Patton Oswalt on Jim Gaffigan’s Hot Pockets bit. It’s amazing. One of those perfectly realized, no-meat-left-on-the-bone-of-the-idea jokes that also so perfectly captures the personality and intelligence of the teller that it becomes a part of how you think of them. Martin Scorsese and Rolling Stones songs in films. Salvador Dali and melting watches, desert landscapes. Carson McCullers and that specific kind of insanity that festers in the Southern heat and haze.

This week on Sinica, the highly-regarded writer Peter Hessler joins to talk about his new book, out July 9: Other Rivers: A Chinese Education. Over 20 years after teaching with the Peace Corps in Fuling (the subject of his first book, Rivertown, Pete returns to China to teach at Sichuan University in Chengdu. He writes about the two cohorts of students, with whom he has maintained extensive contacts, to offer fascinating insights into how China has changed across this momentous period with touching, deeply human stories.

I’ll admit to scratching my head a bit when I heard Disney was planning a new adaptation of the Peter Pan mythology for its streaming service. Obviously it’s a rich piece of intellectual property based on the books by J. M. Barrie, which by my count has been adapted for the big screen more than a dozen times, not to mention television and stage. But at what point is it content overload?

Pharrell and Miley Cyrus just released a song called “Doctor.” It’s a fun record with what you expect to hear from a Pharrell produced record, and in the video, Miley Cyrus is being Miley Cyrus. But that’s not exactly what this piece is about. Let’s go back to how this record was made. Back in 2012, when Miley was fresh off Hannah Montana and her hit record Party in the U.

Watch full video on Substack or Twitter.Share Philippé Wynne was a very talented artist best known for the years he spent as one of the lead singers of the Spinners from 1971-77. He also sang with the J.B.’s and Parliament-Funkadelic in addition to his own solo career. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Philippé Escalante Walker was raised in an orphanage. He and his brother Michael ran away in 1956 to Detroit in search of their mother, and later formed a gospel duo dubbed the Walker Singers.