Hi!

Let’s play a game. Or, let’s watch a game! Whichever.

Sunday night is Super Bowl LVIII, and people gamble on it like crazy. I’m not here to encourage (or discourage) gambling, but let’s make it a bit more fun: predict what will happen, and if your prediction is the best of the bunch, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my books (of your choice).

To enter, just click here and fill out the form. It’s very straightforward, but just in case, here’s how it works.

I’m asking you six substantive questions — who will win, how many points will each team score, etc. If you get the first question right, you move on to the next question. If you get it wrong, you’re out, so even if you get every single question exactly right, it won’t matter — you lose. My guess is that by question four, I’ll be down to one victor, but just in case, I have six questions lined up for you.

You don’t need to be a Now I Know subscriber to win, so feel free to forward this to your friends and family (although if they win, they’re winning one of my books, so they’ll probably like the newsletter, too!). But please, don’t enter more than once yourself. Have fun, but play fair.

And yes, if you’re outside the U.S. and Canada, you’re still eligible to win! I’ll ship internationally for this one, but it may take a while before the prize gets to you.

Good luck!

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: When New York Choked the Artichoke Trade: Why ban an innocent vegetable? Because of the people who sell it.

Tuesday: When People Were Afraid of Parrots: Why ban an innocent bird? Because they’ll kill you. (Unintentionally!)

Wednesday: The Super Bowl Commercial Designed To Be Missed: It was short, too.

Thursday: Russian Roulette, Soda Style: You get what you get and you don’t get upset.

And some other things you should check out:

Some long reads for the weekend:

1. “The Great Super Bowl Jersey Caper” (Sports Illustrated, 31 minutes, April 2017). The short version: someone stole Tom Brady’s jersey after the Super Bowl that year — this is the story about how the culprit was caught (and then some). Also, SI has a great collection of Super Bowl photos from over the years, here.
2. “Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?” (The Atlantic, 9 minutes, September 2022). This has an editor’s note at the top which should signal how good it is: “This story is part of a collection of work by Xochitl Gonzalez that was the finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.”
3. “Los Angeles’s Floods Show Why Sewers Matter” (The New Republic, 6 minutes, February 2024). Before this week, I don’t think I had heard the phrase “atmospheric rivers.”

Have a great weekend!

Dan