You know it’s bad when your browser can’t even display all the tabs you have open so you have to use the keyboard shortcuts to navigate between them….

Yeah, I gotta get this browser under control!

::  I don’t know if this link even still works, but apparently there’s someone selling pizza in Syracuse out of their house and you have to be lucky to get one:

Most pizza places make it pretty easy: You’re hungry, you order a pizza, you pick it up. Or a kid in a Subaru with a broken muffler delivers it to your door.

Angelo’s Pizza Bar, a top-secret pop-up pizzeria, has a few more steps.

First, follow it on Instagram and be sure to turn on notifications. Make your profile public. Comment “hello” on Angelo’s post, and don’t get chatty. A direct message with a time slot will appear in your inbox if you’re lucky.

 

Don’t get excited, it’s not a done deal. You must reply quickly that you want this pizza, at this precise time, or else your pizza will go to the next person on Angelo’s list.

If you make it that far (and that’s a very big “if”), head to North Syracuse. Arrive early, but not too early. Pull into a driveway, and stay in your car. Leave room for other cars to pull in.

 

Wait for your pizza, leave promptly, and keep the address to yourself.

I don’t know about this, in all honesty…it sounds fun and cool, but I also don’t know anything about this Angelo person’s commitment to proper food handling and food safety procedures.

::  World Cup fans have come to the US for the games and discovered Ranch dressing. This amuses me greatly. (Now, in Buffalo, Ranch is treated as something the weirdos and the know-nothings do, because here, blue cheese is king. But honestly, Ranch is fine. But it’s gotta be buttermilk Ranch, not the “lite” stuff.)

::  I’m a traitor.

This is an open letter to Haggai Segal, an Israeli author and journalist, who recently threatened American Jews with excommunication in the Israeli weekly Makor Rishon for not making Aliyah (moving to Israel).

Dear Brother Haggai,

From the very beginning, your letter to me was both passionate and clear: “Dear brothers, you are traitors. You are committing treason against us and against yourselves.” I thank you for that and hope to be as passionate and clear in my response.

While I wish you had included our sisters in your condemnation, I immediately understood that the “us” referred to Israeli Jews. However, I wasn’t sure which act of treason we American Jews were guilty of. Was it supporting Israel’s destruction of Gaza? Turning a blind eye to her apartheid policies in the Occupied Territories? Remaining silent as Netanyahu wages war on Israel’s justice system? Ignoring his turning Israel into a vassal of Trump, Inc., fueling antisemitism on the American right and left?

A compelling piece by a Jew who is struggling with the idea that being a Jew means full support of the current actions of the Israeli government. I, as a non-Jew, continue to struggle with this. On the one hand, I don’t support the degree to which the Netanyahu government is going to basically clean out Gaza entirely. But on the other hand, I am seeing the word “Zionist” increasingly used to simply mean “A Jew I don’t like”, and I really do see in the criticism of the current Israeli government a strong undercurrent of the belief that Jews are simply expected to suffer whatever the non-Jews of the world decide to do to them.

::  What Toronto looked like in the 1980s.

The 80s are when I fell in love with Toronto. While my love for that astonishing city has not diminished in anyway and while I still adore it and traveling there is always a thrill, I do miss some of the feeling of the city that these photos capture. Toronto is one of the most explosive cities in the world, in terms of how quickly it is growing; I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Toronto become North America’s third largest city, by population, within my lifetime (currently it sits fourth, behind Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles). Its skyline boasts numerous new towers every time we go, and lately we’ve been going yearly.

::  Here’s a bittersweet video about a 110-year-old business in NYC that is closing down, mainly because the market for its product is ever-shrinking. I know that not every business and not every craft remains relevant, but it’s still sad to see old things left behind.

::  Only a Complete Asshole Would Get Married At Madison Square Garden

Drew Magary has thoughts on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce deciding to use a sports arena smack in the middle of the busiest city in America for their wedding:

With that in mind, why the fuck would two people as talented as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce decide to get married at MSG, of all places?

I’ll tell you why: because they’re selfish pricks with shit taste. Swift herself is no stranger to greed, and Kelce is a human Labrador who loves to get belly rubs from passing strangers. There’s no romance in getting married at such a large, exceedingly public venue. There is only the flex of doing so. There is only, OMG you guys I got married at Madison Square Garden! Isn’t that wild?!

There’s also no reason to build your own Disney castle for the occasion unless, like the majority of Swift’s catalog, you have the maturity of an 11-year-old.

Frankly, I find myself in agreement here, and I say this as someone who admired Swift greatly a few years ago (though I was never steeped enough in her work to call myself a “fan”) but who has found the recent shift in her public persona rather…off-putting.

::  Looking for relief from the sun? Get a sunbrella! Not to be confused with a parasol. Now, why is it not to be confused with a parasol? I have no idea. It just isn’t.

::  Finally, in less than great news for American classical music criticism, the great Alex Ross has stepped down as the regular music critic for The New Yorker. Ross isn’t leaving Earth or quitting writing, and I’m sure we’ll have his voice for a good long while to come, but still, he’ll be missed. I read him as often as I could, even when I didn’t really know what he was writing about.

I still have a ton of tabs open, but this post is now long enough, I think….

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