go through the ROTY winners chronologically, I find myself sitting — happily! — with a lot of memories of my mom, and how much of our family’s shared language and communication fabric was woven from, well, changing pop songs to be about butts. Barb must be so proud. Anyway, for more on “Moon River,” follow MASTAS on your preferred pod app; new season drops 1/16/23.
Quaid In Full: Yeah, remember that thing? It’s back in a few weeks. We do have episodes in the can; our schedule’s just…been on one for like a year.
Reading: Raven Rock; a book on counterfeit U.S. coinage that even my dad, a longtime collector, was like, “…good luck I guess”; Weiss’s Double Play is up next. (I’m on Goodreads at sarahdbunting if you want to check out my deranged TBR list.)
Watching: You S02. Not quite as successful credibility-wise as S01 but the performances really take you by the ear.
The bond between sovereign and subjects is a strange and mostly unknowable thing. A nation’s life becomes a person’s, and then the string must break. Sam Knight on Operation London Bridge
Monarchies want abolishing, …
Once upon a time, in the world before Tomato Nation, I worked in an antiquarian bookshop in Chelsea. I made seven dollars an hour. I learned how to “spine up” a shelf, tweaking the books …
Sarahs Bunting past.
I was 28, no greys. I had two
cats, one grey. I lived, for a moment, in a loft in Toronto I was subletting
from a college friend. The cats have gone. They are also …
Listen to my presentation from the 2018 Baseball In Literature And Culture conference!
Joe Reid joins Mark and Sarah for a ranking — and handicapping — of this year’s Best Song candidates.
