It’s a lazy Saturday in Chateau Steelypips, and I’m going to use the opportunity to clear out some open browser tabs that are chewing up memory on my home desktop. These are things that I opened as something I might write a longer piece on, but haven’t found the time or motivation to do so. And also one vanity item…
— Another new year and same old conundrum, by the Times of India: This is the vanity item: a review of my book, focusing on the question of calendar. This kind of came out of nowhere, but was cool to see…
— Christmas Day as Judgement Day, by Tanner Greer: I don’t really have anything coherent to say about this beyond that I think it’s a lovely bit of writing.
— The Best of 2023, by ArtButMakeItSports: One of the most pure and fun things on ex-Twitter these days is this feed that pairs sports photos with classic works of art. Link is to the top 20, but the post contains links to earlier blocks of the countdown.
— Steven Hyden’s Favorite Albums of 2023 by Steven Hyden: As noted previously, one of my favorite music writers, and a good source of recommendations. After adjusting for his fondness for female singers whose voices I find grating, anyway.
— Mail Monday: Did the Media Hurt Sports?, by Ethan Strauss: To a large extent, I’m in the same boat as the reader whose email he’s responding to: I think that while actual sporting events remain highly enjoyable, the media conversation around sports has become extremely irritating and in its unfiltered state is a net negative. Every commentary show has gotten louder and dumber, and the rise of sports gambling is only exacerbating the process.
— Meritocracy Opponents Can’t Stop Accidentally Arguing in Favor of Meritocracy, by Jeff Maurer: I don’t know that I would put it exactly this way, but I think he’s right to point out a kind of essential muddled-ness in a lot of these arguments.
—Perhaps Emotional Dependence on Celebrities Has Gone Too Far by Freddie de Boer: This week in “I bet that was cathartic…”
— Misunderstanding antisemitism in America by Musa Al-Gharbi: A guest post at Matt Yglesias’s place, with a possibly useful corrective to a lot of #discourse.
— Politix, the podcast: Speaking of Yglesias, he has a new podcast with Brian Beutler, the first couple of episodes of which I mostly enjoyed. The one issue is that Yglesias has a little too much dynamic range: when he’s making an extended point, he speaks at a level where I need to bump up the volume, but then when he’s trying to interrupt someone else, he’s absolutely ear-splitting.
Finally, here’s a song:
I feel like I may have used this in a previous round-up post, but it fucking slaps, so here it is again.
So, yeah, those are some links. Now I need to get off the computer and try to make the kids do something more active than staring at their phones all damn day. If you want more of this, here’s a button:
And if you have thoughts about any of this, or suggestions for rainy-day kid activities, the comments will be open: