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In the last few years, maybe around the writing of my own book, I've developed the yips when it comes to finishing things. Even books I love. I just feel the page stack getting thinner in my right hand and then something comes over me and I start something else and another one gets added to this growing pile next to my bed, 60-80 percent creased. But there's something comforting about them all sitting there (and more on my ebook apps), because I really do feel like I'll get to them, and in the meantime, I can sample more widely while still scrolling on my phone for seven hours a day. (The end of Rap Capital is good, though.)
Nov 9, 2022
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โญI finish as many books as I want, which is never as many books as I want
Feb 3, 2024
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๐Short Book, Kinda Slop โก๏ธ Long Book, Challenging โก๏ธ Short Book, Kinda Slop โก๏ธ Long Book, Challenging
Particularly, I've enjoyed finishing long challenging books I put down 2 years ago and just getting through the last half. The rhythm lets you take a break, gives you variety in your reading, and excites you to finish what you're reading to get to the next book.
I enjoy reading a lot, but I'm not particularly good at holding myself to do it. Still though, since March I've read a time travel novella, then finished a book on Medieval medicine, then jumped into a self-help book about cleaning, and am now about to finish up a book on Medieval Executioners. It's a pattern that's worked for me, but of course we'll have to see if it maintains its allure after a couple more months. Nonetheless, three books in 3 months is a faster pace than what I've done in a while AND it's just really satisfying to finish the books I've wanted to for a long time.
Jun 20, 2025
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๐...and making peace with that. Been in the biggest reading slump because I wasn't vibing with The Idiot by Elif Batuman but desperately wanted to push through bc it got shortlisted for Pulitzer. 65% in, I just had to admit it wasn't for me and abandon it. Flying through books I've been wanting to read now and feeling so much better about myself :)
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๐My friend Jay recently mentioned in passing a 2010 story in The New Yorker, "Sleeping With Weapons" by Tad Friend, about the totally batshit feud between the actor and musician John Lurie and his protege John Perry. It's like 8,000+ words of mayhem and mental illness and I can't believe the magazine ran it or that I'd never read it, especially since there was a whole controversy afterward, including a hunger strike. It reminded me that there's just an endless array of weird old stores from 10 years ago, from 50 years ago, from last year, and you can just mainline them in one subway ride for no money. I always go back to stuff like Nancy Jo Sales on the Pussy Posse or the Golden Suicides, or Chris Heath's Fiona Apple cover story for Rolling Stone from 1998, or Tom Wolfe's "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" or Ta-Nehisi Coates on MF DOOM. (Use Pocket to get around paywalls.)
Nov 9, 2022
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๐บI subscribe to a bunch of shit, share log-ins for others and get sent some screeners, but nothing compares to being asked by a friend to illegally locate the third movie spinoff of a Danish sitcom or a German TV documentary about Michael Jackson for free online. It's hunting and gathering for millennial men. The big streaming platforms suck so bad anyway, they flatten most coolness out of culture and they try to trick you into watching stuff in the basest ways. At least I feel accomplished when I do some "Hackers"-style Googling, hit half a dozen dead links and then have to close a swarm of popups like I'm catching flies out of thin air just to watch four innings of a Yankees game.
Nov 9, 2022
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๐งขI try to wear almost only all black (or dark gray), no shorts and no logos โ mostly for aesthetic simplicity, though shout out to Naomi Klein and reading Adbusters at suburban Barnes & Nobles โ but I'm softening. My friend Bryan, in a nod to his British and Mexican heritage, started rocking old school semi-shiny black Umbro shorts a few years ago and pointed out that they're cheap on Amazon (sorry Naomi Klein). I only have one pair but they're extremely durable and I wore them all summer: around the house, at the beach, to play softball, to go out. People love to remember Umbros. My other major go-to exception is keeping a small pile of Polo chino hats in various colors as a nod to Young Dro (Atlanta's Cam'ron) and because the various little bears on the hats are all wearing Polo themselves, on some mise en abyme-ish shit.
Nov 9, 2022