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A recap of the music, books and other stuff that made it to the blog this week. Plus some other articles and links that I think fit with the theme.Too much? Not enough? Let me know what you think.

Hi! You’re here! Thank you.

Happy 2025! I’ve never really understood the etiquette around wishing people a happy new year, Someone said it to me in February once. Let’s make the official cutoff ‘Friday of the first full workweek’.

I hope your time off was well-spent, doing things you enjoy. Mine was: among the eating, sleeping and family time I spent a ton of time thinking about, learning and fighting with code to make a ton of functional and design updates to the site, and it hopefully results in a better UX. Early returns show higher engagement, we’ll see what happens. I’m heading into 2025 with more energy and enthusiasm for this project than ever.

I’m doing some new things — some news-y links in the newsletter that don’t hit the blog, and some other ideas I wrote about here.

Lastly, I’m annoyed with the post office. They were on strike from mid-November to December 17, but all I’ve received since they’ve come back is admail and a gas bill. I know it’s hard to start up a machine that big after a month off, but I’m expecting vinyl, for Pete’s sake.

Anyway, here’s what I got up to this week:

Two things about dead and disgraced Canadian short story writer Alice Munro: This piece in the New Yorker by Rachel Aviv (author of the excellent Strangers to Ourselves) should be the last thing that needs to be said on the matter (archive link).

But it was followed a few days later by this bit of unbelievable excuse-making by her biographer in The Walrus (Canada’s try at Harper’s). Includes this gem about him finding out about the abuse while the book was at proof stage: “…even if I wanted to adjust for her story, it would have been extremely difficult to do so.”

Casual Viewing:

This has been linked from everywhere, but I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. Why Netflix Looks Like That. The part about the billboards is incredible.

Spotify’s Plot Against Musicians:

Even if you think you know about the fake music problems on Spotify, this piece has a ton of shocking information. I just picked up the book last night, I’ll have more to say next week.

Fact-checking claims about reading habits:

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that there has really been a jump in ‘people don’t read’ stories int he past few months. This piece in Vox (archive link) digs into some of the (lack of) data behind some of these claims.

Something you think I should hear or read? Reply or click here.

Reading:

On Monday, I linked eight pieces of short writing. The one from blog fave Catherine Lacey is terrific, and you should also read this one by Jennifer Pinto about growing up with a deaf mom.

I posted three book reviews: Question 7 by Richard Flanagan was weirdly derivative in surprising ways. I finally finished The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and I didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped. The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei was the bright spot - a short novel translated from Chinese that I absolutely loved.

Lastly: Steven Soderbergh’s media diet is always a fun read

Listening:

I have an incredible month of music lined up, and it started with five reviews this week. Electronic artists Total Wife and Purient, indie rock from TAPE TOY and Witch Post, americana from catfish jr.

This list of the most overrated albums of the year from No Frills Reviews is pretty funny and I agree with pretty much everything on it.

Other music you need to hear

On the post for this week’s playlist (with all-new design), there are videos from Cousines Like Shit (think Wet Leg meets Cheekface), Claire Carter’s debut indie rock single and throwback trip-hop from Red Deer’s TOVI. Go check it out.

The whole playlist

18 songs, 62 mintues. Hear it all on Apple Music or Spotify

Get the playlists

Next Week:

I hopefully have my proper laptop back, but either way you’ll get excellent music from Backseat Dragon and Elodie Gervaise, new books by Richard Price and Laura van den Berg, and a bunch more.

Thanks for being here.

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