Agent Palmer

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION—Relatively obscure internet personality Jason Stershic, perhaps better known as Agent Palmer, recently celebrated two years of The Palmer Files podcast. Released every other Tuesday, Palmer has now self-produced 53 episodes on numerous topics with a variety of guests.

Highlights of The Palmer Files’ small but mighty roster of guests includes noted composer of Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards” Andrew Belling; science fiction author and Skywalker Sound sound designer Essa Hansen; Jim Henson, George Lucas, and Dr. Seuss biographer Brian Jay Jones; “The Tolkien Professor” Dr. Corey Olsen; and space flight historian Amy Shira Teitel.

184 riders took off from Brest on June 26th to start the 2021 edition of the Tour de France. Three weeks later, 141 riders took the start to complete the Tour in Paris on the Champs-Elysees.

What took place during the stages in-between, may not have been unprecedented, but it certainly was compelling. Here is my recap of the 5 most important takeaways from this year’s race.

On February 26th, 2021, James Turner commenced the final stream of season one of his Punch-A-Chunk world. The culmination of 13 months of work was, based on the reaction from his chat, as therapeutic to those watching during a pandemic as it was to James himself.

The mood in the chat began both celebratory and thankful. What started as a pre-pandemic joke in February 2020 clearly became a salvation for both James and his viewers as the community grew.

2020 has been anything but normal. No exceptions. But the 2020 Tour de France, which was never a guarantee to start and once there was never a guarantee to finish was captivating, competitive, and dramatic.

It’s easy to say some of those things in hindsight because it did finish in Paris on the Champs-Élysées, but the threat of bringing it all to a close without reaching Stage 21 was not only a looming specter but a change in tactics.

Around the time that the film adaptation of Lost Moon, called Apollo 13 came out, my parents who knew I was in love with all things NASA bought me the book by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.

The book, in a concerted marketing effort with the movie was also retitled from Lost Moon to Apollo 13 and with a picture of not Lovell but Tom Hanks as Lovell on the front cover. And while I read the book, or read through it when I picked it up recently, I now had the knowledge of the other books I’ve been reading.