free pizza #2
Welcome to FREE PIZZA. Free pizza is a nice, unexpected thing in a strange world. Every other week, I will share some free pizza with you in the form of things that I am reading, watching and thinking about that you may like too.
This newsletter is in its earliest stage, so please send any feedback! Would love to hear what you like/don’t like/want to see/don’t want to see.
thanks for reading! 🍕
- SOPHIA
1. goodreads 📖
💡if you like a user experience that is both truly heinous and refreshingly earnest
Goodreads is a website where you track books you’ve read, are reading or want to read. It’s the perfect quarantine task: self-indulgent, unnecessary, requires little brain power and has a high reward.
Goodreads is also, for some reason, a social network. Founded in 2007 and virtually unchanged since, its aesthetic is a cross between a Michael’s Craft Store and Google Groups. After not logging into my account since 2015, I inexplicably found myself friends with middle school friends’ parents, my high school math teacher, the ex boyfriend who told me to get Goodreads and one of my best friends who I had no idea used the site because nobody talks about it because it feels weird to keep track of every book you read on a social network. But because nobody is on it, it’s the one social network where you don’t feel like you need to show a version of your life that’s different than what it is.
As I updated my account to include every book I’ve read in the last five years, I began to notice patterns: when I was reading more, when I was reading fast, if I was reading fiction or non-fiction. A list of books you read, like a playlist you listen to repeatedly for two months and then never again, is an honest time capsule of where you’re at emotionally: much more, and much truer than what you post on Instagram.
ANYway if I didn’t totally talk you out of it, add me on Goodreads! (I have no idea how.)
2. baggu phone wallpapers 🌸
💡if you like a trend but aren’t into capitalism rn
I love, you love, we all love baggu, the tote bags that inspire works of art. (I just bought this one.)
But their greatest gift to us may be free WALLPAPERS, which change seasonally with whatever new patterns they release. Here’s the one I have now:
And! You can also just google “Baggu wallpapers” for the older ones that they take off the site.
3. buy nothing groups / @junkyardjournals ♻️
💡 if you hate spending $6 on superglue you’ll use once, if you feel a little gross when you scroll through glossier & realize how much you are their ideal customer
Speaking of capitalism! I started following @junkyardjournals, an Instagram account by a woman in LA who posts about fast fashion, living on a budget and #secondhandfirst, which is just basically trying to get something used before buying it new.
She talks a lot about Buy Nothing Facebook groups, which are in almost every city. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but people post things they’re giving away or in search of and neighbors respond if they have something.
I joined the Bed-Stuy group on Facebook, and posted that I needed a single needle and thread. Within 20 mins someone who lives a block from me responded. While a sewing kit would have cost me approximately $3, it’s more that I don’t need it, it doesn’t need to eventually be in a landfill and we can bypass the whole system!
Kat on @junkyardjournals talks a lot about not needing to be perfect with this, but to be trying; if you can at least try to get something secondhand or skip some fast fashion items that’s progress in itself. She also talks about how we are more than potential customers, which is really good to remember, especially as I scroll through millennial pink websites and feel a little gross about how much they are marketed to me.
4. shedd aquarium penguins 🐧
💡 if you don’t fuck with seaworld but like marine mammals
The Shedd Aquarium penguins are one of the stars of internet quarantine (RIP alison roman), prancing down the steps of this Chicago aquarium, waddling down the halls to meet the otters and beluga and generally being very cute! They’re part of my morning scroll rotation, along with a healthy dose of shiba inu content (as heavily discussed last newsletter.)
5. this extremely soothing British cartoon 📺
💡 if you like nice things like biscuits with jam on them and dignified talking rodents
Mouse & Mole are two friends who live together in the country (though there are strong undertones that they are lovers)
My brother and I grew up watching a VHS of Mouse & Mole weekly. It’s one of those kid memories that has no other context. I don’t know where the tape came from, if anyone else I know ever watched it or when it was made, but we have a shared understanding that it will always be special.
So when I told Charlie about the show, I was nervous to unearth it! I didn’t want the memory to be spoiled. But it turns out it’s just as soothing as I remember (And Charlie thinks so too, having had no emotional attachment to it). It turns out it was originally on the British version of PBS. Now, they’re all on Youtube and each episode is only five minutes long. (In kid time, this is 25 minutes.) I recommend starting with “Half a Banana,” followed by “The Daffodil.”
🍕 Thank you for reading! I’ll see you again in two weeks. In the meantime, tell your friends and tell me what you think.
This newsletter is fully funded by Atlas Media group
TY to Claire for filling my DMs with very cute penguins (& sheep) !!!
TY Chloe for sliding @junkyardjournals into my DMs & I hope you find someone to give your Google Home to.