Today’s “Beyond the Garden Basics” podcast takes a closer look at a very popular organic fertilizer: chicken manure. As retired organic landscape consultant Steve Zien of Living Resources Company points out, manures are an excellent soil amendment, especially their contribution to the soil biology. In this day and age, however, should chicken manure still be considered organic? Up to 90% of the corn produced in America is from Genetically Engineered seed.

Trey Anastasio & Classic TAB came north of the border last night for a rare show in Toronto. While Phish has performed here recently in 2022 and 2019, this is the first hometown TAB show for me since 2017 and the first one with the stripped-down quartet that has been blazing its way across the Midwest for the past couple of weeks. After listening along to the previous shows of the tour, my anticipation was high due to the incredible interplay on display every night between Anastasio and bassist Dezron Douglas, who seems to get more confident and assertive on each tour he plays as a part of TAB.

As the five people who read this blog regularly know, I'm a huge LOST fan. It's a big part of my formative Internet experience, my first real "Internet fandom", as those started going mainstream in the early 2000s. I've reviewed its video game, a fanfic, and wrote a mini-review for the show itself. But I overlooked something else of interest. In 2010, LOST ended. Before that, the massive success of its first season had already pushed a bunch of, let's call light copycat shows into the forefront that would have probably never been greenlit otherwise.

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday, we also offer bonus posts (like this one) each week. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading. The New Yorker’s Hannah Goldfield recently asked if we’re in the midst of a bagel renaissance. One need only look around Western Washington to know the answer is undoubtedly yes.

While I was away, the heads (and wallets) of Substack eventually came out clear and sound with their position about the neo-Nazis issue: Definitely not a nice birthday/Christmas present for me. I am obviously disappointed, and I’m currently packing my stuff (requesting all my archives as I type) to leave: I’ll be moving puntarelle, and also Barocco e i suoi fratelli, and praeterpropter, either to Wordpress or to some other platform, I still have to sort everything out.