Cyclospora

One of the most obvious new terms that will be a trivia question soon is the onset of cyclospora, the parasite that's sweeping the nation that's causing consumers of lettuce to poop themselves. This development would not have been a big deal in my twenties as I did not eat salads, but my diet nowadays consists of a heavy dose of leafy greens, and I am now concerned about eating at Chipotle and Subway, 2 of the closest restaurants (literally downstairs from my building) and affecting my daily lettuce intake. Trivia writers, or Jeopardy clue writers specifically, love to ask about: 1) new top 40 albums, 2.) new blockbuster movies, 3.) new records being set, 4.) new viral moments on social media, and 5.) outbreaks of disease. Jeopardy has specifically shied away from politics and the news in the last few years (understandably), but diseases and nonpartisan news is still very much fair game. Science news is excellent: the next space shuttle launch, astronauts arriving home from the ISS on the SpaceX Dragon, and fun cat/ dog stories like Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo at a Thailand zoo. Unfortunately for the new blockbuster summer movies, I'm out of the loop. I didn't attend the 2023 Barbenheimer event of the summer, last year was Deadpool and Wolverine, and this year appears to be the back-to-back weekends of The Odyssey (by Christopher Nolan) and the newest Spiderman: Brand New Day. Admittedly I would have LOVED Spiderman Brand New Day as a kid because it goes into territory the cartoon show didn't cover: Spiderman used Dr. Strange's potion to make everyone forget about his identity as Peter Parker, even his girlfriend MJ and other best friends, so he's totally alone in the universe. Kind of the opposite of what I did for Jeopardy, with less favorable results: went from no one knowing who I was to.....practically no one still knowing who I am and after a few weeks of my episode airing, those people by now have forgotten. If Spiderman's every boy's dream and harnesses all of those desires of heroism and getting the girl and fighting crime and flying through the air above Manhattan, then the Odyssey really plays into a different aspect of those boyish dreams: setting off on a long journey to get back home. Really, the Odysssey is like the prototype for one of the most typical heroic tropes: protagonist takes a heroic journey, and even better with monsters (Cyclops), sea creatures (Scylla), gods (Poseidon), and attractice members of the opposite sex (Circe and Calypso). It's fitting that the movie came out in summer, when a lot of Americans are out on road trips maybe across the United States (my law school buddy is going from Boston to Seattle to L.A.) living out the dream of hitting the open road, very close to the aesthetic of hitting the open seas, living in different places every night, finding the next hill to climb and the next challenge to conquer. In an ideal world, that is my dream as well, fresh new adventures with no jeopardy of actually dying or failing, just enough danger to feel accomplished for having survived and lived to tell about it. At least I can watch the movies to simulate those feelings! (later on a plane something and at 1.5x speed since I hear they're both pushing 3 hours long, which are odyssey-length movies in this day and age).