A slightly different format for this edition. But first, a note about my first abandoned book of the year. Boris Fishman’s Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo was on several Best Of lists for 2016, and thus was added to my To Read list. Somewhere along the line, I think I got the wrong idea what it was about. I starting reading it expecting a funny view on life in America from the perspective of Russian immigrants.
I’ve had two weeks to soak up the sadness that is Ryan Adams’ new album, Prisoner. Time to share some thoughts. I wasn’t sure how much I would like this album. It wasn’t that I doubted Adams’ ability to write about the end of his marriage to Mandy Moore: he’s been crafting amazing songs about heartbreak his entire career. No, what worried me was this was an album he had been working on, in one form or another, for nearly two years.
youtu.be/bvjsAIpNy… “French Press” - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. I know, this was in a playlist exactly one month ago today. But it’s been an odd music week for me,[1] and this video just dropped. It makes me want to be in my 20s and go to a casual wedding hosted at a pool in Australia. Until it gets a little melancholy at the end. Long story short, my vehicle has been with the dealer all week awaiting a replacement part, so I’ve not had SiriusXM to listen to, nor the Ryan Adams CD I left in the player.
I’ve been pimping Mark Titus’ work for several years, first when he was with Grantland and now that he and many Grantlanders have resurfaced at The Ringer. Even on the rare day when I’m not super interested in the subject of his articles, I’ll at least skim them. That was the case with his piece last week about the woeful state of Big 10 basketball. And I’m glad I skimmed it, because there were two fantastic nuggets in it.
The college basketball season always seems to fly by. Despite covering five full months - and bumping into the first week of a sixth - it feels like a much quicker run. Wasn’t just a week or so ago that KU was losing to Indiana in overtime in Hawaii, then beating Duke in New York four nights later? Yet here we are, in the final week of the regular season, when the uneasy part of the year begins.
It was an all Ryan Adams and Middle Kids week, so no Spotify playlist of mostly new stuff this week. Instead, just this delightful video from Band of Horses youtu.be/j7H1T1KQe… “In a Drawer”
Time for another Kid Winter Sports Roundup. L finished her basketball season last week. Our team went 3–4, losing to the eventual champions in the tournament. We started the season 1–3 so obviously finished strong. Our best game of the year was our final regular season game, when we played the team we were tied with for second place at the time. They jumped on us early - leading 8–0 and 11–2 - and I was feeling a little helpless on the bench.
As the bulk of my regular readers are in the Midwest, I don’t have to expound too much on the gorgeous weather we are enjoying. It feels more like April than February. And although next weekend looks like a return to more seasonable weather, you sure can’t help but think spring is closer than it really is when you can wear shorts and t-shirts in the middle of February. As I took the girls to school this morning after their three-day weekend, I realized that Presidents’ Day weekend was traditionally when St.
Friday was beautiful so I got distracted and forgot to share my final music post of the day. So here it is. It’s a great crossing of pop culture lines, but will make even more sense if you watch The Americans. youtu.be/QqBxUgqe8…
OK, for music post #2, I wanted to celebrate Ryan Adams’ new album, Prisoner. Rather than setting the stage myself, I thought I would share this excellent view of the State of Ryan Adams that Steven Hyden published earlier this week. It’s a good primer on where Adams has been over the past few years. And it has a little extra weight since Adams confirmed on Twitter than Hyden’s theory about Ryan Adams is correct.
It’s the first really big new music Friday of 2017! Which means bonus musical content for you! Strand of Oaks and Son Volt have new albums out today. Middle Kids released their long-awaited debut EP. And the crown jewel of the day is Ryan Adams’ Prisoner, which is already making me happy/sad. Oh, and there’s a bonus cherry on top: Prince’s music hit all the streaming services again last weekend, which is also worthy of celebration.
The Nix - Nathan Hill. My brother-in-reading Dave V. received two copies of this book over the holidays. He was generous enough to pass one of them my way. Quite the gesture, which I appreciate immensely! This is a great book. It’s also one of those books that makes me mad, as it is Hill’s first full-length novel. How can people write something this brilliant on their first effort? I’ve tried a couple half-assed attempts to write lengthy stories over the past 10 years and the results have been thoroughly embarrassing.
You all laugh at me for my stupid sports superstitions. But today I’m laughing at all of you. Because today I have proof that these “stupid” superstitions work! Let’s jump back almost two years to West Virginia’s visit to Lawrence in the final week of the 2015 season. For the full recap you can read here, but basically, Perry Ellis got hurt before halftime, West Virginia was kicking KU’s ass and led by 18 in the second half, I got pissed and started watching other things.
Once upon a time, not that long ago, I was known as the trivia guy. Where other people mastered law or medicine or sales, my mind was best suited to accumulating a nearly endless parade of useless if somewhat interesting facts about old pop culture, sports, and history. Some might say I had a gift. My reputation reached its zenith when I ran a daily trivia email list for something like three years.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “The Punisher” - Lucius. I don’t know anything about this group, but this song is awesome. “Thick as Thieves” - The Menzingers. This band has always leaned a little too emo for my tastes. But they shifted ever-so-slightly on their latest album and I’m finding a handful of the tracks very nice to listen to. Good to hear some guitars in the indie rock world! “The Distance” - Emma Ruth Rundle.
Catching up on three recent reads. On Bullshit - Harry G. Frankfurt. “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” Thus begins what is, really, an extended essay in book form on the meaning of bullshit. I read a blurb about this somewhere over the holidays and thought it sounded like a hilarious and quick read. In fact, Frankfurt was a professor of philosophy at Yale and Princeton, among other places.
I really should be flogged for not sharing this earlier. It took me several nights back in December to get through it. And it was worth every second. Prince’s Closest Friends Share Their Best Prince Stories The saddest thing about Prince dying is that we lost the chance that he would ever really open up about his life and career. He was slated to put out an autobiography, but I’ve not heard how deep into that project he was.
Sometimes sports are the worst. Sometimes they’re the best. There’s been a lot of both lately. Super Bowl Had I been fully neutral, that would have been an awesome Super Bowl. The league heavies get blasted early and look thoroughly overmatched by their young, brash, high-powered opponents. Then an epic comeback, featuring an all-time play, and the first overtime game in Super Bowl history that ends with the Patriots staking claim to greatest franchise in league history and Tom Brady officially passing Joe Montana as the greatest quarterback ever.
Sports are funny. As much as the location where you grew up or live, style of play, or favorite athlete, narrative is a huge part of how we choose the teams we root for. If you’re an uncommitted fan, or just a fan with no strong ties to a particular team to begin with, the story that surrounds a team can often be as big of an attraction as anything.
Australia was in the news a little this week. I had some Aussie (and one New Zealand) tunes gathered. Seemed like a good time to put them together with a classic from Down Under to form a very pleasing playlist. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Never Start” - Middle Kids. I discovered their “Edge of Town” way back in the spring of last year. It was good enough to land in my year end favorites list.