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My Subway Take Would Be...

2026-02-20 · 13:49 UTC ·This Needs Hot Sauce ·2 min read

Brief

Abigail Koffler’s newsletter post uses a short personal essay format to rehabilitate weather talk as something more consequential than clichéd small talk. Published on Substack on Feb. 20, 2026, the preview ties the idea to Lorde’s “Perfect Places” and to a period marked by visible extreme-weather events — wildfires, hurricanes, polar vortexes, and floods — that make atmospheric conditions feel inseparable from broader headlines. Koffler situates the prompt within the rising popularity of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes, presenting her own “take” as a cultural argument: weather is an ideal conversation starter and people should talk about it more, not less. Because the supplied text cuts off at “Allow me to explain,” the article’s full reasoning, structure, and any deeper claims about climate, social behavior, or public discourse cannot be evaluated from the excerpt alone.

Why it matters

Abigail Koffler’s Feb. 20, 2026 Substack preview argues that weather deserves more attention as a meaningful social topic rather than small-talk filler.

Key details

Koffler frames the essay around Lorde’s lyric from “Perfect Places” — “I hate the headlines and the weather” — and says it has resurfaced for her amid real-world climate-linked events including wildfires, hurricanes, polar vortexes, and floods.
The piece is prompted by the popularity of Kareem Rahma’s interview show Subway Takes, with Koffler proposing her own signature take: “Weather is the perfect conversation starter and we need to talk about it more.”
Only a preview is available in the provided text; the substantive explanation is paywalled after the line “Allow me to explain,” so the article’s detailed argument, examples, and evidence are not accessible here.

Cleaned source text

title: My Subway Take Would Be...

author: This Needs Hot Sauce

content_type: newsletter

publication: substack.com

published: 2026-02-20T13:49:24+00:00

source_url: gmail://19c7b502b03b9cad

word_count: 477

We need to talk about the weather more!

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My Subway Take Would Be...

Abigail Koffler

Feb 20| | | ∙| | Preview

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On the song Perfect Places, Lorde sings, “I hate the headlines and the weather. I’m nineteen and I’m on fire.” Since I first heard that song when I was 23, that lyric has lodged its way into my brain, popping up at so many moments when the weather overlaps with or signals something bad. Wildfires, hurricanes, polar vortexes, floods, its all happened, along with headlines that my 23 year old self could not have imagined.

There’s a common belief that talking about the weather is boring and I’m sorry if this topic has you snoozing ,but I’m here to disagree. As the show Subway Takes, hosted by Kareem Rahma grows in popularity, I’ve been chatting with friends and coworkers about what our takes would be. I’ve finally decided that its weather related: “Weather is the perfect conversation starter and we need to talk about it more.”

Allow me to explain:...

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