Great Music Books in 2025

Earlier this year, I published a piece on PopMatters about 10 Brilliant Music Books on the Art & Industry. Originally planned for last winter as a sort of 2024 gift guide of the best new releases for the music lover in your life, the piece morphed a bit into just a list of great books about music. 

For many music fans, the next best thing to the actual songs is the story “behind the music”. For book lovers who are also music lovers, a well-written and often unexpected music book is a treat that feeds both passions. Music books come in various formats, including band memoirs, music criticism, and pop culture philosophizing. From Lester Bangs’ collection of reviews in Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung to Henry Rollins’ incredible journal-turned-memoir Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, the music book is a valuable part of the art and the industry, providing fans with insight and context on the artists and the music they love.

I can still recall the first music book that grabbed and held my attention from cover to cover – No One Here Gets Out Alive (1981), the seminal biography of legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison by Danny Sugarman. That book was more than just a memoir; it was a key player in my rock ‘n’ roll coming of age. Over the last few years, I have seen numerous innovative and informative books from various music genres. From rock to hip-hop to country to punk to emo, here’s a list of superb reads to deepen the music education for you or the music lover in your life.

My originally piece was planned for Westword, Denver's Alt-Weekly that I occasionally freelance for, and now the magazine has published a 2025 version of the list I had originally planned. Local writer Adam Perry has assembled a list of the Best Music Books Released in 2025 covering books "from Cameron Crowe's memoir to a deep-dive into queer culture in pop music, these are the perfect gifts for the music lover in your life." I am really excited about the new work from Cameron Crowe, and I would also recommend last year's excellent career study on REM - The Name of the Band is REM.

Every year, we read a lot of new music books, and it’s not only so that music-loving readers have holiday gift ideas for their loved ones, or just themselves; it also saves you time reading the bad or mediocre books that don’t end up on this list. Here, in no particular order, are six great music-related books released in 2025 that would be a blessing to crack open on Christmas morning or really anytime. Head over to your favorite bookstore and grab a copy.

And while I was wandering around a great bookstore in La Jolla recently, I was intrigued by a new book on the indie music scene with the awesome title The Hours are Long, but the Pay is Low. I lived in Chicago in the late '90s, but was unaware of the alt-country-punk scene that gave rise to Bloodshot Records, and I'm sorry I missed it. So, I'm hoping to get some insight and new bands to add to my collection.

“The music business is not a meritocracy: it is a crapshoot taking place in a septic tank balanced on the prow of the Titanic, a venal snake pit where innovation, creativity, and honest business practices are actively discouraged.”

Rob Miller arrived in Chicago wanting to escape the music industry. In short order, he co-founded a trailblazing record label revered for its artist-first approach and punk take on country, roots, and so much else. Miller’s gonzo memoir follows a music fan’s odyssey through a singular account of Bloodshot Records, the Chicago scene, and thirty years as part of a community sustaining independent artists and businesses.

Hilarious and hundred-proof, The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low delivers a warm-hearted yet clear-eyed account of loving and living music on the edge, in the trenches, and without apologies.

Art Basel Miami

There's no hype about duct-taped bananas coming out of south Florida this year, but it's almost Art Basel Miami time, so there will undoubtedly be something stirring in the art world.

Arguably the biggest and most significant art festival in the United States each year, Art Basel Miami arrives this weekend, December 5-7, and while most of us art geeks will not be attending and rubbing shoulders with the world's elite artists, gallerists, dealers, patrons, and fashionistas, we can still live vicariously through the coming tidal wave of press and social media coverage.

The New York Times has a primer for those interested in attending:

The Miami Beach edition of Art Basel is unique in that it takes place on a single floor, rather than in a multistory location as the other Basel fairs in Hong Kong, Paris and Basel, Switzerland do.

Here, when visitors walk into the Miami Beach Convention Center, all 283 galleries from 43 countries sit adjacent to one another, a sea of paintings and people.

“You can feel that palpable hum of energy, people, art, light, landscapes — the whole cultural convergence — in that moment,” said Bridget Finn, director of Art Basel’s Miami Beach show. Finn, who took on the role just before the fair in 2023, came to Art Basel from the gallery world, having most recently served as a partner and managing director of the Detroit art gallery Reyes Finn.

And, of course, many other arts and culture writers will offer their insights and advice as well. Art Basel Miami is sort of the cornerstone of Miami Art Week, and there will also be plenty of coverage for art events flanking the festival, such as this piece from Casey Brennan for Grazia Magazine: "Everything to Know About Miami Art Week 2025"

Every December, Miami Beach becomes a stage where the worlds of art and fashion intersect under sunlight and spotlights. This year, Art Basel Miami Beach returns the first week of December, marking its twenty-third edition and a clear step forward for the fair’s evolution.

With 285 galleries from 44 countries and more than 40 first-time exhibitors, Basel 2025 feels both expansive and intimate—featuring legacy names while alive with new ideas.

For the first time, Art Basel introduces its global awards program, a new initiative celebrating artists, galleries, and curators shaping the cultural landscape today. The ceremony, set for December 4, is already one of the week’s most anticipated events—more than a gala, it’s a statement about where the art world is heading next. Inside the Convention Center, the works span every scale and medium, while beyond its walls, the city transforms into a living extension of the fair itself.

I can't recall when I first became aware of the festival that has been around since 2002 -- the original event and organization began in 1970. But as I have grown more interested in the art world, both as a general art geek as well as an occasional arts writer, the festival is now on my radar, and someday I may just hop on a plane and take the plunge. 

Last year, I was intrigued to see Joe Taveras, an artist I'd been following for a while on Instagram, show up at Art Basel Miami with his new arts organization, the New Renaissance. And I thought that was pretty cool because Joe just started painting in the summer of 2020 during pandemic, and in just five years he was showing artists at a premier international art event. And that just goes to show you, as Joe has said, “It’s incredible what can happen in a year with passion, dedication, and perseverance.”

Some people just don't "get" Thoreau

Roughly ten years ago, a well-educated journalist who is a staff writer for the New Yorker published a scathing hit job on Concord's favorite son, Henry Thoreau, a true American, and one of the most esteemed writers in the history of American letters. The piece was initially published with the crass moniker "Pond Scum," though I have to believe that a naturalist and a saunterer like Thoreau would have chuckled approvingly at being called such a name.

It's a bit of a mystery what prompted Kathryn Schulz -- who is by all accounts a talented, thoughtful writer -- to tee off on Thoreau, but she also appears to hate Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and so she may simply be acting out the frustration so many high school students feel when confronted with "classic literature" that doesn't connect with them. For, while the piece is quite clearly well written, it's presented with all the patience and pondering of a petulant child.

Many Thoreauvians, as well as the general population of well educated readers and, of course, English teachers, were able to quickly discount most of Schulz's complaints and criticisms while also acknowledging that Thoreau can be "a bit prickly" as an individual, as a writer, and as a thinker. We're all going to have issues with someone as prolific on all manner of living as Thoreau was -- a man who, in addition to his incredible output of published writing in a short forty-four year life, also composed a near daily journal of more than two million words. 

But most of us don't have such sneering contempt for such an iconic and significant writer, and that's mostly because we have put the time in to actually understanding the writing of the man. In other words, Kathryn Schulz simply doesn't get it, or him. And numerous accomplished writers responded in kind with responses, retorts, rebuttals, and corrections of the many myths about Thoreau and the simple ways he is misunderstood. Some of the best are Jedidiah Purdy's "In Defense of Thoreau" and Rebecca Solnit's "The Thoreau Problem." And perhaps the most astute piece about all the things that Schulz gets wrong is Donovan Hahn's "Everybody Hates Thoreau." 

And, as I've been doing my work on "The Punk on Walden Pond," I'd like to add some insight from the esteemed and beloved American writer, E.B. White, who was an ardent Thoreauvian.

“Many think [Walden] is a sermon … an attempt to rearrange society ... an exercise in nature loving … a rather intimidating collection of inspirational puffballs by an eccentric show-off. I think it is none of these … Even as it is, it will continue to annoy the literal mind and all those unable to stomach its caprices and imbibe its themes ... To reject the book because of the immaturity of the author and the bugs in the logic is to throw away a good bottle of wine because it contains bits of cork. … [Thoreau] is a better companion than most, and I would not swap him for a soberer or more reasonable friend, even if I could.”

You see, Ms. Schultz and all those of her ilk who have failed to get the point, not to mention the joke, “Walden is a work of art and philosophy which ponders and argues and wonders in deep thoughtful fascination with life, but it’s also satire and irony as he critiques his society and a new economy that leads people to 'live lives of quiet desperation.'"

New Colorado Punk for Record Store Day

Well, Black Friday has come and gone again, but that doesn't mean you can't still make some purchases because it is officially small business Saturday. And what better place to spend some holiday cash than your local indie record store to pick up some new vinyl. Listening to the Colorado Sound as I regularly do, I was reminded that these two shopping celebrations -- small business and records -- are the perfect opportunity to support the local economy. And in Colorado's smokin' hot indie music scene, there are three incredible punk bands with new music to check out.

I've written about all these bands at some point, but there is news about three of my local favorites:  Dead Pioneers, Cheap Perfume, and Elway.

First up is the notably named Elway, a veteran Colorado punk band that was once sued by the local football legend. It's been a bit since this classic punk group released new music, but we've waiting for a while now since I first wrote about the band last year when members were in town to record and decided to reunite for its only local show in 2024.

The new album, recorded at the Band Cave Studios in Park Hill is, Browne explains, “basically following up and questioning the nature of Best of All Possible Worlds.” With aggressively blunt new songs such as “Nobody’s Going to Heaven,” the music brings a reversal of the pondering philosophical fence-sitting between pessimism and optimism that characterized the last LP. The song, which Browne suggests might become the album title, “is a stream-of-consciousness wallowing about how demoralizing it is to sit and scroll on the phone watching unspeakable tragedies.”

“If this is where we are as a democratic society,” Browne continues with a sardonic chuckle, “maybe none of us deserve salvation.”

The long-awaited release is now out and available at your local vinyl shop. And the release of the first single is evidence that this LP was worth the wait. Denver Westword followed up with a piece on the new LP, and the band has released a single for "Living Epilogue":

At long last, after eighteen years, Elway put out a politically charged protest record.

But the latest from the Fort Collins-born indie-punk crew — Nobody’s Going To Heaven, released on October 10 via Chicago label Red Scare Industries — isn’t as obviously in-your-face as you’d assume from a genre known for telling Nazi punks to fuck off. It’s a more nuanced approach, with political undertones that highlight the chaos and carnage surrounding the Western world, while still offering an optimistic outlook overall.

Original vocalist-guitarist Tim Browne didn’t necessarily set out to make a record fueled by such fire and fury that went into Nobody’s Going To Heaven initially, and considers it “an indignant dispatch from within the walls of the crumbling empire.” It occurred naturally, he shares; he had no choice but to reflect on what he believes will ultimately lead to a “post-American world.”

“We’ve not really been historically a very political band,” Browne says. “There are some songs about politics, but generally, I’ve tried to avoid it just because I feel like it’s really easy to slide into tropes and platitudes. I’ve always been hesitant about writing about politics and tread lightly when I do.

Secondly, there is a Riot Grrrl Resurgence happening in indie music, and leading the way is an electrifying Colorado "fem-core" band called Cheap Perfume. This band, which is absolutely ferocious live in a small club, has been fiercely political since its inception, and it has never slowed since releasing the scorching single "It's Okay to Punch Nazis." Now the band is back with a new LP that confronts capitalist corruption and the authoritarian presidency and which Westword writes "Pummels Trump."

Punk music remains an important, historic form of protest, so it’s fitting that Denver femme punk outfit Cheap Perfume is set to drop a timely new album later this year.

The band has already released singles “Woke Mind Virus” and “Down to Riot” to tease the forthcoming album, Didn’t Ask. Don’t Care, which drops on October 3 via Snappy Little Numbers. Vocalist Stephanie Byrne, vocalist-guitarist Jane No, bassist Geoff Brent and drummer David Grimm have always worn their anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and pro-women political stances on their sleeves, following in the abrasive tradition of riot grrrl punk bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile.

No and Byrne describe the single “Woke Mind Virus” as emblematic of the album’s themes, with its jabs at capitalism, Elon Musk and right-wingers who attempt to “own the libs” with “anti-woke” agendas, which simply justify hate against the marginalized. They say the song also takes aim at ICE agents, health insurance CEOs and oligarchs who bow to these policies, questioning plainly in the bridge: What kind of person thinks it’s bad to be awake?

“This song, to me, is kind of like the manifesto for the album,” No says. “There have been a lot of radical changes in the world since our last release, so I thought it was important for us to come out with something bold.

“We wrote it in response to the inane ‘war on woke’ and people like Elon Musk demonizing empathy and saying that having compassion is weak,” she continues. “This song is a great gut check for the rest of the album… if you relate to what is being said here, I think you’re going to love the record. If it’s pissing you off? Don’t care, didn’t ask.”

And, finally, the powerful Indigenous punk rock outfit led by acclaimed Native visual artist Gregg Deal, Dead Pioneers, was recently back in the studio -- the iconic Blasting Room in Fort Collins -- to work on its third release for Hassle Records. But while we're waiting for that one, it's worth checking out Post-American, the second LP from the band that is as much a work of art and political manifesto as it is a blistering punk rock explosion which they performed in four shows opening for Pearl Jam last spring, followed by a European tour with Pennywise and Propaghandi.

The Writer who challenged the Tech Revolution

In some ways, it was a couple of undergrad computer geeks at the University of Illinois that started it all.

Interestingly, I happened to work in the UIUC Engineering computer labs from 1989-92 when Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina were there developing what would become the first successful web browser that kicked off the wild digital economy we've been living in for the past thirty years. 

I was thinking about that small but profoundly significant moment in American history yesterday when I read a feature in the New York Times titled The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley by tech writer David Streitfeld. The story unpacks the history of writer and tech geek Paulina Borsook whose book Cyberselfish foresaw the the dark side of the Tech Boys who basically run the economy at this point.

Even Silicon Valley dislikes Silicon Valley. More than two-thirds of residents agreed in a 2024 poll that the tech companies have partially or completely misplaced their moral compass. And that was before so many in tech embraced the Trump administration.

Some of those who believe tech lost its way are finding explanations in a book published a quarter century ago. Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish” saw the seeds of disaster in the late-1990s dot-com boom, which, she argued, transformed a community that was previously sober, civic-minded and egalitarian into something toxic.

Silicon Valley, Ms. Borsook wrote, hated governments, rules and regulations. It believed if you were rich, you were smart. It thought people could be, and indeed should be, programmed just like a computer. “Techno-libertarianism,” as she labeled it, had no time for the messy realities of being human.

It may seem a bit odd or contradictory to criticize the tech revolution on a digital blog, but the problems of our tech-dominated lives are all too real. From the deleterious impact cell phones are having on young people and the education system to the shocking embrace of sports betting in real time during games via digital apps, there is a certain reckoning to be had with the developments that came out of the computer labs in the middle of the Illinois prairie around 1990.

Grateful for a Good Life - Happy Thanksgiving

It's a quiet, calm, chilly Thanksgiving morning in Fort Collins, and I'm just home from a delightful trip to San Diego. It's a simple Thanksgiving this year, just the two of us at home with family spread across the country and the world. And, yet, all is well, and I am grateful for a good life.

I've been so blessed to live a fortunate and fulfilling life, and I am trying to live with more grace and compassion these days. Recently, I posted about keeping a gratitude journal in the days running up to the Thanksgiving holiday. And it's worth checking in with that idea once in a while. For many of us, our default setting is not one of compassion, grace, and empathy. It's one of judgment, criticism, and complaints. But each day offers a new chance to recalibrate.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

The Geography of Everything

As Eric Weiner knows all too well, time and place matter.

The talented author and public speaker spent many years on the road, chasing stories across the world as an NPR correspondent stationed in places like New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. Having seen countless moments and incidents of struggle, conflict, and tragedy, Weiner channeled the opposite side of the human experience into his first book The Geography of Bliss, where he explored locations where the residents are known to be happier than the average person. It's not surprising that some of the most popular newspaper and magazine articles are on the subject of personal contentment, like the Danish concept of hygge, or the experience of cozy, comfy conviviality.

I first discovered Weiner's work with his third book The Geography of Genius, where he conducts "a search for the world's most creative places from Athens to Silicon Valley." Weiner asks the obvious question of why at certain times in certain places at certain moments in history there was an exponential growth of creativity and thinking. From the philosophers of ancient Greece to the coffeehouses of Vienna, genius builds upon itself and like-minded thinkers tend to gather and push each other to new intellectual heights.

Weiner's work is rich, engaging, and readable just like the numerous stories he told as a journalist bringing the world home.

Playing Like Jokic -- the new NBA

In soccer it was "Bend it like Beckam" -- in the NBA these days, it's Jam like Jokic.

Or pass like Jokic, board like Jokic, shoot like Jokic, pick and roll like Jokic.  The Serbian big man for the remodeled Denver Nuggets is the hottest thing in hardwood, and he is literally changing the game. And the Denver Post Nuggets Journal reports the smooth center has a growing legion of disciples in the league as, "the kids want to play like Jokic." That's the sign of greatness.

Nikola Jokic’s original disciple has outgrown the infant label.

Alperen Sengun is a fully formed All-Star by now, a synthesis of skill, strength and smarts at the center of the only NBA offense better than Denver’s.

“Baby Jokic” is his own person now, Actual Jokic declared this week.

“He’s talented. I think people are connecting (me) with him, but we are different types of player,” Jokic said. “He’s an amazing player. You can see some similarities, but I don’t want people to see him and tell me he’s something like me. I think that he’s a good enough player to have his own story.”

Sunday in San Diego

Having lived in Colorado for nearly a quarter-century, I have always heard that the Mile High City rivals San Diego for number of sunny days each year, nearly 300. That news always amazes non-Coloradans, and it's one of the Rocky Mountain State's best kept secrets -- you can golf in short sleeves in February in Denver if the sun is out and it's 50 degrees or better. 

That said, Sunny San Diego is no mere moniker, and having never visited the southwestern city, we decided to spend a few days exploring with little agenda. And that made for a quite enjoyable Sunday. Staying in the Gaslamp Quarter -- a lively area of bars, restaurants, shops, and galleries near Petco Park, home of the Padres -- we were reminded of Lo-Do in Denver, home of the Rockies. After coffee and a tasty breakfast at a bodega-style spot called Cloud 9 Deli, we spent the late morning and early afternoon exploring a wonderful attraction, Balboa Park. 

We took a trip around the world inside the park at the international cottages, learning about the cultures and enjoying some tasty treats by Italy, Denmark, Germany, and Israel. This mini-Epcot is a real treat, and I'd highly recommend it. The cottages are volunteer-run and only open from 12-4 on the weekends. We finished our evening off drinking and dining around Little Italy. Check out M Winehouse, a charming little bar in a small casual setting, and then grab some incredible slices at the Slice House by Tony Gemignani

The Cool Side of Math

This weekend the cool, competitive side of math was on display at the hallowed math grounds of Princeton University. I'm talking about PUMaC, the Princeton University Math Competition. For those readers who know this blog to be written by an English teacher, education analyst, culture writer and pop culture fan, it might be odd to find this post about competitive math. But I am also the father of a mathlete who is a Princeton alum who was on the New Jersey campus yesterday to help college kids geek out on competitive math.

That got the librarian in me thinking about books which have enabled me to connect with math and the wild word of competitive problem solving that has captivated my son for most of his life from the time he was a national competitor in MathCounts. 

One of the first books that helped me re-engage with the subject that wasn't my favorite in middle school when the worlds of numbers and letters first collided in this thing called algebra has the appealing title How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking. It's a fascinating study of real world applications from writer Jordan Ellenberg. 

John Green -- a Man for Our Times

Who doesn't love the author John Green? And really, what's not to love. 

From an incredible string of YA books, that aren't really so YA that they aren't beloved as much or more by adults - especially English teachers -, to a fascinating online digital profile that began as a back-and-forth intellectual bantering called Vlog Brothers (or NerdFighters) with his equally cool brother and author Hank Green and their incredibly informative series Crash Course, to his fascinating narrative nonfiction that's been topping the best sellers lists with the column-esque The Anthropocene Reviewed and the new study and commentary Everything Is Tuberculosis, to his very public and frank discussions of his crushing battle with anxiety and depression, John Green is an individual who is in many ways all things to all people and a true gift to and reflection of the "interesting times" in which we are living.

He recently sat down with the New York Times to ... well to talk about how the world looks while being John Green.

In a time largely defined by social disconnection and hopelessness, John Green’s work, across multiple formats and platforms, has been a beacon of humane connection and hope. His beloved young-adult novels, including the mega-best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,” have shown his gift for both capturing and speaking the emotional language of teenagers. On YouTube, Green and his younger brother and best friend, Hank, post earnest and charmingly wonky videos under the Vlogbrothers banner for a devoted audience of millions. They explore all sorts of weighty subjects: mental health, religion, the meaning of life, you name it. If it’s something that has kept you up at night, the Greens have probably talked about it. (They also have a podcast, “Dear Hank & John,” in which they do much the same thing.)

More recently, John Green turned his attention to global health, with this year’s nonfiction best seller “Everything Is Tuberculosis.” In addition to using TB as a prism through which to examine various forms of medically related injustice — such as the disproportionate toll the disease takes on poor countries — the book also makes an argument for the equality of all lives at a time when the Trump administration is enacting drastic cuts to global health initiatives.

Despite all his good work, Green himself has struggled over the years with feelings of alienation from, among other things, his fiction writing, his vast fan base and his sense of purpose. Those are battles that the 48-year-old knows are never fully won, but he’s keen to keep on fighting.

New Novel on the life of Henry David Thoreau

The reimagining of historical events and the lives of significant people in history is a time-honored tradition in contemporary literature. While narrative nonfiction can be quite engaging in the retelling of familiar stories, the historical fiction genre has produced some great entertainment across digital and print media. And the artistic license involved can be great fun.

Recent examples that have captured my interest include the AppleTV series Dickinson, the Hulu reimagining of the reign of Catherine the Great, the story of a bookstore's rise to prominence with the publication of one of literature's most significant works in The Paris Bookseller, and a fascinating parallel narrative about Shakespeare in Hamnet. And now we can add my favorite American punk rocker Henry Thoreau to the mix.

Longtime friend of the Thoreau Society and prolific writer Andrew Furman, a professor of literature at Florida Atlantic University, has just published a novel about Concord's most famous son who would go on to become one of America's most important writers and philosophers in his short forty-four-year life. Furman's novel The World That We Are imagines and retells the story of a special moment in Thoreau's life that came about when a young woman moved to town and captivated both Henry and his brother John, and he juxtaposes that story with a contemporary one about "David Hertzog, a Thoreau scholar in present-day Maine, [who] embarks on a reflective journey in the autumn of his life upon the unexpected return of his estranged daughter."

In 1837, a young Henry David Thoreau sets out to lead an extraordinary life in Concord, Massachusetts, combating formidable obstacles. He struggles to find work as a teacher, to discover his voice as a writer, and to realize true friendship and romantic love, battling all the while against the “family disease” that threatens his health. When a captivating young woman arrives in town, she ignites a tumultuous love triangle with Thoreau’s brother, forcing matters to a crisis. Meanwhile, David Hertzog, a Thoreau scholar in present-day Maine, embarks on a reflective journey in the autumn of his life upon the unexpected return of his estranged daughter. Her reappearance in town forces him to grapple with their painful shared history and seek a new path forward. Alternating between these two timelines, The World That We Are delves into enduring themes of love, family, the quest for meaningful work, and the search for a true home in the spinning cosmos.

Pop Culture is new(s) at WashPost

I've always been a pop culture geek. Any pop culture article is a must read, and I regularly check with sites like PopMatters, Paste, and the arts, culture, and entertainment pages for all the papers I read. Thus, it's not surprising that I've pursued work as a freelance music, arts, and culture writer. And, of course, it's not news to anyone that my regular blog posts and short form pieces often focus on popular culture.

So, as a regular reader and subscriber of the Washington Post, I am intrigued by the new offering of a pop culture newsletter. The new feature from Style reporter Shane O'Neil claims: Our new newsletter takes pop culture seriously - The Washington Post. While there are many culture writers I read regularly, I am not familiar with O'Neil's work, so I am interested to see what sort of angles and insights he offers on popular culture. In the launch piece, he writes:

I love telling people about the stories I’m writing: Gay guys marrying straight women, $230 socks for your iPhone, entire careers based on saying “6-7” into an iPhone camera.

And I love the response I get: “Seriously?”

It’s a fair question. These are not the heaviest stories we publish at The Washington Post. One might even say they’re not the most prestigious. I’m not holding my breath for the Pulitzer to add a “Best Labubu explainer” or “Snarkiest take on Kim Kardashian’s Margiela look” category any time soon.

But even the most frivolous stories reveal something about how we live today. They show us new models for how people love each other; how even the greatest minds of tech and design can miss the mark; how younger generations are asserting their independence from their parents by confusing them; why Grindr sponsored a fashion collection made entirely from the wool of gay sheep (forthcoming!).

Be Athenians, not Visigoths

"Man Cave" vs "the Study"

That's a meme I am quite fond of and struck by. And it's probably a testament to our times, not in a good way. It's no surprise that people, especially men, are reading less than they have in the past fifty years or so. Beyond that, people are mostly mired in a sea of superficial content which they are constantly scrolling through with the attention span of a gnat. 

And I don't mean to be snotty and pretentiously above all that. I am certainly guilty, too.

However, I was recently thinking about a line from David Foster Wallace's profoundly simple commencement speech, "This is Water." As DFW describes the mundane banality of adult life when we are wrapped up in the frustrating tedium of sitting in traffic on the way home from work, he opines that our ego leads us to dwell on the negative. While our natural default setting is to be annoyed at all the other people who are in our way, we do have a choice in how we think about any situation we are in. More importantly we have options in what we choose to think about.

And, that wonderful little epiphany -- easier to acknowledge than to practice -- got me thinking more deeply about how we choose to spend our time and what we choose to think about. It reminded me of another commencement speech, albeit one that was never actually given. It comes from a favorite writer and thinker of mine, Neil Postman. I've used this piece on occasion with my writing students, and it's a valuable piece of advice for how we choose to live. Basically, Postman tells the story of two notable groups of people in the history of western civilization, the Athenians and the Visigoths. And Postman's advice is to choose to be an Athenian, not a Visigoth. 

Athenians and Visigoths: Neil Postman’s Graduation Speech - First Things 

The first group lived about 2,500 years ago in the place which we now call Greece, in a city they called Athens. We do not know as much about their origins as we would like. But we do know a great deal about their accomplishments. They were, for example, the first people to develop a complete alphabet, and therefore they became the first truly literate population on earth. They invented the idea of political democracy, which they practiced with a vigor that puts us to shame. They invented what we call philosophy. And they also invented what we call logic and rhetoric. They came very close to inventing what we call science, and one of them—Democritus by name—conceived of the atomic theory of matter 2,300 years before it occurred to any modern scientist. They composed and sang epic poems of unsurpassed beauty and insight. And they wrote and performed plays that, almost three millennia later, still have the power to make audiences laugh and weep. They even invented what, today, we call the Olympics, and among their values none stood higher than that in all things one should strive for excellence. They believed in reason. They believed in beauty. They believed in moderation. And they invented the word and the idea which we know today as ecology.

I'd like to think I spend more time practicing the Athenian pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. And, granted, this is to acknowledge that ancient Athens wasn't some utopia of goodness, peace, and wisdom. But we like to live and think by dichotomies for a reason, and in a comparison of better and worse ways to live, the Athenian-Visigoth split is a pretty decent divergence of paths. 

I certainly hope I am choosing to be a better person most of the time. And, keeping in mind DFW's advice, I hope I can remember more often than not to choose an attitude of grace and compassion, of empathy and understanding, of caring and kindness, as opposed to living with judgment and suspicion and contempt. 

As Longfellow once wrote, "Act that each tomorrow finds us further than today." Here's to getting better, one choice at a time.

Is Substack the New Local Paper?

The Substack newsletter as the new source for local news is an intriguing idea. 

The local paper has always been sacrosanct in my view, and I truly worry about the fading prominence of the local news source. There was a time when residents of a community were well informed of local issues -- from high school sports to city council affairs to public service projects to engaging features of local interest -- and the local paper was the thread that held people together. Having grown up with publications like The Alton Telegraph, Advantage News, and The Riverfront Times, I valued the local view.

Living in Colorado now -- for twenty-plus years in southeast Denver -- I valued not only the Denver Post but also the numerous local weeklies, many a part of Colorado Community Media. Papers like The Villager, Aurora Sentinel, Centennial Citizen, and more were a regular part of my reading regimen. And, of course, I always check in with Westword, Denver's alt-weekly for music, arts, and culture news (note: I freelance for Westword). And, of course, as a regular visitor to the High Country in the summer, my days in Summit County were never complete without picking up a copy of the Summit Daily.

So, I am a bit saddened that few people check in with local news anymore -- and worse, that they only get local "news" from sites like ... ugh, NextDoor. 

That's why I am intrigued by the possibility that Substack can be the new source for the local daily, or weekly, in an online, digital world. And it's kind of cool that Substack has an informative post about how to make that happen:  Getting started with local news on Substack - On Substack

The world needs local news more than ever. Local journalism informs and brings together communities, but has never been more under threat. We strongly believe in the potential of the Substack model for building a sustainable, subscription-based business model for local news writers and readers alike. Emerging publications like The Mill (Manchester), The Rover (Montreal), The Addison Times (Addison), The Charlotte Ledger, and City Hall Watcher (Toronto) are already leading the way, and we’re fostering more local news publications through our Substack Local initiative.

In this guide, we provide tips and strategies for starting and succeeding with a local news publication on Substack:

Getting started

Before launching your local news publication, it’s important to define the overall editorial and business strategy for your publication. What makes it different from the existing local news ecosystem? What is the unique value your readers will only be able to get from your publication?

Decide what job you’ll do for your readers. Clearly define for yourself and your readers your publication’s value proposition: the reason that your writing is useful and can’t be found anywhere else. You might cover a beat other reporters aren’t, focus on data and quantitative methods like City Hall Watcher, or bring perspective from an underrepresented community or location. Substack writer Casey Newton explains and provides more examples here.

Go newsletter-first, and stay lean. A great newsletter requires focus. It’s lower-cost to operate than a traditional web or print publication, and more importantly, is a format that cultivates a direct relationship to readers. The goal is to write a fantastic regularly scheduled newsletter that readers can make part of their daily or weekly news habit.

Develop deep ties with the local community. Obvious but important! Successful local news writers should have broad and deep context, knowledge, and relationships in the community they’re writing for and about – ideally, they should already be known as trustworthy, credible thinkers by the community.

Substack Success Stories

Should I start a Substack?

Well, probably not. But it's a question many bloggers, writers, artists, journalists, marketers and more are asking themselves. I've been blogging here for almost twenty years, and it's never been anything other than a site to post written work that is not more refined and targeted for publication elsewhere, notably magazines, news and culture websites, or newspapers. While I did carry ads for many years and also utilized Amazon Affiliate links, they never produced any significant income, and this blog is not a place regular readers visit daily or weekly for a column.

Granted, I was a weekly columnist for The Villager, a community weekly in southeast Denver for several years, and I regularly published one-off pieces with the Denver Post among other papers. And, yes, I've been a freelance music, arts, and culture writer for alt-weeklies like Westword and 303 Magazine. But those, too, have never been regular work as a writer and certainly not anything that could be considered a job or career. Yet, I know I had a decent reader base in the Denver area, and I often wondered whether I could carry that into something like Substack as a weekly newsletter with a decent audience base.

Alas, probably not.

However, I am intrigued by the writers who have made the leap to Substack and managed to make a go of it. One neat story came from a career columnist in Davis, California, who was abruptly let go. Bob Dunning had been a working journalist and columnist for more than fifty years when his paper laid him off. On the advice of friends and family, he started a Substack newsletter and wrote a piece about how: ‘It’s like getting a raise every single day’ - On Substack

Bob published a raw piece on his new Substack, The Wary One, explaining what it felt like to be laid off after five and a half decades of service, and the subscribers started to pour in. “My god, it was instant. A giant whoosh,” he says. “I’m so energized. I still don’t understand it.”

Within the first two months, it was clear to Bob that the move was the “golden opportunity of a lifetime.” He has more than doubled the $26-an-hour rate he had been making at the Davis Enterprise and expects to earn around $100,000 this year. “It didn’t seem like much of a risk to give Substack a try. How could I possibly have known what was just around the corner?”

On Substack, Bob continues to write a daily column about his life and local issues, imbuing it with the trademark familiarity that made him beloved among regular readers. One of his most popular columns, from 1997, looks at the joy and anguish of dropping off your youngest child at college; another details his colonoscopy.

And although his audience has expanded—on the fifth day after launch, his column was already read in 43 states and 23 countries—his relationship with his readers remains just as intimate.

How Stacey Woelfel would Run CBS News

I love newspapers.

Having grown up in a house where three daily papers were delivered and read religiously -- and having a mother who was a journalist, editor, and feature writer -- I can't imagine a day without a newspaper. I read three-four newspapers everyday -- Denver Post, Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, and the Denver paper comes in print edition digital format, so I read it cover to cover like the old days. 

Alas, I fully know and begrudgingly accept the changing landscape of news and print journalism that has led to the rise of Substack newsletters. And I am rather intrigued by the way some individual Substack newsletters have become, in some ways, major "newspapers." Yes, I am clearly talking about the rise of The Free Press and with it the writer -- and now head of CBS News -- Bari Weiss.   

So I was quite intrigued, engaged, and informed by the recent Substack article If I Were the Boss at CBS… by Stacey Woelfel, the esteemed journalist and emeritus professor at the University of Missouri's journalism school. Woelfel's newsletter The Last Editor is a thoughtful and informative take on the industry from one who knows it best.

I’m sure we’re all watching what’s going on at CBS News right now. From the appointment of a “bias monitor” to the hiring of Bari Weiss as the first ever editor-in-chief for CBS News, all indications are that the most valuable brand in TV news is about to be dismantled and thrown to the dogs as scraps. Now under the control of billionaire heir David Ellison, this journalism giant has been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration and it appears Ellison plans to do something about that.

These changes shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us. Buying up news organizations to muzzle them has become a regular pastime for the billionaire class. As we watch the demise of the Tiffany Network’s strong news voice, I figured I would spin a fantasy about what I’d do if someone gave me the keys to CBS and told me to “go crazy.” So here goes, the nine moves I’d make if I ran CBS (in no particular order):

I appreciated many of Woelfel's insights and suggestions, but as a resident of Colorado, I was quite intrigued by his comments on local news hound Kyle Clark of 9-News and a unique and innovative news show "Next with Kyle Clark." Clark is a true gem who has vastly improved the journalism landscape of Colorado since coming to us from the East and Syracuse University.

Hire Denver’s Kyle Clark and his team to remake the CBS Evening News

I’ve left the flagship news broadcast for nearly last, though that doesn’t mean I don’t have big changes in mind there, too. The network evening news—on all the networks—has devolved to a point that it serves no purpose, as far as I can tell, other than as a carrier for pharmaceutical advertising. Why not remake the program into something that will once again be important for informed people to see? I’d have CBS reach outside the company for this one, offering Kyle Clark and his team at Denver’s KUSA-TV (a TEGNA powerhouse) whatever it takes to get them to jump ship and bring their innovative newscast to the network. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Clark’s work, I urge you to take a look at his daily 6 pm newscast, entitled Next with Kyle Clark. Clark and his team are reinventing local TV news, actually making it valuable to viewers. Clark tells it like it is, which means no both sides-isms; instead, he calls out those who deserved to be called out no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Getting Clark on the network (or someone else able to do something similar) would breathe new life into a tired, yet still important news daypart.

Murakami's 1Q84 is a Wild, Bizarre, and Beautifully Written Ride

And, I finished.

About two months ago, I picked up 1Q84, Hideki Murakami's 1,200 page monolithic novel set in 1984 Tokyo and published initially in three parts over the course of 2009-10. Working as I do in a high school library, I have various times assigned to general supervision -- or "recess duty" as I like to call it -- when students are off class and hanging out or passing through the media center. I generally walk around the various spaces, and then park myself near a book shelf in the center and casually read while maintaining an "adult presence." And, I also have some times where I have to wait for students coming for tech assistance -- I don't get started with any projects because over the course of 10-15 minutes several times a day I will be interrupted numerous times. So I wait, and read.

I figured if I read a few pages, maybe a short chapter, over the course of the year, I'd be done sometime in the second semester. Well, it only took two months, and it was quite a fascinating literary treat. My wife is a serious Murakami fan, and I've never gotten into his novels, though I've truly enjoyed his two works of nonfiction, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running and his explanation of the life of a writer Novelist as a Vocation. So, I wasn't sure how I'd like this doorstop of a book -- but he had me hooked from page one in the slightly odd bit of casually dystopian magical realism about the story of ... well, two people searching for each other.

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

Murakami is quite a unique writer, I have learned, and there is something strangely compelling in this story that I appreciated in a way I hadn't expected. Critics of the book -- and they were vast when it was first published in English -- call out the use of cliche and the needless repetition in the story, but I wasn't bothered by either issue, and honestly saw repeated descriptions as a way of circling back around a puzzling situation mentally, looking for an angle. That's clearly an intentional choice.

It might be cliche to talk about novels as a way of "exploring the human condition," but I found the descriptions of the characters' individual histories and internal conflicts and personal battles and endless searching to be quite endearing, if not in a somewhat curious manner. And, again, I found my self dwelling on certain descriptions and scenes. I've heard that when Murakami first started writing, he wrote in English and then translated that back into Japanese, a style that was unfamiliar and strangely compelling to Japanese audiences. That may have been the key to his initial success. 

And it worked. And it has been working for decades.

Richard Linklater Re-invents Film Again with Nouvelle Vague

The first time I saw the movie Breathless, it blew my mind. But not in the way you might think. Because I am talking about the 1982 remake of the groundbreaking Jean Luc Goddard film from 1960 that revolutionized the film industry and ushered in a new term, New Wave. I was twelve at the time and Richard Gere's portrayal of the charming but doomed car thief infatuated with a French college student in Los Angeles was about the coolest thing I had ever seen onscreen. 

Later, I discovered an older and more classic, even cooler, sort of cool when I watched the original French film in college. And that was roughly the same time I discovered Richard Linklater, whose independent film Slacker was a sort of ground zero for a new revolution of film in America at the end of the twentieth century. 

And now those two cinematic revolutions, which were an epiphany for me in terms of art and filmmaking, come together in Nouvelle Vague, the latest film from Linklater that tells the story of the making of Goddard's Breathless. I plan to revisit both the 1990s and the 1960s tonight when I fire up Netflix (another revolution in film to be honest), reveling in "Linklater's Ode to Breathless." 

Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” a film about filmmaking, is suffused with intoxicating glamour — the glamour of youth, of beauty, of grand aesthetic pursuits, Paris at twilight and, bien sûr, cinema itself. Set largely in Paris in 1959 and almost entirely in French, it revisits the title movement that was embodied by young moviemakers who upended and disregarded cinematic norms with the kinds of stories they were telling and, crucially, how. With new attitudes, techniques, technologies, casts, crews and with one another’s support, they were borrowing from the past, engaging with the present and creating the future.

“A whole galaxy of young people,” the filmmaker Pierre Kast said that year to Jean-Luc Godard, “are in the process of taking the old Bastille of the French cinema by assault.”

The Penny Fades into History

After 230 years in circulation, the copperhead run has come to an end. And consumers should prepare for the price on everything to go up four cents over time.

That's the big news announced yesterday when the US Treasury minted its last one-cent coin forever. 

In a penny-pinching move, the U.S. Mint has produced its last one-cent coin. The final penny was minted in Philadelphia Wednesday, 232 years after the first penny rolled off the production line. The government decided to stop making new pennies because each one costs nearly 4 cents to produce. The move is expected to save about $56 million a year.

If you have a jar of pennies on your dresser, or a few stuck in your couch cushions, don't worry. They're still perfectly legal for making payments. But of the more than $1 billion worth of pennies in circulation, most never circulate. And it was costing the government a lot of money to keep making more of them.

As a proud son of the Land of Lincoln, the great state of Illinois, I am rather saddened by the end of the penny. There was a time when Illinois' political leaders would never have let this happen. In fact, the movement to get rid of the penny has been around for decades, but back in the day, the Illinois reps would effectively squelch any move by any rep from any state to eliminate the Lincoln penny. And with a strong electoral presence, legendary political leaders in the House and Senate, and the power of Chicago politics, no serious penny-pinching plan ever got off the ground or out of committee.

The word from the Illinois contingent was clear:  Mess with the penny and your state will never pass a single bit of meaningful legislation or receive any favors from the federal level again. 

Perhaps that story is a bit apocryphal ... but for anyone growing up in the Land of Lincoln, I don't doubt it. In fact, many years ago, the College Board actually put a synthesis DBQ argument question on the AP English Language and Composition national test about whether to eliminate the penny. My students that year were quite proud to have additional knowledge on the issue, giving them enough evidence for perhaps an additional paragraph to their essay. Argue for or against keeping the penny? Nonsense. It didn't matter because it was never gonna happen.

But, now ... it's over. 

Of course, while penny critics note that a penny costs almost five cents to produce and eliminating it will save the taxpayers $56 million, the nickel actually costs much more at nearly fourteen cents. So, perhaps the feds should eliminate the nickel and round up to the dime. Or why not just round everything up to the next dollar and eliminate all change?

Greatest High School Movies

I saw an online post that asked, "What is the greatest high school movie, and why is it Clueless."

As I pondered the post and question, I had to concede that the Amy Heckerling 90's film re-imagining of Jane Austen's Emma is a pretty qualified nominee for the moniker. It's an incredibly entertaining film that actually holds up pretty well after thirty years. 

When I think about teen films and high school movies, I go back to the early 1980s, and honestly the first two I can recall are Amy Heckerling's original teen classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, based on the non-fiction high school expose by a young music writer named Cameron Crowe, and a less memorable but sweetly entertaining film The Last American Virgin. 

Entertainment Weekly recently posted its list of the greatest high school/teen movies. Some of my favorites are classics like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ten Things I Hate About You, and Can't Buy Me Love. But here's an interesting question: How do we feel about Grease?

Colfax Carousal Punk Fest -- Denver

It's been a while, but this is my most recent piece for Westword:

It’s no secret to anyone traveling around Denver that the Bus Rapid Transit project has put a significant strain on the numerous small businesses, restaurants, and music venues lining the historic and traditionally lively Colfax Avenue corridor. As the area struggles to stay vibrant and financially solvent, two local punk musicians who grew up in the scene want to give something back. Tom Dodd and Ryan Heller, of Denver band Tuff Bluff, have organized the inaugural Colfax Carousel Punk Fest, which will debut on Saturday, November 15.

“There are so many cool bands in Denver,” Dodd says, “and we just thought it’d be cool to have a show to see all these bands at one time.”

Dodd and Heller have felt like some local music fests don’t always showcase Denver talent as well as they’d like. So, with the news that the Underground Music Showcase was in its final year, they had a huddle. “Ryan said, ‘Let’s just do it. We can get all these Denver bands, put them on one bill, showcase local music, and help out these venues,'” Dodd says. “So, it’s just a win-win.”

“Colfax has such a rich history,” Heller adds, “but the area is hurting, and we just want to help out.”

Read the rest of the story at Westword.

Thoreauvian Walking

Henry Thoreau was an inveterate walker, often spending three or four hours in the afternoon sauntering around Concord and Walden Woods. In fact, other than writing prodigiously -- his journal surpasses two million words -- walking could be considered one of his primary occupations. Thoreau was a "saunterer," and one of his most well-known essays is simply titled "Walking."

For someone who struggled with and died early from tuberculosis, Thoreau's sauntering is an impressive ... "feet." And, in the contemporary age we know that walking is one of the most important habits we can establish for both physical and mental health. A recent study has re-established the role that a daily walk of fifteen minutes or more can play in staving off the risks of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Walking for at least 10 or 15 minutes at a time might do more for your health and longevity than spreading your steps out into shorter walks throughout the day, a large-scale new study suggests.

The study, published in October, looked at the effects of how people gather their steps each day, as well as how many steps they take and the associations that these patterns of daily activity might have with risks for heart disease and premature death.

The data showed that middle-aged and older people in the study who grouped some of their steps into walks lasting for 15 continuous minutes or more were about half as likely to develop heart disease within the near term as those men and women who rarely walked for that long at one time. The people taking longer walks were also less likely to die during the years-long study from any cause.

Thoreau walked as a way of life. And he even had a quaint explanation for the origin of the term saunter. We should consider the wisdom of his words:

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.

Fighting the American Revolution Again with Ken Burns

Several years ago on this blog and in my column for The Villager, I told the story of “29 and 0!”. As I was just starting my high school teacher career, a colleague and I heard a voice booming through the doorway into the teacher lounge. It was Tom, a veteran history and government teacher who was also the head baseball coach and a bit of a legend around town for his gruff but engaging presence, as well as his state championships.

When my colleague and friend Jane asked, “Uh, what, Tom? What are you yelling about? What’s 29 and O?” Tom, the high school’s lovable curmudgeon, glanced sideways at us with a suspicious scowl that melted into a mischievous grin. “I’ve been teaching American history for twenty-nine years,” he growled. “I’ve taught the Revolutionary War twenty-nine times.” He paused for effect. “America has never lost! We’re 29 and 0!”

It's in that spirit of teaching history as a living, breathing thing that I am anticipating the long-awaited release of legendary documentarian filmmaker Ken Burns The American Revolution, which premieres on PBS next weekend, November 16. For many historians, history fans, and average Americans feeling a bit anxious about the state of the union, the release couldn't come at a better time. Jennifer Shuessler of the New York Times recently spent time with Burns, exploring the question: "Can Ken Burns Win the American Revolution?"

“The American Revolution is encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality and nostalgia,” he said. But his six-part, 12-hour documentary about the subject, which debuts on PBS on Nov. 16, will aim to strip that away — and hopefully bring some healing to our own fractured moment.

“We say, ‘Oh we’re so divided,’ as if we’re Chicken Little and this is the worst it’s ever been,” he said. “But the Revolution was a pretty divided time. The Civil War was a pretty divided time. Almost all of American history is division.”

Maybe storytelling, he said, can “help short-circuit the binaries we have today.”

The remarks were pure Burns — the kind of sunny all-American optimism that thrills his admirers, and draws eye-rolls among skeptics. But “The American Revolution,” which Burns directed with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, is arriving at a moment when even attempting to bring a unifying story to a broad American middle feels like a radical act.

Speed Dating with a Book

I don't believe that everyone will be a reader if they simply find the right book. That view puts me at odds with many of my fellow English teachers and librarians. Not every person will love to read books or choose to spend their time lost in a novel. However, I do believe in the value of putting a book in someone's hands that might pique their interest. That's especially true for kids.

And for teachers and school librarians, an excellent way to do that is an activity known as "Speed Dating with a Book." When I was an English teacher at a school with one of the best high school libraries I've ever known, I was introduced to the idea from one of our research librarians, and on numerous occasions I began taking my classes, especially freshmen, to the library once or twice a year. By the way, a great day to try this is on Dr. Seuss's birthday, also known as Read Across America Day.

This week I hosted several classes in my beautiful high school library for a few rounds of book speed dating. Basically, students are give three rounds of 10-15 minutes to simply try out a book. I began by setting up six tables with a selection of different genres: sports books, history and historical fiction, YA lit and coming-of-age, great stories, memoir, and action/mystery/thriller. I explained the idea and then "book talked" a couple titles from each table. I also pointed out several displays in the library, including "Great Beach Reads," "Faculty/Staff Recommendations," and "Classic Thrillers."

I would then set a timer and encourage the students to do the classic "book store dance" -- peruse book covers and titles, skim the back cover or flyleaf, and then find a comfy spot to give the book a chance. After about twelve minutes, I'd encourage them to pick a new book, perhaps explore a new genre. And then we'd do a third round. After about forty minutes, I'd offer them the opportunity to check out a book or just go back to class. Yesterday I was "matchmaker" for more than a dozen students who took a book home for the weekend, and hopefully more.

What a great way to spend a day in a high school library.

Here are some titles that went home with a new friend this weekend:

Where the Crawdads Sing

Moneyball and The Blindside

Perks of Being a Wallflower

Carter Finally Gets It

A Child Called It

Book Lovers

Elway -- Punk Band Back with a Message

It's fall in Rocky Mountain region, and Elway is back in play.

No, I'm not talking about the Colorado legend and Hall of Fame quarterback, but I am talking about Denver. More specifically the smokin' hot Denver music scene and the return of the indie-punk band of the same name. Elway, a well-known punk group originally out of the hip music town of Fort Collins, just dropped its first album in years, and this release has a biting, sharp and fresh new angle with a tone for the sound of the times -- a blistering hot LP of political protest. And the band will kick it off with an album release party tonight in Denver at the renowned rock club The Squire Lounge on Colfax Avenue.

Justin Criado, a prolific music chronicler of the Colorado Sound and the local scene, caught up with lead singer Tim Browne to talk about it in this new profile for Westword Magazine, Denver's alt-weekly: Denver Band Elway Goes Deep on New Album

At long last, after eighteen years, Elway put out a politically charged protest record.

But the latest from the Fort Collins-born indie-punk crew — Nobody’s Going To Heaven, released on October 10 via Chicago label Red Scare Industries — isn’t as obviously in-your-face as you’d assume from a genre known for telling Nazi punks to fuck off. It’s a more nuanced approach, with political undertones that highlight the chaos and carnage surrounding the Western world, while still offering an optimistic outlook overall.

Original vocalist-guitarist Tim Browne didn’t necessarily set out to make a record fueled by such fire and fury that went into Nobody’s Going To Heaven initially, and considers it “an indignant dispatch from within the walls of the crumbling empire.” It occurred naturally, he shares; he had no choice but to reflect on what he believes will ultimately lead to a “post-American world.”

“We’ve not really been historically a very political band,” Browne says. “There are some songs about politics, but generally, I’ve tried to avoid it just because I feel like it’s really easy to slide into tropes and platitudes. I’ve always been hesitant about writing about politics and tread lightly when I do.

I am excited for this new album, especially because I wrote a profile on the band about this time last year when the group was in town to record the tracks and played a rare Denver show, their only time appearing in their home state in 2024. At the time, I was a casual fan of the band, but had not yet explored their sound in depth. 

Elway Will Play a Rare Denver Show at the Squire Lounge This Week | Denver Westword

While it has no connection to John Elway, the punk-rock band Elway was once sued by the local football hero, who wanted to block the use of his name. But it’s never advisable to tell a bunch of punks they can’t do something, and the band has been doing what it wants for nearly two decades now.

The boys are back in town this month to record a new album and play a show at the Squire Lounge on Friday, August 16, and Elway fans should take note: This concert will not only showcase new music, but it could be the band’s only local performance in 2024, according to lead singer and songwriter Tim Browne. “We figured everyone is going to be out here, doing rehearsals and pre-recordings through the fall, so let’s do a show,” he explains.

Originally based in Fort Collins, the bandmembers are now spread around the country, with Browne in Denver, guitarist Brian Van Proyen in Johnstown, bassist Joe Henderer in Chicago and drummer Bill Orender in Philadelphia. The group also no longer does nearly 200 shows a year, as it did in its early days.

Elway has been hinting about new music on its Instagram page, and the new LP will be its first album since 2022’s Best of All Possible Worlds, which New Noise magazine called “a musical journey…of melodic punk songs that add elements of rock and roll, pop-punk, [and] skate punk.” Still with the label Red Scare Industries, Browne says the band is “happily marooned.” For the imprint’s twentieth-anniversary compilation album, 20 Years of Dreaming and Scheming, Elway recorded an old song from Red Scare band Sundowner. “We covered the 2006 song ‘Traffic Haze,'” Browne says, an acoustic punk song that “is really beautiful and gorgeous, and we turned it into a Propagandhi-style thrash banger. It’s the first song with blast beats on any Red Scare release.”

While Elway has a classic late 90s post-punk sound and a catalog of songs about the vicissitudes of life and growing up, the group had never been so unapologetically political. But it seems that Browne and the guys have decided they have something significant to say about what's going on in the world, and they are not holding back. And despite the title of the Album "Nobody Going to Heaven," there is definitely a hopeful tone in the criticism. In that way, the album reminds me a bit of my guy Henry Thoreau and my characterization of Thoreauvian Punk.

Check out this release from the new LP:

Wondering what to eat? Ask Marion Nestle

I first ran across Marion Nestle in a documentary film. Supersize Me, the Academy-Award winning film from the late Morgan Spurlock, featured a bizarre experiment and simultaneously delicious and torturous experience eating nothing but McDonalds for thirty days. And like any good documentary, it was filled with commentary and testimony from a variety of players, including nutrition expert Marion Nestle. A longtime professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, Nestle is the sort of calm, pragmatic and infinitely knowledgeable voice that gives deep credibility to any discussion. 

So, what does a person like that eat on a daily basis. The Washington Post recently profiled Nestle and explained: What 89-year-old nutrition expert Marion Nestle eats in a day - The Washington Post

For more than three decades, Marion Nestle has been telling people what to eat.

Nestle, now an emerita professor at NYU, says her time in government opened her eyes to the multi-billion-dollar food industry’s enormous influence over Congress. By the early 2000s, she became a critic of the food industry and an advocate for major food reforms, which she made the case for in best-selling books.

In 2002, Nestle published “Food Politics,” an exposé that argued that the food industry is at the root of many of the country’s nutritional problems. The industry rakes in ever-growing profits by churning out highly processed foods laden with additives, Nestle wrote, and then aggressively markets those foods to children and adults while lobbying against regulations and trying to co-opt nutrition experts.

Over the years, Nestle’s blunt nutrition advice, sharp criticism of food companies and frequent media appearances made her one of the most recognizable names in nutrition. In 2006, she published one of her most popular books, “What to Eat,” which showed consumers how to navigate supermarkets and improve their health by deciphering food labels.

And, in a related piece, The New York Times recently published a feature on 

How to Eat for a Long and Healthy Life. If you've followed this blog for a while, you know that I have been a critic of fast food and a proponent of healthier, more natural eating for ages. Some people note the advice of food writer and social activist Michael Pollan who say, "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much." And there is much wisdom in that simple sentiment. Too many people are eating things that aren't really "food," at least in a natural, organic sense. My first instinct at the store is to flip a product package over and read the ingredient list. And too often these are filled with mystifying materials unnecessary in food production. Like Red Dye No. 40.

More than any one food, it’s your overall diet that matters, Dr. Hu said. He has studied several different eating patterns — including the Mediterranean diet, plant-based diets and diets based on federal guidelines for healthy eating — and has found that all of them are associated with reduced risks of earlier death.

These diets prioritize a variety of unprocessed or minimally processed foods, including plenty of vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, Dr. Hu said. Beyond that, he added, there’s a lot of flexibility in how to eat for healthy aging. “One size does not fit all,” he added.

Thoreau, Leisure, and the One-Day Work Week

 Many people are coming around to the idea of a four-day workweek. But if you ask Henry Thoreau, one day should be sufficient. It's not quite the Four-Hour Work Week claimed by ideas guru and motivational writer Timothy Ferris, but it is a challenge to the daily grind that left so many Americans, in the words of ol' Henry, living "lives of quiet desperation."

Thoreau challenged the idea that man's life must be consumed by work and the pursuit of wages that would allow him to purchase what Adam Smith called "the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life." Whereas Smith and his theories about the new capitalism of the early 19th century used the exchange of labor for that trio as a measurement of a person's "wealth," Thoreau countered that a "man is wealthy in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." Or, in other words, there are two ways to be wealthy: acquire more or require less. 

The way Thoreau phrased it according to his experiment of living life at Walden Pond for two years was:

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.

And in the reference I made to the one day of work, he sardonically -- and in some people's estimation blasphemously -- asserted about the Sabbath:

The order of things should be reversed; the seventh day should be the day of toil...and the other six his Sabbath of the affections and the soul, in which to range this widerspread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature.

The idea of work, and what we are giving up in the constant pursuit of a paycheck was the subject of a piece of commentary in the Washington Post "We should be living in the golden age of hobbies. What happened?"

It’s a first date. The drink in your hand is mostly ice. You’ve talked about your jobs, your days, your dogs. The conversation lulls, and you can feel the question coming. “So,” the person across the table asks, “what do you do for fun?” The answer should be easy. We are supposed to be living in the golden age of hobbies. Great thinkers of the 20th century believed that innovations in technology would make work so efficient that leisure would eclipse labor. In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted 15-hour workweeks by 2030. This would leave people the opportunity to “cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself.”

But the golden age that Keynes predicted has not come to pass. Though productivity has grown dramatically since Keynes’s time, the most recent American Time Use Survey found that full-time employees still work eight hours a day, the same workday that the National Labor Union demanded in 1866. Workers enjoy just under four hours of leisure time, and the bulk of that brief window is spent watching TV. The odds are stacked against hobbies. “Work has been supercharged with meaning and purpose and identity, a charge that it never had, at least for the majority of people,” Hunnicutt said. The seamlessness of streaming and the narcotic effects of scrolling make every other activity feel effortful. To pay the bills, huge swaths of Americans take on “side hustles” during hours that earlier generations might have spent building model trains or singing in a choir.