2025, Week 4: January 20-26

My wife and I share a birthday (icebreaker-fun-fact-alert!) and it happened this week. It's the moment for me that means the holidays are over and the year has really begun in earnest, and so I'm both surprised and I'm not to see that we're already through Week 4 of this year. I'm also surprised to see just how much I read this week given that two of my nights were given over to birthday dinners (one for the kids and one for us).

I've grown to like writing these intros. I do it after I've collected my thoughts on my consumption for the week, and I like to see the patterns that emerge. My clear preoccupations in the past few weeks have been woodworking and starting to make things, and I feel like I've been putting my reading and learning into action this year (including writing these thoughts). I bought some pine boards today to start practicing dovetails, and I'm already overthinking my next steps...

It's the creative process itself that I find so fascinating. It's why I listen to the Dead and Phish and more and more jazz, and it's why I was so drawn to last year's The Work of Art, which featured interviews with artists of all sorts about the creation of specific works of art. I've always wanted to be a part of something like that, it's a bit scary to finally face it head on.

Books
The Anarchist's Tool Chest, Christopher Schwarz (finished): The amount of knowledge this book holds is remarkable, and yet it's always accessible - at least to this neophyte. My journey, thanks to a birthday gift of chisels from my wife and kids, is just beginning and I'm really excited.

The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl: So this isn't my normal genre, but my wife, who has taught food writing in the past, has always said what a great writer Reichl is and this book comes to life whenever she describes art or fashion - but especially when the she describes food or the act of cooking. The protagonist Stella eats "with her whole body" and with real joy, and moments like the one where she first tastes oysters and chases them with an ice cold chablis helped me let go of the implausibilities that ran rampant throughout the plot. In short, I was charmed. (And then I ordered oysters with rendered bone marrow this weekend and they were incredible. Smokey and briny like a heavily-peated, beautifully balanced scotch but fresh in a way made them pop. Wow.)

The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry (started): Just started this one for my book club, but it's all style and voice from the jump. A western written by the Irish Barry, there's a whiff of Pete Dexter's incredible Deadwood about it, and I'm excited to see what's in store.

Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry (started): Given the waters I've been swimming in lately, Berry has come up a lot and I've been wanting to read him. My wonderful wife did a deep dive and went to something of an expert on Berry before gifting me Crow and two volumes of the Port William novels as collected in the LOA (in which, I believe, he's the only living author at the moment).

I was surprised to start with Berry's fiction; I had assumed that getting a grounding in his essays would help highlight the recurring themes in these Port William tales. The Jayber Crowe easily stands on its own, though, and it's quiet prose (the antithesis of Kevin Barry's) reminds me a bit of John William's Stoner and still more of Willa Cather. I love it so far, and I'm sure I'll be writing more on this – it's certainly taking up a lot of my mental space and I don't see that stopping.

Music
Music From Big Pink, The Band: When I heard that Garth Hudson died this week, I remembered the story about how when he joined The Hawks (which more or less became The Band in time) he only did it after Ronnie Hawkins agreed to pay him an extra $10 a week to give the rest of the band lessons on their instruments. (I think I first heard this on the great History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs podcast.) This guy could play anything better than anyone not named Prince, and somehow he wasn't a megastar. I put on Big Pink in his memory, and it's just perfect. The Band is the platonic ideal of rock bands, "The Weight" is a perfect song (so is "Up on Cripple Creek"), and Garth Hudson will be deeply missed.

"Atlantic City", The Band: My favorite cover song of all time.

"Sunshine Life for Me" by George Harrison: I heard a great version of this on XM this weekend, and it started with George explaining to the backing band – none other than Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, and Rick Danko – how they're going to play it. Unsurpisingly, it involves a good bit of back and forth, and listening to the arrangement emerge afterwards was fantastic. I can't say I'd ever listened carefully to the Ringo Starr version of this that was first released (turns out George wrote it for him), but the glimpse into the process changed everything for me. Levon, I think, says, "I'm gonna come in early and I'm gonna come in late. Sometimes I just can't help myself," and I love the degree of listening that such an urge implies.

"Hometown Snakes" by Real Companion: I saw it described as a "true patio banger" and immediately clicked the link. There's a touch of Bill Calahan about it, and I'm into it. Great stuff.

Episodes & Articles
"23 Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in This Space," J.R. Moehringer (Los Angeles Magazine): Found this on BlueSky after Carroll got the Raiders job this week. It's a great example of the tension I feel in most "creative non-fiction" these days, with the writer's desire to write meets the reporter's need to inform. This piece justifies the form explicitly in the body of the work, and it doesn't hurt to have great lines like:

He looks like a man who spends his days in the sun. Not the bad sun, the sun of Marlboro Men and aging soap opera actors, but the good sun, the sun of tennis pros and yachtsmen. He’s not leathery, just burnished.

"Twelve Dudes and a Hype Tunnel: Scenes From the Super Bowl for Excel Nerds," Yan Zhuang (New York Times):

“You’d never see this with Google Sheets,” he said. “You’d never get this level of passion.”

Amen, brother.

"This New Designer Kitchen Tool Is Just a Stick. So Why Are We Obsessed With It?", Sophie Charara (Wired): This piece touches on a few of the ideas that have been swirling around my brain lately: simple is good, too much choice is overwhelming (this is, I think, the key to Chipotle's success), good design is transparent, modern goods are stupidly expensive. I get how the stick could be useful, particularly in my baking, and I'd probably like to try one of these, but I'll be making my own.

Handmade: Good with Wood, S03: I binged it all this week. I was Team Wolfgang from the start, and I already wish I had saved a few as I wait for the next Top Chef/Bake Off.