The Weekend Reset: American Gothic, British Rock N Roll and International Soccer

It’s Friday. Looking for something to switch up your weekend, or to give you an excuse to relax a little? That’s what the Weekend Reset is for. Each week contributor Tim Johnstone pulls together five things to get your weekend started. Could be something to read or watch, something to eat or listen to, or even something to do. Enjoy the weekend fellas.

 

CHEER! The Women’s World Cup & Copa America

There is a LOT of the beautiful game going on this weekend. Perhaps you have run across a story or two of late about the Women’s World Cup defending champions USWNT having walloped the Thai national team in their opening match of this year’s tournament. If that makes you think that this tournament will be a walk for Team USA, you’d be wrong. Mostly. There are a number of really strong teams playing (France & England among them). Plus, part of the joy of following the action is knowing who is who, and laying claim to your favorite underdogs. There are several sites you can visit to get you started. The Guardian generally serves up top-rate soccer coverage.  ESPN has their preview coverage over here. And Yahoo has a preview you can find over here. Fox has the rights for this edition of the Women’s World Cup.

Meanwhile, South American national teams are competing in their (usually) quadrennial tournament as well. The Copa America is one of the more interesting tournaments out there. You’ve got Messi attempting to push/drag/carry the perpetually aflame dumpster that is the Argentinian national squad. Then there’s Chile’s aging team swinging for a three-peat. Brazil is without Neymar, but they could absolutely smash the field… which would probably make Neymar’s head explode (he’d probably just fall over.) Also, Qatar and Japan are in the tournament too. Told you it’s interesting. ESPN’s streaming platform, ESPN+ has the rights for this one, as does Telemundo.

 

PLAY: A bigger badass version of Breakout.

It occurs to me that this is the perfect video game for people who don’t play video games. Because, who plays them in a browser? This is me guessing out loud. Because I’m not a professional gamer. Surprised? Nobody? I am, in fact, not even an amateur gamer. I am – deep inhale – barely a noob. DON’T LOOK AT ME! So that’s pretty bad. But it gets worse, in order to play this game, you are required to configure said browser to allow for pop-up windows. And yet, here I am. Recommending this very thing. Breakout. Version 2 point zero. AKA Brickception. Because I imagine many of you work in cubicles or open-space office set-ups or at the vary least desks with computers on them that you are familiar with. This. And also, let’s face it. It’s always fun to take another shot at an old fave. To be clear, a non-game playing person’s old fave. Finally, the decision to actually recommend playing this gave rise to the greatest existential inner-monologue of my life so far.

 

EAT: A personal favorite from my virtual recipe box.

There’s an excellent chance that your grandmother or great grandmother owned a box with her favorite recipes in it. There’s an even better chance you remember seeing it, especially at the grandma level. I can’t explain why this is such a rich memory for me. It just is. And I can think of any number of recipes that reside there. A few of which I make to this day. I have my own version of this recipe box which is far less…real. It’s a folder on my browser. The one that is called Recipes. And Chicken Satay with peanut sauce is one of them. This is a relatively easy party favorite that allows for some time at the grill and a super tasty zesty peanut sauce. Tip: make extra dip and use it on cold noodles with sliced scallions for a great summer salad option. Finally, if you haven’t started collecting recipe bookmarks now, maybe give that a thought.

 

WATCH: Three rings of Rock And Roll history.

For those folks who have only ever known the Rolling Stones as elder statesmen of Rock and Roll, this made for TV special is truly somethings special. Filmed in front of a live audience for the BBC, this incredible event brought some of the biggest names in rock music together on the same stage. The Rolling Stones invited The Who, John Lennon, Jethro Tull, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull and John Lennon and Yoko Ono as guests for this spectacle which was supposed to air in December 1968. Instead, The Stones decided to do some work on editing the whole thing. This would end up being the band’s last performance with founding member Brian Jones. It would be Lennon’s first non-Beatles performance. Like I said, Rock and Roll history. Learn more here. Even with an uneven performance from The Stones, this is just something that captures so much of what was happening during this particular British invasion.

 

READ: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

This rings a whole bunch of my bells. Harper Lee remains one of the most interesting writer of Western Civilizations’ canon. The woman responsible for “To Kill A Mockingbird” was a fascinating individual. Her book has had a significant impact on American culture. Bell number one. Bell number two: I am something of a true-crime devotee. I blame Truman Capote. The particular true-crime story at the heart of this book is by any metrics, a doozy. Casey Cep (seen above discussing her new book at respected CD indie bookseller Politics And Prose), collects those bells and adds one dinger of her own: telling the story about Lee’s fascination with the case and her own attempts to publish the story herself. This is as American Gothic as things get.

Tim Johnstone is Dappered’s music correspondent as well as our resident gatherer of all things interwebs related. He’s pretty sure about some of the things most of the time, but totally clueless about everything else all the time. And he will never be as clutch at this dude.