Is the US Running Out of Farmland?
The last month or so has been a mad dash to get the first episode of The Only Thing That Lasts across the finish line. If you have 32 minutes, I hope you’ll take a listen.
Chapter 1 | Is the US Running Out of Farmland?
I’m already deep into episode 2, and when I sat down to write the Book Club addition of this newsletter for Creatures of Empire, I got so in to it that I decided to reach out to the author directly. She agreed to speak with me, and the interview that came out of it was so fun. It’s going to be integrated into the second episode of the podcast, and I’m planning to unpack what gets left on the cutting room floor here in the next few weeks— so apologies for the delay on that!
As I continue with a hectic amount of doing, I think People Eat the Land is going to continue to be intermittent for a while longer. I hope you’ll bare with me.
In the meantime, I did dig up some old, very light writing that I thought would be fun to share.
California Girl
So once upon a time, in the mid-800s BCE, I lived in Sacramento. When I lived in Sacramento, I didn’t have any friends for a while (it was a very odd situation where I moved to Sacramento to work for a Fresno company, because the company thought if I moved to Fresno, I’d immediately quit). I was really into comedy at the time, and I wanted to learn how to write funny jokes.
I don’t know if you know this, but writing funny jokes that people are meant to read (not hear out loud) is hard. I’ve read a good amount of David Sedaris, some Bill Bryson (who I don’t find funny at all), and even the occasional full on-spoof. Hello:
So anyway, I learned around this time that “Local jokes get local work.” I didn’t really need work, but I thought maybe “local jokes get local friends” could also be true. So I wrote some jokes about Central California. Here, for better or worse, is a sample:
I know a lot of people around here don’t like Sacramento’s farm-y nicknames— “Sacratomato”, “Cowtown.”
Well let me tell you, before I lived in Sacramento I stayed in Vacaville, a place that hates the Spanish word for cow so much that they’d rather share a prefix with a vacuum cleaner then pronounce it “Vah-cah-ville.”
I get it though, the town does kinda suck.
Just kidding, Vack-a-ville is fine.
But can we talk for a minute about names of other towns in California? Basically since I got here, I’ve found out I pronounce literally everything wrong.
Lodi. I’ve been pronouncing it Load-ee, like the Hindi word, but apparently it’s Low-die. Figures.
Salinas. Knowing that Central Valley folks don’t like a Spanish pronunciation, I’ve been calling Sal-eye-nas. Nope, it’s Sa-lee-ness— so in this case, we’re happy with the Spanish after all.
Modesto I originally christened Modest-Toe (which I think could actually be a really promising rebrand for them).
And naturally, Stockton I was pronouncing STOP AND YOU WILL GET MURDERED. [I kid, Stockton has really turned things around since I lived in the state. In 2021, they actually did a study on Universal Basic Income that had some very promising results. You can read more about it here.]
Anyway.
This week I also watched this old SNL clip where, for inexplicable reasons, a characters’ grandmothers’ bean farm features prominantly. So if you didn’t like my jokes, maybe you’ll laugh at something a little more professional.
What I’m making: The Only Thing That Lasts, but also working on a short story called Load Bearing that I think I may publish here in a few weeks
What I’m reading: The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen
What I’m watching: Death and Other Details
What I’m eating: Something like a Persian Love Scone
Next week: People Eat the Books Club ft. Creatures of Empire
Rock on,
Sarah