Two Plays I Love But Haven’t Seen / My Amazing Pepper Grinder Success

And more.

But start with this:

WELL, THAT WAS FAST

SQNS, suggested here two weeks ago at $2.37, announced yesterday it had agreed to be acquired at $3.03. As I type, it’s jumped to $2.80, an 18% gain. For those who hold until the deal closes “in the first quarter,” a promised 28% gain. I’m inclined to hold for the full $3.03 (and the dream someone might bid it higher); but you never know what snag might crater the deal and put us back to square one, so it’s your call.

APE is taking longer. Suggested here at $1.05 nine months ago, it’s the virtual twin of AMC. Yet when I looked yesterday mid-day, AMC — buoyed by the $1.5 billion success of the Barbenheimer movies — was up 30 cents to $5.23 . . . while APE was down 8 cents to $1.72.

By the close, AMC was up only 19 cents and APE down only 2 cents. But it’s still nuts. Upon their conversion, every 100 APE shares will become 88 AMC shares. So APE should trade at 88% the price of AMC — not yesterday’s 33%.

On the remote chance you own AMC, because you like the company’s prospects, sell immediately and buy APE instead.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

There is much to laud about Anthony Fauci, especially his work decades ago with HIV-AIDS; but I am one who has long believed that — after the first few very scary months of COVID before we knew anything — we should have tried much harder to open schools . . . while making accommodations for those at serious risk . . . just as we managed to keep grocery stores open and UPS delivering. The damage we’ve done to millions of kids is enormous.

And I’ve always been a little nervous about the way Dr. Fauci dismissed the possibility that COVID originated in the Wuhan lab he had a hand in funding. On that point, this article could be described as damning.

THE THUNDERBOLT KID

If you grew up in the Fifties, as Bill Bryson did, read it or, better still, let him read it to you. Huge fun.

OK, now:

TWO PLAYS I LOVE BUT HAVEN’T SEEN

Sweat was recommended by a friend. I had forgotten entirely until it arrived — had no clue what it was about (or even, actually, which friend had recommended it) — but dove in. As mentioned a week or two ago, I was gob-smacked. And in the same way it’s often true “the book was better than the movie,” so, it seems to me, reading Sweat is probably better than seeing it. That way, you have all the time you want to pause and think as you go. Not to mention the time and money saved not having to buy tickets and fly somewhere to see it (most recently, Detroit this past June).

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist I read as an eBook on my phone. I was not about to fly over to London to see it, though it’s getting standing ovations every night. I was just curious to see what I had somewhat reluctantly invested in. Having now read it, all I’ll tell you is that (a) I would have invested with gusto, had I actually read it; and (b) it is a 1970 Italian masterpiece wonderfully updated and relocated. So sharp, so funny, so inventive. Try to know nothing about it. Just start reading.

And finally (apart from the BONUS CARTOON that follows):

REFILLING YOUR UNREFILLABLE PEPPER GRINDER

I hate waste, as long-time readers know, so — trivial though it is — throwing out the now-empty disposable pepper mill someone had brought at the beginning of the summer made me crazy last week. I know: We are in mid-coup! The planet is burning up! Who has time to worry about this?!

Apparently, I do.

I fished it back out of the trash and tried to think what tools I might have lying around to make the world a better place.

A wrench? Pliers? The edge of a screwdriver?

In fact, the tool that did the trick is called YouTube.

I typed in a few words and — presto:

How to Open Pepper Grinders from the Supermarket

More amazing still — “Handy Andy” being the last moniker anyone who knows me would apply — I followed the instructions and it worked.

Don’t say I never gave you anything.

BONUS CARTOON