The period of slow site traffic should be winding down as the second holiday weekend comes to a close, but my year is going to maintain its slow, quiet pace. The combination of the omicron variant and a one-month-old in the household meant another closing of the ranks, so entertainment and edification are going to have to come from within (alternative reading: no curling).
Since there isn't much in the way of baseball news, and I want to wait a day or two for more robust posts to find bigger audiences, I figure I'd use today to share some things I've enjoyed reading and hearing. I'm doing so because I may need your recommendations, especially in the last category.
Books: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
I've previously recommended his two last two books, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, but both of them won Pulitzer Prizes, so that doesn't make me special. Harlem Shuffle is another great one, although unlike the award-winners, it's not so heavy that it requires a clear enough headspace to process them. While it delves into some themes of systemic racism in 1960s New York, it's mostly a heist novel at heart, and Raymond Carney's battle to preserve his straight-and-narrow furniture business and socially mobile family with his less legal pursuits.
(Bookshop.org links; Sox Machine and independent bookstores receive a portion of the sale.)
There was also a line that jumped out to me, and got me thinking about the whole paying-it-forward thing.
Currently reading: Double Plays and Double Crosses: The Black Sox and Baseball in 1920 by Don Zminda, in between reading the Moms on Call series for getting an infant on a schedule.
Music: Parquet Courts, Sympathy for Life
Our joint gift in the household was a hi-fi system with turntable. I could survive without one in Albany because the area lacked a strong record store, but Nashville is awash in them -- did you know it's called the Music City? -- so it grew increasingly irritating to browse through all these great shops with no way to really act on any finds.
The latest Parquet Courts album was my first purchase for it, as I've been playing it plenty over Tidal, and not really skipping any tracks when I'm going for walks of requisite lengths. "Walking at a Downtown Pace" is the single with an immediate hook, but "Just Shadows" has emerged as my favorite song on the album.
Podcast: Nice Try!
It's not quite a spin-off of 99% Invisible, which is my favorite podcast running, but Avery Trufelman is a 99PI alum who has hosted this series for two seasons as part of Curbed. The first season deals with attempts at Utopia, in which I learned the Oneida tableware company has its origins as a free-love society. I'm working my way through the second season, which deals with household products that promised less work, with sometimes counterproductive results.
Cocktail: Paper Plane
It's my go-to cocktail when out, at least if nothing on the signature lists grabs my attention. Then I remembered that we had a mostly full bottle of amaro in our liquor cart, so I've made a few during the holiday week. Equal parts bourbon, amaro, Aperol and lemon juice. Shake it in ice, strain it into a glass. That's it.
Watching: Nothing of import.
Mostly live sports, and even then it's pretty spotty. I've given The Shrink Next Door a couple of episodes, but while it's watchable, I don't have a feeling about whether the payoff is going to be satisfying. But hey, it wouldn't be on brand if I actually beat people to watching shows.
