Things I enjoyed through 2018.

Fiction

• A Softer World
• Little King December
• If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller
• Borges’ various short stories
  • Especially Book of Sand
• William Maxwell’s various writings
  • His novella, “So Long, See You Tomorrow”, is beautiful
  • So are his short stories and improvisations! I’ve been reading these in “All The Days And Nights”

Non-Fiction

• On Bullshit — Harry Frankfurt

Poetry

• Young and Old — Charles Kingsley
• February — Margaret Atwood
• Indian Summer — Dorothy Parker
• From Blossoms — Li-Young Lee
  • This was recommended by Rachel McElroy, and it might be my new favourite love poem over Neruda’s seventeenth sonnet
• [Sweetest Little Song — Leonard Cohen]({{ site.url }}/reference/sweetest-song/)
• At First Sight — Robert Graves
• Love at First Sight — Wislawa Szymborska

Articles

• Reality Has A Surprising Amount of Detail — John Salvatier
• The Case for Bad Coffee — Keith Pandolfi [Serious Eats]
• I Don’t Know How To Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
• Resisting Reduction
  • Put into words a lot of things I’ve been thinking and unable to express for so long!
• I can tolerate anything except the outgroup
• Software Disenchantment
• People Like You More Than You Think
• Common Cyborg
• On Cash

Papers

• John Holland’s CAS stuff
• Murray Gell-Mann’s CAS stuff

Music

• Bo En — Money Won’t Pay
• Etta James — [I Want A] Sunday Kind of Love
• Carly Rae Jepsen — Boy Problems
• Johnny Cash — Hurt
• Rachel Rose Mitchell — Voidfish (Plural)
• Griffin McElroy — Wonderland Pt. 3
• Eels — Today Is The Day
• Eels — It’s a Motherfucker
• Scissor Sisters — Comfortably Numb
• Tom Misch — Movie
  • The intro to this, read by his sister, is perfect.
• Eels — Things The Grandchildren Should Know
  • Listening to this brings me straight back to being 17 in the summer. It’s strange. I’ve always loved Eels, and I’ve always loved this song especially — especially especially this version.
  • I think a theme of this year is my realising how much of life is still a mystery to me. Now I realise the various ways this song speaks to me the way it couldn’t seven years or so ago, I can’t help but recognise that there’s a lot I won’t get about it now, too. 24’s really kind of young. If I’m going to have some kind of life soundtrack, Eels feels like a good one.
• Lake Street Drive — Good Kisser
• Janelle Monae — Make Me Feel
• Arthur Yoria — Maybe
  • Another artist from my early teens putting out music again. YES.
• Jungle — Happy Man
• Two Another — The Night
• Louie Zong
  • I’m loving Louie Zong! Basically everything he makes is happy and summery and lovely.
  • Check out his album, Singles as a good place to begin
  • His Jam is just delicious, too…
• Soulwax remixing Walter Murphy jamming on Beethoven — Fifth of Beethoven
• Louie Zong & Brian David Gilbert — Thumbnail
  • It’s a combination of everything that makes Louie good and everything that makes Brian good! 10/10
• Etta James — Sunday Kind of Love
• Tally Hall — Greener
  • This is far from their best song, but it’s stuck with me lately. The video’s the same link i used to watch way back when.
• Minimall — Static
• Minimall — Don’t Tell Me
• Homestarrunnertron (covering Tally Hall) — Taken For A Ride
  • I never actually liked the Tally Hall Version of this song too much, but this cover blows me away.
• Molly Lewis (covering Tally Hall) — You & Me
  • A beautiful uke cover of one of my favourite Tally Hall songs.
• Louie Zong — Asymptotic
• Louie Zong — A-OK
  • It’s on this EP!
• Breakbot — Baby I’m Yours
• Soulwax — NY Excuse
• Devandra Banhart — At The Hop
• Parcels — Tieduprightnow
• The Weakerthans — The Reasons
• Aaron Taylor — Easy
  • Song begins at 3:44, but the whole EP is actually pretty good and an easy listen!
• Kacey Musgraves — Slow Burn
• Kacey Musgraves — High Horse
• Pomplamoose — Rich Girl
• Reeder — Julia
• Tally Hall — Stationary Love
• Ben Mhòr — Strange Lands
• Floppy Circus — You, My Love
• Theo Katzman — Hard Work
• Cortnë — Not Alice
• The Happy Fits — So Alright, Cool, Whatever

Podcasts

• Wonderful!
• The Adventure Zone
  • (trailer linked)

TV

• Detectorists

YouTube

• Dances Moving — Brian and Laura Gilbert
  • …this wasn’t what I expected from Brian, who I know from Polygon’s gaming videos. Usually his content is musical comedy, and this is too, but I think the writing & directing influence of his sister has brought something really deep.
  • Dances Moving explores a lot of things young adults have to learn to navigate, including moving cities, relationships, issues of and mental health. It’s strange that something ostensibly about silly dances would have somethig to say on those kinds of topics…but it does. I imagine some people might not get this, but I think it’s really special.
  • One thing: it wont make much sense unless you make time to watch all seven videos in the playlist.
• I Can’t Decide — The Adventure Zone
  • Spoilers! Kind of.
  • I like this because it centers around John, who’s a character late in the arc. The attention to detail and animation quality generally is some of the best I’ve seen in TAZ animatics!
• The Greatest Love Story — The Adventure Zone
  • This story taught me a lot about love, I feel. This particular clip always stuck with me — the animatic is just someone’s depiction.
• Ze Frank
  • He’s such a pivotal influence on the direction that entertainment of the web has gone!
  • Every year or so, I come back to Ze Frank’s stuff and get lost in it for a little while.
  • A couple have been resonating with me lately:
    • Unfair has been deeply formative
    • The Sweetness keeps reframing things for me in useful ways
    • Brain Crack is very motivating for me , and I keep coming back to it
  • If you’re not familiar with Ze’s stuff though start with The Human Test and An Invocation For Beginnings in that order, then watch Brain Crack.
  • The internet really wouldn’t be what it is today without Ze’s influence. And he genuinely tries to make it a better place. I really feel his impact was the refactoring of how we see creation in a way that permitted things like the entirety of modern youtube in its current form, in a way he’s discussed would eventually happen in a new era of creation himself. Things like The Adventure Zone and Brian David Gilbert certainly wouldn’t be what they are without him.