It’s October already? Yes, friends, it is.
Time to dive in…to what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering as we kick off what is going to be a pretty busy October. Right?
Right. First, the button:
Watching: I Interview Andrew Donaldson on The Vandy Program
I remarked at the outset of this discussion that it was really interesting that “The party of small government wants to get involved in governing college sports.” It’s a lot more nuanced than that, as “friend of the program” Andrew Donaldson tells me in this interview. Worth a watch if you care about college sports; and it’s possible that we’re both against this particular piece of legislation.
Reading: A Brief History of Postal Abbreviations
One of my fun emails comes daily from History Facts. And, earlier this week, they greeted me with this…fact: Ohio’s postal abbreviation used to be…”O.”
O. Really?
So many interesting factoids in this brief article, including this piece:
The only state abbreviation that has changed since 1963 is Nebraska’s; originally given the two-letter abbreviation of “NB,” the Cornhusker State was rebranded as “NE” in 1969 to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
(If you’re curious about Canadian postal codes — they waited until the 1990s to move to a two-letter system — you can read about them here: Canadian postal codes.)
Finally, I’m reminded of a Jeopardy! clue from ages ago, in a category that was probably called “Postal Abbrev.,” that was something along the lines of: “‘HI MA, PA OK?’ is a sentence that uses these four states’ postal abbreviations.” The answer, of course, was “What are Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma?”
Listening to: Angine de Poitrine — Wait, Canadian Math Rock?
Angine de Poitrine has been all sorts of huge in 2026; the music falls into the category of Math Rock and maybe the visual subcategory of “What The Heck did I just Watch?”
Let’s start with a video that explains what they’re doing, from Rick Beato.
“They’re playing microtonal music…look at the frets, they’re small…tones in between half steps.”
Next, here’s a live performance of a song called “Zugzegk” from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Finally — and why not? — the entire viral performance from KEXP. (19 million views and counting.)
Rediscovering: Richard Cheese
Uh…He’s a lounge singer. He covers some rock songs… Richard Cheese is a piece of work, for sure. Here’s System of a Down’s “Chop Suey.”
Here’s Richard doing “Gin And Juice” and that’s a Snoop Dogg cover.
Finally: Ten Years Ago, Vin Scully Said Goodbye
Such a heartwarming farewell from Vin Scully, who stepped away from the microphone on October 2, 2016. Vin passed away August 2, 2022, at the age of 94.
And, until next week, I bid thee farewell…thanks for reading The Saturday List.
Dave