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A recap of the music, books and other stuff that made it to the blog this week. Too much? Not enough? Let me know what you think.

Hi! You’re here! Thank you.

A new development this week has me pretty excited: back in December, Jonathan Gibbs published this on his Personal Anthology newsletter, looking for contributors (I wrote about Personal Anthology back in November).

I sent him an email showing interest, and I’m in! I have no date set, but stay tuned.

Now that I’ve started thinking about and working on it, and it’s daunting. As always, I’m going to overthink this to death - do I focus on indie/online authors? Only fiction? Do I avoid obvious picks like Bradbury or Carver or Lahiri? Should I get weird and include a song or a poem or something? Does a recipe count? (that one’s a joke)

At any rate, it’ll be fun. If you have ideas or suggestions, send ‘em on.

Another fun development: Turn & Work received a story submission! Someone send me a flash fiction piece to consider publishing on the site. That’s a first. The story was good but not for me, and I made sure to respond and explain myself, but it was very flattering to receive.

Anyway, Here are some things that got on the blog this week, and further down are the things that didn’t but might:

Reading:

The Shortlist has 5 stories this week. If you have 2 minutes, read this one by Emily Rinkema. If you have more time, read ‘em all.

Books? We got ‘em: She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark is a collection of wildly creative and memorable horror/sci-fi short stories. Come Closer by Sara Gran is a first-person possession story that’s breezy fun. The Tech Coup felt like it was written for a different world than the one we live in.

Also this happened:

The book’s author likes my not-super-positive review.

Listening:

The Setlist has links to the features on the unbelievably immersive thing that is i Häxa, and Canadian artists Meteor Heist and TOVI, plus naya mö and Otha.

Plus standout singles from electronic act Pearl2 and indie rock from Equal Parts and Grumpy.  

The playlist leans a bit electronic this week, but there’s sure to be something you dig in there.

It’s 20 songs, 66 mintues. Hear it all on Apple Music or Spotify

Get the playlists

In the NYT, a story by John Carreyrou (the Bad Blood guy) about a magic cancer treatment that seems to be killing cancer patients. It’s infuriating stuff.

Slow Dance ‘24

This is an annual thing and it’s always a great source for new music: last year’s Slow Dance sampler led me to at least 5 artists that I now follow closely. They’re releasing a track a day here, and so far it’s killer.

Ted Chiang strikes again

A long and excellent interview in LARB. One of many choice quotes:

LLMs are not going to develop subjective experience no matter how big they get. It’s like imagining that a printer could actually feel pain because it can print bumper stickers with the words “Baby don’t hurt me” on them.

More AI realism

That Chiang interview is part of a series. Here’s another interview with Alison Gopnik and Melanie Mitchell about the same topic. It’s denser, with ideas just as compelling as the Chiang one, and just as quotable:

LLMs provide a test case for asking, What can you learn just from transmission, just from extracting information from the people around you? And what requires independent exploration and being in the world?

Mike Monteiro’s advice column

I talk about Monteiro’s book Ruined By Design all. the. time. This week I just discovered Monteiro has a blog. This week’s post is an excellent entry point.

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

I found a stream of the Beastie Boys concert film, it’s so great. Plus music from Heavy Feelings and two books by authors who wrote for HBO’s The Wire.

Thanks for being here.

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