Holiday Gift Guide: Emergency Edition

Matt Spradling

Well well well, if it isn't holiday season but after.

If you were a responsible person, you would have completed your shopping last month, perhaps utilizing last issue's gift guide expertly curated with the finest exotic wares exclusively from instagram advertisements. 

But you're not a responsible person and you still have something to buy at this late hour for someone you haven't yet met with to exchange gifts because time isn't real and most friends these days are scattered to the four winds (Butterscotch, Cream Soda, Blu Raspberry, and Mystery).

As such, you no longer have weeks or even days to wait for unreliable shipping – you need something in hand, now, local. Thus you have returned to where you swore you never would: facebook marketplace. Scary! Thankfully you have me, your local shopping shepherd to prod you through the wilderness with one of those sticks they use in pig shows. Get to it, prize hogs!

Skip to Recipe

Wendy Fernandez

Rene Descartes held the bible in his hands the day he became the first quantum physicist. Though he would never live to know this truth - if he ever lived at all - he sat everyday underneath the shadow of the expatriated French parasol that obscured his mind and body - if mind and body proved to be connected at all - and ate a fallen apple as an homage to a distant future he would never know.

He wasn't born to be a baker, nor was I born to endure the bangs that curtained his forehead like an ill begotten contemporary adaptation of Aphra Behn (if there's any other kind). Unfortunately, we must persist in a world where apples are thrust upon us. What you choose to do with the gravity of it all defines your over-edited Wiki page no one bothers to read. Nothing in this world is promised. Death is yearned for and taxes are inevitable, but ultimately we stand alone with nothing but a trail of unfulfilled dreams, a pocket of loose change, and a curiously Swedish case of pneumonia that forces an already uncomfortable St. Peter to adjust his N95.

I don't mean to get a divorce. In fact, I don't mean to wed at all. Unlike Rene, the only bastard children I have sit unalphabetized near my sock drawer (a joke I am both too tired and too wired to explain to anyone residing outside of [REDACTED]). The only veins my blood runs through are my own, and those numbers have recently and significantly diminished. I am burdened by the weight of my body against the weightlessness of the spheres. I own no orchard. My peach tree has grown dry. I am perpetually in motion. I am constantly at rest.

As children, we look at the world with acceptance; the sun goes down, fishes swim, and the curiously old cuckoo clock with painted birds and carved flowers chimes half an hour late. The sun goes down, fishes swim, and the spider in the corner weaves a web keeping an eye on the aging broom that's killed generations of its predecessors. "This will all make sense when I'm older," I think, therefore I am certain that I know little because I am little. I go to sleep, the spider is there. I scream. At least that hasn't changed.

What you'll need:

2 (9") pie crusts

7 large Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and sliced into ½ inch slices)

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup light brown sugar (loosely packed)

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon lemon juice (plus the zest of half of a lemon)

1 large egg (lightly beaten in a small bowl for egg wash)

2 tablespoons sanding sugar (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C).

2. In a large bowl, combine the sliced apples, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice and lemon zest; toss to coat evenly.

3. Spoon the apple filling over the bottom crust and discard juices at the bottom of the bowl. Roll out the second disc of pie crust until it is ⅛" thick and lay it over the apple filling.

4. Use a sharp knife to trim the dough along the outside edge of the pie plate. Lift the edges where the two pie crust meet, gently press to seal and fold them under. Rotate the pie plate and repeat this process until edges are neatly tucked under themselves. Cut 4 slits in the top of the dough to allow steam to vent. Place the pie on a baking sheet.

5. Brush the surface of the pie crust with the egg wash and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Cover the edges with a pie shield or a strip of foil to keep them from over browning during the first 25 minutes.

6. Bake at 400°F (204°C) for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the pie shield, turn the oven down to 375° and continue to bake for an additional 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbly. Cool at room temperature for at least 3 hours.

Enjoy!

End-of-Year Lists

Matt Spradling

Wow. Holy shit. The big apple. We did it folks. Not to generalize for you but this year felt like 1. shit and 2. especially shit in that it doesn't feel like an achievement to have gotten through it, you were always going to get through it, nothing has been accomplished, it's been bad but not in a cool whew way and you're a little broken in a way that doesn't seem to be getting better and this is forever now.

I'm just kidding, you did great, I just didn't, and you can just not sometimes and it's fine. If it wasn't fine, would I be able to accumulate and present this? For literally [number] people maybe to see? No way!

Best Metal Album Covers

5. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

4. Fit For An Autopsy - The Nothing That Is

3. Replicant - Infinite Mortality

2. Civerous - Maze Envy

1. Ten Ton Slug - Colossal Oppressor

Best Cats I Met On Walks

5. This cat seemed perfect at first – friendly, eager, approaching without coaxing – but overstayed its welcome. There were warning signs present, a frenetic, manic energy to its rubbing across my legs, but it seemed normal until I said my goodbyes and went to leave and it proceeded to run in front of me and flop, practically beneath my raised foot, repeatedly. I refer to this practice as insurance fraud and when cats commit it, it makes me want to simply step on them.

4. This cat was large and odd. At first I thought it was a fox, darting between parked cars with big ears that didn't seem right but I couldn't get a good look. I kept an eye out as I proceeded down this dark street, and then after half a block it comes loping past me on the sidewalk. It was indeed very large, with a long snout, and pretty mangy looking, and altogether less and less feline by the second. It was in fact a coyote. A big'n. Which is unusual for the urban neighborhood I have been walking in for ten years completely coyote-free. When I got home I threated my cats with the prospect of it catching their scent on me and following me home to peer at them drooling through the window lest these plump pampered morsels don't behave and get thrown outside. Myshka is Russian and therefore responds to such gruesome old-timey fairytale-type lessons. Maple Muffin might not be capable of learning but might also be too stringy to eat.

3. After seeing said coyote, I passed an old man walking a dog so I stopped to warn him about the large coyote a block away and to chat a bit. He thanked me and said he was aware they were around and that he'd lost a couple outside cats to them at a previous more rural home, and that he hoped to keep this guy around, gesturing to his dog. I truly looked at this dog for the first time and found the smallest, crustiest, scrungliest poofy white dog you can imagine, wearing a little raincoat, stationarily pulling hard at the end of its leash, legs crookedly splayed out for leverage, all facial features akimbo and staring at me with a certain agony and anger at being alive. As a cat it was about a 3/10 but as a general spectacle it was an 8. I said "I would hope so."

2. This cat was a barely-more-than-baby lil bunny rabbit that was just kind of plopped in the sidewalk between thickets of wild foliage that someone had for a yard. I like seeing rabbits but they usually, you know, run away when you get medium close or even medium-rare close. This one displayed a profound lack of worry about my impending human feet and noise and ability to roast it. It just kind of stood there expecting me to go around it. Usually this behavior might trigger the feeling that the creature was sick or something and therefore not behaving normally, but this did not happen for whatever multitude of little subconscious cues and reasons. It was just unworried. After appreciating it from a foot away for 15 seconds or so I politely shooed it away with some hand gestures for its own good and got it to at least get off the sidewalk. Perhaps the world is not such a constant threat. Nevermind the coyotes. Or cats for that matter.

1. This cat got in and out with perfect execution, exacting standards of an olympian, and looked like a longer-haird version of my Myshka which is a big aesthetic bonus. Noticed it in a driveway one evening, almost passed by but decided to stop and squat and do my little tongue-clicks at it, and it immediately came trotting up to bonk my outstretched fist and purr and rub around on me. With the measured intensity of Matt Smith's sauvity, while I engaged it it made me feel like I was the only gal in the world worth paying attention to, staying rapt with me but not overeager, grateful for the scritches I had to offer and reciprocating in kind, and then when I stood to go it calmly took its leave and returned to its parked cars there to usher down the stars. There's a fragile elegance to knowing when to wrap an experience up into a memory with a neat little bow, like completing a measure of music with just the right balance, and it fills me with warmth to know that creatures, too, can hear this tune. Of course, while it was the best I had, what was I to it? A memory lingering mutually at its forefront or simply one of many that night? A gentleman never asks, a lady never tells. There is beauty in the mysterious dance.

Best Car Repairs

5. Compressor - This was the nail in the tire that meant my jeep would effectively have been totaled two repairs and a month prior if I could have seen the future and that I was now firmly treading within a good ol' sunk cost fallacy which is not my favorite imaginary pool to swim in. Also it made driving without AC feel yucky and further reinforced the fact that the weather was still disgusting in late November which I would say made my life feel like a sunk cost fallacy if that wasn't so dramatic. This was also the point where the shop owners started giving me pity discounts.

4. Fuel pump, camshaft sensor, crankshaft sensor, spark plugs - For those of you keeping score, that is too many things. They are all also the kinds of things that will not only make your check engine light come on, but indeed come on and start flashing and making your vehicle feel like a rocket about to take flight if you can't limp it up Guadalupe to the shop in morning rush hour before your meager luck expires. For the record if this happens to you, you should stop driving your car, it belongs to the sea now.

3. Airbags and brakes - These two were unrelated needs, and yet they are related in that they represent the two primary ways of stopping your vehicle, both of which were at risk of not working anymore, which is a party foul.

2. AC: the sequel - One could argue that this was the best repair given that it ended up being for free (re: pity discounts), and yet after everything that had transpired, it going back out on the way home one day dealt so much spiritual damage to me I am not sure I am fully recovered yet.

1. Power steering - This wasn't the cheapest, but it is still my fondest repair memory given the absurdity of an entire intact belt falling out of my engine and me driving to the shop without the titular power steering, which is actually pretty fun and makes me feel like my muscles are good for something. There are few more vulnerable feelings than when you are driving your big dangerous murder machine and it suddenly stops functioning how you are used to from thousands of hours of muscle memory in a very fundamental way. But I think this feeling occasionally helps us stay in touch with our inner prey animal, like a rabbit, or a gazelle.

Best Albums

Honorable Mentions:

The Smile - Cutouts

Charli XCX - BRAT

Geordie Greep - The New Sound

The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstacy

Billie Eilish - HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

5. Father John Misty - Mahashmashana

Never quite feels like it gets into top gear by his standards and is a somewhat similar style to the previous album which I didn't care for much, but I love the singles, and sprawling tracks like Mahashmashana and Mental Health are nice to get absorbed in. His writing always peppers me regardless of how it's packaged.

Favorite track: Screamland

4. Mount Eerie - Night Palace

Creepy, trippy, peaceful, agitated, tranquil at the same time. Creatively lo-fi in a way that feels like it fulfills something I never quite get from The Mountain Goats. Feels like a walk through the rainy Washington woods at night contemplating life and destruction. I came to it in November when I didn't really find any art pleasant to engage with and it conveyed such a unique and appropriate feeling.

Favorite track: Huge Fire

3. The Smile - Wall Of Eyes

It feels like perhaps there was one really solid album's worth of tracks between the two Smile albums released this year, but I'm glad they each went their own directions with room to expand and experiment. I played the hell out of this early on and the first half in particular is just plain cool.

Favorite track: Teleharmonic

2. Kendrick Lamar - GNX

I don't know how to talk about rap but this is obviously incredible. I like the first half way more than the back half but that's not enough to drag it down much. The production is buttery smooth and genuinely addicting and the subject matter is varied and creative, and it feels like he always pushes each concept out to its limits. Duets incredibly with SZA.

Favorite track: reincarnated

1. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

This duo was a new discovery for me but months later I am obsessed with everything they've done. I previously described them as the best of Grimes on top of Daft Punk and maybe that's reductive but I think it's pretty accurate. This is sort of a concept album (about identity and self-image in the digital age and predations thereupon and probably several other things) but contains a huge variety of styles, not all of which are great standalone, but which create a fascinating whole. (Weirdly I actually have now come to like their previous album, Mercurial World, even more as it feels more robust and the transitions make it fun to listen to while less than sober, but that's irrelevant I guess.) There are a handful of other standout tracks, but by far my favorite parts of this project are the videos for Image together with Death & Romance. They're just incredible. It feels like a weird niche thing that just happens to directly hit the subjective pleasure center of my brain, but they've gotten pretty big so it's not just me. Yay I'm normal I guess.

Favorite track: Image

Best Mohamed Salah Goals (First Half of 2024/25 Season - Chronological Order) [DESPACITO]

My favorite athlete has decided he does not want to age like a mortal and also wants to get just a whole lot of money in a hopefully imminent contract renewal and as such has decided the best course of action is to just be really really good.

Sep 1: Manchester United 0 - [3] Liverpool 56'

Fairly standard play, but 1. It's vs United which is always important, 2. It's at Old Trafford which has become Salah's playground and it's just very funny, and 3. It completed Liverpool's route in what was supposed to be their first big test under the new manager.

Oct 2: Liverpool [2] - 0 Bologna 75'

Asks one too many questions and you can see the moment their entire defense just gives up and resigns themselves to the inevitable. The best goals frequently involve spiritual violence.

Oct 27: Arsenal 2 - [2] Liverpool 81'

The finish ends up being a sitter but this is such a satisfying move flying forward on the counter to get back into what would end up a tight draw between the erstwhile two best teams. He doesn't teleport like he used to but I still wouldn't want to race him.

Nov 2: Liverpool [2] - 1 Brighton 72'

This is an impressive goal in any context, but the context was having just equalized against a threatening side, Anfield baying for the inevitable, and Mo pulling this out literally a minute later to cut their throats.

Nov 9: Liverpool [2] - 0 Aston Villa 84'

This is fun because the counterattack starts because it just hits him in the face and he is unfazed as a terminator, but is deceptively impressive the way he creeps up to the shot, sidling sideways threatening to pass, freezing time and weighing up options and angles and eventually just lifting it himself over a keeper that likes to pretend to be the best but very much is not.

Nov 24: Southampton 2 - [2] Liverpool 65'

Why do big kick when small one do fine? Minimalist king.

Nov 24: Southampton 2 - [3] Liverpool (P) 83'

Penalties aren't always the most impressive, but 1. Context always matters more to me than skill when appreciating a goal because context is the emotional core and entire point of the game, and 2. Here we get a valuable shirt-ripoff which is a special treat because it's his way of announcing that he intends to win the league and also jesus look at him.

Dec 4: Newcastle 2 - [3] Liverpool 83'

Sometimes a game is a slog and you haven't deserved a result and you only stand a chance if you have a lighthouse of a fella who can pick the ball up in the middle of the mess and do the decent thing with it when no one else has been able to. This was his second goal of this type this game.

Dec 26: Liverpool [3] - 1 Leicester City 82'

Going two goals ahead late is the best type of goal in football and tends to lead to the most jubilation. This is one of those goals that, depending on the angle you view it from, seems either unremarkable or like it shouldn't be possible. What seemed like an odd placement at first turns out to be masterful threaded needle through awkwardly placed defenders, equal parts blunt and precise. Simply a force of nature.

Dec 29: West Ham 0 - [3] Liverpool 44'

This reddit link might not stay up but I include it because it's actually a replay of an incredible assist he'd provided and then he ends up scoring during his own highlight.

Best Books

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Best Days of Work

5. Sep 17 - Someone died while commuting on Koenig (regular occurrence) so I and many others were fairly late and it kind of broke things up a little, like a mini, horrible, dystopian field trip.

4. Nov 14 - This day was actually so awful in terms of sensory experience it had me moving between cubicles like a nomad seeking refuge, but this somehow helped me engage with listening to Neuromancer and the first part is now one of my favorite pieces of writing.

3. Oct 18 - Good hair day.

2. Oct 29 - This day was actually rough because it started with a catastrophic engine failure that meant my income was net negative for the week and I was dealing with Lyfts for the day but for some reason everyone in my area was gone that day and it turns out having a modicum of privacy combined with the delirium of financial stress makes for some fun creative energy.

1. Aug 8 - Figured out my favorite work outfit seemed familiar because it was the classic Peter Griffin.

The Wizard and the Druid

Marina Martinez

Once upon a time, in a land whose name has long been forgotten (but which we shall call the Kingdom), there lived a Wizard. The Wizard was one of many in a land frankly overflowing with magical people, but he had a modest reputation and rented the second highest room in the fourth tallest tower, so he really wasn't doing too poorly for himself for a young man of 131 years, all things considered.

The Wizard's life was simple. He held a steady position keeping books and records at the Academie for Magicke, which allowed him unrestricted access to their libraries of grimoires, and his familiar, a toad named Cat, was allowed to accompany him in his duties, so long as any and all croaks (of which there were quite a few) were kept quiet under a simple spell of silence (the latest in headwear fashion). In his free time, the Wizard would search through the older tomes, looking for nothing in particular, but quietly wondering why there was never any record of a time before the Kingdom. They weren't so very well established, in the Wizard's time, and surely they did not spring up from nothing! But there was no record of anything before the Kingdom, and when he gently wondered aloud to his colleagues he was given funny looks, and there was a tense meeting with his supervisor about how to productively spend one's free time, and so the Wizard pushed all thoughts of incomplete record-keeping into the little box in his mind and nailed it firmly shut.

Years passed - though nothing of note really happened, largely speaking - and the Wizard maintained his rented room in the fourth tallest tower (though it was now technically the 7th tallest tower, since the Kingdom had grown ever so slightly), and he had very carefully given no more thought to the mysterious gap in the Kingdom's historical record.

Except that one night, after finding a bottle of vinegar-turned-wine at the back of his cupboard and partaking of it heartily, the Wizard found himself full of an uncharacteristic courage and decided to leave his tower during an evening in which he was not scheduled to appear at the Academie. This was significant, because - although the Wizard did not intentionally hide away in his (rented) tower - he did not deviate from his normal routine. He supposed himself a man of hidden depths after all, which was mildly surprising for a 560 year old. With a somewhat inebriated sense of adventure, the Wizard wandered around surprisingly well-lit streets of the market district until he found himself in front of a small theatre, advertising an original production put on by a traveling troupe of actors. Thrilled (and slightly nauseated), the Wizard found a seat in the back of the theater, just close enough to the exit and far enough away from the other patrons that he felt quite safe.

The lights in the small room dimmed, and the Wizard found himself wishing he hadn't been quite so brave so that he might be more in his right mind to fully enjoy the show. It turned out to be quite an enthralling performance - the story had a large amount of whimsy, and the Wizard found himself chuckling at the antics of the characters, all of whom got into a number of baffling situations after a slight typo on a party invitation. The Wizard stood and clapped uncharacteristically loudly for the performers at the end of it all, and quickly exited the venue before everyone else so as not to be a bother. The chill of the night air was as a bucket of ice water upended over the Wizard's head - what in the Kingdom's name was he doing? What time was it? How did he even end up here? He frantically cast his eyes towards the skyline, looking for the familiar outline of his (rented) tower or the majestic spires of the Academie in the distance to help orient himself, but so many other towers had been built and he wasn't really sure he had ever been in this part of the market, especially as he had gotten into the habit of having his food delivered to his (rented) tower for the last 200 years or so. He pulled Cat out of his hat for guidance, but the poor thing just looked at him and gave an unconcerned croak.

"Pardon me, sir, but are you alright?"

The Wizard looked up from the unhelpful amphibian to find one of the young actors from the show standing in front of him, looking from Cat to the Wizard with a politely concerned expression.

The Wizard was not used to being addressed by anyone other than Cat or his colleagues at the Academie, and he was so incredibly drunk despite the momentary panic of finding himself in a strange place so close to home, and so in lieu of a response he simply shook his head and shrugged. Cat croaked.

The actor's brows furrowed. "Well, that's not good, is it? Please, step back inside for a moment, and maybe I can help get you sorted."

The Wizard quickly stuffed a disgruntled Cat back under his hat and followed the actor inside.

The next couple of hours passed in such a blur that the Wizard wondered if the vinegar-wine he'd drunk hadn't actually poisoned himself. The actor, who called himself Druid, had brought the Wizard back and introduced him to the rest of the troupe, who all seemed to be a family though it didn't seem likely that they shared any blood between them. Since the traveling troupe were no more familiar with the area than the Wizard at that moment, they made him a large mug of tea so that he might remember his way home more quickly. While they waited, the Wizard learned that Druid and his family had been performing their show across many different kingdoms, but had been especially excited to finally gain permission to perform in the Kingdom.

"Why is the Kingdom so special?" the Wizard asked, his words returning to him as the Druids - well, the one Druid and his kin - slowly shifted from unfamiliar to safe in his mind. "Pardon my saying so, but this Kingdom has only ever attracted Wizards, and none of you seem to be scholars."

Druid smiled widely, as though the Wizard had told some grand joke instead of made a (probably) mildly insulting statement. There was nothing wrong with not being a scholar of Magicke! And he really had enjoyed their performance.

"Oh, we aren't. But the Kingdom and the Academie of Magicke are of…particular historical significance to us."

The Wizard froze. "What do you mean, historical significance? There is no history from before the Kingdom. I used to get strange looks when I brought it up and no one ever explained what that meant and looked for years and years but found nothing, so I think you must be confused."

He reached out and gave Druid a pat on the knee, not noticing how the young man's smile was slowly dipping into a concerned frown again. "Don't worry, I used to be confused as well. But eventually I realized that if there actually was something before the Kingdom, somebody would've mentioned it. It's best to just shove all of those thoughts into the box in your head and get back to work."

The Wizard took in the dozen or so expressions of the Druids, identifying worry and confusion and shock among them. Maybe pity? The Wizard wasn't always the best at reading people. And then Druid took the Wizard's hand and gently upheaved his entire worldview.

The Wizard learned the following, life-altering facts (supported with yellowed tomes and parchments from within one the Druid-kin's trunks):

1 - Not only was there history from before the Kingdom, but it was such taboo common knowledge that no one had ever bothered to write it down, especially within the Academie.

1.5 - the Wizard had never done anything other than do his job and return to his tower, and so he had taken the Academie's word as fact, perhaps the silliest thing the Wizard had ever done.

2 - The Academie of Magicke (and the Kingdom itself) had been built upon the bones of an older society, one in which Magicke wasn't just theoretical and scholarly and didn't end in an E.

3 - Wait, what?

"What do you mean, like…Magick?"

"No, even simpler. Magic."

"Goodness! Imagine, spells that actually did things, potions that could cure ills!"

Druid smiled knowingly at his kin before taking the Wizard's hand again.

"Yes, imagine. Imagine a hat that could somehow completely stifle the loudest toad I've ever heard. Imagine a bottle of vinegar-wine that gives the drinker courage and leads them to a theater somehow located in a market district."

Druid leaned in, as if divulging some great secret. The Wizard leaned in too, synapses firing wildly as he realized what was probably happening, and trying not to get his hopes up.

"Imagine," Druid whispered gleefully, "if there was one Wizard in the Kingdom who could perform magic, and the Druids had finally found him."

"Oh," the Wizard replied, mind unhelpfully blank as Druid squeezed him (was this a hug?). "Wizards are usually discouraged from imagining very much. It's unhealthy to get one's hopes up."

Druid and his kin all laughed, some through tears, though the Wizard supposed that these were happy tears, and that maybe it was okay to imagine things, sometimes.

The Wizard carefully hugged the Druid, and then all of them, and then Cat for good measure, and decided he quite liked hugs, and magic, but maybe not vinegar-wine. And then years passed, although quite a bit happened, largely speaking. But all of it was good, and the Wizard was not alone, and that was why it was good.

And so, surrounded by these people he almost definitely wasn't related to, the Wizard was never again given strange looks for asking questions. He was able to do what he wanted with his free time without any judgement or reprimands from his superiors, since he sort of was his own superior, now. He no longer rented the second highest room in the fourth tallest tower, but instead lived in a cozy cottage without stairs and with so very many neighbors. He no longer had his groceries delivered and ate his meals alone with a toad - well, not all the time, though he suspected that habit would be a hard one to break. And, perhaps most importantly, he was surrounded by people who appreciated him for not just what he knew, but who he was. And the Wizard was so very grateful to be able to share magic with the world again.

The end.

Dice Wars

Matty "Two Hands" Spradling

This is a flash game called Dice Wars.

I have played it off and on since literally middle school, minus a long stretch there in the middle, because it's a flash game. It somehow is still alive even though - wasn't flash supposed to die to death at some point a few years ago? Did that just not happen or is Dice Wars god's chosen unkillable champion, a holy relic from a golden era? Is Dice Wars the daughter of the witches that didn't burn?

Either way, it is a great little thing to occupy your hands and give your thirsty addict brain some bonus dopamine hits while you watch TV or whatever. I recommend it. Please let me know if you have any lifelong favorite flash games or the like saved.

I recommend playing with 4-5 players. 7 is crazyyy!!! That's a crazy number! Who would do that! Wow!

Peace

Andrew Piotrowski

SPACE INVADERS

Matt Spradling

EXT. MOON BASE – NIGHT

Two TANKS are gliding sharply back and forth, firing missiles straight upwards at a descending grid of pixelly, gyrating ALIENS. The TANKS take shelter beneath small floating BUNKERS.

GORB: Rough day.

JETSON: This is literally every day.

GORB: Still, rough.

JETSON: Every day can't be rough, if it's every day then it's just normal.

GORB moves out from under the BUNKER but quickly darts back as a burst of laser fire impacts with the ground.

GORB: If it was normal I would adjust to it, and yet weirdly I'm not enjoying getting bombarded by terrifying aliens.

JETSON: They're not terrifying, they're just different.

A volley of fire impacts GORB'S BUNKER, blasting chunks out of it and darkening its color.

GORB: Exactly how long are these things supposed to hold up?

JETSON: It's fine, I don't worry about it.

GORB: Well la-dee-da, my life is just cowering while the only meager shelter around me is gradually worn away bit by painful bit until only exposure and death await, but yeah, why worry?

JETSON: It's all a matter of perspective. Imagine all consciousness was once part of a universal whole, at rest, whatever you think of as god, but this state of constancy was boring, and so we decided to splinter our being in order to experience life as these mortal, biological beings, like getting immersed in a story, and that good days are obviously pleasurable but there is also beauty to be found in the bad days, because no matter what happens, it's something that your universal consciousness wanted to experience, and it's just the day that this particular thing happens to be occurring.

GORB: That sounds insane, but helpful.

The TANKS sit still and silent as if in contemplation. Lasers continue to pepper the BUNKERS which are becoming badly damaged.

GORB: I think my problem is that I can't appreciate the moment in that way because I'm rigidly oriented to the concept of a perfect default day which is never achieved, perhaps impossible to achieve, and any surprise deviations from this default feel like disasters. So it's not an issue of openness to adverse experiences, in theory, as much as to unexpected timing, and it is never the right time. How do you change that?

JETSON: It sounds like you need to be more assertive. Make things happen rather than waiting for things to happen to you.

JETSON darts from beneath the BUNKER and immediately explodes.

GORB: Fuck.

Office Chart

You Got Gold - John Prine

"Life is a blessing, it's a delicatessen / Of all the little favors you do"

Honestly I could stick 99% of John Prine songs here. He's a brilliant storyteller and does word gymnastics that would get 10s across the board in the Olympics. The lyrics in this song are so very sweet and the music to float these along makes me want to wiggle. It has enough harmonica to keep me wanting more and takes a nice little Spanish inspired musical detour in the middle.

Back to the words though. Imagine someone telling you that you have gold inside of you. That's a pretty mushy gushy statement that everyone should experience. I've made more of an effort to tell people these types of things. People glow brighter when you shine em up with some nice words. And my greatest dream in life is to leave people I care for feeling like they matter and are special.  -Loh

The Line - Arcane, Twenty One Pilots

Just because there's a queer-coded disabled character with a god complex doesn't mean I relate to them. I mean, it does in this case, but that's irrelevant.  -Marina

Space Invaders (1997) Original Soundtrack - Hiroshi Yamaguchi

This simultaneously makes me lock in and also feel like a child who was never able to accomplish very much while locking in, at least in terms of video game skills, creating a sort of crisis in confidence. Thematic!  -Matt

Tomorrow - Shakey Graves

"But you never trusted tomorrow / Yeah, baby is that any way to live your life?"

This was my top song of 2024. Spotify said I was in the top .01% of listeners of this song. I feel like I could be #1 overall. Something about this song keeps me hitting play. Maybe it's that I've stopped planning so much for the future because the past couple years have turned out to be very different than I had planned for. Everything I said I'd never do has ended up as something I love, and everything I planned to love has ended up as something I don't. That feels like a bigger article for the next edition. Stay tuned (into this song because it's very good).  -Loh

Laments, Dances and Lullabies, Vol. 1: Walk Dance - Miroslav Tadic, Dragos Ilie

Dragos is kind of a big deal (both in Romania and in the international classical guitar community), and I was lucky enough to help him through two grad degrees at UT (and he is now Dr. Ilie). Anyway, music is so cool and I love it a lot and I'm glad I'm surrounded by such incredible artists (in both my professional and personal life bc this Newsletter is absolutely Art).  -Marina

One Of Your Girls - Troy Sivan

One of the best pop songs and videos of the last couple years, feels equal parts loving, wholesome, and sad.  -Matt

Million Dollar Bill - Middle Brother

"Her goodbye written into stone / And her shadow grown into a night"

The whole song should go on this blurb because it's hard to pick lyrics from it. "Shadow grown into a night" is really a hate crime of a lyric. This version has a nice amount of tambourine that adds some razzle to it. Dawes put the other version on "Nothing is Wrong 10th Anniversary but it is significantly more produced. Both versions are beautiful, but I think the rawness of the Middle Brother version makes the lyrics hit harder. I put this on my playlist called "There are drugs in these that will make you watch Just Friends in ur brain." It fits nicely with the aggressive amount of Fountains of Wayne and overall chillness. Take a listen if you feel like transporting yourself into 2004 snowy nostalgia.  -Loh

God Mourning America 18 | Xmas time is here |Somethings in the air

Artwork: Stanley Donwood for Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

daddy is not happy: Dani Woles