Welcome Distractions
A better way to waste your weekend.
books | music | short stories | rambling
Hey! Thank you for being a supporter of this little idea that turned into a whole thing. I love doing this and I love that you care to follow along.
Anyway: that was a fun week.
If you didn’t get a chance to see the faves I posted this week, they’re all collected here. There are also a bunch of links to other people’s lists. Seems everyone loves Geese and Addison Rae this year. I’m not one of them, and I don’t think I saw a single one of my albums of the year mentioned elsewhere. Which is a shame, because there are so many great releases that never get attention they deserve.
It’s Bandcamp Friday, where the platform foregoes it’s take, and gives 100% of the purchase to the artist (or label or whatever). Amid the talk of the ethics of streaming and Spotify Wrapped, spend a few bucks on a record or t-shirt. I have a great list of records that you should consider.
And as of today, the site will be fairly quiet for the rest of 2025. I’m gassed after doing that monster year-end exercise (and the *OH SHIT* moments when I realize I forgot something I love). I have a laundry list of improvements to make to the site, as well as a pile of records to hear and potentially write about. I’m also moving the newsletter to a different platform (don’t get me started on this).
Also have to get things ready for Hannah to join in the new year! If you want to be like Hannah and help make things for the coolest website since Zombocom:
Wanna write about indie music?
Or help pick and solicit short stories?
Want to listen to records before they come out and maybe even do feature interviews with artists?
D’you really like to tell people your opinions of books?
Even if it’s only now and then, I’d love to hear from you.
If you do the NYT Scrabble game, come find me. <—this link seems to work if you click it on mobile, but they make it weirdly complicated.
And on that note: On to the links!
Offsite: links you shouldn’t miss
This radio interview with an artist named Siibii is like a ray of sunshine. Starting at about 3:45, they start talking about ‘snaggin’, and the giggles that follow had me screaming with laughter in the car. Keep listening. It really gets going around the 5 minute mark.
Anna Mehler Paperny got brain surgery to help with her depression. Here’s a riveting interview she gave about it, after writing this piece for the Globe and Mail. Her book Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is also a must-read.
Your brain feels no pain, so I am unable to tell you in any satisfying way about the exact moment the first electrode was implanted, eight contacts nestling in my subgenual anterior cingulate cortex.
I can tell you about the drilling that preceded it: intense pressure in the top of my skull and a sensation of having a helicopter perched on my head.
Matt Collyer from Stomp Records (and the legendary Planet Smashers) is the nicest guy in music. His mostly-ska record label is 30 years old.
I loved The Power Broker as much as anyone, but I’m not sure that a TV show of it is a great idea. The guy from The Americans has a different opinion.
This is (maybe) the last time I write about this Olivia Nuzzi thing. When LitHub included it on their release calendar, they didn’t quote a review, just the publisher. Then later that day, they published a piece called “Here are the most scathing lines from the reviews of Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto”, with zingers like this:
Nuzzi is too old to be absolved from these moral, political, and journalistic sins.
But other followed it, notable because they’re great writing. Blog fave Scacchi Koul wrote a scathing review and an even better blog post about it, but the win goes to Brian Phillips in The Ringer. It was really hard to find one pull quote from this piece (“z’s recognize z’s” is an all-timer), but this is a great one:
It’s not just that fame and power corrupt; it’s that they corrupt, often, in the most garishly stupid of ways. They are the river. You are the canyon. They will subdue and tame you, no matter how many lizards crawl on the King James Bible in your kitchen, no matter how desirously you desire the desire of desiring desire.
Spotify Wrapped is out, and Liz “Mood Machine” Pelly has some ideas about what to do instead of letting the algorithm tell you about yourself: Look back on your own year in music and share what you loved.
These are essentially meme-like advertising campaigns for companies that notoriously pay musicians penny fractions. And they are only possible due to user-surveillance practices.
Lastly, a couple of good pieces about AI. Aram Zucker-Scharff writes about why you shouldn’t believe the hype about how much of the web is AI slop. Director Bong-Joon Ho wants to “organize a military squad, and their mission is to destroy AI”, and blog fave Chris Dalla Riva has a very great piece about the language people use when discussing AI music:
Music is an inherently democratic art form. Anyone who claims they have built something to “democratize music” is likely pulling a fast one on you.
What got your attention this week? Got a hot take on something? Hit reply and let me know.
On the Blog
The year-end was the only thing I was focused on this week, so go here and check out all the coverage. Tons of book and music recos, perfect for that weirdo recluse in your life.
The Setlist is the top 100 this week. I love that mix so much I’ve had it on almost constantly for the past couple of weeks. Check it out Apple Music or Spotify.
Something I should read or hear? Send it my way
Next week: Not much! In fact, maybe nothing! We’ll see. If this is the last you hear from me in 2025, I hope you have a perfect holiday and get lots of books and records for yourself. Don’t forget to share your faves.
-hugh
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