Compulsory reading

• If you’ve been stuck indoors all day, take a moment to pause and listen to some sweet birdsong, compiled by the Washington Postis Richard Sima in his report on the mental health benefits offered by music and the presence of our feathered friends:

A hypothesis about the salubrious effects of nature, known as the attention restoration theory, posits that being in nature is good for improving concentration and decreasing the mental fatigue associated with living in urban environments. stressful. Natural stimuli, such as birdsong, can allow us to engage in a “soft fascination,” which holds our attention but also allows it to replenish itself.

Nature – and birdsong – also reduces stress. Previous research has shown that time spent in outdoor green spaces can lower blood pressure and cortisol levels, Hammoud said.

It’s not yet understood how birdsong affects our brains, but neuroimaging studies have found stress-reducing brain responses to other forms of nature exposure.

• PBSthe new Clarence and Ginni Thomas documentary arrived, following their trajectories and startling information like Clarence’s brief stint in the Black Power Movement. All we can say is get ready and don’t forget to support your local reproductive justice clinic!

• Speaking of which: For THE New YorkerEyal Press explains why some independent clinics are wary of the composition and practices of Planned Parenthood:

The organization’s new initiatives are welcome, but they represent only a fraction of the combined annual budgets of the national and global offices of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, or $1.7 billion. The Abortion Care Network has launched a fundraising campaign to support independent providers: it raised just $5 million last year. An abortion provider in Missoula named Joey Banks told me that after Dobbs, she and her peers hoped that because Planned Parenthood had the biggest budget, it would be “the first to stand up and say, ‘Hey. well, we have to close these three clinics which are redundant – we are going to find the biggest abortion access desert and we are going to set up clinics there. Instead, she said, all the new physical clinics she knew were independently run by people who, despite their more limited resources, were ready to act in times of crisis.

• You may know siblings Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd, activists based in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. On the 75th anniversary of the Nakba this week, Mohammed shared his thoughts on occupation, Zionism and Palestinian resistance in a must read for Nation:

For Palestinians, the Nakba is relentless and recurrent. It happens in the present and it happens all over the map. Not a corner of our geography has been spared, not a generation since the 1940s. For my own family, the Nakba was the experience of my grandmother’s expulsion from Haifa by the Haganah in 1948 – but it was also his cautionary tales warning me of what would inevitably be my fate when army-backed settlers with Brooklyn accents took up more than half my time. house in Sheikh Jarrah in 2009, declaring that my house belonged to them by divine decree. For other families, the Nakba began when a beloved grandfather was expelled from Jaffa and sought refuge in Gaza – where it continues to the roar of warplanes dropping bombs on refugee camps overcrowded, presenting his grandchildren to their first (or possibly third or sixth) war. These are their faces on the posters that have yet to be printed.

• Monosodium glutamate (MSG), once derided in racist reviews for its supposed health risks, may actually be the key to reducing salt intake. Yasmin Tayag tells the story of her impending comeback for the Atlantic:

Overall, MSG seems better than salt itself, given that excessive salt consumption poses many chronic health risks. A relatively small amount of MSG could be used to save the flavor of salt-reduced products without endangering health. This is possible in part because of the molecular makeup of MSG. It satisfies the salt craving to some degree because it contains sodium (it’s right there in the name, after all) – but only one-third the amount, by weight, that salt contains. The rest of the molecule is made up of the amino acid L-glutamate, which registers as the savory, “bubbly” flavor known as umami.

• In an age where your phone eats first, TikTok’s food content is changing the way many people dine out – and forcing restaurants to reconsider their practices too, Ezra Marcus explains in GrubStreet:

This burger raises another crucial point: the food can’t stay there. It must be as performative as the staff, if not more. Nothing grabs a viewer more than objects that melt, flow and stretch. “Anything cheesy is always good, because there’s kind of an action element to it,” says Raum. It could be syrup poured over a dessert, rare steaks dripping with blood and hemoglobin, or strands of melted mozzarella stretched between the halves of a meatball sub.

Increasingly, chefs are designing foods specifically to generate those moments. “It’s very obvious when you look at a menu and someone in the kitchen says, like, ‘Yo, what’s our viral dish?'” Delany says. In Bad Roman — the first name everyone mentions when asked about restaurants designed specifically for TikTok — that dish is a filet mignon topped with a single oversized “cacio e pepe raviolo,” which is essentially a balloon of sauce-filled pasta, the contents of which explode through the steak while everything is sliced ​​open.

• Journalist and crossword puzzle maker Anna Schechtman has written an extensive exploration of work, gender, entertainment and profit in The Real Housewives for the New York Review. As with the infamous TV show itself, keep some popcorn nearby as you go:

The work of the lowercase housewife is invisible – it is not readable as work, which is the alibi of capitalism and patriarchy to deny the housewife entry into the wage economy. Taking care of the house and the hearth is his passion, his nature. By being a housewife, she is simply herself. The reality TV star’s work is also invisible – she is simply herself, albeit in front of cameras. It was the alibi of the directors of television to have its crust. Although PBS’s 1973 documentary series An American Family is widely considered the seed of reality television, the genre did not germinate until the Writers Guild strikes of 1988 or blossom until the Guild strikes of 2007. -2008. Without new scripted content, network executives invested resources in unscripted alternatives. Non-union TV personalities replaced striking writers, crossing picket lines en route to fifteen minutes of fame.