The instant hagiography of SNL, potato salad good times, and one device to rule them all
Steven Godfrey selects his top Substack reads
This week’s Substack Reads digest is guest edited by , who, together with and , hosts , an essential college football podcast. Some of the team’s most popular episodes to date include “‘The Blind Side’ commentary track,” “Emergency episode: A&M really did it,” and “The Eyes List: The state of the coach carousel in early November.” If you enjoy Steven’s selections here, be sure to follow him on Substack, and subscribe to Split Zone Duo.
Hello, my name is Steven Godfrey, one-third of the Split Zone Duo podcast, columnist for the Washington Post, producer at Vox Media’s YouTube channel Secret Base, and [other projects redacted]. Still new to Substack, I’m in the process of discovering writers both familiar and unfamiliar. Here are some folks I think you’d be wise to follow, along with some you probably already know.
ENTERTAINMENT
What explains the all-out ‘Beavis sketch’ media blitz?
“Despite 50 years on the air, nothing else on television enjoys the instant hagiography afforded to Saturday Night Live. No matter how good or bad or relevant you might deem the current iteration of the show, even its minor successes are pored over in a way that seems impossible to justify. Is that a reflexive behavior? Based on what? Is it just nostalgic? I’m not sure, but I share in Vince Mancini’s increasingly paranoid awareness of how much ink has been spilled over a recent sketch built entirely on a one-off joke and a character break. This is also a good moment to promote my standing proposal to create a journalistic regulatory body for oral histories”
—
in
That’s kind of the nature of sketch comedy, and especially of live sketch comedy. It’s mostly not great, which makes the moments when it actually is that much more sublime. Comedy is an ephemeral business. Serendipity is at a premium, and “you kind of had to be there” is the dominant emotion.
SPORTS
An American’s guide to Team USA’s cricket win over Pakistan
“You know that Rick Rubin book about creativity everyone’s toting around right now? He basically says that if you can maintain a childlike reception of your surroundings, you’ll never cease to be inspired. Rodger Sherman is a magician—he’s far too smart and experienced in sports media to maintain such a positive wonder about his subject matter, yet he always translates his personal joy of discovery into an easily accessible education for the reader. Also, he lived out of a rental car for five months in 2023 in an effort to watch as many college football games live as humanly possible. That is joy, albeit with madness at its fringes. I love Rodger”
—
in
Well, guess what, melting-pot haters: this is what we do. I’m a first-generation American, and it is my god-given right to cheer for a bunch of people who look nothing like me playing a sport I only kinda understand, and if you don’t like it you can move to a country that sucks at cricket, unlike America. Don’t let Lady Liberty hit you on the way out.
FOOD & DRINK
The Dippin’ Dots theory of good times
“Hear me out: What if there were a food blog (recipes and restaurants, doesn’t matter) that just cared about enjoying the experience of … food? What if this blog also unabashedly endorsed the war crime that is Cincinnati chili but somehow maintained credibility in literally every other category? Sounds insane. My favorite line from Scott Hines is when his dog once called him a washed millennial Dave Barry, which, as time passes, sounds more like a compliment every day”
—
in
It’s like the old mariner’s rhyme: If a Dippin’ Dot you see, a good time having you might be.
Anyway, I feel much the same way about potato salad.
You don’t just make potato salad for lunch, y’know? (Do you? If so, I would like to interview you about your life and maybe run a few tests on you.) No, if you’re having potato salad, you’re probably having a good time—it’s a food meant for picnics and potlucks and backyard barbecues, and almost never Sad Desk Lunches.
DATA VISUALIZATION
College football games are still too long
“I am very biased here; Chris is among a group of statisticians, or analysts or ‘quants’ (I learned that word in The Big Short movie) who I routinely pester to make sense of advanced concepts in football. I am not an educated man—I was kicked out of a state university in Mississippi twice—so it helps to advance my scam of learnedness by having writers like these at hand. Chris’s talent lies in taking a large and seemingly daunting mathematical concept and distilling it into an idiotproof (hi!) explanation”
—
Gallo in
There are a lot more important problems with the sport than the game duration. The calendar is bonkers, NIL, coaching salaries, and more.
College football games are too long, though. And it might be because that is how television wants it to be.
POP CULTURE
Some shows I would like to see Reacher appear on
“No pop culture writer alive creates more joy per word than Brian Grubb. His is a landscape without metacontext or guilt, and also several, several insertions of pictures of Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair (I refuse to explain this bit; just catch up). After years of television writers furtively wringing meaning from every frame, Brian’s mission to marry his own absurdity with the existing inanity of pop culture seems all the more pure—and enjoyable”
—
in
The Bear
Reacher walks into Carmy’s fancy new restaurant and asks for a table for one. He does not have a reservation but they seat him anyway. He orders a black coffee. He does not order food. He sips his coffee while reading a newspaper, eats a Clark bar he brought with him, leaves a five-dollar bill on the table, and walks out.
Richie is still furious about this four episodes later.
TECHNOLOGY
Let’s do the iPad Pro discussion again
“Alexandra’s Substack spans a variety of topics, but it shares one unique passion I hold: turning an iPad into a primary-use device. My obsession was born out of an aggressive embrace of minimalism in my 40s (three kids will do that to you), as well as a lifetime spent chained to a MacBook. I only travel with my iPad, even for work, and you’d be surprised how many tech blogs and sites overlook the small (and weird) ranks of people who want to do everything with this one, often dumb tablet”
—
in
So I keep searching for better ways, because this thing is so close to being perfect. I remote into my Mac devices from the iPad to get them to do the things that the iPad won’t. I uninstall deliberately under-featured apps so that I can use the fully functioning web services instead. I refuse to give up on the iPad Pro as the device it can and should be.
TEENAGERS
Screen teens and TikTok therapists
“When it comes to seeking out journalism, I’ve stolen and modified a rule from Matt Stone, one half of the creative team behind South Park and The Book of Mormon. He once said that his schedule is so busy that he’d only watch a new TV series or play a new video game if at least five people he trusted recommended it. When deciding which longform articles to sit with on a Sunday morning, I curate a handful of curators to help me winnow the choices, and Helen Lewis’s Substack is perfect for this. I particularly enjoy revisiting her pieces that are a few years old that, thanks to new developments, land entirely different with current context”
—
in
This in-depth New York Times article, which followed three 13-year-old girls over a year of their phone and social media use, made me want to scream into a pillow. Let no one slag off teenagers today! They must be ninjas to deal with this level of catfishing, flirting, doomscrolling, petty bullying and general exposure to weird shit. And then there is stuff like nearly breaking up with your best friend over “an incident in the cafeteria about the smell of Anna’s cheese.”
Recently launched
just launched an exclusive-to-Substack new podcast:
Coming soon
Congratulations to the following writers celebrating publication.
shares the news of her book deal, and what it means to her, with subscribers: announces a new book for writers, coming next year: celebrates two years of writing on Substack, and writing her first book, Some of Our Parts, out in September:
Noteworthy
Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away:
Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and this week’s edition was curated by of . Substack Reads is edited and produced from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.
 |
|
Sorry. Saw “Washington post” and “Vox” and immediately realized that whatever came next was not for me. It’s for the bubble dwelling lefties.
Man, I am so out of touch. Almost all of this is new to me.