Actually, small talk is good.
A defense of asking people how their day is going and reflections on music I was into this year.
I’ve battled with how to engage strangers, both when I am working and in the wild. One could call it laziness but I’ve begun to stray away from asking guests how they’re doing upfront. I find the whole hey-how’s-it-going, good-how-are-you exchange to be unnecessarily disingenuous. You don’t have to play around. Someone walks into a coffee shop, they probably want coffee.
What I have started to do instead is begin with the business end — i.e. ask questions, get answers, shake hands, kiss babies — before delving into the small talk. Part of it is that brainrot is slowly eating away at our collective intelligence and attention spans. But separate from that, it now feels like people think small talk is the devil’s work. I get it, sometimes you just don’t have the energy for it. Maybe you just want your coffee or expensive sandwich so you can go home and scroll your phone in peace. But never?
Recently at work, I have been asking my regulars if they have any plans for the holidays. Some of them are pleasantly surprised, some almost shocked that we show any interest in their lives outside of our four walls, and others are excited to gush about the time they’re planning with friends and family. There are some guests who don’t care for interacting and just want to make a transaction, that’s fine. There are also some guests that feel like they are impeding on us as human beings when they walk into our coffee shop (where we serve coffee) and order a coffee (which we make). Obviously I’m not over the moon every single moment I am working but I’ve realized that being good at the actual work part can only be fulfilling to a certain point. You get so good at something you forget that you’re supposed to be serving people and not necessarily just serving a commodity. It’s nice to serve people.
Outside of work, I’m not necessarily striking up conversation with a stranger every time I walk out of my apartment but I have been making a conscious effort to at least acknowledge someone. I try to say hello or good morning to people in my elevator, a nod or a greeting if I make mildly awkward eye contact on the street, holding a door or the elevator for somebody. Cosmically speaking, insignificant interactions that people forget anywhere from a minute to a day later. Personally, I just like it. I’ve felt better this year focusing more on people other than myself. Be the change, as they say.
Reading is hard.
I have been trying to read more lately and boy, that shit is NOT going well. I’ve been lucking out and getting free books from 50 Free Books, an organization that is aptly named. Every month, they give out fifty copies of a book from authors from marginalized backgrounds — e.g. POC, queer, disabled — via their newsletter. They purchase the books from A Good Used Book, a very cool bookstore in Echo Park run by two sweeties whose name I forget.
Random anecdote: I purchased my copy of Rosecrans Baldwin’s Everything Now from A Good Used Book when they were still a residency and not a brick-and-mortar. Similarly, I have not finished that book. I have, however, read the first 100 pages at least two or three times. It’s a great time! Also, Rosecrans has a really great Substack which is one of my favorites to read. (I do, in fact, actually read a handful of Substacks. My brain is intact enough for that.)
I would go as far as to say that, at least subconsciously, Rosecrans’ weekly mail inspired me to even bother opening up Substack and writing to you guys. On that note, I’ll also shout out Fran Hoepfner, another great writer with frequent transmissions.
Any way, I’ve gotten two books from them and I have not read either of them. I’ve found that I think reading is nice in the same way that I think smoking cigarettes is cool. Well, I don’t smoke and my brain is fucking fried. I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions for all the various trite reasons: incredibly arbitrary, pretty cliche, very uninspiring, etc. That said, I am trying to make some, however minimal, concentrated effort to read books. My brain chemistry needs it and I have a lot of books.
My favorite music of 2024 that’s not from 2024.
Kevin and I have let this blog gather dust but come on, you thought we wouldn’t still make some end-of-the-year lists? Get real.
These half-baked meditations on small talk and reading — which I have been (kind of) thinking about, to be clear — were really just a vehicle for me to sneak some music talk in here. Classic smoke screen technique. I don’t know if the numbers would support this feeling but I feel like I listened to more music this year than I did last. I definitely listened to music with more intentionality rather than passivity. Actively sought new stuff, purposefully revisiting work rather than just using it as a background.
Below are five albums I listened to a lot this year that aren’t from this year.
Alan Palomo, World of Hassle
I liked this record when it came out late last year but I’ve really come to love it this year. Funny, charming, sexy but in a kind of nerdy way. (Unsure if that’s a compliment or an insult. I guess that just makes it sophisti-pop.) Half the stuff here is earworm material, especially the singles. Sometimes I just think to myself, “All night with the raaaaadio on…”
Big Thief, Masterpiece
I used to like Capacity more but my pendulum swung back to Masterpiece this year. The sadness on here is incredibly real and piercing. Adrianne Lenker has the perfect voice, tone, and delivery to adequately convey the depth that lyrics on songs like “Paul” want to, and do, convey. Sadness marinating in a messy package with slow, heavy riffs.
Charli xcx, Pop 2 / how i’m feeling now
Listened to a lot of Charli this year, even excluding brat. It has brought me a lot of joy — and some smug validation — to see people revisit and give how i’m feeling now the flowers it deserves. Justice for “claws”!
I don’t love Pop 2 as much as I did when I first heard it in college but “Unlock It” is one of my most listened-to songs this year. Not kidding when I say it may be one of the best pop songs of the 2010s. The opening 20 seconds are divine, pop perfection. Roller coaster ride, in the fast lane, got the roof down, kiss me hard in the rain.
Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury
This year, I realized that nostalgia was poisoning my brain and letting me think that Lord Willin is my favorite Clipse album. I can’t lie: the only reason I got on a Clipse kick was because of the Pharell x Lego movie — it’s not very good but it’s memorable, for sure — but regardless, I had a great, solid month where I listened to this almost every day.
I’ll never agree with the criticisms of Pharrell and/or The Neptunes’ beats being repetitive loops. Sure, that’s what they are literally speaking but imagine having a criticism like that when “Keys Open Doors” or “Chinese New Year” sounds like that. One of the flyest albums ever. Imagine being too huge of a dork to appreciate “Pyrex stirs turn into Cavalli furs.” Couldn’t be me.
Rina Sawayama, Rina
Still makes me sad that she didn’t blow up the way I expected or wanted her to. Rina is medium-capacity stadium music, identity politics music that somehow manages also to be really great pop music. “Ordinary Superstar” and “Take Me As I Am” should’ve been getting yelled out in college basketball stadiums by chronically online teenagers and similarly online, disenchanted millennials.
“Cyber Stockholm Syndrome” is indisputably one of the, at worst, five best pop songs of the 2010s. Clarence Clarity, please come home and save our girl.