Last week I wrote thank-you notes to writers whose books I really enjoyed over the last year or so. It’s an exercise I started a few years ago. I usually end up sending out a dozen or so. I’ll get a handful of messages back, which is cool but very much not the point. Remember: “This will be easier, psychologically, if you don’t want to be a writer, don’t ask questions, don’t need advice, and don’t particularly care if you get a response. Spread gratitude, be free!”
Maybe next year I’ll extend the same to memorable artists, musicians, moviemakers, etc.?
This weekend we went to see Les Arts Florissants perform at BAM. The favorite of the night for me was the Messe de minuit pour Noël. I grew up Catholic, so it’s easy to recognize all the familiar parts of the mass. I found myself remembering back to old memories of fidgeting in the pews, ready for it all to be over. There was less fidgeting this time (only a little bit – those seats are cramped at Howard Gilman Opera House).
One of the things I love most about early or Renaissance or classical music is imagining what it was like to hear it when it was new. Maybe in a stuffy ballroom, or in a cold, dark church. Orchestras today are often cover bands, so a performance can be a sort of time travel. I think about how even when you’re having a great day, a torch song can make you feel love’s torment, or an anthem can make you feel boundless, even if nothing around you has changed. Or like this weekend, I can listen and feel humility, reverence, hope. There’s something comforting in connection to a tradition that’s lasted for hundreds and hundreds of years, even if I’m not part of it in quite the same way these days.
Art
Still Life, oil on canvas by Fernand Léger. Storm in Umbria oil on canvas by Elihu Vedder. Crib quilt, c. 1950s New York. Coupe (footed bowl), earthenware and glaze by Gertrud and Otto Natzler.
Books
Rebecca. This is such a fun book. I’m nestling into the warm embrace of melodrama.
One Long River of Song.
Running
Splitting my weekend long runs into two days more often lately. Call it cowardice or cleverness, it is very exhausting to do the usual mileage in the cold snap we’ve had.
Around the Web
An eleven-year-old writer’s to-do list. Not bad.
Perhaps the best personal gift guide is the one you write for yourself over an extended period.
Move fast because “your work degrades, becomes less relevant with time. And if you work slowly, you will be more likely to stick with your slightly obsolete work.” (via)
American AI influencing the language of British legislators.
High Noon (1952): Wait Along, Wait Along…
The Western demands its myth—the one where courage restores the world and a man’s violence is the nation’s virtue—and High Noon offers it only grudgingly. There is no sweeping horizon here; we see only a sliver of prairie. The real action takes place on Hadleyville’s bright, empty streets and on faces flattened by sunlight. The West is emptied of romance, replaced with a collective anxiety that threatens to boil over.
The Quietus albums of the year. Time to start stocking up for 2026 listening.
Music
Wallners, Prolog I. “in my mind” spent a lot of time on repeat.
Rafael Karlen, Sinking Cities, with Camerata, Queensland Chamber Orchestra. Modern choral stuff. “Everything Changes” is pretty good, but the rest didn’t have as much staying power for me.
Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli | Motets perf. Sistine Chapel Choir cond. Massimo Palombella. “O Bone Iesu” is a little 90-second retreat from all that ails you.
Monteverdi: Vespers 1610 perf. Dunedin Consort dir. John Butt. Love the “Duo Seraphim“, sublime.
Movies
n/a, oops!
TV
The X-Files, s5e9 “Schizogeny“. Yeah, the one with the killer trees.
All Her Fault, s1e6–8. It gets sillier as you go along.
Line of Duty, s5e1. Here we go again: time to chase down some 👏 bent 👏 coppers.
Sharp Objects, s1e1.
Sex and the City, s1e1–2.
Mark Larson 