Happy Friday! If you're new to Now I Know, you'll notice that today's format differs from the rest of the week. On Fridays, I pause to write the "Weekender," my  "week in review" type of thing, or to share something else I think you may find interesting. Thanks for reading! — Dan

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Hi!

A decade ago, I wrote a story titled “Esopus Spitzenburg and the Newtown Pippin.” It’s about apples — those are the names of two cultivars that you’ve probably never heard of. There are a lot of random apple cultivars, but most of them never hit your stores. Some aren’t easy to store or transport, some rot quickly, and some just taste like you-know-what. Like most things I’ve written about, I think about this on occasion but am not obsessive about it. So when I find someone who is obsessive, it’s an opportunity to share.

Today is one of those days. Earlier this week, I came across AppleRankings.com, an apple (as in the fruit) rating website. The author has tried more than 50 different cultivars and given them a rating on a 0 to 100 scale, with a breakdown for a few different categories like “taste,” “beauty,” and “cost/availability.” And there are reviews for each apple, too… but I have to warn you, a lot of the language our intrepid fruit critic uses is PG-13 and not appropriate for all audiences (including Now I Know’s). That said, here are a few that I appreciated and that are shareable here, from worst to best. (I hadn’t heard of any of these apple types. And if the text is too small, you can click/tap each image to go to the page on the actual website.)

There’s no review for the Esopus Spitzenburg but there is one for the Newtown Pippin — it’s his lowest-rated apple of the bunch — but the write-up is definitely not Now I Know-appropriate.

In any event, I hope you like the apple reviews more than he liked the Arkansas Black apple.

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: Labor Day — took some time off.

Tuesday: Ohio’s Admission Problem: Why Ohio may be the 48th state to enter the union (despite entering in 1803).

Wednesday: The Art Teacher With No Class: Don’t do this.

Thursday: The Brown Spot on Grand Central’s Ceiling: Also, an ad against smoking.

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Long Reads and Other Things

Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:

1) “I was raised in a utopian commune where children ran wild. Only years later did I realize how much danger came with that freedom” (The Guardian, 20 minutes, August 2024). This is also PG-13 but in a Now I Know-friendly way (I think).

2) “My Mother, the Gambler” (New Yorker, 24 minutes, July 2024). The subhead: “For a long time, I didn’t know that what my mother was doing—playing the so-called Italian lottery—was illegal. She certainly didn’t look like a criminal.”

3) “The Charming, Eccentric, Blessed Life of Lee Maxwell” (5280 Magazine, 20 minutes, August 2024). The subhead: “Ninety-four-year-old Lee Maxwell lives in Eaton [Colorado] and owns a Guinness-world-record-holding washing machine museum. When his wife of 71 years recently died, Maxwell was left to ponder what his new life would look like—and if anyone, besides him, cares about his singular collection.”

Have a great weekend!

Dan