★★★★ Pigeon spikes glittered where they’d been unnoticeable month after month after month. The glow of the day pushed its way down the steps and lit up the safety markings on a subway worker’s vest. There were just enough clouds to make the blue less than absolute—little wisps or puffs, and then smooth curving streaks of cirrus on the zenith. In late day, the clouds came on to cut off the beauty, a dull featureless sheet of them; hours later the thin covering was still there, fuzzing the shape of the gibbous moon.

Apparently it’s now more of a quarterly.

Let’s get right to it. Readers of this column already know what the deal is, and frankly I’m surprised this thing still exists. We haven’t had an issue since February, and it’s now May and there isn’t a theme or any sort of excitement about asparagus that you might otherwise expect from them. At the top right, we have a giraffe joke-cum-cartoon to justify the punny subhed, “Always sticking our necks out in the name of value.” Okay, fine, but why the need to paint one giraffe plaid and have a subsequent non sequitur of a non-punchline? Probably because when you’re in charge of making the Fearless Flyer, you get to do whatever you want.

You know what you shouldn’t do? Put “Low Calorie Lemonade” on the first page. EVERYONE’S first thought is [sticks tongue out], and maybe their first association is Crystal Light—a powdered-drink product that it somehow still in business because people keep “just giving it a shot.” And then, with the imaginary bad taste in your mouth, you look for a hyphen that isn’t there. This entry is a major letdown in this month’s Flyer and it shouldn’t be on the front page along with… “Organic, Fair Trade Coffee Great Breakfast Brew!” and “Chocolate Chip Sandwich Cookies.” What a random assortment?!?! That first one is very confusing because “Great Breakfast Brew!” should actually be a subhed; it is not the name of the product, which is “Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Breakfast Blend.”

What is a Chocolate Chip Sandwich Cookie, you ask?

Hahaha SIKE!!! OF COURSE I CAN TALK ABOUT IT! It’s what I was put on this earth to do. I’m going to give you the gift of excerpt:

So, are they chocolate chip cookies or are they sandwich cookies? How would you feel if we told you they were both of those things? We’re telling you that. Because it’s true. Shall we say more? Because we will.

Put simply: a thin layer of creamy chocolate filling is spread generously between two very crispy, very buttery chocolate chip cookies. Very buttery is key here. While there is art to making these cookies as good as they are, what it really comes down to is science. The science of butter. The generous amount of butter in this recipe takes the credit for the rich, caramelized flavor you’ll encounter in each of the small, crunch cookies. Where’s the art, Trader Joe’s? Oh, the art is in the chocolate chips, as well as the velvety, fudgy filling within each delicious Chocolate Chipe Cookie Sandwich.

“Silvia, you made a typo.” NO I DIDN’T, LOOK:

Chipes aside, my main chipe with this particular entry is that it’s a crime against writing and an offense to meaningful content creators everywhere. Do you know how short the Fearless Flyer would be if they let it be edited? It would be like a one-sheet. Another chipe I would like to register is, don’t put a love letter to butter right next to an entry about low-cal lemonade?!??? First of all just the thought of lemonade and cookies together is criminal, but isn’t that a bit weird? All the calories you saved from drinking low-cal lemonade will be made up for and then some by the mysterious silkily ethereal calories of butterfat.

The next spread confuses me to no end. There’s a whole thing about “Spiraling Into Mealtime,” which would make sense if the whole page were about spiral foods, but instead they’re sort of all spread out and there’s no obvious connection between the Carrot Spirals and the Gyro Slices and the Trofie Colore Pasta, which there really should be. First of all, isn’t a gyro meat cone, from which these slices theoretically (but in actuality probably do not) come, sort of indicative of a spiral in that it’s spit-roasted? Alas the blurb for the Gyro Slices contains not such indication. And then the pasta, as FF points out, comes in “a tight spiral shape [requiring] careful crafting, combining traditional, artisanal methods with some very modern machinations.” Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that is not what machinations means? I know you’re wondering why I’m harping on this but it’s because they went out of their way to include a COMPLETELY INEXPLICABLE drawing, labelled quirkily, “Fig. 1-L: Upon Misunderstanding the Intention of Spiral.” What the hell could that possibly mean, and why put it there if not to have a spiral-themed section of Trader Joe’s-branded foods? This is just one of the many mysteries of the Fearless Flyer.

That was just the first page and following spread! I have a lot more chipes with this particular issue of Fearless Flyer, including the deep suspicion that I’ve seen the “cultured butter” entry, opera jokes and all, before in a previous issue. If I had to choose one overall critique for the rest of the TWENTY-FOUR PAGES, besides the bad writing, which is just a given at this point (what would the Fearless Flyer be without it? It almost doesn’t bother me anymore because I think that’s literally its defining trait?!!), is the inconsistency in the titling. Sometimes they’re puns (“Hey. Jerky!”, “Your Toast.”), sometimes they include subheads with inconsistent or no formatting/punctuation (“Organic Broccoli Florets [line break] They’re In The Bag” vs. “Organic Argan Oil [line break] Not for Eating, Folks…”), and a few of them include prices but for no apparent reason, since almost everything at Trader Joe’s costs $2.99, 3.99, or 4.99.

I’ll leave you with my personal favorite entry from this issue, for low fat cats cookies. Yes cats cookies, with an S. Don’t ask me why. See if you can figure it out (you can’t).

IVANKA is sitting up straight on her reclining couch scrolling through her father’s Twitter feed as she realizes the only president he knows is Andrew Jackson. JARED is practicing an elevator pitch to himself. Apple Pay but for other kinds of phones.

IVANKA [decisively]: I need you to go to the nearest bank. Withdraw some bills we can use as flashcards for Daddy. The only way he will learn Abraham Lincoln, I’m afraid, is by memorizing that he is the one on the front of the $5 bill. [IVANKA gets up from the fainting couch, autographs several of her books and boxes them for FedEx.] We’ll keep one set of the bills in the West Wing for Kellyanne to use with him and the second set we will send to Mar-a-Lago.

JARED [smiling as he remembers the day Lehman Brothers went under]: I didn’t think Washington had banks.

IVANKA [smiling as she remembers that it was Bill Clinton who gutted the Glass-Steagall Act]: A commercial bank, not an investment bank. Go to the teller and let her know we need two of every denomination.

JARED [to himself]: A tell-her?

[IVANKA asks her butler to wake STEVE BANNON, who is upstairs sleeping off his midday screwdrivers, and then reserve him a Zipcar so that he can drop of her signed books at FedEx. JARED follows the butler out and whispers to him that he doesn’t know where a commercial bank is. The butler rolls his eyes, opens the shades, and points to the Bank of America across the street.]

JARED [upon entering the bank]: Hi. Are you the tell-her? [The security guard shakes his head and points to the teller, KATHY, who is readying her register for business.]

KATHY [bracing herself because JARED looks like he would have a lot of questions that would answer themselves if his first inclination wasn’t always to cry for help]: How is your day going, sir?

JARED [looking around, for a fainting couch, maybe]: How do we do this? I tell you stuff? In front of all these people? [JARED motions his head towards all the people who have begun lining up behind him.]

KATHY [graciously]: Well, that depends. What do you need?

JARED [starting over]: I ran out of face wash a few weeks ago and so, as a very temporary life hack, I guess, I started using my wife’s apricot one. That turned into every morning, though. Like, such a simple thing to remember and I never could. And it would frustrate me. Because, like, what if someone smelled apricot on me? What if Eric or Don Jr. thought I was wearing perfume? What would happen?

[KATHY tries to make eye contact with the security guard but he is helping an old lady pick up all the money she accidentally dropped everywhere because she was eavesdropping on JARED. The teller keeps looking, until she locks gazes with her co-worker, another teller, SANDY.]

JARED [obliviously]: Anyhow, I finally remembered to ask the staff to buy me my face wash. I opened a brand new one this morning. That made me feel good. [JARED inhales and smiles because he doesn’t smell like apricot today.] My last tell-her asked me to make a list of all the people who validate me.

KATHY [patiently]: What’s your goal today, sir?

JARED [defiantly]: That’s an easy one. To grow my businesses and to be a more successful real estate guy than my father-in-law.

KATHY [realizing JARED still is not on her page, yet with hope]: Okay, well small business loans are over there. And home financing is —

[SANDY meets KATHY at her register. She mouths, is everything OK, and then whispers that she thinks the man is one of Princess Diana’s boys. Meanwhile, the line behind JARED is getting very, very long. There’s a MILLENNIAL waiting to ask for a key to the bathroom, and a middle-aged man, KEN, who keeps saying things loud enough for the others in line to hear or react to.]

KATHY [whispering to SANDY]: I think he thinks we are his therapists?

SANDY [to JARED, saltily]: Jesus Christ. Make a list of people who validate you. Try to validate them back. And then resolve to spend more of your free time with them.

JARED: The generals validate me, surprisingly enough. Or they used to. When we were in the Mideast together, troubleshooting that crisis. I’m not sure who validates me anymore.

SANDY [angling for a promotion, even though KATHY has more seniority]: This is a bank. Do you need to withdraw money? Make a deposit?

JARED [finally remembering IVANKA’s directive]: Yes, yes. I need two copies of every different — [JARED thinks of the word ‘bill.’] Of every different bill you have.

KEN [from the line, loudly]: Would you three get a room? [KEN looks around for others to agree. Then he speaks directly to the disinterested millennial.] That’s Jared, the one married to Ivanka. I didn’t vote for those guys but if I did I’d be pretty pissed those two were the ones running everything.

MILLENNIAL [sardonically]: They’re not running anything. It’s just PR.

KEN [combatively]: Agree to disagree

[The MILLENNIAL Instagrams JARED, KATHY and SANDY, and tags the photo, Ivanka dumped. It goes viral immediately.

Meanwhile, IVANKA and her butler have successfully woken up STEVE BANNON. She’s related to him that he’s to use the Zipcar out front to transport her books to the nearest FedEx. STEVE BANNON agrees, but in fact, he is lying. He will drive the Zipcar to the very ravine he strongly believes Vince Foster’s body to have once been hidden in. Because he plans to push the Zipcar, books included, into the ravine, he makes a mental note to check that the reservation is for a Mini Cooper, or other lightweight car.]

IVANKA [to STEVE BANNON, truthfully]: To thank you for your time I have reserved you a floor of rooms at the Best Western that you can trash. All I ask is that if you exercise your option to eat the hotel’s free continental breakfast, you not return here for at least one bowel cycle.

[IVANKA opens Instagram and sees her husband chatting up the working class. She phones the bank branch and directs the manager, JOYCE, to fire the tellers flirting with her husband. STEVE BANNON exits, while slurring JARED.]

JOYCE: Your wife is on the phone. She said you’re to go to the White House, deliver the cash to Kellyanne, and then wait in the map room until further instruction. [JOYCE hands the phone to JARED, and tells her staff that she would never fire them because of a Trump. We all resist in different ways, she says to them and to her customers.]

JARED [nervously]: Hello.

IVANKA: No tens. Hamilton is theirs. Put Joyce back on. [JARED hands the phone to JOYCE, and IVANKA motions to her butler to call her a car.]

JARED [to both tellers and their manager]: Can I have my flashcards? No tens, please.

[JARED sulks to the White House. He does as he is told, and hands the cash flashcards to KELLYANNE who is expecting him, eagerly. He sits down in the map room, making notes. IVANKA walks in and reads the piece of paper JARED is working on. It’s the list of people who validate him.]

IVANKA: Remove me from your list and then erase Steve Bannon’s white board. Leave every fourth word so that the mainstream media can speculate about what message Bannon is transmitting to his neo-Nazis. [IVANKA claps her hands to indicate to JARED to hurry up.] I’m going on book tour. You have the children and Bannon until I’m back.

JARED: Joyce told me that the $100,000 bill isn’t in circulation anymore.

IVANKA [exiting]: A shame. Daddy would’ve liked some of Woodrow Wilson’s policies.

Here’s the answer!

The New York Times is wondering if it is proper for a man to wear a shirt with the sleeves rolled. It’s a good question, to which the answer can only be, Who gives a fuck? Why would you think it matters anymore? In what world are there ideals or codes any longer? What difference does it make whether or not a man’s sleeves are rolled or extended when we have clearly decided that there is nothing so heinous that it would disqualify you from occupying the most important office in the land? Given what we have decided is important now — which is nothing — who can seriously stand up and say that the way you wear your shirt is either acceptable or offensive? What does “offensive” even mean in an America where dozens of wealthy white men can stand in front of the country behind a self-professed sex assaulter to grin and cheer about their success in attempting to deny the weakest and poorest among us the same access to lifesaving medical care which they and their corporate paymasters are so generously provided? Are you fucking kidding me with this question? Look, at some point we are all going to pass away from the face of the Earth, and it seems like it is going to be sooner rather than later, but for however much longer it lasts I don’t want anyone to make a big deal about the appropriateness of attire and whether it should be tucked or folded or any of it anymore. And yes, that includes shorts. Go crazy, grown men. Wear Speedos if you want. Wear thongs. NOTHING MATTERS NOW AND THERE ARE NO STANDARDS TO WHICH WE NEED ADHERE BECAUSE WE HAVE DECIDED THAT THE ONLY SOCIETY FOR WHICH WE ARE RESPONSIBLE IS THE ONE WE ENTERED BY BIRTH OR LUCK AND EVERYONE ELSE CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY DON’T DESERVE ANYTHING BETTER. I don’t give a shit about your sleeves. I wish we were all dead, especially me. Thank you for your attention.

Should a Man Roll Up His Sleeves?

From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

Here is an important quiz about animals that have been confused for other animals. See how many you guess right.

Answers at the bottom of this email, upside down, in the fine tradition of teen magazines in the ’90s. GOOD LUCK.

1. DOG OR WOLF?

2. DOG OR RACCOON?

3. DOG OR BEAR?

4. DOG OR FOX?

5. DOG OR WOLF?

6. DOG OR BADGER?

7 . DOG OR VICIOUS, VICIOUS LION?

8. DOG OR FOX?

9. DOG OR WOLF?

10. DOG OR PANDA BEAR (LEFT)?

ANSWERS!!!!!

From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

Notes on life

Liana Finck’s cartoons appear in The New Yorker and on Catapult. She posts her drawings on Instagram.

Why not: “American Dream” and “Call the Police”

As someone who feels like LCD Soundsystem’s big farewell to-do a few years back was a massive, if shockingly predictable, scam, I was initially disinclined to support any of their current efforts. This is not coming from a position of bitterness: I wasn’t dumb enough to spend hundreds of dollars attending what even a certifiable dimwit who had never seen a scam before could easily determine would in no way be their “final show.” I was not, in fact, even totally in to them to begin with. I mean, they were fine. “Losing My Edge,” when it came out, announced that something interesting was happening. “All My Friends” is a legitimate classic. I didn’t dislike them. Stiil, there was something so distasteful about not only how transparently scammy their “last show” scam was that is only compounded by the shockingly brief amount of time they allowed to elapse before announcing their reunion. I mean, at the very least, wait a decade and do it under a different name or something. It’s just gross. BUT. Have you seen what’s happened in the last year? Do you want to even get started on gross? In the scheme of things the scam that LCD Soundsystem pulled is such small stakes that it is almost churlish to hold them accountable for their hucksterism, particularly if you are not one of the idiots who shelled out a lot of money to attend what wouldn’t even be their last show during the Obama administration. So anyway, they just put a couple of new songs out and you know what? They’re not terrible. They are in no way new or different, but you don’t pull a scam like LCD Soundsystem did and come back with the exact same name to go in a different direction. You give the people what they want, which is exactly what they’ve done here. I can’t blame them any, not that I could ever trust them again. But as mentioned earlier, what difference does it make now that nothing matters and concepts like shame and honesty are artifacts of history? LCD Soundsystem is back because they never really went away, and if the same suckers who got scammed by them a few years ago are okay with it who am I to hold a grudge? These scammers’ songs are pretty good. Enjoy.

★★★★ The forecourt was covered in chalked graffiti declaring “2nd grade rules” over and over again, as well as a chalked portrait of Spider-Man. The second-grade children (or maybe the children trying to frame the second-graders) had caught the best of it, under a pristine deep-blue sky. From there, the sky spent the rest of the day out of sync: In midafternoon, the sun passed from cloud to cloud, brilliant for moments but without warmth or staying power; at sundown, the west was empty, with nothing left to catch the colors.

It’s Science!

When we see someone cry onscreen, the mirror neurons in our brains fire, which elicits a very primal response from us — one that mimics what we’re seeing. Isopraxism, or the pull to the same energy, is also in effect. “Isopraxism in nature explains why birds fly together and deer run together and why people applaud,” Wood said. “That’s another thing that’s part of what’s going on when people see and hear people crying on the screen.”

Is There A Science To The Perfect Ugly-Cry Face?

Perfect blog. Yes.

Actual coffee meets actual bagel

One individual observed that it “tastes like chewy coffee, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

Someone Invented Caffeinated Bagels

You guys. I’m telling you. Coffee has entered its “new wave” (which we are NOT calling “fourth wave,” which is just SO fourth wave) so I think we can now proclaim that Food is over. (Except it can never be “over” or “dead” or “sucky” or “disrupted” so I guess this is purgatory.)