→ July 4, 2021
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Music update, June 2021.

Life is busy here, in good ways, and with the draft now just a week away I’ve been extremely preoccupied … but the good new music keeps coming, so here’s a new playlist for you.

CHVRCHES featuring Robert Smith – How Not to Drown. I did not see this collaboration coming. So many pairings of current artists with some of their heroes from prior generations only serve to highlight how the older artists have lost their fastballs – especially singers whose voices have started to go. Smith sounds the same as ever, and this is the second great CHVRCHES single ahead of their upcoming fourth album.

Gang of Youths – the angel of 8th ave.GOY are stars in their native Australia, but they might be a little too indie to see that kind of success here. There’s some Echo & the Bunnymen, The Church, and even early U2 in here.

Wolf Alice – How Can I Make It OK? Blue Weekend is one of the best-reviewed albums of the year … and I think it’s good, but it has some of the same issues I had with Visions of a Life. When Wolf Alice rocks, they rock. When they slow things down, the formula doesn’t work as well. That’s not a universal truth – “Safe from Heartbreak” is a 150-second acoustic track that has a strong hook in the chorus, and “How Can I Make It OK” has a slower tempo but is boosted by a big guitar riff. I just like their music best when they let it rip.

Little Simz – Rollin Stone. I’m all in. Little Simz’ new album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, comes out on September 3rd, and the songs she’s released so far make me think it’s going to be her best yet.

Tom Morello, The Bloody Beetroots, Pussy Riot – Radium Girls. Morello and the Italian electronic duo The Bloody Beetroots have an EP coming out in the fall called The Catastrophists, featuring this track co-written by Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, Savages’ Jehnny Beth, and frequent Morello collaborator Carl Restivo.

YONAKA – Raise Your Glass. YONAKA’s new stuff is veering towards the anthemic, which is fine in and of itself as long as the hooks are good (this one is), although I hear this song and worry it’s going to show up in a Heineken commercial in two years.

James BKS – Kusema. James BKS’s debut album Wolves of Africa is due out in the fall, and the son of the late Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango (who died last year of COVID-19) has released at least three tracks from the album so far, including this one, with a Swahili title that means “to express” and that features BKS rapping for the first time.

Jungle – Talk About It. Jungle’s third album Loving in Stereo comes out on August 13th, and this second track from the record is among the most straight-up dance tracks they’ve done (lighter on the ’70s soul and funk elements) to date.

SAULT – London Gangs. SAULT just released Nine, their fifth album in the last 25 months, although this is the shortest one to date, clocking in at just over a half an hour. The band is also saying they’re removing the album from the internet after 99 days, which means it’ll vanish from streaming sites (and from my Spotify playlist) at some point in October, which strikes me as a stunt. You can (and should) grab the album for free from their official site, although I don’t think it’s as strong as either of their 2020 releases.

Inhaler – It Won’t Always Be Like This. Solid work from this Irish band, although they can’t really get away from the U2 comparisons when the lead singer sounds so much like his father, Bono.

Everything Everything – Natural’s Not In It. The Gang of Four tribute album The Problem of Leisure was delayed five months but came out on June 4th, featuring two covers of this track, which gives the album its title, two of “Damaged Goods,” and three of “Not Great Men,” but none of “At Home He’s a Tourist.” At least EE’s singer Jonathan Higgs pronounces “migraine” in the American style.

Wye Oak – Its Way With Me. That’s the second single from Wye Oak this year, along with “TNT,” to go with singer Jenn Wasner’s solo effort as Flock of Dimes.

Kiwi jr. – Cooler Returns. I wasn’t familiar with this Canadian indie band until my friend Paul Boyé named their new LP one of his favorites of 2021 so far. There’s something a little too hipstery in their lyrics and vocals for me, but this title track from the record is strong.

Floatie – Shiny. “Math rock” is kind of a meaningless term, no? This is experimental music, and I don’t mean that adjective in the way anti-vaxxers use it, although I doubt Floatie’s debut album Voyage Out is FDA approved.

The Lottery Winners – Favourite Flavour. I’m becoming a bigger fan of The Lottery Winners all the time, and I can’t get over how prolific they are, approaching King Gizzard level, but in this case churning out one catchy indie-pop single after another.

Descendents – Nightage. I mean, all good Descendents songs sound pretty much the same, but that’s what we pay for, right?

Quicksand – Missile Command. If bands still released singles with B-sides, Quicksand should have paired this with a cover of Killing Joke’s “Asteroid.”

Accept – Zombie Apocalypse. I had no idea Accept was still around and recording music, and while I suppose purists might object that it’s not Accept without Udo, but I don’t have that same history with the band that I might with other ’80s metal acts, so the new vocalist doesn’t faze me. Their newest album, Too Mean to Die, leads off with a pair of impressively heavy songs for a band that was often lumped in with hair-metal acts in their heyday, with thrash elements in both this song and the title track.

FALSET and James Labrie – Kickstart My Heart. “Kickstart My Heart” is actually my favorite Mötley Crüe song, and this track is quite faithful. FALSET’s drummer is the son of James Labrie, longtime lead singer of Dream Theater, who does a very reasonable imitation of Vince Neil here.

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→ June 17, 2021
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Spicy.

Spicy is a bluffing party game that came out in 2020, the first English-language release from Hungarian designer Gy?ri Zoltán Gábor, released last July by HeidelBÄR and probably something I would have seen at Gen Con had the normal convention season taken place.

Spicy plays 2 to 6 players, although I think it needs at least 3 to work well. The deck has 100 cards in it, ninety of which have a number from 1 to 10 and a color/spice – red (chili), green (wasabi), or blue (pepper). There are five wild cards that can be any number from 1 to 10 but have no color, and five color wilds that have no number. Each player begins the game with six cards from the shuffled deck.

The start player must begin a new pile in the center of the table by playing any card with value 1 to 3, stating the card’s value and color when they place it face-down on the table. Play goes around the table, and each player must then play a higher-valued card in the same color, until someone plays a 10 card in that color, after which the next player must play a 1, 2, or 3 card to keep the pile going. A player can pass and draw a card rather than playing.

Because all of the cards are played face-down, however, you can bluff, lying about number or color or both. If nobody challenges the play, it stands. Any other player can challenge it, though, placing a hand on the pile and saying whether they’re challenging the declared number or color. If the challenge succeeds, the challenger takes the pile and the challenge loser draws two cards and must start a new pile. If the challenge fails, the challenger draws the two cards while the player who placed the card wins the pile. Wild cards win any challenge for their shown variable and lose any challenge for the one they don’t show.

There are also three 10-point trophy cards you can win during the game. If you play the last card in your hand and it’s not challenged, or if it’s challenged and you win the challenge, you take a trophy card. If any player gets two trophy cards, they win the game immediately. Otherwise, the game continues until either all three trophies have been claimed, or until someone draws the World’s End card that’s placed about ¾ of the way down the deck when the game begins. Players then get one point for each card they’ve gained in piles from challenges won, and add 10 points for each trophy card. Whoever has the most points wins.

This is a bluffing game, and as such, it’s only fun when players lie – a lot, preferably. If everyone just tells the truth, and then draws cards when they don’t have a legal (true) play, the game is going to be boring. You have to go for it, and have a good poker face, and recognize that people probably aren’t going to challenge every single time – and the bigger the pile, the less someone will want to challenge and potentially hand an opponent a large stack of points.

There’s an advanced mode, where you randomly add one of the “Spice It Up!” cards that add or change something in the rules, such as letting you change the color of the stack to red if you play a 1, 2, or 3; or where playing a 5 lets you add two cards to the pile and draw two new cards to your hand. I don’t think these add a whole lot to the game, but your mileage may vary. This game is a ton of fun if you get into the spirit of it, so if you get the right group – and, although I haven’t tried this yet, I imagine if you get the right drinks on the table – it’s absolutely worth getting, especially at $15. I don’t think it works with 2 people, and if your group doesn’t bluff well or like games of deceit, you might not like it as I did.

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→ June 10, 2021
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How Lucky.

As a general rule, I don’t review books by people I know. For one thing, I know a lot of people who write books. I’m a writer, and I wrote some books, and either of those things would probably put me in contact with lots of people who also write books. And life beyond that has also put me in contacts with people who write books. Sometimes people I didn’t know were writing books write books. There are a lot of books in my world. It’s a good thing I like to read.

Anyway, I’m going to break my own rule for a moment – not the first time, I think, but it’s rare – to talk about Will Leitch’s novel How Lucky. Will’s a longtime friend, and someone whose work I enjoy. He’s also one of the most prolific writers around, and when I see his newsletter come in on Saturday, I just can’t get over how many words he writes each week. I would never tell you that writing is hard for me, but I feel like an absolute sluggard compared to Will.

How Lucky is fabulous. It’s not what it seems to be, at first, and I wonder how well the book world will appreciate it for what it truly is – a character study of the highest order, full of empathy, insight, and humor. There’s a Rear Window-ish mystery here, and Will does a fine job executing that plot without resorting to too many clichés, and when the main character is in danger (as he must be, at some point, because the conventions of the genre say so), it doesn’t last too long. There are also some fun side characters who add a lot of humor in addition to giving the protagonist some sort of foils against whom he can work. But this is about Daniel, the narrator, the star, and eventually, the hero.

Daniel works from home, handling some social media work for a fictional, regional airline in the southeast, which means he’s extra busy on college football game days. He also has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic, progressive disease that has him using a wheelchair and unable to speak without the aid of a speech-generating device. He lives in Athens, Georgia, and gets help a few times a day from a home health worker named Marjani, as well as frequent visits from Travis, Daniel’s best friend since childhood, a sort of lovable stoner right out of Inherent Vice.

Daniel’s days have a predictable routine, and over the few weeks right before the novel starts, he sees a University of Georgia student, whom we later learn is a recent arrival from China named Ai Chin, several mornings at the same time as she’s walking and he’s on his front porch. One morning, however, she gets into a tan Camaro Daniel hasn’t seen before, and within a day, there are reports that she’s gone missing, and Daniel suspects that he saw her abductor. The story becomes a little less straightforward than that as it moves along, but that is all secondary to what we get from Daniel. The mystery exists in service to the main character, to give Leitch more room to expand on Daniel’s personality and thoughts on his life in a body that is betraying him a hell of a lot faster than the rest of our bodies are betraying us.

The conceit that Daniel, despite being what most people would probably consider unlucky to an extreme degree, doesn’t see himself that way is central to the book. Will mentions in the acknowledgements (where, full disclosure, I am also mentioned) that he and his family are close with a family in Athens whose son was born with SMA as well, which introduced him to the community of families dealing with this disease. SMA is progressive, and degenerative, so while the life expectancy of children born with it has increased substantially over the last few decades, notably since the approval of a drug called Spinraza in December of 2016, it is ultimately terminal, and people with SMA see a faster decline in their quality of life as the motor neurons in the spinal cord shrink and lose function. I can’t speak for anyone with SMA, or even as a family member of someone with it or a similar disease (like ALS), but I didn’t find Will’s portrayal of Daniel here to be facile, or overly optimistic. Daniel strikes me as a realist, just a life-positive one. He’s not denying what’s happening, or what’s in front of him. He’s just determined to make the best of it, and appreciative of what the world – especially his mom, Travis, and Marjani – has given him. He combines that with some dry wit that, because I know the author and have listened to lots of his podcasts as well as read quite a lot of his work, is very much Will’s, and I heard much of Daniel’s inner monologue in Will’s voice.

I tore through How Lucky in just three days, even though I was pretty sure how the plot itself was going to conclude – not down to the details, of course, but in general, there are a limited number of ways Leitch could end this book, and one in particular that made the most sense given the rest of the novel. I just couldn’t get enough of Daniel’s character. Will has created a memorable, likeable protagonist whose voice is unique and who stands out especially today in the era of the antihero. I’ve seen comparisons of Daniel to all sorts of main characters from literary history, but he reminded me quite a bit of one of my own favorites, Miles Vorkosigan, the hero of Lois McMaster Bujold’s series of sci-fi adventure novels, himself born with a genetic disease that limited his growth and left him with brittle bones. Miles’ novels all work pretty much the same way: He throws himself into ridiculous situations, often with insufficient regard for his own well-being, and uses his brains to work his way out of trouble. It’s formulaic, but a formula I can’t help enjoying. Daniel is more well-rounded, and as the narrator, he gives us far more insight into his personality than Bujold gives us into Miles over multiple novels, but they share the same general outlook on life, and while Miles never says it explicitly, I think he’d echo Daniel’s view. We are all just lucky to be alive, and to experience the world with each other is one of life’s greatest gifts.

Next up: I’ve just finished Nella Larsen’s Passing, a film adaptation of which will appear on Netflix later this year.

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→ June 5, 2021
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Stick to baseball, 6/5/21.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I did my annual redraft column, looking back at the best players from the 2011 draft class, as well as the first-rounders who didn’t work out.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Umbra Via, an afterlife-themed game with route-building elements that just did not click for us at all.

My free email newsletter has returned, with my first edition in over a month, where I explain why I just haven’t felt much like writing lately – an unusual feeling for me.

My second book, The Inside Game, is now out in paperback, and I don’t think I’m just being a buy-my-book marketing guy when I suggest that it would make a great Father’s Day gift. Midtown Scholar still has a few signed copies of the paperback available, and you can buy the book via bookshop or amazon or anywhere else you buy books.

And now, the links…

  • There’s growing evidence that UNC’s decision not to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah Jones was driven by the interference and objections of mega-donor Walter Hussman, Jr, for whom their journalism school is named. In one email to a board member, he wrote that “he was concerned about how Hannah-Jones’s work could clash with his vision for the school and what it teaches.”
  • A group of unvaccinated staffers at a Houston hospital have filed a lawsuit against the hospital’s vaccine mandate, aided by a Houston lawyer with a long history of deranged legal actions including homophobic and anti-trans moves. I can’t speak to the legal issues here, but the plaintiff’s claims (e.g., that the vaccine can alter your DNA, which, come the fuck on already) are crazy, and if a hospital can’t mandate vaccinations, we are going to have to live with the pandemic forever.
  • Sharyl Attkisson, a faux-journalist who has spread anti-vaccine disinformation for years and made the news in 2020 when she tried to air an interview with a conspiracy theorist who claimed COVID-19 was the product of a secret a government plan, is threatening to sue Dr. Peter Hotez, author of Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism, for defamation, a baseless threat aimed at silencing one of the most vocal and erudite advocates of vaccination.
  • A new editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine explores incentives for increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake, including mandating it in health care settings, requiring it for access to events that “involve close person-to-person contact,” and raising life and health insurance premiums for people who refuse to get the shot. I’m a big fan of the last approach: people respond strongly to financial incentives, and those of us who have gotten vaccinated shouldn’t be subsidizing those who won’t.
  • We loved Mare of Easttown, especially since we caught many of the local references, living just a mile or two away from the border between Delaware (state) and Delaware County. The show’s depictions of the residents of DelCo, however, isn’t very accurate. That county has historically been quite red, with deep racial tensions going back to the Civil War.
  • The best reaction I saw this week to the French Open telling Naomi Osaka that she can go fuck herself was from the Guardian‘s Jonathan Liew, arguing that we in sports media are not the good guys here, and that press conferences are problematic. Indeed, the day after Osaka withdrew, some asshole reporter asked 17-year-old Coco Gauff an insulting, racist question that should have gotten his credentials yanked. (Apparently that only happens if you dial into a press conference from a supermarket.) Scottish tennis coach Judy Murray, mother of two tennis champions in Andy and Jamie Murray, supported Osaka and talked about the absurd demands of the press on players.
  • New York Times health writer Tara Parker-Pope writes about four lessons we’ve learned in the last year for your anxious brain. Strengthening your connections seems like an especially valuable one in a year when most connections have become slack (pun intended).
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→ June 4, 2021
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Music update, May 2021.

I’m not sure if this was a weak month for new tracks or if I just missed a lot as I spent more time seeing games and working on some stuff around the house. It ended strongly, however, with a slew of important album releases on the last Friday in May and the first one in June. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

black midi – Chondromalacia Patella. black midi are back, with their second album, Cavalcade, dropping on the last Friday in May. It’s frenetic, cacophonic, and deeply unsettling music, similar in attitude to their debut record, Schlagenheim, but differing enough in tone and style to mark a real progression in their sound. This was one of the lead singles and remains one of the better tracks on the record, which in some ways is more accessible than the first LP but which, on first listen, doesn’t have enough great hooks in the longer tracks like “Ascending Forth” or “Diamond Stuff.”

Pond – America’s Cup. Pond have always been weird, sometimes to good effect but sometimes to the point where it was easy to dismiss some of their experiments. Whatever the hell this is, though, I want more of it. This is early ’80s funk, still bearing the influence of peak disco, around lyrics about the rapid gentrification of Fremantle in Western Australia after that country’s entry won the America’s Cup sailing race in 1983 and the city hosted the Cup in 1987. This is the good shit.

YONAKA – Call Me a Saint. That’s three new singles this year from this Brighton quartet, whose feminist alt-rock made Don’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrrow one of my favorite albums of 2019. Still no word on a release date for a second LP.

Little Simz feat. Cleo Sol – Woman. The second single ahead of Little Simz’s sophomore album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, due out in September, “Woman” is also her second collaboration with singer Cleo Sol. Little Simz is easily one of my favorite rappers working today, both for her own vocal style and her choices of backing music.

Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth – Chase It Down. That’s the lead singer of Primal Scream and the lead singer of Savages, respectively, and their album, Utopian Ashes, will be out on July 2nd. There are hints of Primal Scream’s more psychedelic leanings in here – rather than the straight-up Rolling Stones homage they did on “Rocks” – along with a fantastic guitar solo at the end.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Say Something. I’ve seen Thackray called a jazz musician, but this isn’t jazz – this is smart, textured dance music, with elements of jazz, and R&B, and house, and more. She has her own record label, Movementt, and appears to be building up towards a debut album after releasing two singles in the last two months.

Jorja Smith feat. Shaybo – Bussdown. Smith’s EP Be Right Back feels like a tease, as the nine-song, 25-minute release just isn’t enough from the talented R&B singer/songwriter, whose debut album Lost & Found came out three years ago this week. I’ll take any Jorja Smith I can get, though.

Freddie Gibbs, Swizz Beats, and Shoota93 – We Want Justice Dammit! This track comes from season 2 of the series Godfather of Harlem, and both Gibbs and Swizz Beats deliver strong verses despite the near lack of a beat beneath them.

Atlas Genius – Elegant Strangers. I was seriously concerned these guys had hung it up for good, with only one new track in the last four years, but it appears we will get a third album from the guys behind “Trojans,” “If So,” and “Molecules.”

Renée Reed – Neboj. Reed is from Louisiana and sings in both English and French, but it’s the intricate finger-picked guitarwork that drew me to this song, from her self-titled debut album.

The Lottery Winners – Times Are Changing. I was very late to this parade, but damn can the Lottery Winners churn out pop bangers as fast as anyone. Their next album, which will be their second in 18 months (third if you count their lockdown covers record), is due out on September 24th.

The Wombats – Method to the Madness. There’s a distressingly slow start to this new track from Matthew Murphy and the lads, but it picks up in the second half and sounds far more like a Wombats song. They haven’t announced when their next album, which will be their fifth, will appear, but are planning their biggest concert ever at London’s O2 Arena next April.

Cœur de Pirate – Plan à Trois. Béatrice Martin released a surprise EP of instrumental piano tracks last month, and now she’s back with the kind of synth-heavy alternative pop for which she’s known. This isn’t quite up there with “Prémonition,” still my favorite song of hers, but it’s promising.

Greentea Peng – Dingaling. Peng’s debut album MAN MADE came out on Friday, June 4th, so it’s still in my queue, but her lead-up singles have all shown off her incredible ability to combine widely divergent genres. I feel like fans of the short-lived jazz-rap movement that started with Native Tongues and peaked briefly with Digable Planets will especially appreciate this track (and, I assume, the album).

Superbloom – Pollen. The title track from this group’s debut album couldn’t sound any more ’90s – I hear Hum more than anything else – if they tried, but as someone who wanted the music of that decade to last forever, I’m here for it.

Squid – Pamphlets. The British music press loves Squid’s debut album Bright Green Field, but it’s just too much of itself for me. I can do modern punk, I don’t mind music with a sneer, and I certainly like the art-rock stylings of Squid’s guitar work, but the lyrics combined with the deliberately obnoxious delivery just leave me feeling a bit too “oh shut up already” before the record is half done. I thought this was the best song on the record, but it’s nearly eight minutes long, and that is absolutely enough of Squid for me.

Mastodon – Forged by Neron. Mastodon has so many sides to its music that saying this is my favorite style of Mastodon track does something of a disservice to their ingenuity and breadth. But I do like when they pick up the pace a little and ensure their tracks have stronger melodies.

Sabaton – Defence of Moscow. These guys are ridiculous but I love it – it’s right out of a 1989 episode of Headbanger’s Ball. Savatage would be proud.

Gojira – Into the Storm. The French avant-garde metallists returned with the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s Magma, which Decibel named the best metal album of the decade and which earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album, a rarity for any extreme metal band. Highlights from the new record, called Fortitude, include this track, “Sphinx,” “Amazonia,” “Born for One Thing,” and “Another World.”

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→ June 4, 2021
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The Vanishing Half.

Brit Bennett has popped up as a favorite to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, to be announced next Friday, June 11th, for her second novel, The Vanishing Half, which HBO is already planning to adapt into a limited series. It is a fascinating work about “passing,” where lighter-skinned Black people pass as white (itself the subject of a novel, Nella Larsen’s Passing, that will appear on the big screen later this year), but with multiple dimensions of intersectionality as well, exploring what happens when two twins take divergent paths because one passes and the other does not.

Desiree and Stella Vignes are identical twins who live in a peculiar town outside of New Orleans called Mallard, a Black enclave where all the residents have relatively light skin – to the point that Mallard looks down on Black people with darker skin tones in many of the ways that you might associate with subtle white racism, even though Mallard residents themselves face racism subtle and unsubtle from white people from surrounding towns. That touches the girls’ lives when they’re seven years old and white men lynch their father as they watch, hiding with their mother, the devastation of which leads indirectly to their decision to run away from home as teenagers. They move to New Orleans, barely able to take care of themselves at first, but eventually settle into menial jobs, one of which comes to Stella because she can pass as a white woman, and the hiring person doesn’t even consider that she might be Black. Stella becomes the vanishing twin of the book’s title, leaving New Orleans without giving her sister any warning, leaving no trace of herself and cutting off any contact with her remaining family. The novel traces their two paths, and how each has one child, a daughter, the two of whom will eventually come into coincidental contact in California, forcing both Vignes sisters to confront their pasts, both shared and separate.

For a novel that isn’t very long – 343 pages, and a brief read for that length – The Vanishing Half has a lot to unpack, starting, of course, with its core examination of race and identity. Race is a social construct, and Bennett uses that as a launching point for the very unparallel lives first of the Vignes sisters, who find themselves in very different circumstances as they move into adulthood, and then their daughters, two cousins who come back together as if driven there by fate. (How Desiree’s daughter, Jude, first encounters and recognizes the aunt she’d never met requires some suspension of disbelief.) The interplay between race, identity – can you be who you are if you shed the race society first thrust upon you? – and later social status is the clear strength of the book, but it becomes muddled in places as Bennett’s approach becomes more intersectional, bringing in additional characters who are well-developed for secondary players but who aren’t additive to the main story. The narrative is more potent when she’s using the two sisters’ stories to explore different aspects of race and racism in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, which seems like the most likely argument for this book to win the Pulitzer.

Of the two main characters, Desiree seems the more developed, although there might be some primacy bias at work there – we get a few chapters of her story before we meet Stella at all. It’s also likely that Bennett left Stella more inscrutable by design, the “star” who is always just far enough away to remain somewhat impossible to truly know. Desiree’s daughter, Jude, shares a name with the Biblical figure who wrote about how God would punish false prophets, those who preached in his name without his truth, imploring the faithful to stand up for their beliefs – which she does, pursuing Stella and Stella’s daughter Kennedy with the tenacity of a true believer. As the twins fade into the background, it’s Jude who emerges as the novel’s most complete and compelling character, dealing with the consequences of both sisters’ choices in life, and a society that imposes such a cost on Blackness that her aunt chose passing – and giving up her sister, her mother, and her own identity – rather than continue to pay.

Next up: My friend Will Leitch’s first novel, How Lucky.

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→ June 1, 2021
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The Ardent Swarm.

Tunisian author Yamen Manai’s slim fable The Ardent Swarm first appeared in the U.S. this February to wide acclaim, as the longtime novelist’s work hadn’t appeared in English before. Set in an unnamed country that bears a strong resemblance to Tunisia in the wake of the overthrow of the dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the story follows the humble beekeeper Sidi, who sees one of his colonies of bees (whom he calls his “girls”) ravaged by what we all now know as murder hornets – Vespa mandarinia, the Asian giant hornet, which preys on honeybees. When he discovers the cause of the collapse of his colonies, two of his friends offer to fly to Japan to gather queen bees of the Apis cerana japonica subspecies, the only honeybee with a known defense mechanism against the murder hornets: the “ardent swarm,” where the honeybee workers surround the invader, exhale more carbon dioxide, and beat their wings furiously to raise the temperature up near 50 Celsius, cooking the hornet to death.

In Manai’s novel, the dictator, just referred to as Handsome One, has been deposed just as Ben-Ali was.  In the wake of his overthrow, various factions are competing for power, including the military and a radical Islamist group called The Party of God that tries to buy votes by distributing free food to rural villagers – a more extreme depiction of the Islamist party Ennahda, which won the most seats in the first parliamentary elections after Ben-Ali’s ouster, although secularist parties took power in subsequent elections. Sidi resists the The Party of God’s inducements, only to discover that they bear responsibility for the deaths of his “girls,” forcing him to make a choice that stands as a metaphor for the choice that faced Tunisia – and that other countries faced in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, often choosing less wisely than the Tunisians did.

The Ardent Swarm is an obvious parable, with obvious parallels to the Arab Spring while also serving as a lament and a warning over our cavalier relationship to our environment, and how fragile the ecosystem on which our species depends can be. We depend on these pollinators, including domesticated honeybees and wild bumblebees, to maintain our food supply, but a combination of stressors from parasites (notably the Verroa mite), habitat loss, and pesticides appears to be contributing to the decline of domestic stocks in North America and Europe. Minai ties the corruption of the Party of God to a breakdown in this historical relationship between humans and the land, short-circuiting it in a way that will leave people dependent on their government for basic needs – and thus more compliant to its demands – if they can’t, or forget how to, take care of themselves. Sidi stands nearly alone in his resistance to this pressure, and faces extremely difficult odds when trying to resurrect his colonies, an effort obstructed by further corruption by Islamist authorities in the government and in the university where one of his allies works.

A cynical take on The Ardent Swarm might compare it to the over-the-top fables of Paolo Coelho, which are well-written but simplistic. I saw this more as a modern and less oblique twist on the short novels of Italo Calvino, one of the greatest fabulists in literary history, an author very concerned with the relation between person and place. There’s wit here that reminded me more of Calvino, or even a little of Murakami, but with the seriousness of the French satirists of the mid-20th century. The Ardent Swarm is a plea, for democracy, for our environment, and for a different future than the one towards which we’re heading. It deserves a wider audience.

Next up: Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, one of the favorites to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction when that award is announced next Friday.

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→ May 29, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 5/29/21.

I had two posts this week for subscribers to the Athletic: my first mock draft of 2021, and a scouting post on high school pitchers Chase Petty and Frank Mozzicato, both of whom will be day-one picks. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste last week, I reviewed Cryo, a really engaging new worker-placement game from the designers of Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, where resources are always limited and you have to build your board to maximize your resource collection.

If you’d like to buy The Inside Game and support my board game habit, Midtown Scholar has a few signed copies still available. You can also buy it from any of the indie stores in this twitter thread, all of whom at least had the book in stock earlier this month. If none of those works, you can find it on Bookshop.org and at Amazon.

And now, the links:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
→ May 27, 2021
→ By

Klawchat 5/27/21.

My first mock for this year’s MLB Draft is up for subscribers to the Athletic, as is a post comparing high school pitchers Chase Petty and Frank Mozzicato.

Keith Law: A broken soul stares from a pair of watering eyes. Klawchat.

Timothy: So with this many names seemingly in play for the first pick the Pirates have to try and look for an under slot deal right?
Keith Law: I think they can shave a million off anyone they take at 1 … if they’re close to indifferent among the options they can just offer that discount to two or three players, and see who takes it. I agree, though, that’s the strategy so they can go get a high-ceiling guy (probably a HS arm) at their next pick at 37.

TomBruno23: Any specific college baseball games you are targeting to watch today/this weekend?
Keith Law: Nope. I’d rather talk to scouts afterwards and go watch highlights rather than deal with frustrating TV angles and blathering commentary.

Dan: Is Chase Allsup, Auburn commit from Dothan moving up towards the top 100?
Keith Law: Not mine, sorry.

TomBruno23: Wrapped up, How Lucky, by your friend, Will Leitch. Rarely do novels anymore but I enjoyed that one. Even better that I went in not knowing anything about the plot or characters.
Keith Law: I’m reading that next after Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, which seems to be a favorite for this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Sedona: How does the Cards front office miss on Arozorena and Adolis and prefer O’neil and Bader?
Keith Law: I’m not so sure they really “missed” on Adolis … yes, he has the 16 homers, but he never walks and has all of 3 doubles this year. It looks extremely fluky. I was never an O’Neill guy, though – never understood what they saw in him. Dead power with nothing else.

Joe: Have you heard any early returns on if Luis Medina’s improved command and control has carried over from the end of 2019?
Keith Law: Nothing directly, not yet. I’ll go see him in June.

Tom: You mentioned about the overuse of WVUS jackson wolf. How do you evaluate him?
Keith Law: He’s on my top 100. One of the better senior signs in this draft.

Brian: Should there be consequences for college managers who abuse pitchers like what Randy Mazey did to Jackson Wolf last night? Way to wreck a kid’s future.
Keith Law: There can’t be – there is no mechanism to sanction coaches who do this stuff. If recruits started pulling out from commitments to schools that overuse their pitchers, that would help, but otherwise MLB really needs to step in and work with the NCAA to get some limits in place.

Sedona: Mackenzie Gore has not shown control of 3 of his pitches for over a year including 2 springs, alt site & now in a small sample size in the minors.  Other publications sited scouts to confirm the lack of control.  Do you think he was “effectively wild” in 2019?  Do you think he can make mechanical adjustments?  Do you consider him to be a top prospect?  Or have guys like Manoah pass him?
Keith Law: This is just wrong.

TomBruno23: Great mock, seriously cannot believe two teams get to pick 1 (ducking).
Keith Law: WordPress problem. Autonumbering didn’t work.

TJ177: Is Roansy Contreras’ stuff good enough to play at the MLB level right now?
Keith Law: I like Roansy but no, that’s too aggressive.

Tom: Will Klaw be enjoying any whiteclaws this memorial day weekend?
Keith Law: Don’t you put that evil on me.

TJ177: If Syndegaard can’t ramp up fast enough to get an MLB start this year but his medicals otehrwise look ok, could he still beat the QO value in FA? Feels like someone would still give him a multi-year deal with an opt-out just on upside.
Keith Law: I think no.

Will: Given the Yorke pick last year, is there a decent chance the Red Sox go underslot at four so they can spend more on later draft picks? If so, who might the Sox take as the underslot guy?
Keith Law: Haven’t heard that at all. Yorke is off to a rough start too, for a guy who was supposed to be able to hit above all else, so that may deter them from doing the same.

Sweeney: Is Roansy Contreras a hidden gem in the Taillon deal? Dude has been dealing…..same deal, Maikol Escotto with a grand slam last night and ~ 350/500/450 slash through the first month+. Just low-A for now, but a legit prospect?
Keith Law: It’s less than one month of sample size.

Bryan: Taylor Trammell goes back to raking at AAA. Is the difference in pitching between MLB and AAA that big? What do you expect his contributions to be for Seattle upon next recall?
Keith Law: Not only is there a big difference, but imagine how that AAA pitching would look to a guy who just saw MLB pitching for a month. Like going from calculus to long division.
Keith Law: I like Trammell but I hope they don’t rush him back to the majors, either. Set him up for success. He had real trouble with offspeed stuff in the big leagues and you have to be sure he’s seen and adjusted to the better breaking stuff/changeups in AAA before bringing him back.

Jon: Amed Rosario seems to be turning a little bit of a corner here. Can you expect him to keep hitting or a blip on the radar and will go back to what he’s been?
Keith Law: I’ve always liked Rosario and the last month or so is more in line with what I expected from him, but it’s still a small sample and he hasn’t faced the best pitching staffs in that span either.

Brace: Are Luis Urias’ days as a full-time player done? Or will a position switch lead him back to his former ability? I know you mentioned moving off of SS in the trade article might be a benefit.
Keith Law: I like him best as a platoon 2b and backup IF. He should never have been asked to play shortstop.

Sebastian: I know it’s still super early, but it’s encouraging that Ronny Mauricio already has tied his career high in home runs.  Have you heard anything about a change in his swing leading to more fly balls/power? Or just added strength?
Keith Law: Added strength – he was still pretty undersized when last we saw him.

Matt: Okay so just what the heck are we supposed to think about Cornelius Randolph now?
Keith Law: We’re supposed to think it’s less than a month of playing time.

Ben (MN): I don’t remember Trevor Rogers being a highly touted prospect, but he has been incredible so far. I do remember you mentioned him as a possible breakout candidate this year, but do you think he can continue to be a top 15-20 pitcher going forward?
Keith Law: I do. The slider is a difference-maker. He was a first-rounder out of HS, even without that breaking ball, so it’s not as if he was never a prospect – he’s just become a much better one.

Adam: Cherry-picking his outing today, but Spencer Howard looks incredible. Really tough start to his MLB career, but do you still have a TOR outcome possible for him?
Keith Law: I never had him as a top of the rotation guy, sorry.

JJ: Who will be the first 2021 draft pick to make his way to the majors?
Keith Law: Some random college reliever taken in the 8th round.

Harrisburg Hal: my daughter was playing around on ms paint and mlb stole it for one of their ‘local market’ hats… what’s my legal recourse?
Keith Law: Graphic design is her passion, apparently.

Nighter: Do teams care at all about family ties in terms of drafting? Just seeing a guy like Will Bednar where the Pirates just traded for his older brother, David. Obviously they just want to get the best players available in their pools, but it’s kind of a cool thing.
Keith Law: I don’t think anyone cares about that. If they do they should be fired. You don’t get extra points for having brothers on your team or for drafting the local kid.

Brian: I know the Yankees are desperate for bodies but doesn’t bringing up Florial seem like a bad idea assuming he’s up for more than just today?
Keith Law: Probably just because he’s already on the 40-man. He wasn’t hitting at all in AAA.

Jay: Do you like Priester, Tahnaj, Roasny, Yajure, or Brennan more? In that order?
Keith Law: You’re looking for my top 20 Pirates prospects ranking.

Ken: Watching baseball since 1980 I always hear the term “professional hitter” and “professional at-bat.”  Within the context of the words I do understand what they are saying.  Question in a specific situation – down a run – 8th inning – runner on second no one out.  Batter comes up – takes a Ball, hits a dribble foul, swings and misses, and then on the 1-2 pitch hits a slower roller right side 4-3, runner to third.   The old school analyst would call that a “professional at-bat” or “the hitter doing his job.”  For the analytical guys – is this a good at -bat or a bat at-bat that had an net positive outcome (runner to third 1 out – sac fly can get him in it to tie) or is it a bad at-bat and the outcome is irrelevant to determing if it is a good or bad at-bat
Keith Law: It’s a bad at bat in every way. It’s an out. The team’s odds of scoring went down. The team’s odds of scoring multiple runs went way down.

WHAT: You need to stop what you are doing and watch the Baez/Pirates play from a few minutes ago. We’ll wait.
Keith Law: I mean, I love Baez, and that’s heads-up running by him, but what in the actual fuck was Will Craig thinking? Was this his first day playing baseball? STEP ON FIRST BASE.

Steve: Do you Mozzicato as a over slot 2nd round guy?  I know prep pitchers should almost always sign but he seems like the type who can build his frame and add velo
Keith Law: I do. If he were committed to Vandy or Florida, he might be unsignable, but with UConn I think he should just sign.

ugotwilcoxed: Impression of Cade Cavalli a handful of starts in?
Keith Law: Haven’t seen him yet, just Rutledge. I’ve focused on the draft while they were still going, but with most of those guys done playing I’ll shift to seeing more minor league guys.

HomerSomethingSomething: Devers has been a joy to watch hitting lately. Think he breaks out and makes to 40 HR this year?
Keith Law: I think 40 HR is well within his capabilities.

section 34: Let’s say it was a lab leak. What could be done about it?
Keith Law: Let’s not say that, because the odds of that being true are extremely small, and even entertaining the possibility is just feeding the trolls.

John: Franchy Cordero optioned today — does he ever become a productive MLB player?
Keith Law: Up and down guy, IMO.

Chris P: Liover Peguero is off to a hot start and small sample size aside, what does he need to do to get top 100 buzz?
Keith Law: Let’s see him fill out and turn that contact into more extra-base hits.

Tom Plunkett: Coming to Frederick Md to see the “Draft: baseball league?   We miss the Keys and minor league baseball.
Keith Law: No, not unless those rosters really improve. There just wasn’t enough talent on them to get me to drive there when I  could go see at least six minor-league teams with a shorter drive.

Guest: Expectations for Manoah’s debut today?
Keith Law: None.

James: A lot has been made of the many Tatis errors so far. However, they all seem to be related to his throwing and the rest of his defensive skills look really good. Is that fixable to the point where we can expect him to stick at SS, possibly with good overall numbers?
Keith Law: He may be pushed off over time but his range and hands are really great.

Greg: Just looking at recent drafts and reading you/Pipeline write ups — seems like Atlanta is pretty likely going college route at 24?
Keith Law: I think so. But they’re not anti-HS, just more likely college at the first pick.

Tom: On a scale from 10 to 10 how excited are you to read the unpublished John Steinbeck werewolf murder mystery?
Keith Law: An 11. would absolutely read that.

Steve: I know SSS and all, but have you heard/seen about Pratto so far this season? Is the turnaround legit?
Keith Law: It was a real swing change, and adjustment to his approach, so I’m cautiously optimistic on that one.

Chris P: Gage Jump has been getting some helium elsewhere, but wasn’t on your big board. What do you see in him as a prospect?
Keith Law: I don’t see a top 3 rounds guy. Sub 6 foot lefty without premium stuff. I wouldn’t take that guy out of high school – college, maybe, when you’ve seen him against better competition and have better data too.

Jonas: Any new cookbooks you’ve tried or looking to get?
Keith Law: Hoping to pick up Nik Sharma’s The Flavor Equation soon.
Keith Law: My wife got me Parvana for Valentine’s Day and what I’ve tried has been great.

Dan: What do you make of Rodon’s season so far?  Finally hitting his potential after years of injuries?  Great start but not sustainable anywhere near this level?  Somewhere in between?
Keith Law: I can’t tell you if he’ll hold up, but otherwise I’m buying.

Adam: Should I care that Tatis Jrs strikeout and whiff rate are well below average?
Keith Law: No.

Adam: The untrained eye test tells me that Ryan Weathers is a really good young pitcher with top-half of the rotation upside. What is the trained eye test telling you?
Keith Law: He’s a really good young pitcher with top-half of the rotation (but not top of the rotation) upside.

David: The new Andy Weir book, “The Hail Mary” was really enjoyable with lots of hard science. If you liked The Martian, I think you would enjoy it.
Keith Law: Excellent, thank you, I did like The Martian.

Adam: It’s well documented that AJ Preller personally scouts more amateur players than any GM in baseball, but how notable is his presence somewhere within the industry? If a scout sees him at a game, do they report that back to their superiors or is it so commonplace that most just disregard it at this point?
Keith Law: It’s noteworthy – he’s not seeing players his scouts don’t like, after all.

Dan: Is Brujan from TB all that his numbers this year (SSS) seem to be?  If so going to be fun watching him and Wander and others in years to come.
Keith Law: I think he’s a star. Not a Franco type star, but a star.

Steve: Could Alvarez stick at catcher long term or more of a 1b/dh type long term?
Keith Law: Francisco? Never heard any reason to think he’s not a catcher.

Ryan: I know its not your reporting but great reporting by The Athletic on this Mickey Callaway story. I guess the only thing disappointing is that MLB is trying absolve itself of responsibility for fostering this culture across multiple clubs.
Keith Law: Yes, Britt, Katie, and Ken have all done great work on that topic. I don’t think MLB would ever admit to any responsibility for the existence of that culture, or to a failure to stop it sooner (I think that’s the better take – they didn’t foster it so much as ignore it). But at this point I will take any progress as it comes while pushing for more.

Robert: Reid Detmers has added a lot of velocity so far this year. Does this development significantly raise his ceiling for you?
Keith Law: Let’s see him hold it first.

Jeffrey: How far has Kevin Abel fallen since the 2018 CWS?
Keith Law: I’m not sure where you even draft him at this point. Might have been a first-rounder before Oregon State abused his arm. Now I don’t think you go in before the fourth round.

Joe: Given the expected dates of their better MiLB prospects contributing, how long before the O’s are competitive?
Keith Law: I think Derek asked me about that on a recent podcast and I said not in the next 3 years. Their talent is a little too far away and the division doesn’t make it easier. I have heard great stuff on DL Hall, though, and while it’s a small sample, striking out 31 of 67 batters he’s faced this year is (runs Monte Carlo simulation) good.

Chris P: Should we be concerned about Luzardo’s ability to stay in the rotation for a full season?
Keith Law: Yes. Unfortunately for him, the one time he stayed healthy for just about an entire season was the time the entire season was only 60 games.

Kevin: Gunnar Henderson is playing like a top 20 prospect this season. He need to be aggressively pushed to HiA
Keith Law: Counterpoint: No, he doesn’t.
Keith Law: He’s 20, off to a good start in low A, but hardly dominating to the point that you’d think a 16-game sample is indicative that he belongs at the higher level.

Nick V: If you were in the position to make such a judgement for a MLB franchise, would you give the thumbs up or down for allowing your higher value prospects to play for Team USA?
Keith Law: Probably thumbs down, if I’m making a decision in the franchise’s best interests.

Warbiscuit: Connor Prielipp is out for the year. At this point is it still possible he gets drafted with one abbreviated season and a season plagued with injuries?
Keith Law: He’s not eligible this year. He’s eligible in 2022, and probably won’t pitch at all that spring, so he might be a guy to watch for 2023.

addoeh: Italy and Wales in the same group for Euros and you said you were with Wales when it’s rugby.  Back with the Azzurri because it is soccer?
Keith Law: Yeah, I gotta back the blue this time.

Jack: Whens the Austin Riley apology essay dropping on The Athletic?
Keith Law: If Riley turns out to be an above-average regular, he’ll make one of my year-end columns on players I got wrong … but I’m not sure if it’s smart to let about four good weeks outweigh about a season and a half of awful. I’d be ignoring an entire chapter of my own book.

Tom: The Red Sox just optioned Franchy Cordero to Triple-A. Do you think Duran is ready to be called up?
Keith Law: I do. And I’m all in on Duran’s swing change and resulting power.

ralph: Chances Gabriel Moreno becomes a Dude?
Keith Law: Aside from catchers just generally getting hurt a lot, I think really high. He’s probably their catcher of the future.

Nick: Some forgotten names Korry Howell and Cornelius Randolph are both off to hot starts and showing some power. Are they on your radar at all?
Keith Law: No, because it’s less than a month. You have to wait on this stuff – it’s even worse this year because of the altered schedules, so if you happen to have faced, say, a certain low-A team that can barely win a game, your stats might be skewed.

Guest: Since Will Craig is trending, why did the Pirates draft him in the first round? Didn’t seem like a good pick at the time and hasn’t panned out.
Keith Law: Never understood that one. Everyone knows Wake Forest is a bandbox and he didn’t look like his power would play elsewhere.
Keith Law: OK, that’s all for this week. Thanks for reading and for checking out my first mock draft over at the Athletic. I’ll do another one of those in mid-June or so, then two more leading up to the draft. In the meantime I’ll be back on the minor league beat more now that the high schools around here are wrapping up. Stay safe & go get vaccinated!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:
→ May 23, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 5/23/21.

I had one post this past week for subscribers to the Athletic, breaking down the four-player trade between Milwaukee and Tampa Bay along with the implications for Wander Franco, Taylor Walls, and Luis Urías. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Cryo, a really engaging new worker-placement game from the designers of Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, where resources are always limited and you have to build your board to maximize your resource collection.

If you’d like to buy The Inside Game and support my board game habit, Midtown Scholar has a few signed copies still available. You can also buy it from any of the indie stores in this twitter thread, all of whom at least had the book in stock earlier this month. If none of those works, you can find it on Bookshop.org and at Amazon.

And now, the links…

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