This Week's Writing 1/4/25

shuffling into the new year

I’ve been on vacation…which has meant posting about film rather than politics for the most part. I’ll get back to the depressing business of writing about our national nightmare next week, though, never fear! (and/or fear, I guess, depending on your viewpoint.)

In the meantime! Thank you for all of your support this year; I really appreciate all of you who subscribe and are interested in what I have to say, and doubly appreciate those who are willing to pay me a little to keep saying it.

If you want to keep me scribbling in the new year, and/or if you want to make sure cats and dogs alike are fed, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Also! I think I’m going to try starting a weekly feature where I recommend an album (old or new!) in the weekly roundup. This will be paywalled at the end of the post as a bonus for subscribers. So join up and scroll down if you’re curious what I’m listening to this week!

Okay, here’s what I wrote this week!

Politics

MAGA v. MAGA; let them fight gif. (Public Notice)

Resolving not to resolve not to make New Year’s resolutions. (EIH)

Cultural Criticism

The 30 best albums of 2024. (EIH)

The 25 best films of 2024. (EIH)

A Different Man tries to say something different about diability, with mixed success. (Splice Today)

urika’s bedroom makes lovely dreampop. (Chicago Reader)

Hundreds of Beavers makes movies silly again. (EIH)

Poetry

A poem loosely inspired by romcom tropes. (Synchronized Chaos)

Fake to Real

There is a situation
Where I will be eaten by aardvarks
unless you kiss me amidst the lamentation
of the aardvarks.

It seems unlikely and contrived.
But the truth is a contrivance
raised on folded metal legs
like a praying mantis

that reaches down to kiss you.
The android praying mantis
is a real swooning android.
The moon is a true contrivance

of aardvarks and lamentations.
No narrative is eaten.
The fiction does not tell lies.
The moon sails out of the poem

to the room where you are reading,
about the moon and a kiss
and becoming what you dream,
a round mask on the face of the sky.

Little anxiety poem. (Five Fleas)

tranquil clouds passing
in my heart
a doubt

Anti-poetry poem. (Five Fleas)

simplicity
complexity;
poetry
is wishy-
washy

A tragic narrative. (Five Fleas)

Standing before
the art museum, I know
I should have checked the hours.

Album of the week