Brains, birthdays, and immortal beings...

eM&M Recommend™: August 2026

I will have a birthday this month, which makes it the most important month of the year. (Also, my mother turns 80 today, so I have to remember to pick her up a present from Walgreens.) Enjoy the August Recommend — and send us your recommendations for next month’s list!

Suck the marrow from this last month of summer!

— M (& eM)

---

eM&M Recommend!™ ~ AUGUST 2026

1. Connect Four

Take tic-tac-toe, crank it up to four,* and turn the whole thing on its side. What do you get? Connect Four! We’ve forced our kids to play it often this summer.

*because it’s one more, isn’t it?

---

2. This Deaf-owned and operated restaurant in Spain

When we were all in Spain, Shoshannah Stern got the owner of Ziryab to squeeze in a table for us. It’s an incredible little tapas restaurant in the heart of Barcelona. The food was fantastic.

It was our favorite meal in Spain, and that’s saying a lot. We loved it so much that we went back a second time! (Thanks for the rec, Shosh!)

---

3. Etymology

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. There’s something so satisfying about learning the family history of a word; doing so makes you feel smart and connected to the generations of human family for a moment. Unfortunately for me (Misha), I almost immediately forget the lineage. Fortunately, that means it will feel fresh the next time I look up the etymology of a word. This is the etymology of the word etymology:

Did you know the word muscle comes from the Latin musculus, meaning “little mouse,” because the Romans thought a flexing muscle looked like a mouse scurrying beneath the skin?

Or that window comes from the Old Norse vindauga, meaning “wind-eye”—the house’s eye that lets in the wind?

Or that a nightmare wasn’t originally about a horse at all, but a supernatural demon called a mare (from Proto-Germanic marōn), believed to sit on your chest while you slept?

Or that sarcasm comes from the Greek sarkazein, meaning “to tear flesh”? (Subtle.)

According to researchers at the UK’s University of Reading, there are 23 “ultraconserved” words that may have survived, in recognizable form, for more than 15,000 years.

*The English word “word” comes directly from Old English word, which descends from Proto-Germanic wurda-. This ultimately traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root wer-, meaning “to speak” or “to say.” You’re welcome.

---

4. The immortal(ish) jellyfish

We just learned about Turritopsis dohrnii, a species of jellyfish that is technically immortal! These little translucent cuties can revert to an earlier stage of development after reaching maturity, essentially restarting their life cycle.

---

5. North Woods by Daniel Mason

North Woods is a captivating work of historical fiction that wanders through hundreds of years of life in and around a single old house, creating a rich mosaic of its wildly different inhabitants. Daniel Mason weaves together a constantly shifting narrative, even using intentionally anachronistic language that shouldn’t work, but somehow does. It left us reflecting on the passage of time, our fleeting place in the world, and the hidden histories of the spaces we inhabit.

We both liked this book — Misha a little more so, because he grew up in the counties in western Massachusetts where this book is set.

---

6. ANTE RECOMMEND: A really fucking good curse word

Holy shit! August’s Community pick comes from Ren:

“I was having a conversation with friends regarding swearing. I personally love swearing, and brought up that it has been noted that swearing is a sign of high intelligence (as a means of justifying my own proclivities). I went away to find further evidence to support my argument and happened across this short podcast on some of the benefits of swearing. Pain relief, disinhibition, stress relief were all mentioned. There is even a term for this, lalochezia, which means the emotional relief or catharsis gained by using vulgar or profane language. It also touched on the correlation between swearing and IQ, and I feel validated. As Billy Connolly said, ‘If you’re going to swear, swear well... and I swear exceptionally well.’ So long story short, swearing is a good thing. People really need to stop clutching their pearls over it, motherfuckers!”

We couldn’t fucking agree more.

Got a recommendation? Share it with us, and it might end up in a future edition of eM&M Recommend!™.

---

7. A stroke of insight

When neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor had a stroke, she experienced not only a devastating medical emergency, but also an extraordinary, if ironic, opportunity: to observe firsthand how her own brain worked as it healed. Her compelling — and often surprisingly funny — story made us think differently about our own brains, consciousness, and what really constitutes our “selves.” It’s well worth a watch.

“We are energy-beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect, we are whole and we are beautiful.” 

- Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

---

8. Total eclipses

We’ve both experienced a total solar eclipse. It’s surreal! The world grows dim, the air turns cool, and every creature in the path of totality seems to fall silent, as if we’re all collectively holding our breath in the eerie twilight, hoping that together, somehow, we’ll find our way back to the light.

On August 12, 2026, the Moon will once again completely eclipse the Sun over parts of Europe. If you can make it to the path of totality, don’t miss it.

---

9. Barbados hot sauce

Once when we were in Ireland, we were dining at a little wee restaurant and asked for hot sauce or anything spicy. They had nothing in the restaurant, but our waiter had something at home in his refrigerator, and he ran down the block and came back with this stuff from Barbados.

We don’t subscribe to that age-old saying, “Don’t take hot sauce from strangers,” so we used it and loved it. We now order it to our home and can go through a bottle in a week. (Thank you, kind stranger!)

---

10. The impact of one grain of rice

We recently learned about Free Rice, a trivia game that earns rice with every play to feed people through the UN World Food Programme. Having fun that does actual, tangible good in the world is something we’ll always recommend.

(It also reminds Emily of One Grain of Rice, a children’s book the kids loved!)

---

11. Sandcastles

Photo Credit: Sand Castle University

It’s the last month of summer (unless you are in Australia, in which case it’s winter and we’re just sorry about the seasonal exclusivity), so we thought we should go beach-y here. But everyone is making sandcastles. And we don’t want to be like everyone. We want to be different from everyone — and by “different,” we mean “better.”

Here’s the August Ante Creative Challenge: Don’t make a sandcastle — sandcastles are for the 1%. Make a sand cabin or a sand shack. Drop your image here by August 31 at 11:59 PM ET. We’ll post our sand shanty, too!