A little housekeeping

Featuring a couple polls I'd love responses to and some quick thoughts/observations.

A post in bullet-point form as I’ve been on the mend following emergency gall bladder surgery and dealing with inclement weather in town (which, quite luckily, did not affect me but was certainly disruptive) and the end of the school year:

• We’re approaching the end of my countdown of my top 25 favorite Springsteen songs. But as one countdown ends, there’s always the possibility of another one. I’m not sure what artist or band I should pick though and so I’ve decided to let you all decide!

  A couple notes: I thought about putting Bob Dylan as a choice but I think that’s going to have to be a Top 50 list because there’s just so much and I’m going to need some time to prepare for that. Also, I’m considering doing Top 25 countdowns for some of my favorite sub-genres (power pop, Britpop, yacht rock, Memphis soul), and I wonder if that wouldn’t be more appealing… actually…

  More data never hurt anyone! Please respond to the polls and, if you have more suggestions, let me know in the comments!

• In what I’m sure you all have noticed, I go back-and-forth on a lot of things. One of those things I’ve gone back-and-forth on is whether I should have my sports-related writing under the heading of a different publication. Well, I’ve circled back to having it all under one roof. Namely, this one.

  I’ve been watching and getting excited about the upcoming WNBA season (I really want to pay more attention to women’s basketball given that I’m an assistant coach for my school’s girls basketball team) so I’m guessing there will be some posts over the summer about that, in addition to NBA, NFL, college sports, and my sadness at what is going to happen to the Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas A’s.

• Some other random things I’ve been watching/reading/enjoying of late:

  • The Long Halloween arc/graphic novel (you can really see how it influenced both The Dark Knight as well as The Batman, and it’s made me want to dig deeper into the Batman comics canon)

  

  • Loki S2, which I enjoyed with some reservations--the aesthetics of it are quite cool and, once they figure out how they’re going to recast, I am intrigued by Kang as a villain. But as I watched and felt this tremendous weight to the show, I wondered if it was necessary for this to be so weighty and so complex in talking about timelines and what not. It did make me want McDonalds because of the scenes that took place in one, which is probably not the best for me.

  • I’ve been reading novels that were adapted into films in the 1980s that prominently featured Jack Nicholson. I read Terms of Endearment, which was amazing and a reminder that Larry McMurtry is an all-time great American author. I’ve recently started making my way through Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick.

  • I’ll put some more concrete thoughts down, but the latest albums by Camera Obscura, Vampire Weekend, Pearl Jam, and, yes, Taylor Swift, have all been pretty good spins.

• One thing I’d really appreciate—if you’d share this newsletter far and wide. People you know who like music? culture? sports? books? All of it? Please let them know about this! I’m very committed to keeping it all free to everyone, though I’m might start dropping links to the digital tip jar/buy me a coffee fund. What’s more important is to get eyes on writing. So please share/retweet/repost!