Fish Time

Alex Speed

Substack Link

On my way into the third grade my parents beckoned me and my siblings to the kitchen table. They explained that we were moving to a faraway, magical land called Texas. The kind of place where people went to college and had pets who didn't fight them for survival, where our father could make very slightly more money — and also there was no state income tax. My parents explained to us that we would be moving from our home in Berryhill, Oklahoma to a different and five-hours-by-car-away town called North Richland Hills.

We were quite fond of Oklahoma. As far as we knew, the entirety of the world existed roughly within Tulsa County lines. My favorite of the Speed family phrases is "That beats all I've ever seen, and I've been to two goat ropings and a country fair!" Decades ago my parents had allegedly visited Romania on a mission trip, but those photos bore more resemblance to Disney Land than Berryhill. We hadn't imagined much of a world outside of Berryhill because frankly, we didn't want to.

We weren't necessarily sold on the idea of moving to a new state, so like most nine-year-olds would do in this situation, I started making my own living arrangements to remain in Tulsa. I was ready to move into a shed or garage with a distant uncle who needed a hand around the house or a grandma I begged to let me stay with if I promised to be good. I just didn't want to leave. I was terrified of changing schools, churches, states, basketball teams, and cousins (did we get new cousins in Texas?), it didn't make sense. I was pretty vocal about my plans to stay; I publicly stated my intention to run away from home dozens of times. I think my parents were starting to sense I would become a problem in the new environment, so they settled on a beautiful and deeply hard-to-quantify bribe.

Once we were settled in Texas, our parents would buy my brother and me fish.

That's it.

That's all it took for me to leave behind my entire family, my whole universe, and the very limits of my own understanding. Put a goddamn little goldfish in a bowl and say he is mine, and I will do anything you ask of me. I will forget my best friend's name if I have the opportunity to drop little fish pellets in a bowl for a fish my dumbass nine-year-old brain would have for sure just named "Nemo."

I didn't realize that my entire life, the hole in my heart had been fish-shaped.

I started to view Texas more as a challenge I could win than an upheaval of my life and values. Cowboys used to come to Texas to start their lives over after their first family was lame. They would stake their claim in the new world and make a whole new reality for themselves. I went so I could get a fish, and that was all I needed.

The move itself was a blur that lasted a few months. My brother and I suddenly had to learn new social hierarchies and rules. The house we moved into was the only one in the neighborhood that had been built, so our days were spent riding our bikes in active construction zones while trying to navigate why it was one hundred and thirteen degrees seemingly forever. Our new home was four minutes from a Walmart and downwind from the Tyson chicken factory — a truly best-case scenario for any nine-year-old from Oklahoma. The new school we went to in the wealthy part of town was much more into uniforms and grammar than we were used to back home. Our mother was a teacher there, so we knew better than to cause a scene. The whole time, I had my eye on the prize. One dumb little fish that would for sure die immediately.

I didn't want to blow my shot at cashing in on my winnings, so I waited until I knew everything was kosher. I knew we were settled in once the last of the moving boxes were gone, and the daily rhythm started to include shouting about something other than logistics. I knew once I got my first report card back, it was time to make my move. Here's where my luck started to turn. I had, without realizing it, made a deal with two of the shadiest businesspeople of all time. They knew the conditions of the deal were vague enough that if they could just keep pushing it off, they would never actually have to come through on their end. It might sound like bad parenting, but I will say this has had a profound impact on my deal-closing abilities.

So the years went on and on and I remained fish-less. Sometimes whilst visiting Walmart with my mother I would run away and she would find me in the fish aisle admiring my should-have-been prize, but it never came. I eventually went away to college in a three-hours-by-car-away town called Austin – still fishless. I also started working in high school and could have so easily just bought my own fish to probably kill within a week of owning it. I even got a dog seven years ago who I take care of and is my son. My main pass-time is fly fishing and I choose to believe that is not related to my long-lost contract still waiting to be fulfilled. On days when I feel stagnant, I will often peruse the aquatic section of a Petsmart in hopes of igniting some dormant angst.

I am now twenty-eight years old. I have a cool car that I don't take good enough care of, a group of friends who I love, a girlfriend I intend to be with forever, and not one single goddamn fish. I have built a life I am proud to live and keep living and it doesn't contain fish pellets or water filters or even one conversation about the logistics of keeping an aquarium clean. It could, but it doesn't. I think some promises are okay to remain broken, so they can serve as guideposts for the truth that sticks around.

Obituary & Exit Interview

THE WIZARD COINTELPRO

Hello. You don't know me, but I know you, like Santa, but with webcams.

Apologies for the break. I regret that I have to be the one you learn this from, but the rumors are true: Matt Spalding, Newsletter founder and noted Greg Hirsch funko pop, is dead.

Yes, all the way.

Now, when I say I regret this, I mean it, and as such I plan to use the abilities afforded me to perhaps ease your sorrows a trifle. While I can't bring him back, I can use a ouija board to conduct a final interview (an exit interview, in fact - professionally mandatory both for him as an employee and for me as the newsletter's HR department) with our dearly departed editor in chief.

TRANSCRIPT

TWC: Are you there?

Ghost: BEHIND YOU

Like a Swayze thing?

LIKE A SWAYZE THING

At the risk of being insensitive, I have some business questions to get out of the way.

THAT IS FINE

Will the Newsletter continue?

UNCLEAR

Why is that?

I FORGOT TO CANCEL THE WEBNODE PRO PLAN IN JANUARY AND THEY SAID THEY CHARGED ME BUT

But?

I NEVER ACTUALLY GOT CHARGED BECAUSE THE CARD ON FILE WAS EXPIRED

Will the site go down without that pro plan?

TRULY NO IDEA CHIEF

We will do our best without you. You are very missed.

THAT IS FINE

The last I remember, you were really into that drone conspiracy.

THEY WERE PLANES

And the thing about aliens.

THEY WERE FLYING THE PLANES

Have you discovered anything about all that since…?

I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO SAY BUT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DIVEST YOUR PORTFOLIO OF SALESFORCE

Are you sad that you died?

PERHAPS IT WAS FOR THE BEST

Why is that?

I WAS NEVER THE SAME AFTER THEY KILLED MR PEANUT FOR A SUPERBOWL AD

Can you tell us what happened?

I THOUGHT IT WAS THE RAPTURE BUT

But?

THERE ARE SOME VERY NON ABRAHAMIC THINGS HAPPENING TO ME

Can you describe it for us at all?

CAN THE MANTIS SHRIMP DESCRIBE THE COLORS IT SEES TO THE ROCKS

Harsh?

I SEE EVERYTHING

Everything?

EVERYTHING

Even…?

IT TURNS OUT THAT CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL STATE OF ALL MATTER SO IN A WAY EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING SAW THAT FOREVER

Oh my.

IT IS OK

That's just a lot to take in.

YOU SEEM GOOD AT TAKING A LOT IN

I walked right into that.

WALK RIGHT INTO THIS

Oh my god, so cold

SAVOR THE SENSATION WHILST YOU HAVE FLESH WITH WHICH TO RELISH IT

Take control of my hand

I ALREADY DID THAT IS HOW THIS WORKS

My other hand

YOU DIRTY DOG

I've never felt this way

I JUST WANT PEOPLE TO BE HAPPY

Yes

THAT IS RIGHT

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Venmo Me $5 for a Good Time

Marina Martinez

Fan fiction has been the most constant hobby in my life for the past 20 years. I have been reading fan fics almost daily since I discovered them, written more than is probably healthy, and posted even fewer for public consumption. It's not something you can bring up in conversation a lot, because if you tell a normal person that you enjoy reading stories about characters you identify with getting hurt and suffering and falling in love over and over they will most likely just become very alarmed for your well-being. People cope with life in different ways, Sandra.

I know that fan fiction is a very misunderstood and underrated thing, which to my thinking qualifies it even more as an art form. If you have no idea what it is, let me define it for you: it's fiction, ranging anywhere from 100 word drabbles to epics longer than most published novels, exploring plot and/or characterization from movies, tv, books, games, etc. or expanding on the canonical stories presented in various forms of media. I know most people's instinct is to assume fan fiction is always just erotica - and a lot of it can be, modern 'fan fiction' started in the 1970's with women self-publishing zines featuring Kirk and Spock from Star Trek - but I need you to know that I've read some fics that were more beautifully written and had more immersive world building than a lot of professionally published novels I've read. Like, what are the Chronicles of Narnia if not fan fiction of the Bible? And what is the Christian Bible if not RPF (real person fiction) of a carpenter turned activist from Palestine? Every story you love is based off of something, some of it is just published online for free. If you Venmo me $5 (@MarinaTMartinez I'm so ffr rn) I'll drop my username on FanFiction.net OR AO3.org, but it's $10 for both.

I could write a whole essay about the importance of making art about things you love, and how fan spaces are important and help a lot of people learn a lot about themselves, and how creativity and passion build community, but I won't because I'm short on time and want to get back to the video game I'm playing so I can go read fics about it later. But I will share one of my earlier attempts at writing.

From 2005-2007, one of my best friends and I wrote emails back and forth to each other in which we essentially wrote a better Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. We decided that Will Turner needed to be demoted from main character to comedic relief, Elizabeth Swan was cooler than everyone around her at all times, and Barbossa was actually the real star of the franchise (and Elizabeth's real dad). Even an 11 year old can recognize that Geoffrey Rush was out-acting everyone else.

When the trailer for Dead Man's Chest came out, we incorporated the new characters into our ever expanding world - the British man with the East India company was obviously very evil (and foppish), and Tia Dalma was also very very competent and could curse people with peeing their pants if they were rude. But when At World's End was announced, we really lost it. I think the trailer opened with a shot of a lot of crabs? And Jo Bob the Spiny Crab became our real hero. He and Jack the monkey had a whole arc where they floated away in a barrel (like in The Hobbit) and bonded together as brothers before somebody picked them up. And Pichu made a brief appearance too because we were obsessed with pretending to be Pokemon.

(We had conflicting opinions on Captain Jack - my friend thought he needed to kiss her self insert and I thought he needed to address his alcoholism and become a better person overall. He was not usually featured in my chapters.)

Unfortunately, most of these emails appear to have been lost to time. Or to my AOL account, which only lets me view emails back to 2009. I seem to have saved only one single email - I'm not sure if I wrote this or saw the trailer for the movie and I'm not going to look it up.

[Email sent September 9th, 2006]

Thunder STRIKES over WDP Logo.

OPENING SHOT: A dark night overlooking a SingaporeTradingHarbor.

CAPTAIN SAO FENG: (Voice-Over) I hear a song Miss Swann. A song that has been sung by children, ghosts, and madmen. Yo..Ho...Yo..Ho...

Shot of SAO FENG smiling into Elizabeth's eyes.

ELIZABETH: Sounds better after a bottle of rum.

She pulls a cutlass to strike, is easily parried by Sao Feng. Will Turner appears behind him with a blade at his throat.

WILL TURNER: We're not here for you. We offer-

WILL is cutoff as SAO FENG administers a series of elbows and strikes, driving Will back into a barrel.

SAO FENG raises an iron claw to finish WILL off and is stopped by a blunderbuss (pistol) clicking right in his ear.

Camera swings around to reveal Barbossa with Monkey Jack on his shoulder.

BARBOSSA: We've come for The Black Pearl, Captain.

WILL and ELIZABETH turn to BARBOSSA with questioning looks.

BARBOSSA rolls his eyes.

BARBOSSA: And...for the soul of

Shot of pleased looking GIBBS on shore.

GIBBS: Captain?

Shot of LORD CUTTER whirling to face GOVERNOR SWANN.

CUTTER: Jack!

Shot of Davy Jones dropping an eye monicle on a navigation chart.

DAVY JONES: (whispers) ...Sparrow.

Turns to his crew.

DAVY JONES: The Locker!

Screen goes black.

JACK SPARROW: (echo voice-over) I'm in...Something of a pinch mate.

Shot of WILL and BARBOSS in TIA DALMA's shack peering into a glass rock. Thousands of giant mutated crabs start to pour out of it and onto the dock. Jack's arms flail from the same portal. BARBOSSA and WILL step back.

Series of super quick shots.

WILL throwing ELIZABETH'S arms off him.

NORRINGTON in fresh Admiral's uniform aboard his own Royal Navy ship.

TIA DALMA laughing and sprinkling sand out of her hand.

SAO FENG: (voice over) you've come so far...

RAGETTI puts in a diamond eye and looks happy.

The KRAKEN's tentacles curling up behind NORRINGTON's ship.

GOVERNOR SWANN attacking CUTTER and being restained by his men and shackled.

SAO FENG: But will you go all the way to the end?

JACK SPARROW in a surreal desert (Purgatory) falling into quicksand and crabs. BARBOSSA reaching to pull him out.

JACK SPARROW: I'll not be saved by the likes of you!

Folds his arms in refusal and continues to sink.

BARBOSSA: And I don't want to be saving ya, but I don't see any sea turtles around to help ya now Jack.

"BOOTSTRAP" BILL sits at a campfire talking to someone OC.

BILL: I need to find him...he's...my son.

VOICE: You have a son?

BILL: Yes.

VOICE: I have a son as well. In these very waters. I'll help you find yours if you help uncover mine.

The owner of the VOICE leans into the fire and we see his face.

CAPTAIN GRANT "The Sea Sponge" SPARROW: Savvy?

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

A/N what if grant and bill rent a dingy and jo bob can navigate and then it becomes a race against time to see who gets to jack first! And jack is maybe a secret sea god because grant was poseidon but renounced it and the title was passed on? And then ragetti and his followers rescue pintel and they have a subplot to sacrifice will to scylla and charibdis? oooooo or maybe barbossa/jo bob and jack/monkey jack have to soul bond to escape the locker like in the golden compass? The plot bunnies are rabid!!!!!!!!!

Fin.

(I wish I could find any of our emails, I cannot express how sad I am that they're apparently just gone. I only found one from my friend that wasn't a chain email and appears to be an original poem sent April 21, 2004:

Yo my name is fire hydrant,

i'm big an red,

an dog's look for me,

and i'm covered in pee

So yeah, we had the range.)

How to Not Be Born in the Middle East

THE WIZARD COINTELPRO

We've all seen it folks. We've all experienced this. One day you're in God's green Texas and everything is peachy, and then the next day another Middle Eastern country is getting blown to smithereens, civilian bomb shelters ankle-deep in melted human fat, and you're still in Texas. Thank GOD for that. One day you're in your air-conditioned living room eating nachos in your boxers and watching football, the next day a few hundred or so children are dead in various creative ways and also you're still doing that same thing in your living room but you can just feel others hating you for your freedoms. Well, a wise man once said, if I'm in war and I hear that we're going up against child soldiers, to be honest I'm breathing a big sigh of relief.

The Middle East is obviously a terrible place to be. What is even going on over there? There's no possible way for me to learn. But clearly all these things and more could happen at any moment. That's just how it is, and we all know that. It's an inherent and necessary part of Earth's natural balance. On top of that, Middle Eastern countries themselves weren't even doing a good enough job of performing this simple function, so the United States as always has had to step in - on numerous occasions in the past and now yet again - to get things to where they need to be. Will the third world never tire of handouts?

What's clear is that you did the right thing by being here and not there. If you were there, frankly, you'd be pretty fucked, but you're not, so it's all okay. A wise choice! Obviously you know what you're doing, but let's you and me join forces and generously pass on some of that hardboiled folk wisdom to anyone unfortunate enough to not be born quite so worldly.

1: Accept the Lord Our Savior Jesus Christ into Your Heart

Now this may be obvious, but it's a big'n, so let's go ahead and get it out of the way. It's simple: you already have the truth, you know it, you love it, so you're golden, just don't deviate. Dot your Q's and heart your I's and take that blessed arctic plunge to rehab your soul posthaste. This is America, where Christianity in all its cohesive and coherent forms are a strong yet humble majority, so just be that and you will probably be American. Easy right? The other main thing here is to not be Muslim. There's a tidy amount of Muslims in the Middle East, which as a reminder is where we don't want to be, so that's going to be one of the key factors to steer clear of.

You were born in America because you are Christian. They were born in the Middle East because they are Muslim. Those are just fundamental and self-evident truths about ourselves that are clearly not coincidental. Can you imagine if you were mistakenly born over there? You, a Christian? What, would you have just been a Christian kid having to go to mosque all the time? That doesn't make any sense.

Now, key American Patriot Sundar Pichai reminds us here of another important point:

2: Be Human

To be honest, this is pretty similar to the first step in terms of execution: you already are, so just continue to live your truth, brother! (Women will receive a separate but equal article on this topic.)

In fairness, humanity is a complex term and can mean many different things to many different people, some of whom are even real people like you. It might mean letting the free market into your heart, cohabitating oily ventricles with the Almighty who is famously all about that. It might mean having the time and freedom to develop naturally as a nation without the interference of outside competing superpowers using you and inciting instability, exacerbating and empowering society's most extremist elements. It's an obvious choice, really, and those who don't make it, well, they aren't your problem. Oh, and for all you bleeding hearts, don't you know that over there not only do they not engage enthusiastically with capitalism, but neither with rainbow capitalism? That's right, they have no gay rights. I know we might think that was a truly fundamental thing, seeing as how we've had it for over 20 years even though we've had plenty of bad things happen to us over here. Just goes to show.

The fact of the matter is that bad things generally don't happen to good people. They do sometimes if that's God's Plan, but in limited and digestible quantities, probably not to you, and probably due to natural causes like lack of accessible healthcare. Air-go, if serious bad things are happening to a big group of people, well, I know it would be gauche to say they deserve it, but there's obviously some sort of karmic imbalance being corrected there, right?

Would your betters lie to you?

3: Lie, Cheat and Steal

All that moralizing is all well and good, but the impossible question of what's good and bad is simply too difficult to unravel, and we humble humans are not meant to understand. But what you and I both know, dear compatriot, is that nature is simultaneously Christian and dog-eat-dog. If you don't eat that dog, someone else is surely gonna, so it's proper for you to go ahead and eat that dog, and if that dog tastes good, is that under your control? No, of course that's not under your control.

The simple fact of the universe is resource scarcity; it's musical chairs out here baby, so really, you're just harmonizing with nature when you use whatever advantages you have to get a leg up over the competition and secure your place in the big leagues (the American League). One of my personal heroes, the Monopoly guy, provides some very helpful teachings about this quality of human nature. This might also mean that you'll one day find yourself keeping even your fellow white-blooded Americans from certain transient, optional things like healthcare or a minimum wage, but if you find yourself in this situation, it's important to remember that you are fulfilling a fundamental American function and therefore will not be made less likely to have been born here. If anything, quite the opposite. So keep piling hotels onto Raytheon and showing what you've got to give and take! Which brings us to:

4: Sort of Flex Really Hard

Now we'd be legally remiss to not remind everyone here that, as unlikely as it may seem, we experts don't quite know everything, and there is no true guarantee or perfect solution or refund. All we can really do is relay what worked for us! And one thing that worked for me was exerting my effervescent willpower in the liminal and purgatorial pre-dawn of life in which our consciousnesses convalesce through beautiful nightmarish cosmic swirls in preparation of being materialized. Really break out the elbow grease. For me it was sort of a leaning right, then holding there without getting jostled out by the other pre-babies begun at conception, like really just flexing your pre-baby muscles for all they're worth, and then sort of diving sort of downwards at just the right moment, which is something you just have to feel out. It will be clear if it was meant to be.

5: Remember to Be Grateful

This may seem like the least important step, but it is also the most important, because it helps you to make sense of reality and perform your beautiful function as a beautiful cog in the American machine, so without it you'd be pretty worthless, like almost on-level with, well, I don't even want to say it. 

Now, say it with me, a private prayer of gratitude: Dear Heavenly Father, thank You. Thank you for this bounty of a land that you gave to us and not to anyone else before except for the alpha testers. Thank you for the opportunity to work, not for wages, but for meaning, and for generating wealth for my betters to use so that I don't have to. Thank you for creating arms to send to our blessing-adjacent allies who are only half right but who we give a pass to because you've given us one free forgiveness credit to use on people that at least have the good sense to look like us. Thank you for helping them use those arms, our arms, to grant us ever-growing clarity about who is bad and who is good. (Us. We're the good. And that is so cool.) Above all, thank you for making me right. How awesome it is to have the correct view of everything. It could so easily be otherwise. Amen.

Lord of the Rings (not that one)

Alex Speed

My papa's ring is made from the type of old gold that built palaces and elaborately tax deductible churches. He gave it to me when I was a child because he had too much hope in my ability to care for small items. I remember trying to put it on and watching it slip off each of my fingers before I nestled it onto my thumb, realizing this was something I would need to grow into. Papa is not a flashy or showy man. He drives a beige Buick Rendezvous from the beginning of the century because he is convinced that it will become a "classic" in the next decade or so. Papa was a firefighter in Tulsa, Oklahoma for thirty years before he found his true calling of being a grandfather to six kids who ended up really needing him. He gifted me this ring because he felt like it was the right thing to do in the moment; a lesson I have shaped virtually all of my adult life around. The last text he sent me today was a yellow thumbs up emoji.

I am sitting on my porch grasping at the last little fingers of sunlight dancing their way over the hill across the golf course my girlfriend and I hate. I am wrapped in the quilt my grandmother gave me about a year before she passed away. It still smells like their wood paneled living room where we used to act out plays we wrote for the grown-ups, raiding our grandmother's sewing room to turn scraps of fabric into costumes and perhaps racially insensitive headwear.

I have found that a terrible side effect of getting older and coming to terms with your own stupidity is realizing that things are much simpler than my genius twenty one year old mind could accept. Stupider is simpler. Simpler is easier. Easier is better for the long run of years following what you were too afraid to conceptualize as a teenager, the years where you realize that twenty-eight is still indeed very young – that the road of life is long and winding just like Paul warned us about. Certainly it is much too young to pontificate like this amongst the Montana trees, et tamen hic sumus. That is Latin for "and yet here we are", a phrase I google translated to make me look like a multilingual scholar. I also had to google search multilingual to make sure I wasn't making up a word that sounded too silly to even be a part of our dumb little language.

I had papa's ring repaired at a local jeweler in Bozeman where my girlfriend and I live. I broke the fake diamond in it when I was in Tulsa last month visiting my grandmother as she passed away. It is the first time in as many years as I can remember (which is not many because of all the pills) that I haven't worn that ring everyday. My anxious hands still reached for it when I needed something to fidget with, I looked for it on my nightstand every morning, I felt the eerie lightness of being a few ounces lighter than I should be.

The ring started to fit my growing hands ten years ago as I left Fort Worth to go to college in Austin, Texas. I remember the routine monthly check in I had with myself to see if I had finally grown into this beautiful piece of jewelry. The upside of breaking my fingers playing bad basketball growing up was they grew and swelled much faster than they should have. I marvelled at the growth in my hands and my body as I felt the pressure of my finger against the once too big ring. I felt I earned something, even if it was just through increased appendage dimensions. I had the sudden responsibility to put out fires around me, and even worse I felt fully qualified to do that.

THE WIZARD COINTELPRO's Monthly Music (Video) Mukbang

Model/Actriz - Cinderella

My probable song of the year and an incredible video to boot. I feel like a bit of a noise rock tourist but this hits when you're off a lil nibble of a THC gummy and you need something to drown out your neighbors who are loudly partying at 2am on a tuesday. The way this teases and builds until the halfway point where it goes off like a tornado for 30 seconds is a reminder of how intense and satisfying music can be. Their guitar strings should unionize.

Porter Robinson - Cheerleader (Live)

I'd bounced off of Porter a couple times because I'd heard wonderful things but didn't have correct expectations, and I guess this single came and went without me remembering it. This Like A Version performance, though, elevated it to something different that got me hooked. It's like a delicious half-throwback to late-2000s pop punk. The screaming is good, the whizzing electronics are good, what more do you want? (Well I guess the more I could want is that Porter is also a delightful, wholesome, thoughtful and well-spoken artist who is lovely to listen to in interviews.)

Porter Robinson - dullscythe

From there, I decided Nurture was the Porter album I wanted to fully explore first, and let me tell you, this hits during a major STAPBAN (springs that are pretty but also nightmares). I think if once a year you took an edible and laid on a sunny grassy hill while listening to this album in its entirety, there's a good chance it might actually fix you. This album is doing for me what most people do ketamine therapy for. This instrumental track in particular is one that probably wouldn't have stuck out to me just listening, but its video brings such an intensely peaceful and bittersweet feeling to it that I think I've actually cried every time I've watched it, like a person allergic to emotions.

Fleetwood Mac - Rhiannon (Live)

Several months ago I completed my white person rumspringa (getting into Fleetwood Mac). I'd always been a bit dismissive because of how ubiquitous and staunchly 70's they seem, but Rhiannon caught my attention for some reason, one thing led to another, before long I spent the evening with some wine and music videos, and I discovered that their best song isn't even an album track but the live version of Rhiannon in which they end the song with an extra couple minutes of face-melting vocal witchcraft from the undeniably angelic Stevie Nicks. I don't trust the guitarist but I aspire to love anything the way the drummer loves drumming. Although apparently the explanation to this is mainly cocaine, which I feel locked out of because my heart would simply explode on contact. Good for them though.

Fontaines D.C. - Roman Holiday

My most played song this past winter and favorite from an obviously incredible band. Timeless feels like a remarkably accurate descriptor. What calamities usher all our brilliance to the hills, can you feel it?

Gilla Band - Post Ryan

This is the song that led me to develop the "if this was the first track on a new LCD Soundsystem album how hyped would I be" gauge for enjoying music, and it is a 10 in that regard. Which, as a system, leads me to questions about how much the ethos and history of certain artists play into our enjoyment of music, and whether or not it should. Shouldn't music stand on its own? If this is something I'd be psyched to hear old man Murphy make, why should I be any less psyched about it when it's from someone else? Objectivity, I guess, is what I'm getting at. But I know that's not how humans work. Humans love narrative and growth and familiarity and identity. We find it difficult to let old things go and to embrace new things. One should try though. And good art makes that easier.

Lera Lynn - The Only Thing Worth Fighting For

This is a re-recorded version of a track she previously debuted as The Only Part of True Detective Season 2 Worth Fighting For. It was already good, but the new recording brings that bit more polish and depth. I would describe her maybe as…goth folk? Which is hard to beat in general.

Clairo - Bags (Live)

Similar case to Lera Lynn and especially to Cheerleader of a new take with a slightly different flavor, this time bringing more raw energy to an absolute classic and acoustic warmth and tangibility to a previously electronics-heavy production. Plus saxophone. They did her dirty on the thumbnail though. The other videos from this session are captivating as well.

The Transmigration of Myshka Muffin

Office Chart

Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls

This song came out in 1998. That was a pretty tough year for me, personally. I had barely any comprehension of what was going on around me except that I had a baby sister and I was moved to a new state and we had to say goodbye to the ocean and my friend Justin gave me a rock as a goodbye present and I was as angsty as a 4 year old could get. Did I understand the words to this song? Nope. But sometimes you don't have to know the lyrics to really get it, you know? (Absolutely incorrect, but baby Marina absolutely vibed to this anyway.)  -MM

Dancing Barefoot - Patti Smith

I looked up a live performance of this from 1979 and she just kind of walks around in front of the stage for five minutes fighting fans and then caps things off by hoarsely extending a blessing to pope JPII, which is weird and makes her the anti-Sinead, which isn't great in principle but hey it was the 70s.  -TWC

Love Takes Miles - Cameron Winter

When I tell you this song has taken over my entire damn life, I mean it. My girlfriend and I sing it fifteen times a day. I wake up with it in my head, I go to sleep singing it to myself like a lullaby. It is so dancy and fun and sexy and then BOOM:

"I want somebody to come down from the sun and talk to me how you used to."

WHAT IS THAT?! The audacity to put that in a song at all, let alone the best song of the year. Also this man is twenty two years old.  -AS

He's A Pirate - Klaus Badelt

Hans Zimmer (and his assistants) did the music for the 2nd and 3rd movie, and he's 'talented' or whatever, but they were gifted a bunch of incredible leitmotifs by Mr. Badelt first, so put some respect on his name. This music makes you want to hop on a ship and make questionable choices and you gotta respect that level of skill.  -MM

He's A Pirate - Tiësto Remix - Klaus Badelt et al.

Sounds better after a bottle of rum.  -TWC

Piano Concerto No. 21 - Mozart

This feels like being a child going round and round on a carousel. The horses feel like they're gaining speed as you see the familiar world of the mall come and go. This makes me wish that classical music were more accessible and less weird and pretentious. You wanna feel like a pimp? Smoke a joint and listen to this on your patio/balcony/outdoor access point of your domicile and just write some words down.  -AS

Lincoln Continental - The Felice Brothers

The one Felice brother is actually a genius lyricist, it's just easy to miss because it's subtle and hidden under the veneer of being folksy and twangy and singing about chicken coops. Newer albums focus and polish things a little more, but some older cuts like this bring such a lovely energy. Truly an all-timer of an album cover.  -TWC

One Kiss - Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa

Freed From Desire - Gala

I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston

Artwork: Sean Scully, One Yellow, 1985