My 2025 in review

Subjects discussed: Every month, and how it went down

It was a fast year. Too fast, as I revisit my diary and daily life. Events that surely went down in 2022 actually took place in April; emails I meant to send “when I have a moment” ended up sitting in the drafts folder for months at a time. But like last year, and the year before that, I paid attention and I kept track—and before 2025 formally draws to a close, I wanted to share some words about my year in culture, and a few things that made an impact on me, whether they were released in 2025 or not.

Formatting notes: The date in parentheses is the day I associate with it. Sometimes, it’s the day I finished a thing; other times, it’s just the most representative day. If I didn’t list a movie theater, I watched at home. This post has not been fact-checked and if I got anything egregiously incorrect, please email me. For reference, here are similar entries for 2023 and 2024.

January

La Commune (Paris, 1871) (Peter Watkins), Anthology Film Archives (January 4)

I am a man of my time, and I am no better than a demographical plurality of men in these times, which is to say I spent much of the year watching algorithmically-recommended short-form video across TikTok and Instagram Reels. Consuming somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 of these bite-sized clips multiplied my understanding of contemporary society by 4000% and diminished my brain cells by 30%. It is what it is. Who can judge me? You shouldn’t; I’m just like anyone else.

Jokes aside: That fact that some of my free time was partitioned off and dedicated toward this brain-rotting entertainment made me especially conscious of slowing down, and pursuing aesthetic experiences that weren’t so frenetic. The short-form style pushes the consumer toward thoughts and ideas that are more immediate, more direct, more aggressive—and while this is a mindset for many modern circumstances, the old methods are still meaningful. This year, I saw at least four movies in the theater that went past the four-hour mark, which isn’t the same as Ulysses but does require some patience and concentration.

The high point was an Anthology showing of La Commune (Paris, 1871), Peter Watkins’s six-hour experimental docudrama about the revolutionary government that seized power in Paris and lasted two months before its bloody overthrow by the state. Rosie and I approached the screening like a marathon: she brought snacks, and we checked in at intermission about whether we had the stamina to make it through. I’m embarrassed to say I was occasionally sleepy, as I always am in a warm and dark theater, so I floated the idea of breaking away to get dinner. But we locked in, and happily so, as I think the movie really ascends in the second half. Watkins’s concept is to approach the revolution as if a then-contemporary television crew was filming the proceedings, intercut with field interviews and studio commentary from CNN-type talking heads. But there’s also some dynamic fourth-wall-smashing stuff where the actors discuss their experience making the movie, as (I think this is right, I saw it in January) they were allowed to bring their own perspective and research to their characters.

Along with the historical immersion, Watkins provides a not-subtle commentary about how the corporate media distorts reality, salient critique when the film was made at the turn of the century. Conceived of today, “the media” would be just as accurately represented by a Tim Pool or Andy Ngo figure, an independent partisan who presents a heavily slanted version of events to fit an arranged thesis. Pick your poison, I guess. Allowing my 2025 brain to commingle uninterrupted with Watkins’s 2000 perspective on an 1871 event is the point of seeing something like this in a theater, rather than at home; Noah told me he owned the DVD, but with respect I don’t think it would be the same if we had even a single second to think about looking at our phones.

Dave Blunts — Well Dude Here’s the Thing (January 14)

On the subject of short-form content: Earlier in the year I became momentarily obsessed with Dave Blunts, a disconcertingly obese rapper who mostly raps about why the women in his lives are whores and why different men from his hometown are pedophiles. Many of his songs are around or under the 2-minute mark. He has a knack for attaching a very catchy Autotuned melody to some of the most offensive lyrics you’ll ever hear, which is why Kanye West recruited him to co-write the songs “Cousins” (about an incestuous relationship between West and his cousin) and “Heil Hitler” (about loving Hitler). A lot of his music is crude, offensive, and callous; many of his fans seem to both enjoy this, but also cheer on his impending heart failure.

None of this is “good,” either aesthetically or morally, yet I was compelled. The songs are attention-grabbing in a way that makes you turn your head—if only to ask “did this guy just hit a high note on pedophile?”—but I was also enamored because they validated my suspicion that society is racing to the bottom, and that Blunts has become successful because of his instinct for who many members of the listening public want to blame (alleged whores, confirmed pedophiles). This particular record sticks out because I accidentally listened to half a song in my office with my headphones partially plugged in, allowing my coworkers to hear, which felt as bad (when I realized it) as if I’d been watching literal pornography. Seriously, listen to this.

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch), IFC Center (January 25)

Like many, I was fairly taken aback by the passing of David Lynch, another cruel development in a year full of them. Partly it was the circumstances—his chronic illness was triggered by the California wildfires, accelerating his death—but also the sense of foreclosed possibility, as Lynch was still trying to make new work in an industry hostile to originality or risk-taking.

In honor, Jen and I snagged tickets to a midnight screening of Mulholland Drive. This was the first midnight screening I’ve ever seen in my life, worth ruining my sleep for. I’ve seen Mulholland Drive a few times now, and not all that long ago before this, but never on the big screen. It was magical, truly, to watch several scenes scaled up as intended, especially the Club Silencio sequence. A needle drop is sort of an emotional cheat code but turning “Crying” into “Llorando,” with those close-ups of Rebekah Del Rio’s (another 2025 casualty) shivering throat… magnificent, to witness around 1:30 in the morning, wide awake. An audience of people watching two women watch a faked performance, but the feelings—their awe, our awe at their awe—were all real.

February

Lina Wolff — Devil’s Grip (February 7)

My favorite new author I discovered this year was Lina Wolff, a Swedish novelist who also translates Spanish-language novelists and whose books do the whole “meandering European novel thing” (however you’d define that) with a cosmopolitan sexiness that feels completely of their time. This book, for example, has a Game of Thrones reference that comes out of nowhere yet feels completely earned and not cringe, upending any received notions about how books shouldn’t be too modern less they eschew immortality. Well, I like living in real time, in the real world; I like discovering that other writers and artists feel the same.

I enjoyed Carnality the most, which Mary Marge gifted to me on my birthday in 2024. But Devil’s Grip was the third I read, and when you find yourself reading three novels by the same writer in a month, you know you’re cooking with oil. This one is about a toxic couple who can’t quit each other, but Wolff’s trick is to avoid giving us too much backstory (a common trait across her books). No trauma plot, no evil ex, no cleverly-established pretext for why these people act this way. Just two idiots colliding over and over, ruining their lives, like some people I know…

Hard Truths (Mike Leigh) / Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan) (February 15)

Jen and I went out of town for Valentine’s Day, booking a hotel in the Berkshires during what turned out to be a snowy weekend, a great excuse to hole up indoors. In between marital activities, we accidentally programmed a thematically fitting double feature about two miserable human beings, one whose misery radiates outwards (Hard Truths) and another whose misery compresses their inner life, like a garbage compactor turning garbage into denser garbage (Manchester by the Sea). Some movies are about the images; others are about the performances, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Casey Affleck are novels unto themselves, real people carrying real pain.

The more I thought about it, the more the two movies seemed to be in conversation with each other: both portraits of working-class communities, both exploring a sadness cut with true-to-life levity (best line from Manchester: “She can’t talk to us like that”), both about people who can’t move on. I have hope for Pansy, somehow, but not Lee. Other stuff we watched during this getaway trip: El Camino, most of Rush Hour 2, the episode of Archer with Burt Reynolds, because diversity is key in all walks of life.

Pulp — More (February 19)

I was lucky enough to hear Pulp’s new record (their first in a long time) weeks before it was formally announced, at a listening session in a nightclub where Jarvis Cocker put on the record and just let everyone mill about, dancing and talking. Pulp, obviously, have nothing to prove—“Common People” alone would etch them into music history, and then there’s all the other albums and songs. But sometimes a voice can unlock an entire realm of Proustian associations. From the first sound of Cocker on the opening track, “Spike Island,” a portal opened up to a world of louche romanticism, curdled potential, self-aware sighing about the olden days. I liked looking at all the Gen X scenesters in attendance—graying, more wrinkled, but still chic and sexy. May we all be so lucky. This is the Britpop that means something to me, not “Wonderwall.” (Suggested reading: Mina at Pitchfork.)

March

See Friendship (March 4)

When it comes to my own writing, I am not easily satisfied, nor am I conditioned to rest on my laurels. As the year has gone on, I’ve sometimes had to remind myself that I published a novel, that a “very respectable” (my editor’s words) number of people purchased it, that it got some nice write-ups, that I encountered it in several airport bookstores, that I found it in two Amsterdam bookstores, that many readers told me it meant something to them, that I made new friends and forged new connections, that while I haven’t read the book in full since I hit “submit” on my final round of edits I have read enough from it at events without wanting to roll over dead, which is its own reward. I’m really grateful to anyone who’s taken the time to read; I wish I could be “cooler” about it, but that’s the simple truth. Blame social media, my addiction to being online, my discomfort with photo shoots that translates to a lack of writerly mystery. If you wanted to check it out but just couldn’t find the time or money, hit me up and I’ll hook you up.

I could write several essays about the See Friendship process and experience—here’s a dispatch from my Chicago event—but I’d like to focus on the future, and so I’ll soft-launch a quiet piece of news, which is that I’m revising a draft of a second novel, with the hopes of showing it to people who aren’t my wife within the next few months. It’s first-person, and very different from See Friendship. Stay tuned.

Court of Gold (March 14)

(Joe Strummer voice) I’m so bored with the NBA. This is a shame, considering basketball is my favorite sport, but the Bulls suck and will probably suck for a while. I don’t like the Thunder. Luka Doncic is a whiner who doesn’t play defense. Michael Jordan is still the GOAT. Whatever. The last time I really had fun paying attention to basketball was the 2024 Summer Olympics, when the United States played two insta-classic games en route to the gold medal: a comeback win against Serbia, and then the title game against France. It was the first time in my life I’d ever had genuine cause to root for Steph Curry or LeBron James, and when they started knocking on Serbia’s door during their comeback I was stomping the ground and hollering like a dumbass. Incredible stuff.

Netflix’s documentary does a good job capturing the proceedings from the inside, but the transparency of the foreign players proves most absorbing. Evan Fournier, in particular, comes off as someone who is really damaged and bitter about his NBA experience, giving him all the more reason to play lights out for the French national team. And I ended up liking Dillon Brooks a lot, which I hadn’t expected. I wish more rich, famous people would be honest about their feelings. Kevin Durant can be an asshole, but he’s telling the truth about it. We watched the final episode—the one where Steph went off to clinch the gold—in our hotel after my Los Angeles book event, while eating Korean BBQ wings from some random place I’d pulled off Seamless. Not to be a little Treatlerite, but it was the best delivery experience of the year.

Susan Morrison — Lorne (March 29)

With every passing week, the second half of the 20th century feels more like an anomaly than proof of progress—a temporary moment of institutional consensus lashed together by the news business, creative industries in financial adolescence, trusted scientists, and politicians who weren’t actively trying to detonate the system from within. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but it’s just how I feel.

A book summarizing this was Susan Morrison’s epic biography of Lorne Michaels, which doubles as an explainer for how Saturday Night Live created and maintained the modern comedy industry through Lorne’s cult of personality. When he dies, it’s not hard to see the show collapsing down the line, unless a Tina Fey or Colin Jost is also willing to make it their entire life. I’m no big fan of SNL—whenever I watch an episode, I feel like Private Pyle growling in the bathroom—but I appreciate that it exists, that there is a star-making machine that gave us Eddie Murphy and Bill Hader and 30 Rock and Bridesmaids. I don’t think TikTok creators are as good, sorry.

April

Twin Peaks (April 3)

As I look over the list of what I took in this year, one figure is pretty dominant: David Lynch. I didn’t want to make this entire newsletter about him, but facts are facts, so here’s a little more. After he died, I ordered the complete Twin Peaks on Blu-Ray, which took a few months to show up due to production issues. We started the first season in April, and finished The Return in November, meaning we spent most of the year with the show in the background. (A benefit of physical media is that this also included the extras: making-of shorts, cast interviews, production stills, short documentaries, etc.)

Assorted thoughts: Dale Cooper is questionable at his job from the beginning; Dana Ashbrook is an undersung hero of the first season; the second season really isn’t that bad, even in the baggy middle section, because you’re at least spending time with characters we enjoy; James has always been cool; the ending of The Return is still unbelievable; I love Dougie Jones; Kyle MacLachlan should’ve won every award for playing, what is it, five variants of Dale in The Return? When Lynch died, I edited a piece from K. Austin Collins on how for all his work is pigeonholed as “weird” or “abstract,” a vein of pure feeling courses through Twin Peaks. Rewatching the pilot, I was attuned to how the pain of Laura’s death is almost wordlessly transmitted across the community. People don’t even have to be told she’s dead before they burst into tears. It’s incredible to think that Twin Peaks was basically Sheryl Lee’s first role; she’s the glue and the heart for the entire show. In one of the Blu-Ray extras, she tells a story about having her worldview transformed during a trip to Africa that Jen and I still talk about. Bring back physical media.

Betty Harper Fussell — Mabel (April 9)

I wish I had more discipline with my reading, sometimes. Other people can decide they’re going to tear through the classics, or Dostoevsky, or whatever, but sometimes I really do judge a book by its cover. I picked this one up at the Strand for a few bucks because of the snazzy yellow border and excellent tagline: “Hollywood’s first I-don’t-care girl.” I tell myself all serious bookheads are like this; we just love picking up random shit for whatever reason.

The author is a very interesting woman, and this biography of immensely popular silent comic Mabel Normand—a woman who’s all but forgotten today—offered another on-theme vantage point of how things were in the 20th century. I took this one with me to Providence, where I did a book event for See Friendship and celebrated by eating alone at a fancy-ish seafood place before passing out in my hotel room. Like Drake, essentially. Actually, the book tour experience quickly taught me that I’m not built for the life of drunkenly passing out alone in my hotel room; not long after this, I embarked on a cleanse just to get right. Mabel Normand could’ve used that, it turned out.

Sinners (Ryan Coogler), Regal Union Square (April 18)

I’d like to be more easygoing, more accepting, more tolerant of that which annoys me; my life improves whenever I remember it’s a great big world, filled with lots I don’t understand. Sure, it might be easier—and would certainly feel better—to constantly strike the judgmental pose, and fling lightning bolts from high up top the mount. But my politics boil down to one thing: We’ve all got to do our best to get along.

This is a way of saying that I was initially irritated, during my screening of Sinners, to realize that the two women to my left were talking loudly. Call me crazy, but I prefer when people don’t talk during the movie. But then I thought: So what? It’s a sold-out, opening night screening of a sexy vampire movie. I can still follow the action and the dialogue. Maybe it’s kind of fun to yap during Sinners. So I relaxed, moved on, and yapped myself.

When the lights came up, and we exited the row, I discovered two things: 1) the women had polished off a large bottle of Crown Royal, which explains a lot 2) one of them had also left their phone on the seat. I had this brief, intrusive thought along the lines of: If I was really upset at this woman, and also a total asshole, a misanthropic thing to do would be to throw her phone away. I would never do this, to be clear, but some hypothetical Dan Clowes character might have. Instead I picked it up, and after a bit of searching, reunited phone with owner. This drunk woman was so happy, she couldn’t stop thanking me. I felt like I’d done my good deed for the day, and remembered to lighten up.

May

The Surfer (Lorcan Finnegan), Regal Essex Crossing (May 2)

This year’s award for “movie we wouldn’t have seen without Regal Unlimited”: The Surfer, a loopy and psychedelic hang wherein Nic Cage plays a lapsed wave rider who sheds his corporate shell and reconnects with the surf. Cage is always good at losing it, but the Bad Day Getting Worse structure, lava lamp imagery, and very relevant ideas about aggro masculinity makes it a sound watch. Better than Mandy, not as good as Pig.

That said, I don’t know if I could recommend watching it at home. One might ask the purpose of spending time with movies you can’t really recommend, and here the “going outside” aspect is crucial. I tell myself it’s about taking stock of what’s in the world, what ideas are floating around in the ether, what is happening right now. But you take a chance on something that might be worth talking about at dinner (and this was). After the movie let out, we ate Italian food and took the train to a friend’s birthday party. I also, for the first time, seriously entertained the idea of what a Crumbl cookie tastes like, walking by the store open late at night. You don’t see what’s going on by staying at home and queuing up something on streaming. And the random connections are the sweeter ones: a few weeks later we caught Big Wednesday, John Milius’s surfer epic about lifelong friendship and also Vietnam, at Anthology, and the Cage film had perfectly primed us for the resonance of the ocean waves.

Jeremy Kitchen — Mr. Crabby You Are Dead (May 12)

I read a good amount this year—more than 50 books, fewer than 100. Much of that was contemporary, a trend informed by the simple fact that I released a book this year, and came into contact with many people also releasing a book this year. I often thought, rather magnanimously: “I should read this person’s book! Let’s all support each other!” One wants to be polite, though at some point it got a little ridiculous. I like being a literary citizen, but I can’t keep dropping $30 for other people’s hardcovers. (One benefit of See Friendship: It’s paperback-only, which I think is very affordable.)

Still, I did my best, and I did read a lot of great stuff from my peers. I really can’t name every book but some highlights included: Jamie Hood’s Trauma Plot, Jeff Weiss’s Waiting for Britney Spears, Michael Bible’s Little Lazarus, Matthew Specktor’s The Golden Hour. One book I really loved, though, was from 2023: Jeremy Kitchen’s Mr. Crabby You Are Dead, a hilarious novella in vignettes about a Gulf War veteran-turned-punk rock shithead in ‘90s Chicago. Like Nico Walker’s Cherry but funnier and less abrasive. Kitchen talked to me about See Friendship for his podcast with my old friend Susie Swanton, and it seemed only right for me to also check out his book. I read it in a day, and think about it often.

Sufjan Stevens — Carrie and Lowell 10th Anniversary Edition (May 23)

As I get older, I better understand that the nebulously defined genre known as “indie” did mean something to me, that I read Pitchfork (and worked there!) because they covered the music for which I had a natural affinity, not only because I was an insufferable hipster snob. My favorite of all these records is Carrie and Lowell, which turned 10 this year, a portrait of grief as fragile and transparent as a pane of glass. “Fourth of July” still breaks my heart; the demo of “Death With Dignity” is proof of solitary genius. Jen and I listened to the 10th anniversary reissue as we drove out of the city for a weekend getaway, the sky grey and rainy. She had never heard it before, but was transfixed, and in the moment Sufjan seemed to me a Biblical figure, someone put on this earth to absorb and interpret pain for others to better understand their own pain.

I stop short of going that far, because he’s a real person who went through all of that. In interviews about the anniversary, he made comments disavowing the record, stating that he sees it as somewhat exploitative of his mother’s life, and also embarrassing from an artistic standpoint. Who am I to disagree, but I do disagree.

June

Happiness (Todd Solondz), IFC Center (June 7, June 14)

I’d never seen Todd Solondz’s masterfully pathetic tragicomedy Happiness until it was restored earlier this year. I think we all know how good Philip Seymour Hoffman is, but Camryn Manheim was a revelation—a tearful speech she gives over ice cream at a diner might be the movie’s highpoint. The audience was so audibly uncomfortable during a particular scene where Dylan Mulvaney says… things, to his son. I saw it with Dan, and after we ate hot dogs and ran into some friends at the bar. A week later, I saw it again with Jen, and after we hopped on the subway to catch the last Mission: Impossible (really bad, unfortunately) at a different theater. This is was how I prepared for the summer: Watching Happiness multiple times. Dan said I was insane to see twice in one week, given the movie’s relentless bleakness, but I suppose I’m just one crazy-ass motherfucker. This is the best part about going to the movies: Going back to the movies.

French Open: Carlos Alcaraz d. Jannik Sinner (June 8)

As a sports fan, you know when you’re watching something special, an all-time contest of wills and bodies that’ll go down in history as a where-were-you-when event recapped in oral histories and TV documentaries. I’ve only seen a few of these events in my adult life, because they’re very rare, and there’s no faking the real thing.

This year’s French Open men’s championship match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner was the real thing. Tennis is the most personal sport, I think, because it’s two players head-to-head with no teammates to bail them out. Carlos and Jannik are the sport’s two best players, and this was the first time they’d faced off in a major championship final, setting high expectations that they somehow matched. The match had so many twists and turns as they battered away at each other for 5+ hours. Carlos seemed down-and-out, and then he surged back; Jannik seemed flustered, but then he locked in and found another level; the shot-making, pace, and athleticism had me and millions others falling out of our chairs. Jen was traveling, and couldn’t watch it live, and the thread with our friend Sam looked something like this:

Tennis fans knew Carlos and Jannik were great players, and possible future legends, but this match was instantly canonized. I sometimes watch the highlights just to reacquaint myself with the concept of maintaining grace under pressure. I talked about it so much that Jen got irritated at me and ended up watching the replay the next day. I hope they play 200 more times.

David Leaf — Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, and the California Myth (June 17)

In the middle of June, we flew to California to attend the funeral for Jen’s uncle. It wasn’t long after Brian Wilson died, and I picked up this unofficial, not-all-that-objective biography of the Beach Boys that mostly centers on their founder’s singular genius. We touched down in Los Angeles, rented a car, and drove up the coast to Santa Barbara, during which we listened to Sounds of Summer and enjoyed that California sun. The book makes the case, teased in the title, that the idea of California was basically generated wholesale by Wilson’s musical imagination. It’s not a bad theory, when you close your eyes and enter the world conjured by “Surfer Girl,” “I Get Around,” “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Wilson had a very difficult life, but he transmuted some of that pain into creating a golden fantasyland—summertime Narnia. Speaking of the disappearing 20th century: There’s one we’re not going to see again.

July

Superman (James Gunn), Regal Essex Crossing (July 11)

I like Superman more than most superheroes: the immigrant metaphor origin story, the strong patriotic colors, the foundational optimism and decency that resists most edgy or dark takes on the character. Captain America is meant to stand for something fundamental about the American spirit, but Superman sums up the entire human experiment. Other superheroes are more popular now, and of the many Superman movies released in the 21st century, none have struck the right tone without becoming too cloying, or too complicated, or too Zach Snyder-y.

James Gunn’s take has the upbeat tone and spunky performances but is stubbornly indebted to the demands of establishing an “extended universe,” that revenue-generating thing sought by all movie studios. I didn’t mind in theaters—if nothing else, a repeated theme of this newsletter is “damn, I love going to da movies”—but “the Engineer” is not something to bore audiences with, and a rewatch on a plane didn’t click. A bad feeling, watching the Supergirl trailer a few months later; too much to follow, and not enough reason why. Just make something I can recommend to my mom, you know? But I continue hoping for something better because I really do like the character, and because also like the character I believe in the potential of the better. It’s not like I only look for this feeling in superhero movies.

AEW All In: Texas (July 12)

My interest in modern wrestling has been on life support for a few years, but I got back in shape during the lead-up to All Elite Wrestling’s massive summer PPV. The main attraction was the fifth match between Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada, who put on four of my favorite ever matches between 2017 and 2018 for New Japan Pro Wrestling. The short of it: Okada was the blue chip cocky good guy defending his territory; Omega was the devious, athletically transcendent antihero with an anime flair. Their tetralogy was once-in-a-generation event viewing; if I wanted to watch these matches live I had to wake up around 4 in the morning, but every time I felt like I was listening to a brand new Beatles record. I know that sounds fucking stupid, but these matches were that good.

A fifth match, held in the United States, is the type of thing I would’ve once traveled for. But it didn’t shake out this time, so Sam and I just ordered pizza and a lot of beer before settling in for a PPV that lasted nearly six hours. (I fell asleep somewhere in the middle; Sam was kind enough not to say anything.) When they first wrestled, Omega and Okada were respectively in their early 30s and late 20s. Nearly a decade has passed, and they’re just not as fast or crisp as their younger selves, but they wisely catered to their current strengths. Wrestlers are athletes, and like athletes they’re subject to the limitations of their bodies, which creates an unfair expectation of how they might have performed when they weren’t so beat up. I wanted more, yet it wasn’t disappointing. Their match built on the audience’s memory of what they’d done in the past but remained faithful to who they are now. Not every artist gets to develop a late style, so appreciate it when you can. The match also taught me is that I’m transitioning from “losing interest” in wrestling to “aged out altogether,” because once these guys go away I’m not sure if anyone can make me care in the same way. Certainly not enough to wake up at 4 in the morning.

Blue Moon (Richard Linklater), Sony screening room (July 23)

Blue Moon is a hard movie for me to recommend. Rick Linklater is the GOAT, but this one-scene biopic of Lorenz Hart feels more like a long play than a film. Also, I can’t buy Ethan Hawke as a short guy with a combover. That said: The film has a lovely hangdog energy as Hawke bums around a bar, waxes on art and friendship and longing, and gets pathetically drunk before embarrassing himself.

As I type that out, though, obviously I can recommend the movie. I’m not better than this. Hawke is to Linklater what Kyle MacLachlan is to David Lynch, a personified vessel for all his best ideas, and their collaborations always opine on art, friendship, longing, embarrassment. I like when directors have their fixations, and Linklater’s romance for other people is personally inspiring. I want to keep the same love and curiosity as I get older. Still, one continues to wonder: Is Hawke less believable as a bald man or as a short man? Is it possible to be so handsome and charismatic than even the powers of acting cannot make you plausibly unsexy? Is Margaret Qualley too unbelievable to make you believe? Is Oklahoma really that bad?

August

Norman Maclean — A River Runs Through It (August 10)

Before See Friendship came out, I spent a lot of time agonizing about how to get the word out, which influencers needed to get a copy and what emails I needed to send. The truth is that the real thing that sells a book is word of mouth—not a great review, or an astute critical essay, or even excellent window placement in the store. (I grant there are lots of exceptions, but do me the honor of not disagreeing.) Real people have to tell other real people: “Hey, you should check this out.” In that sense, realizing this was a tremendous relief because it meant the book could only speak for itself.

I know this because it’s how I find out about books, by listening to people who I trust. Case in point: David gave Megan a copy of this book, which influenced Jen to do the same for me during a random week in August. (RELATIONSHIP PRO TIP: Buy off-season gifts for your partner, to be sweet.) I think the ending of the title story is the most moving thing I read all year. I’m moved now, thinking about it. Buy it! Buy it now!

Gracie Abrams — The Secret of Us (August 11)

Every relationship has its dum-dum shared language, and here’s a morsel from mine: Whenever I’m trying to put a cheery spin on “it is what it is,” which as you know from reading this newsletter is something I love to say, I’ll sing the first line of the chorus to Gracie Abrams’s “I Love You, I’m Sorry.” That’s just the way life goes. It started as a bit, but obviously I must like the song if the line—dramatic, cutesy—is stuck in my head. Abrams is from the new school of Zoomer singer-songwriters raised on Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift, mixing cool-girl aloofness with diaristic detail. Rudely, you might say it’s music for Disney adults who went to liberal arts colleges.

Yet I like her, I guess. Whatever. It is what it is. It’s easier than ever for culture to meet somewhere in the middle, which Abrams does. Never before have I sensed such blurred lines between the mega-popular and the underground, not when it’s all on Spotify. But I think a good mantra for 2026, and these times in general, is to keep part of yourself away from the algorithms and the recommendations of the crowd. Get a little abstruse, and like Doug Martsch said, keep it like a secret. Funny thing to say in a blurb about Gracie Abrams, but you know what? That’s just the way life goes.

Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee), Regal Union Square (August 17)

You’d better believe I beelined for the one-week theatrical window (or whatever) for the latest Spike-Denzel collaboration, a 21st century retelling of Kurosawa through the lens of gentrifying Brooklyn and the sink-or-swim dynamics of the modern music industry. I thought you could read Denzel’s stubbornness as self-critical commentary on the stick-in-the-mud new money old guard, who got rich selling the cutting-edge then pulled up the ladder. The prominent pro-Kamala poster in his son’s bedroom suggested as much, to me. But Spike has a conservative streak, too, and that the sneering rapper villain (a perfectly cast A$AP Rocky) gets his comeuppance—not just morally but when old-as-hell Denzel beats him in a fist fight—suggests the self-criticism only goes so far.

Fair enough, to the haters. But Rocky gets the last laugh, IMO, because his in-character song “Trunks” sticks in your head during and after the film. Pack out the trunk from the front to the back. Pack out the trunk from the front to the back. Pack out the trunk from the front to the back. I love it. The tape doesn’t lie, no matter what Spike wants to insist is true about “Sula C. Sing.”

September

Hollow Knight: Silksong (September 5)

I am about as good at video games as you can be without trying to be “good at video games.” My three decades (Jesus!) of familiarity with a controller has fermented a baseline of competence, allowing me to adjust to most games through instinct and repetition. There’s a bit of “does unc still got it?” at play when I approach a game like Silksong, which was instantly declared one of the hardest-ever games upon its surprise release in September. I was proud to discover that unc did, in fact, still have it; my not-yet-decayed reflexes and pattern-recognition skills allowed me to complete the game with a modicum of effort and elbow grease. Like Hades II, Silksong improves on its predecessor by partially reinventing its formula, which is really impressive when you consider how many sequels (in video games and elsewhere) just try to do the same thing twice.

The challenge of learning from your mistakes and finally overcoming an obstacle is one of the best-available gaming highs, and Silksong is probably the best game I played this year. One exception: I cheesed the Groal the Great boss fight, because I don’t have time for that.

Doris Lessing — The Golden Notebook (September 10)

Many people in the world are, I think, experiencing an extended phase of “not-knowing,” guided by unsure thoughts about society, America, other people, the world, the future, more or less everything. It’s all on the table. The hopes and dreams of a generation or two seem permanently deferred. The Trump administration is taking a wrecking ball to decades of progress, and the opposition spends half its time bickering about shit that happens on Twitter. Feelings of confusion, and exhaustion, accompany the sense of fear that comes from looking at what you’ve done, and measuring it against what happened in the bigger world. Did I make the right choices? Was I too naive, too dumb, too optimistic? Was the answer there all along?

It was in this season that I read Doris Lessing’s opus about an ex-socialist single mother in postwar Britain examining the particulars of her life, and her faded ideals, and what she still believes in, and wondering how to weave together all the disparate strands into a single narrative that helps her understand herself. Earlier in the year, Jen read Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, which strongly shaped my ideas about writing and literature as a young man. We had such a good time talking about it—she really enjoyed it, and I know it fairly well—that I wanted to read a book that strongly shaped her ideas about writing and literature as a young woman. The Golden Notebook was that book—idea-rich, immensely moving, filled with beautiful and unpretentious prose. Jessi said something nice re: how the book is about “leftist defeat, gender defeat, struggle for honesty in defeat, passing thru defeat to something else,” all of which felt very fitting for 2025.

It’s long, and some parts don’t really work, and I’m sure a ruthless editor would today shave off a few hundred pages—but on the other hand, go to hell. I like novels where it really feels like I’m living inside the writer’s head, working through all the things they’re working through. The Golden Notebook feels deeper than fiction; it reads like immersion in another consciousness, struggling with a version of the things we struggle with today. I’m very happy I read it.

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson), Regal Union Square + Regal Essex Crossing (September 25, September 27)

Fitting, then, that while I was immersed in The Golden Notebook, my favorite movie of the year tackled defeat in a very different way. Movies aren’t immersive consciousness manifestos; they instead offer brief windows into emotions, and entire ways of being, through a shot or gesture. Sensei confidently walking through his apartment complex, handing out orders; Willa deciding, in the moment, to trust her training and go with Deandra; Sean Penn’s brimming hatred of Republicans coming through in his performance as Lockjaw; Bob slowly picking up on the subtle nods of the undercover revolutionary in the hospital; Perfidia trying, and failing, to stop herself from leaving her family; Locke’s dad from Lost, as a Christmas Adventurer, silently and smugly communicating his villainous entitlement to maintaining the status quo. Faces never looked so good on a screen. I loved watching these people on both sides of the wannabe fascistic ethno-state, guided by PTA’s uncanny feel for pacing. The Terminator 2 homage at the climax is one of the most inspired car chase sequences I’ve ever seen. The skaters on the roof; the “Dirty Work” needle drop; “life!” Expecting all the answers from a Leonardo DiCaprio film is one way to set yourself up for failure, but here’s two lines that feel nice for 2026 and beyond: “Let’s do a selfie” and “Don’t go dark on me, Bob.”

October

Peacemaker season 2 (October 11)

I didn’t expect to write about two James Gunn productions on this list, but that’s just the way life goes. The flip side to Gunn’s unabashed earnestness—not a bad quality, for Superman!—is a potty-mouthed, violent streak that to me is very Gen X, in a sort of “I’m a badass who drinks whiskey and loves guns” t-shirt type of way. It’s a vibe I’m familiar with, as a Chicago native. (Sorry to whom this offends.) I must stress that I don’t want to moralize about this—I just think it’s kind of lame and uncool.

Yet I unexpectedly got into Peacemaker, which I started when Jen was out of town and I was looking for something in the not-too-good, not-too-bad middle to pass the time when necessary. Allowed the length of a TV series, Gunn’s ensemble cast gives a series of charismatic performances: Not just John Cena but Danielle Brooks, Tim Meadows, Robert Patrick, Freddie Stroma, David Denman. The macro question of the show’s second season was sort of interesting: What’s the most you would sacrifice for your perfect life? Cena, as the down-on-his-luck vigilante Peacemaker, thinks he’s worked that out for himself, before a hilarious swerve (spoiler: his perfect life only exists in a world where the Nazis won) forces him to re-evaluate. Docked a few points every time they dribbled in too much of the extended DC universe stuff, but whatever.

Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper), Park Avenue screening room (October 18)

I like Bradley Cooper. I think it’s cool that a hot A-lister wants to make interesting, human-driven movies. So what if he’s not Warren Beatty or Clint Eastwood? Nobody is. A Star Is Born should’ve swept the Oscars; Maestro didn’t work for me, but it’s fine. Is This Thing On? is a savvy reduction in scope and ambition, an over-the-shoulder journey through New York’s comedy clubs through the eyes of sad-eyed, paunchy-but-sexy Will Arnett as a divorced dad who discovers self-expression on the stage. A Grade-A hack would’ve cast himself as the aspiring comedian, but Cooper instead plays “Balls,” a small-time actor and family friend whose introduction is a pratfall onto a bag of groceries that made me burst out laughing. I like “Balls,” Arnett, Laura Dern as the wife. Ridiculous ending, but one you can laugh about. Cooper’s movies aren’t vanity projects; he’s digging at something deeper about why people make art, and largely pulling it off.

After we wrapped up, we rendezvoused with some friends at a fancy loft party sponsored by the drink brand Ghia where we met Titus Welliver, the excellent actor who plays Bosch and many others. Nice guy. This has nothing to do with Bradley Cooper or his movie, and I’m a little embarrassed mentioning it now—who do I think I am, dropping these names?—but that’s why one lives in New York: to have a totally pleasant conversation with Bosch about One Battle After Another.

Yi Yi (Edward Yang), Filmtheater Kriterion (October 25)

I spent many of the year’s mornings, nights, and weekends working on a first draft of my second novel, and fantasizing about having the time to write during the day. The book is partly set in Amsterdam, and as luck would have it, I found myself nearing the end of my draft right as I had an excuse to go there. My uncle, who has lived in Amsterdam for decades, turned 80 years old at the beginning of October, and his wife organized a surprise party to celebrate. Jen couldn’t come, and so I used the occasion to self-fund my own retreat, intent on doing a tremendous amount of writing when I wasn’t spending time with him. Spoiler: It was a great success, because it turns out I’m extremely motivated when I have time and nowhere to be. I generated something like 15,000 words in a week, some of it probably awful, but all of it helpful material.

The only day I didn’t work was when I landed in town after a red-eye, sleepless and haggard, desperate to check into a hotel that didn’t have space for me until the afternoon. To pass the hours, I drank two coffees and ate two sandwiches at a cafe, revised an old piece of writing, then lucked into the perfect time-killer: a screening of Yi Yi at the nearby student-run movie theater. This was what I needed, a long film I’d seen before that would probably put me to sleep for a while. Due to my weary state, I was immediately and unexpectedly moved by the opening sequence at the wedding. It’s a moving film, but I was sitting there with tears streaming down my face as the grandmother complained about being old (setting up the ending!!!) and Yang-Yang fussed after being teased by the girls his age. And then I fell asleep for a while, popping up here and there to cry and laugh more. With about 40 minutes left, it was time for me to check in, so I got up, beelined for the hotel, and passed out for three hours.

November

Pluribus (November 10)

I have a potentially apocryphal memory of a Twitter mutual once criticizing Breaking Bad by declaring that all the show had going for it was an ability to raise the stakes and tension. That’s like complaining your steak is too juicy, as the kids say. I don’t think Pluribus is as good as Breaking Bad but I appreciate Vince Gilligan’s eye for a shot, and ability to think through all the minor details.

I feel like the arc of my life is gravitating toward the collective while better distinguishing what makes me, Jeremy, myself. I don’t know how I’d feel if I, like Carol Sturka, woke up on the outside of a beatific and peaceful hive mind. After eating dinner with Michael Jordan and Thomas Pynchon, and accessing top-secret government files to learn who really shot JFK, I’d take a moment to think about it. But I don’t know if I’d be rushing to put society back the way it was. Something for me, and others, to think about in 2026: Do I still believe in humanity at scale? If not, then what next?

Erin Somers — The Ten Year Affair (November 16)

I ripped through Erin’s hilarious and moving account of an imaginary affair in upstate New York in a couple of days. Less than two weeks later, Jen and I had a long conversation about how we are not moving to upstate New York under any circumstances. Art: Changing lives for the better.

Black Friday: Chicago Bears d. Philadelphia Eagles (November 28)

I still do not understand the game of American football, funny to admit given that I’ve watched dozens—hundreds?—of games over the years, and dispassionately skimmed countless box scores. I do not gamble, and I do not play fantasy football; I have no tactical understanding of how the sport is played, and derive no aesthetic pleasure from any element of the gameplay save for when the quarterback launches the ball into outer space, where it hangs for decades before somehow falling into his teammate’s hands. Yet I watch, and I remain dumb. Granted I understand football more than my friend Dan, who has possibly never watched a single sporting event in his life, but he’s purposefully ignorant. Meanwhile I’ve spent hundreds—thousands?—of hours directly or abstractly pondering the concept of “football,” and still can’t tell you much about what makes a player any good beyond “he runs fast?”

But I’ve absorbed other things, by paying attention to football. How some men talk to each other; how other men aspire to talk to other men; how a player’s personal conduct and individual morality literally does not matter if they are good at football, making the star player someone who lives outside the law; how the boyish enthusiasm of the players during an especially exciting game is the most coveted emotion of all. Statistically speaking, there is nothing that Americans love more than watching a group of men in colorful uniforms jump up and down after winning the big one. I have thought about it deep and hard, and it’s not even a competition.

It’s not that football is monolithically popular; plenty of Americans don’t know, or care, who Patrick Mahomes is. “Football” isn’t putting up Zohran-in-Bushwick numbers. But the emotions and attitudes it captures are more relevant to the national mood than, say, basketball or tennis. Most NFL professionals do not seem like worldly men, but they’ve mastered the game’s visual-poetic argot of call signs that determine how any given play unfolds. Peyton Manning screaming “Explode Gun Rubber; Right Flip Zebra Skat; Left Wide Drag; X Hook; F Trail; KAN! Fifty-Two; Sprint Jaw Easy; On 2 On 2; Ready Break!” (a phrase I’ve cribbed from a Reddit transcript) is no easier to understand than the first page of Gravity’s Rainbow. This highly technical slang is applied toward a game of immense aggression, with almost every individual play reifying the hoary truism that “football is war”—not just in the way the bodies smash together in the dirt, but in the convoluted jargon that justifies the central carnage. The essential fact of these guys getting brain damage with every collision is obscured, just a little, by the fixation on whether said brain damage occurred because the slot ran the wrong slant and was blindsided by the Mike in man coverage.

Almost every football game is played on Sunday, the same as when most Americans go to church. Football time is sacred, a respite from regular time. If you’ve ever watched an NFL telecast, you may note the reverential tone of the commentators, the way the players are treated as gladiators waging some epic battle. Not so long ago, it was common for thoughtful people to speculate how the end of football was coming, because the game’s impact on the brain health of young Americans could no longer be ignored, and surely our collective conscience would kick in. This prediction turned out to be laughably, hysterically wrong. Instead, football is more popular than it’s ever been, and if the players are gladiators it’s not because of some metaphorical violence enacted on the field, but because they are willingly and silently sacrificing their bodies for our entertainment.

Of course this is never talked about during a game, nor are politics, or the war, or the protests, or the climate. It would be rude to say this. Football is so popular because it does not talk about that which would be inconvenient to consider. One casual understanding of a “woke” person is someone who is always being irritating about some pet issue, but the opposite of that is someone who doesn’t talk about anything—who represses, and ignores, and insists everything is alright. While I acknowledge the so-called “wokest friend in the room” is often irritating, I know which perspective makes me feel more insane.

This is a long way of saying that I’ve explained to a dozen people in the last few months that thousands (millions?) of NFL fans sincerely think Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is a homosexual because he paints his fingernails. The literary man is more dead than you can possibly imagine.

December

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (Quentin Tarantino), Regal Union Square (December 5)

December is a month for movies. All months are months for movies, really, but the combination of cold weather and compressed holiday time—this year, we had two weeks before Thanksgiving and Christmas travel—makes me extra serious about staying inside. At the beginning of the month I commandeered an elite group of guys to see the reissued Kill Bill, combined into one volume with a surplus of new material. Jack ended up bailing at the last minute due to something called “having dinner with my wife’s parents,” so Bailey, Billy, and I strapped in for the full 4.5 hours. I sat next to a Zoomer teen there with his parents, who air drummed whenever the music got really exciting. As usual for Tarantino it’s a cool movie, buoyed by some electric casting (Uma, Madsen, Carradine) and unreal action sequences. Downsides: the insistence on vengeance without forgiveness, the ugly sexism laundered through characters we’re supposed to find “gross” but end up seeming like an intrusive thought made flesh, the whole Superman speech.

Still, very fun. Always interesting to revisit a movie you worshipped as a young person and understand that you’re now in your late 30s. Maturity is cool. On a related note, Jeremy and I saw a double feature of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back in January, and after we walked out I thought to myself, “Fun, but I’m done with Star Wars forever?” I knew that, I think, but it was nice to confirm it anew. Baby Yoda still leaves me dead.

Reds (Warren Beatty) (December 6)

The second movie that Bradley Cooper directed was Maestro; the second movie that Warren Beatty directed was Reds. Unbelievable, that a 3-hour romance of American communists was funded and released by a major studio, but it happened, and similar to The Golden Notebook and One Battle After Another there’s much to chew on re: the subject of dashed dreams about the betterment of humanity. Disappointment and defeat are evergreen feelings for the idealist, perhaps. There’s a lot of scenes where a guy just yells about his particular strain of socialist ideology; same as it ever was.

But what a romantic film—“red” as the color of one’s politics, but also in the Swiftian sense. Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton do things with their faces that all lovers should mimic. The framing device of using interstitial interviews with old communists to frame the main narrative as ancient history—genius, and also sad. The third movie that Warren Beatty directed was Dick Tracy. Life is surprising and unexpected, always.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (James Cameron), Regal City North (December 20)

I’ve been talking about Avatar all month to people who express genuine surprise that I am talking about Avatar. I don’t know how it happened. One minute you’re falling in line with “Avatar made no cultural impact” groupthink, the next minute you’re talking about Sigourney Weaver’s subtle choices as Kiri, the Na’vi teenager born to her genetic clone. (Too much to explain, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) In Chicago, Jen and I treated my mother and her partner to an IMAX screening—they hadn’t seen the second movie, but it didn’t matter. Big Jim makes his films for everyone to drop in and get the idea.

The thing about Avatar is that you have to go to the theater to see Avatar—it looks roughly 5000000% better than if you queue it up on streaming at home. Ironic, that a movie filmed entirely on screens constitutes modern cinema’s best argument for going outside. It’s a movie of pure experience, dropping you right into a believable alien world and moving relentlessly from set piece to set piece, emotion to emotion. I loved it unabashedly. I think movies about the importance of family, the dangers of colonialism, and the necessity of principled action are allowed to make a lot of money. It makes every other big screen blockbuster of the 21st century look like total shit.

Avatar’s biggest cultural contribution, actually, is that everybody sees Avatar. No small thing to create a monocultural phenomenon, in this era of atomized communities and fractured attention. That’s what this newsletter is about, really. I like to check stuff out, and I like to talk to other people about that stuff—not on some arrested development fanboy shit (I hope not!) but as a real way of getting outside my head.

After my editor gave me the first sales numbers of See Friendship, I had a feeling of great appreciation. There’s so many demands on people’s time in the world, and some of them spent that time on my book. They sat with my thoughts and ideas, and whether they loved it or hated it or fell somewhere in the middle, they worked out their own feelings for themselves. The reader brings themself to a book; the viewer brings themself to a movie; there’s no objective meaning, just a bunch of half-formed things bouncing off each other and combining in strange but fitting ways. Hopefully this newsletter did something similar for you.

Final thoughts

• The piece of writing I’m most proud of, in 2025, was my ~85,000 word novel. Again, here’s the link. But some other highlights:

  • pieces on Jordan Castro’s Muscle Man, the late Hulk Hogan, being a wife guy, the King of the Hill reboot, and the male literacy crisis for The Atlantic

  • an essay for GQ about Challengers and male friendships

  • a piece for LitHub on literary friendships

  • Interviews with the Creative Independent, Interview, Defector, and Jenny Zhang’s newsletter about See Friendship

• Resolutions for 2026: finish revising my second novel; find 2-3 karaoke songs in my vocal range; read at least one 700+ page book; learn how to bake carrot cake

• The best thing I ate in 2025 was the bandeja paisa at Brasa Roja in Chicago.

• If you made it to the end, I love you