For me, 2022 has been a year marked by death and illness, grief and sorrow, and it was the critic Greg Tate’s transition from this world a year ago, which set the stage for many of the events that followed. My own “formal beginning of the long bereavement.”  Tate’s abrupt passing prompted a lot of familiar factual gasps — “so young” (aged 64), “so unexpectedly” (cardiac arrest), “with so much life left in him” (Greg’s last year saw him busier than ever, appearing in numerous documentaries, curating a museum show, constantly playing out with his “jazz-rock” band Burnt Sugar).

If it’s the 14th of April it must mean it’s time for another installment of Pizzabout. We are two months into finding out where the best pizza in the 405 diningscape lives with pizza’s No. 1 groupie, Rob Crissinger. Our April dispatch reports from Edmond and downtown Oklahoma City with starkly contrasting styles. My quest to find love in pizza coincides with Rob’s quest to find a human connection as profound as the one he has with pizza.

(Second of two parts; read part one, including Pfizer’s history of lawbreaking, here) On Sunday, Pfizer - the drugmaker most associated with the mRNA Covid jabs - took a $14 million shot (so to speak) at burnishing its image. It worked about as well as the Covid vaccines have. Halfway through the Super Bowl, the company dropped a minute-long ad linking itself with history’s greatest scientists. The ad felt like nothing so much as a corporate version of Dr.

We’re honored to share this interview with Sinee Teo, a Singaporean missionary who has worked in Taipei’s red light district for fourteen years.  As a staff member at Pearl Family Garden, Sinee works with mostly elderly women who are former or current sex workers or employees at “teahouses.” We first heard about her through her friend and roommate, Cindy. We met both at the Episcopal Church. Michelle was lucky enough to visit the Pearl, where she was struck by the warmth, ease, and sense of community.

There are weeks when writing this newsletter feels like a chore. Sometimes I have to drag myself over to the computer to do it because I have to, not because I find any joy in it. I procrastinate. I get annoyed. And I do get it done… but it sucks.  I went through such a dry spell recently. Every post felt so difficult to complete, and I didn’t like any of them.