The Saturday List — February 28, 2026

What I'm Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering

With this morning’s news of American and Israeli strikes on targets in Iran, it’s challenging to come up with a Saturday List this week. BUT I’ll do my best. Prayers from here for our troops and the Israeli troops and all of those in harm’s way.

So here’s the list, and a reminder to enter your email and hit the subscribe button if you haven’t already.

Watching: The Jinx

This could go into the “Rediscovering” category, but I tend to reserve that for nostalgia, so let’s keep it under “Watching.” (Plus, “Rediscovering” this week is really good, and from the 1970s.)

If you have never seen it, you’re in for a treat. There’s never been a documentary quite like it; watching it unfold was absolutely amazing.

I’ve watched it a few times, and figured this weekend might be the time to dig in again.

Here’s the trailer. The full series is available on HBO.

Reading: The Physics of Baseball by Robert K. Adair

Ever wonder why a curveball curves? Or how hard it is to hit a Bo Jackson-esque 480-foot home run?

The late Robert Adair wondered these things; he passed away in 2020 and actually wrote this book in 1990. He was the official Physicist to the National League, appointed to the post by a fellow Yale professor named A. Bartlett Giamatti.

The book, a first edition of which I have, is…amazing. (I never took physics, got mostly average grades in science classes, but somehow decided to pick this thing up at a bookstore when I was in college.)

It was a simpler time. No pitch clock in this book. Get off my lawn. (But you probably have to order the book from Amazon.)

Listening to: Shudder to Think (Or…One of the Most Unique 90s Bands)

The 90s were…different. Case in point: Shudder to Think. To call these guys unique in the alternative music world is an understatement.

Describing them was like nailing jello to a tree while attempting to plug your umbilical cord into a light socket.

Lovers of alternative music will talk about pockets of brilliance that existed just beyond the mainstream, and STT certainly was that. And there were a few stations in the US that ACTUALLY PLAYED THEM ON THE AIR. Bostonians had WFNX. Californians had KROQ.

Chicago? We had Q101, whose 1990s iteration actually played this song on the air.

Here’s “X-French Tee Shirt.”

N.B. MTV had 120 Minutes and they had the band on, so why not share the version of their biggest hit from that show?

Here’s another tune called “Hit Liquor.”

I could go on about this band, but enjoy the rabbit hole; they actually performed live last year at a few places, including Riot Fest in Chicago. Bummed that I missed that.

Rediscovering: Network (And Ned Beatty’s Speech)

You have to dance around various streaming platforms to find this movie, and you will probably have to pay for it. Recommendation: give up on that and buy a DVD player and just score the disc.

[Sidebar: If pressed on a Mount Rushmore of Greatest Movies Ever, Network, Citizen Kane, No Country for Old Men, and Gone with the Wind would be mine, but that’s if I’m under duress and trying to finalize a newsletter on a Saturday morning.]

While you search for the movie, here’s one of the best scenes in movie history.

They rarely make movies like these anymore.

Have a great and safe week.