Hi!

I have a lot of random things to share today. There’s no through-line, really. Let’s take them in reverse order of the title, because why not?

A Programming Update

I’m at a work offsite all next week, so I probably will have to do run at least two re-runs. My goal is to have something new for Monday and, depending on how my weekend goes, Tuesday as well, but who knows. And because I almost never write a Friday newsletter until late Thursday (it’s 7:45 pm Thursday evening as I write these words, and that’s early for me), I have no idea what Friday’s email is going to be. Let’s agree to be surprised together?

Also, the 15th anniversary of Now I Know is approaching in three weeks or so, and I have no plans for that. If you have ideas, hit reply and let me know!

Rolling for Cheese

Every year, at a place called Cooper’s Hill near Gloucester, England (here’s a map), there’s an event called “Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake.” The “wake” part is a reference to a party, and that’s the boring half. The cheese rolling is where the fun is. Let’s leave it to Wikipedia to explain:

From the top of the hill, a 7–9-pound (3–4-kilogram) round of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down the hill, which is 200 yards (180 m) long, and with a slope of around 50 percent (26.6 degrees). Competitors then start racing down the hill after the cheese. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. The competitors aim to catch the cheese; however, it has around a one-second head start and can reach high speeds, enough to knock over and injure a spectator. Multiple races are held during the day, with separate events for men and women.

The 2025 event took place last weekend, and you have to see it to really appreciate it… so, here’s a video:

The video doesn’t really show much until about two minutes in so please, fast forward as needed. In the first race, a guy in a red shirt bounces like a rag doll, and that’s one of the tamer results. Per the BBC, two people were hospitalized — it’s ridiculously dangerous. I saw some back-of-the-envelope math on reddit (sorry, I lost the link!) and participants can reach speeds approaching 50 miles per hour, which is really way too fast for anyone to be uncontrollably falling down hill after cheese or, really, anything.

I don’t even know how to characterize something like this. It seems both incredibly dumb and somehow joyful. (I’m going to go 70% the former, 30% the latter, and that’s probably being kind to the participants.

If you want more of this, the first episode of “We Are the Champions” on Netflix is a 30-minute documentary on the race. If you want to try it yourself, next year, well, let me know how it goes — after you’re discharged from the hospital.

Surprising Joy at Concerts

This one is 95% joy, maybe 5% dumb.

Every so often, a fan at a concert ends up being part of the show. Typically, that’s a bad idea — professional musicians and singers are on stage (and being paid) for a reason, and those of us in the crowd are not (and doing the paying) for the opposite reason. But yesterday, I came across three examples to the contrary, and each one is pretty great.

The first is from 2021. Opera singer Lisette Oropesa, whose last name I keep wanting to type as “Operesa,” was at the end of her one-woman show when she decided to do something hard to do in a one-woman show — a duet. The song she chose for her fourth encore, from the opera “La Traviata,” is typically performed alongside a tenor, but of course, she was on stage alone. So after no tenor magically appeared after the first bar of the male’s part, a fan — and thankfully for those gathered, an opera student — just started belting it out from the audience. Here’s a video:

Per the South China Morning Post, “Oropesa was at first surprised but soon smiled happily. When it was her turn to sing, she changed the lyrics of ‘lover’ to ‘thank you.’” The young man, 24-year-old Liu Jianwei, was able to go backstage to apologize for interrupting, and Oropesa didn’t seem to mind — and even took a picture with him.

Next, from a 2010 concert, singer Michael Bublé was a little taken aback by a fan who kept haranguing him about something, and he took to the mic to have a quick conversation with her. The “crazy woman” (to use Bublé’s phrase) wanted her 15-year-old son to get up on stage to sing with the actual singer, and for some reason, Bublé agreed. Much to Bublé’s surprise, to use his words again, “Sam can sing!” It starts off cringy but becomes joyous quickly; give a listen/watch yourself:

Sam appeared on the BBC’s The Voice two years later (watch here) and is a professional singer/songwriter now; you can explore his Spotify account here if you’re so interested.

But my favorite is below, from a Foo Fighters concert in 2018. A fan wearing makeup as if he were going to a Kiss concert held up a sign reading “Let Me Play Monkey Wrench,” the Fighters’ well-known song. (I prefer Everlong, for what it’s worth, and the acoustic version is awesome.) And Dave Grohl, the band’s singer and frontman, obliged.

And Kiss Guy, as Grohl dubbed him, delivered:

Kiss Guy’s real name is Yayo Sanchez, and if you want to know where he ended up five years later (and why he donned the Kiss makeup), here’s a story about that. But really, the joy is in the video.

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: Memorial Day — no Now I Know. Thank you, again, to all who sacrificed.

Tuesday: The Girl With Twin Fathers: And not for good reasons.

Wednesday: There’s No Such Thing As Bad Publicity, Especially if You Lie a Bit: I give this one four stars. Or two, depending on how you count.

Thursday: The Restaurant With A Rotating Grandma On The Menu: It’s like a cooking show minus the judges, cameras, and… actually, it’s not all that like a cooking show.

Long Reads and Other Things

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

1) “3 Teens Almost Got Away With Murder. Then Police Found Their Google Searches” (Wired, 19 minutes, May 2025). This is as much about the legal and ethical issues of using the teens’ Google search data as it is the crime itself. (The article’s subhead alludes to this: “An arson attack in Colorado had detectives stumped. The way they solved the case could put everyone at risk.”)

2) “What It’s Like to Be a Professional Card Counter” (Slate, 8 minutes, April 2025). I’ve been fascinated with professional blackjack card counters since reading “Bringing Down the House” 15-plus years ago.

3) “Is knowing how to spell still relevent relevant?” (Washington Post, 6 minutes, May 2025). This is a fun one — it’s an essay about the importance of spelling with 24 spelling mistakes intentionally mixed in, with a user experience designed for you to click them when you find them. As a master of making typos, I found this fun, but I disagree with the sentiment expressed. 😀

Have a great weekend,

Dan