Thing 1: Horsegirl.
Chicago’s Horsegirl makes me excited about music again. Not that music doesn’t excite me anymore—but, honestly, not as often as it used to. Let’s face it: popular music is, for the most part, a three- or four-part variable equation. Vocals. Drums. Bass. Guitar. In 2026, finding something genuinely new to do with those four things ain’t quite as easy as it might have been in, say, 1966. Or even 1986. Not that it was ever easy. But Horsegirl sure makes it sound easy. Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein and Gigi Reece understand noise, space, repetition and restraint in a way that feels instinctive rather than studied. (But since they covered The Minutemen, they did study…and study well, I might add.) Their latest record, Phonetics On and On (what a great title, huh…as is their debut), somehow sounds both familiar and completely fresh. They know the history without being trapped by it. And here’s the part that really gets me: they’re barely into their twenties. There’s something wonderfully wise-beyond-their-years about Horsegirl, but without any of the self-consciousness that phrase usually implies. I get the feeling they’re not trying to show me how smart or hip or cool they are. They just play.
Thing 2: The Defeated.
I really loved The Defeated, the series set in the absolute chaos of Berlin immediately after World War II. And 1946 Berlin fascinates me: a city physically destroyed, its institutions shattered, millions of people displaced and four victorious powers trying to figure out what comes next. It’s basically a breakdown-of-society movie…sans the zombies. (That’s why I love zombie films so much.) This also continues what I’ve come to recognize as the seemingly inevitable Middle-Aged Dude Obsession with All Things World War II. Guilty. But lately I’m less interested in the war itself than in what happened five minutes after it ended. Everybody knows Hitler dies, Germany surrenders and the Allies win. Roll credits. Except nobody actually got to roll the credits. Berlin became a free-for-all for its citizens, the occupation armies, the refugees, black markets, hunger, prostitution…crime and murder and revenge and people simply trying to stay alive. And then there were the Soviets. I’ll go out on a limb here: what makes the Russians such evil fucks? Although history makes it abundantly clear that The Evil Fuck Business has never belonged exclusively to anybody. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times—each time with as much sarcasm as I can muster (especially after watching the evening news): Ain’t we a terrific species?
Thing 3: I Do Know Some Things.
I seemed to have pretty much grown out of my poetry phase. It started when I was an undergrad English Lit major at Arizona State and really took off when I stumbled onto Bukowski and the Beats, sometime around 1988. For the next twenty years or so, I read a lot of poetry. And then I was just kinda over it. Oh, sure, I’d read a poem every now and then. More then than now. Which isn’t to say I don’t still love poetry. Which is a double negative and probably not the best way to say what I’m trying to say. What I’m trying to say is that I recently walked into a bookstore and saw Richard Siken’s I Do Know Some Things sitting face-out on a shelf. Smart bookseller. The black cover, Siken’s name and that title in a kind of Basquiat-esque scrawl got me to pick it up. Then I read the first poem, “Real Estate,” which took my breath away. And the rest of the book is just as good. It reminds me a little of Horsegirl. Just when you start thinking maybe you’ve heard it all—or read it all—and you’re getting a little bored with the whole show, something comes along and reminds you why you loved the thing in the first place.
Thing 4: I’m Not Dead Yet.
I’ve hit the point when aging stops being theoretical. Cancers & strokes & heart attacks, oh my! Now what? I was diagnosed with non-diabetic neuropathy, the diagnosis coming after a series of electric shocks through my legs, beginning at my heels and working their way up behind my knees. Each one was a little worse than the last. About 1/2 way to my knee I asked The Doctor’s Helper, “Are people OK with this?” “Do you want to quit? Because we can quit if you’d like.” “People quit?” “Oh yes. All the time.” Which got me wondering. “Do they cry?” “Some do.” This will be interesting. Then the cold sweats kicked in as I waited for the next blast. Each one more extreme as she made her way to the back of my knee. Which is when I asked, “Can I make noises?” She was fine with that. So I did. Because the back of the knee shock was, by far, the biggest one. And lying there making noises as she started electrocuting the other leg brought me back to the summer of 1986, which I spent in Guanajuato, Mexico, learning the language and history. At a picnic one afternoon, some kids stood in a circle holding hands while an electric current passed through them until somebody couldn’t take it anymore and broke the circle. Forty years later, lying on a doctor’s table in Arizona, I finally understood their game. And I didn’t break the circle.
Thing 5: The Algorithm vs. Wandering Around.
I’m increasingly convinced that the things I like best are the things I wasn’t looking for. I didn’t walk into a bookstore looking for Richard Siken. His book was sitting face-out on a shelf, I liked the cover, picked it up and read a poem that blew me away. That’s discovery. The algorithm is something else. The algorithm knows I like Bukowski, so here’s more Bukowski. You watched a World War II documentary? Congratulations, you now apparently want to spend the rest of your life watching Nazis on YouTube. Listen to one band and Spotify will happily introduce you to fourteen other bands you’ve never heard that sound vaguely like them. It’s useful. It’s also kinda boring. Ever get the feeling we’ve gotten really good at eliminating chance? We search instead of browse. We order instead of wander. We ask for recommendations based on things we already know we like. Which I get. And which is probably why I still love flea markets and record stores and used-book shops. You have to wander. Most of what you encounter won’t interest you. And then something does. Something you didn’t search for. Or were you? Something nobody recommended. Or did they? But it’s something the algorithm didn’t know you wanted.
And until five minutes ago, neither did you.
