Hello, beloved Listeners! Host Matthew here.

Whenever it’s my turn to write the newsletter, I look back over past newsletters for ideas. I assume this is how all creators approach their next project. For example, when Frank Lloyd Wright is working on a new house design, he visits Fallingwater and is like, “Oh yeah! I’m going to make my next house even drippier!”

James Cameron rewatches Terminator 2 and says to his underlings, “I know my new movie is a Merchant Ivory-style period drama, but somebody has to be lowered into a pool of molten steel at the end. Figure it out.” (Spoilers!)

Speaking of movies… well, we’ll get there in a minute.

Anyway, today I looked back at the October newsletter and realized something shocking:

We still haven’t done a spaghetti episode.

It’s not even on our to-do list! What’s going on? Do we hate spaghetti the way Frank Lloyd Wright hates dry houses? Stay tuned, I guess.

The July bonus episode…

It’s all about Family.

Producer Abby and I made Molly watch Fast X, and she enjoyed it exactly as much as we expected. Abby is scandalized by Molly’s lack of film experience while Matthew agrees to The Shining and Molly invents a new Netflix category.

As usual, you can get this and all other bonus episodes at magnumbonus.com (password: magnumbonum) or subscribe to the RSS feed at https://www.magnumbonus.com/feed/podcast/ .

I went to Colorado and saw birds

Because Molly got into gardening, I had to become a Bird Person. (To be fair, Molly also knows more about birds than I do.) Every morning, I visit r/whatsthisbird on Reddit, a very friendly community that exists to answer one question over and over. (It’s usually a female red-winged blackbird.)

Last month I went to Denver to visit friends, and we spent some time walking about the Denver Botanic Gardens. First of all, I learned that people give irises funny names. One variety was literally called “Explicit”! Calm down, people, it’s a flower.

Near a pond, I saw people gathered around looking at a stout, oval-shaped bird standing watch on the shore. “Does anyone know what it is?” someone asked, and Bird Person sprang into action!

“That’s a black-crowned night heron,” I heard myself say.

I swear, in my head I’m still a 19-year-old kid in a Lollapalooza t-shirt who would laugh at the guy who knows what a night heron is.

Later we went to a record store and I almost bought an MF DOOM t-shirt, so I’m still cool. I also ate a bunch of food but talked about it on a recent (or possibly upcoming!) episode.

We’ve gone a little guest-happy

Did you catch Hot Dogs 2 with Jamie Loftus (episode 595)? Edibles with Ivy Le (598)? Well, you should! I think we’re getting slightly better at having guests on without sounding like kids sitting at the grownups table for the first time. The Ivy Le interview was one of the weirdest and best we’ve ever done. Ivy’s podcast, FOGO: Fear of Going Outdoors, is a delight, and we think maybe she’s the smartest person in the world? This interview really went places, plus we got to throw Producer Abby under the bus.

And we’re not stopping there! Coming up, we have YouTube sensation Yumna Jawad talking falafel (episode 605) and soul singer Durand Jones sharing his gumbo recipe (episode TBD). I guarantee Molly is going to have to restrain me from asking Durand seventeen questions about his vocal warmup routine!

What else is new?

We just turned 600! And for episode 600, we drank (and talked about ) champagne. And in true Spilled Milk style, we opened the champagne bottle with a satisfying pop and clinked our glasses, and then did a second take of the top of the show, so you didn’t hear any of those things. I bet it’s still a really festive episode, though.

Has anyone been with us since episode 1? I don’t think I have. I listened back to it and there was some soporific guy who sounded like me after eating way too much of Ivy Le’s cannabis-infused chile crisp.

What we’re into

Abby: I’ve been into The Community Library podcast, funky orange wine that reminds me of Lisbon, and currently reading The Rachel Incident which is quite funny and sneaky with its plot.

Molly sent her list in the form of a poem:

I’m finally into Succession
I am into chilled red wine for summer
Also learning about loose leaf black teas

That’s what poetry sounds like, right?

Editorial comment: I’m so glad Molly is getting into loose leaf teas, because with a bit of diligent study she’ll be just as boring as me when I talk about green tea.

Matthew: TOTSD came home from college and let me have their Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild cartridge. This is not the new game. It’s the one that came out in 2017. So far I’ve made my way through two shrines and found a big-ass sword. Two more shrines to go, and then I get a paraglider!

As always, thank you so much for being a subscriber. Look for our next newsletter and bonus episode on October 31, and in the meantime, remember:

“People who live in drippy houses shouldn’t throw water balloons.” –Frank Lloyd Wright

Love,
Host Matthew