Hey! Scottie Andrew here again, filling in for our sweet AJ. Thanks for reading!

Great art, like music or theater or, ahem, musical theater, is deceptively entertaining therapy — a vessel through which to explore complicated subject matters in a way that feels safe and meaningful. Today's sobering anniversary — 20 years since September 11 — drew me to “Come From Away,” a Tony Award-winning musical that got the “Hamilton” treatment on Apple TV+ this week. The show focuses on a few of the 7,000 passengers whose planes were diverted to a tiny town in Newfoundland on September 11, 2001. They were mostly strangers, bound by little more than circumstance, but they spent nearly a week together, singing, sightseeing and healing after the events of 9/11. This is a big-hearted musical that makes its message plain in every song and every interaction between a charming local and a weary traveler. But that simple message is what sticks when the virtual curtain closes: In the face of immense tragedy, goodness still exists, beauty still exists, love still exists. This is a musical that will move even the most cynical viewers — and watching it is a worthy way to observe this 20th anniversary.

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A space fanatic goes home
Chad Keller knew he’d end up in space — either in orbit himself, or in a role that was space-adjacent — it was just a matter of figuring out how to get there. He thought he might grow up to be an astronaut, but his eyesight wasn’t up to snuff, so he settled on aerospace engineering and helped get others up in the air.

Chris Cassidy dug space, too. He was a Navy SEAL-turned-NASA astronaut, around the same age as Chad. Their stories intertwined more than once, first in tragedy — Chad was killed when his plane crashed into the Pentagon on September 11; Chris was deployed overseas within days of the attacks. Chris wouldn’t learn about Chad and his interstellar dreams until a fateful visit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, when Chad’s story was featured in a rotating display. Chris often took mementos up to space with him, usually belonging to family and friends. But, as he prepared for his last spaceflight before retirement, Chris phoned Chad’s father, Richard, to ask whether his son could accompany him off-planet.

With Richard’s blessing, Chris embarked on his final trip to space with mementos of Chad’s 29 years on Earth, including a photo of Chad, beaming next to his wife, letters he’d written and a memorial program from his funeral. Chris snapped a photo of Chad’s belongings floating in the cupola, the space station’s observatory that overlooks the planet from above. "It's kind of special to think about the story and the path, the journey of that object from the hands that it was in to my hands to this window," Chris said. Chad belonged in space after all — it just took the kindness of a kindred spirit to get him there.

A Broadway-bound love story
Nick Marson, a single Brit, was flying to Houston, Texas, on business. Native Texan and divorcée Diane Kirschke was heading home after visiting her son at a US Air Force base in the UK. They were seated on opposite ends of the same plane — a craft that, along with 37 other planes, was diverted to the town of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, on September 11, 2001. They wouldn't head to Texas until it was safe to fly again, so until then, they got to know the people of Newfoundland — and each other. Nick and Diane started off, as many meant-to-be couples do, as friends, trying to make sense of a senseless period in their lives. But on one fateful night, after engaging in a drunken fish-kissing ceremony egged on by locals, an attendee addressed the two as a married couple. While Nick laughed it off, Diane was braver — when asked if she would marry Nick, she said, “Why not?” After a few whirlwind days together, Nick and Diane were headed on their own paths again — but not without confessing their love to each other. Two months after their plane had been diverted, Nick proposed over the phone, from the UK. One year after the events of September 11, they married in Houston. They honeymooned — where else? — in their beloved Newfoundland, and their new friends turned out in droves. The mayor of Gambo, the tiny town where the two sheltered, even wrote them a song for their "homecoming."

Their story is one of several woven into “Come From Away.” Like the real-life Nick and Diane, their theatrical counterparts meet by chance, fall in love and grapple with the return to life as they knew it without each other — only the dramatized Nick and Diane vent their burgeoning love in song. "We've seen the show 118 times," says Nick. "Diane will say it's like we're renewing our vows every time we see it."

A round of applause for ...

... Sara Mudallal, a parkour athlete who's changing the sport for Muslim women. Mudallal, 26, took up parkour in 2015, the same year she decided to wear a headscarf. She's often the only hijabi athlete when she competes at parkour jams, and she used to feel out of place or othered by her competitors. But she loved the freeing nature of parkour, jumping and landing and moving about the world in unique ways, and now she's one of the sport's top stars. She even competed on "American Ninja Warrior," the first hijabi athlete to ever appear on the show. It was never an option for her to quit doing something she loved, even if she got odd looks from other athletes — she'd just beat them in the competition, anyway. "Everyone else is going to move forward, but someone's always going to be stopping you for some reason. So you have to move past that," she said. You have to get over that wall." And if you're a parkour pro like Mudallal, you can scale that wall with ease.

A bright idea

To those who say it's too early for pumpkin-flavored things to roll out, I say, science told me I can do what I want! From an agricultural standpoint, yes, pumpkins are harvested in the fall, but most of us are not farmers, and we’re starting to crave all things pumpkin earlier and earlier, when it’s still way too hot to even think about drinking a pumpkin spice latte. Turns out, our attachment to pumpkin is downright psychological: Pumpkin is a flavor, a perfect complement of both coffee and Spam, but also a feeling — specifically, nostalgia, psychology professor Richard Lopez told CNN. Pumpkin pie and the like can remind us of our own warm fall memories from our youths, from the giddy thrill of back-to-school season to trick-or-treating on Halloween, Lopez said. And as Cinderella’s pumpkin-turned-princess carriage transported her to the ball, pumpkin-spiked hard seltzer and a PSL transport us to cozier times — fall is typically a bit brisker and less punishingly humid, an ideal climate for s’mores roasting and snuggly hay rides. So, if you found yourself craving pumpkin pie out of season, bake on — pumpkin is comfort, something we could all use more of.

You gotta see this

Sure, this parking lot looks pretty standard at first, but peep that black truck parked near the crosswalk — standing in front is Gary Crane, holding a cut-out sign that reads I [heart] U. Gary's wife, Donna, was in the hospital with Covid-19, just two weeks before she'd be considered fully vaccinated. Gary couldn't be with her in person, so he kept vigil outside of her hospital window for 10 straight days, sending her his love in cartoony bubble letters. "She's worth it, and I just wanted her to know that I was rooting for her," Gary told CNN. The gesture was simple, but it gave Donna some much-needed strength and a boost of positivity, and she's since recovered from the illness. The couple is expecting their first grandchild soon, and if Gary's daily public declaration was any indication, that baby will be very well-loved.

Wanna get away?

What does it mean to be “cool”? Are there criteria to measure coolness by — the degree to which you care about what people think, maybe, or the number of vintage or upcycled clothes in your closet? Time Out, the international media outlet, devised some standards of coolness to determine the world’s coolest cities, and this year, San Francisco won out. Thanks to its proactive response to the pandemic — its vaccination rate is among the highest in the US — its citywide ethos of progressivism, inclusivity and sustainability and enough cooperation between neighbors to keep local businesses alive throughout the pandemic, San Fran bested effortlessly chill Amsterdam and even the cultural paragon of New York for the top spot. Do the locals call it "San Fran," or is that too uncool for the coolest city in the world? You’ll have to visit and find out, and when you do, please report back!

Who knew?

Ducks — they’re just like us, or at least, they’re like children who’ve just learned to curse and use the word incessantly to shock their caretakers. A cantankerous, hand-reared Australian musk duck fittingly named Ripper was recorded imitating the phrase, “You bloody fool!” during a courtship display. Ripper’s exclamation is the first time a captive waterfowl has imitated a human noise, according to a new study. Listen for yourself: Ripper seems to say “you bloody fool” nine times in 35 seconds. Sometimes he cuts off his sentence early, and other times, he stretches out the “oo” sound in “fool” like it’s a two-syllable word. He tends to drop the “L” from the end of “fool,” though, because a duck has his limits. Ripper’s surprising speech raises the question — how did he learn such a specific phrase? The study’s authors believe he likely adopted it from his caretaker, but was said caretaker referring to Ripper as a “bloody fool”? Clearly, our musk duck is anything but.