→ April 18, 2024
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Klawchat 4/18/24.

My top 50 draft prospects ranking is now up for subscribers to The Athletic.

Keith Law: I need to lighten my load. Klawchat.

Hogie: You said during spring training that you didn’t think James Wood was ready for the majors. Have you changed your mind at all given his start in Rochester?
Keith Law: No, because it’s April 18th. It’s a minuscule sample.

Guest: have you seen Cade McGee at Texas Tech. Saw him the other night against Arkansas. Good power, looks athletic, been hit by a pitch 20 times this year which has, along with 31 walks really helped his OBP which is around .500
Keith Law: I haven’t seen Texas Tech, but McGee isn’t showing much power or hard contact in games. I also don’t view high HBP totals as a particularly valuable skill.

JD: Is Pages ready to stick at the major league level or do you anticipate this will be a short stay for him and that he needs more time at AAA?
Keith Law: He was really good in the 50 games he did play last year and this year around the shoulder injury, with what looked like a more advanced approach than he’d had in 2022. “Short stay” is really about team needs, but if they’re willing to give him the time to adjust I think he can have a positive WAR this year.

Taylor Swift: Will you be listening to the Tortured Poets Department tonight?
Keith Law: I didn’t know that album was coming out tonight. (I knew it was coming out at some point.)

J: 18 year-old Nelson Rada is at AA for the Angels for no discernible reason.  Why is Nelson Rada at AA? Why skip High-A? Why?
Keith Law: I have no idea.

Lucas: If I remember correctly, Jordan Westburg was seen as a little bit of a gutsy pick in 2020 because there were some swing and miss issues at Mississippi State. How has he gotten better in a relatively short period of time?
Keith Law: He was a COVID year pick, and was off to a good start at MSU. It’s quite possible he’d already started making that adjustment and we didn’t see it in enough of a sample because the world ended.

Drew: As a Cleveland fan, it seems like there’s separation between Condon and everyone else. How worried should I be they’ll cut a deal with a lesser player in a draft that seems weak for overslot guys later?
Keith Law: Very.

Guest: What should we make of Jackson Hollidays slow start at the plate?
Keith Law: Nothing.

Mike: Mike Trout is good at baseball.
Keith Law: He is. But go look at what he did in his first call-up.

BC: With Morel playing improved defense at third recently, is there still a path to the Cubs for Matt Shaw this year?
Keith Law: Improved defense? He’s already at -2 OAA and it’s not even May. Come on.

Nervous Flyball Pitcher: Matthew Etzel showed up in your Orioles prospect honorable mentions – so far he’s had a handful of multi-hit games (admittedly aided by miserable MiLB infield defense), but do you have any read on his CF play?
Keith Law: No idea, haven’t seen him or much minor league stuff yet while I focus on the draft.

Derek: Hi Keith, been following your work for years and why I paid for ESPN and now the Athletic.  Surprised to see you venture to more in front of the camera with Stadium.  I’ll admit I haven’t had a chance to watch your show yet and didn’t seem like I could go back and watch it.  Curious what made you decide to work with Stadium?  Will it impact any of your writing with the Athletic?
Keith Law: They approached me. It won’t affect my writing – they’re two separate deals.

Heston Kjerstad: Would I be a better piece in the O’s lineup right now than, say, O’Hearn or Mountcastle?
Keith Law: I think so.

Jason: Does DL hall profile more as a reliever long term?
Keith Law: It’s a real risk. I’m surprised that his issue has been lots of contact versus him just not throwing strikes.

J: Brandon McCarthy was talking about the Pirates’ handling of Skenes thus far at AAA, saying, “what are we doing?” Jared Jones was pulled by the Pirates after 59 pitches and 5 innings. At what point do teams stop ‘building’ pitchers up, and let them pitch? Not overworking young arms is one thing; this feels preposterous, counter-productive, and not based in anything but fear. Sorry if the actual question got lost in the shuffle, but I suppose it’s: When will this stop?
Keith Law: I really think we have enough evidence to say that limiting pitch counts reduces the incidence of shoulder injuries, but that limiting them to this extent doesn’t reduce the incidence entirely and it doesn’t reduce the incidence of UCL tears. I haven’t asked any Pirates people what’s going on, but I have the same question from afar. Let them pitch reasonable workloads and respond accordingly if they report pain or discomfort or fatigue (or if pitch data shows it).

Gordon: Didn’t think Michael Busch would be this good this quick. Does he really have this much power or is he still a 20 hr guy?
Keith Law: Still think he’s a 20 homer guy … I mean, maybe he’s a 24 homer guy, there’s always a range around those estimates, but I wouldn’t overreact to a hot start. He’s a good player. If he’s a superstar, I’d be surprised.

Justin: Obviously baseball is a very dangerous workplace as far as injuries go.   If any of our workplaces caused ligament surgeries every day, I’m not sure they’d still exist.  What is it about baseball and sports in general that make it ethical to continue subjecting people to activities that are clearly awful for the human body?  Informed consent?
Keith Law: The potential for seven- or eight-figure salaries.

J: Matt Shaw crushing AA (SSS and all that). Odds he makes the bigs this season? Before September?
Keith Law: I said before the season I thought he’d be up to play third base at some point – I still think more like midyear, and that they’ll push Shaw to AAA first.

Garrett: What’s your take on how CJ Abrams has looked so far?
Keith Law: Also a SSS, but I’m at least happy to see that he’s doing what I said he’d do and making much harder contact. There’s something sustainable here.

RL: Do you think lack of sticky stuff is contributing to arm injuries as some pitchers have said?
Keith Law: I’ve seen no evidence to back that up. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong – I just can’t support or debunk it.

Jacob: Thoughts on Rangers calling up Leiter?
Keith Law: I think he can help in some role – the arm action was cleaner in the spring and his body looked better. Only faced 57 batters in AAA but he at least was way more in the zone.

Steve: M’s seem to have been very aggressive with Clase. Have you heard of any adjustments that he has made that might allow him to stick, or is he destined to K too much?
Keith Law: I don’t believe he’s changed anything. Contact is going to be a chronic issue for him.

Mario: In your piece you noted that the draft class isn’t great after the second tier. Would this make teams less likely to try and spread out money and pick signability players in the top 10
Keith Law: Yes, it’s a terrible year to do that. Your best hope for an over-slot guy at your second pick is going to be a high school pitcher, and while I’m fine with teams taking those guys with later picks, I wouldn’t take a lesser player in the top 10 this year just to go get a better HS arm.

MagicOriole: What do you attribute Colton Cowser’s hot start to? Has he changed much from your prospect evaluation?
Keith Law: A .500 BABIP.

Rick: With all the recent call ups, who’s gonna be your mid-season Top Prospect?
Keith Law: It almost has to be Ethan Salas. He’s the top guy still in the minors, and if I did a live update now he’d be #1.

Nate: From a Stros fan…how much longer do you think it’ll take Jim crane to realize Jeff Bagwell doesn’t, in fact know baseball half as well as he thinks he does?
Keith Law: They have to fail at some point. Or I guess maybe waste another $50 million.

Mike: Think Christian Scott’s strong start indicates hes a potential number 2?
Keith Law: I don’t think his strong start indicates anything different from what we thought about him three weeks ago.

JR: Did you read Shogun? Are you watching/planning to watch the FX series airing right now? I’ve never read, but am really enjoying the show.
Keith Law: Never read. I know my parents liked the 1980s miniseries. They watched all of those like the Thorn Birds.

Jake: Any reason why there are so few HS guys you are high on compared to other years? Is Covid why they didn’t develop or is it just a fluke?
Keith Law: They’re just not out there this year, unfortunately. I don’t think there’s a reason – COVID didn’t hurt the 2023 HS class, for example. Just a down year for HS bats. The result will probably be some of them get drafted higher than area scouts expect – I hear more sandwich/second on Carter Johnson, for example, but I bet he sneaks into the late first.

Caleb: SSS alert!  But Masyn Winn has performed better-than-advertised at the plate so far, especially taking the ball the other way.  Change in approach that might lead to better numbers, or just SSS?
Keith Law: SSS but he’s also hitting the ball quite a bit harder this year, and making some better swing decisions than he did in his callup. That last bit is more in line with the hitter he was in the minors.

Chris: The Red Sox haven’t drafted a pitcher in the first round since 2017 and their farm system certainly reflects that. Could they finally do it this year?
Keith Law: Sure, I am not aware of any rule that prevents them from doing so.

Julie: Thank you for not sounding the alarm on Holliday. He’s less than two years out of high school playing 2nd base every day for a contender. The lineup he’s in is stacked. The O’s can afford for him to go through some growing pains, because the other guys will cover him. He will figure it out in the next few weeks and people will forget his slow start.
Keith Law: And maybe they send him back down at some point. He’ll be fine.

Refugee: Do you think the ball is juiced this year?
Keith Law: I think something is up in the college ranks. Either the ball is different, or the bats are.

I’m Joey Callo…C-allo: Any idea why Atlanta has decided to platoon Jared Kelenic. He didn’t show a platoon split in his breakout year last year and at 24 it seems a little early to pigeon-hole him that way.
Keith Law: He does have a platoon split for his career, and I think between Atlanta trying to win now and the hope that they can develop him into at least a good part-time player, platooning him in the short term is fine.

Kevin: Tanner Houck has added a solid splitter to his arsenal. Any chance he can be a mid rotation starter with this 3 pitch mix?
Keith Law: If that splitter really is the weapon he’s never had for LHB, then yes. That’s always been my main argument against him being a starter.

Alex: Among Braves pitching prospects, Owen Murphy is looking good so far and Hurston Waldrep is struggling. Anything about either of them in the early going that you’d take as grounds for optimism or concern?
Keith Law: It’s two outings for each guy.

Brent: Hey Klaw! Hope you’re enjoying the season more than this ChiSox fan. Boardgame question, have you played Memoir ’44? From the company that made Ticket to Ride. Love history and boardgames. Able to recommend?
Keith Law: Never played it.

Joe: Anything interesting going on with your gardening this year?
Keith Law: We tried to get an early start with our little greenhouse but the weather here has been so bad until this week that I think a lot of our efforts were wasted because we couldn’t transplant, either for cold or for torrential rains. We’re trying mostly to grow stuff that we will definitely eat – right now it’s peas, green beans, radishes, beets (ok that’s just me and my wife), mixed lettuce.

Bill: Gabe Arias for Real ?
Keith Law: Do I think a player with a .417 BABIP is for real? No, sir, I do not.

Sam Roberts: Is Cam Caminiti still a R1 in a better draft year?
Keith Law: I think he’s a first-round bonus guy. That could come after the actual first round ends, but in a strong year maybe he ends up a comp pick.

Tom: What do you about Tegan Kuhns (Gettysburg (PA))?
Keith Law: He’s on the list I posted today.

Bill: Since you’ll be in Chicago weekly….will you be checking out any Northwoods league Games ?
Keith Law: I doubt it. They’re not close to Chicago.

RH: Do you think top college hitters this year will try to force their way to the Angels so they can debut faster?
Keith Law: No, players just don’t have that kind of control over where they’re drafted. I do think the Angels will take whichever guy left on the board could be rushed to the majors this year.

Patrick: Do you see a six-man rotation coming into vogue, in an effort to minimize potential SP injuries?
Keith Law: I don’t see or know of any evidence that it would work. Do guys just exert more effort then because they’ve had the extra day to rest? The one factor for UCL tears which there is some actual research is throwing as hard as you can, as often as you can. In other words, if your personal max velocity is 94, and you sit 93-94 all the time, while personal max velocity is 98 but I sit 95-96 all the time, I might have a little lower risk of a UCL tear than you do.

Yinka Double Dare: How many messages will you send to Montverde begging them to be open on Mondays since that’s when you’re already in the city within a mile or so of them?
Keith Law: As much as I love that place, there are plenty of other places I need to try too.

Andrew: Not a prospect question, but I don’t see/hear anyone complaining about the netting around the ballpark.  What happened?
Keith Law: They’re busy complaining about DEI or trans people or some other non-issue.

Chris P: Hey Klaw, do you see Gage Jump being a starter in the pros and if so, could he likely go in the 2nd round?
Keith Law: He could go in the second round but I don’t think there’s any chance he can start with that delivery.

John: My son (15) just started playing baseball but loves pitching, doesn’t throw hard so he throws off speed mostly is the idea that curveballs shouldn’t be thrown out-dated or does the data support that?  I can’t find reliable information and just want what is best for him
Keith Law: That was an old hypothesis that I don’t think has held up under scrutiny.

James: Jackson Merrill looks better than expected at CF right now. Think he’ll stick there and ever be better than average with the glove?
Keith Law: Yes, he’s a good enough athlete and runner and smart enough kid that he could end up above-average out there. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how quickly he seems to have taken to it.

JR: Any thoughts on current state of college athletics, with unlimited transfers and unregulated NIL money? Has the impact hit college baseball yet? College Basketball/Football players are essentially one year free agents now, lol. On a macrolevel it’s great for the players, on a microlevel, it’s tough to be a fan of school (especially a mid-major school like mine) when the rosters practically turn over every year.
Keith Law: Yes, we see a ton of transfers, especially for players’ draft years, and I say hell yeah. The NCAA exploited players for decades. It’s about time that the players regain some control here.

Jake: SSS and all, but have you heard/seen anything about Marco Luciano changing his approach? A 19% walks rate and a .069 ISO don’t look like the Marco we’ve seen in the past.
Keith Law: tiny sample and it’s the PCL with the ABS half the time.

Jake: A few years ago the Braves got Strider in the 4th round. How did he last that long, especially in what seems like a weakish draft. Any similar hi ceiling, low floor guys this year?
Keith Law: That’s a bit revisionist. Strider blew out and missed 2019, then threw 12 innings in 2020 before the season ended. He was barely seen. As for similar guys … honestly, if I thought there was a Strider type in this draft I’d have had him on the rankings today in the top 20.

Trav: In the limited time I’ve watched Luciano play short, he’s looked awfully… not great. It was surprising how much the Giants publicly positioned him as their plan there before the season. How long can that possibly go on?
Keith Law: The sooner they move him, the better for his development.

Ryan: Druw Jones has struck out 23 times in 40 PAs this year – is he cooked?
Keith Law: 5 Ks two games ago, too. I’m very concerned – maybe the shoulder is still messed up, maybe he’s pressing, but I don’t think you could find anyone who thought he’d struggle like this in low A. I’d consider getting him out of there when the rookie leagues start up on May 4th. Let him go back to the complex, hope he rakes against worse competition, and get him the time with your coaches at the facility. But yeah, this is terrifying.

John: If a team thinks that the 2025 draft is better than this one, would they consider intentionally not signing a pick to get a comp pick in 2025?  Pick 31 in 2025 > pick 30 in 2024?  Too risky?
Keith Law: I get this question almost every year, and my answer is always the same: Absolutely not. It’s the worst idea imaginable, not least because you just increase the chance that someone else is making that pick next year instead of you.

Jackie: Say something positive about the Rockies.  Anything.
Keith Law: Sterlin Thompson can really hit.

Chris P: Who are some of the bigger helium guys so far that are shooting up draft lists?
Keith Law: I’d look at the top 50 today but Lindsey is probably the biggest such name. Tyson Lewis too.

JJ: Marcelo Mayer, Kyle Teel, Roman Anthony — which one’s the star, which one’s OK, and which one’s the bust?
Keith Law: I think Mayer and Anthony are stars and Teel is a solid regular.

RoyalBlue: Is Salvy Perez a HOFer?
Keith Law: No.

KMac: 100+ velo is looking more like a curse than a gift. Can you see FOs shying away from 80 grade fastballs in the draft (possibly accepting 6’6”+ relievers)? Or potentially avoiding extensions for this group of talent?
Keith Law: I think teams will start valuing very hard throwing teenagers differently.

Section 34: Seriously, Kjerstad over O’Hearn (1.044 OPS) or Mountcastle (.867 OPS)? Why would a team bench an MLB player who’s performing. We’re not talking about Austin Hays or Ramon Urias.
Keith Law: Could do it for those guys too. Do you think ROH is a 1000 OPS guy (ignoring how much OPS sucks as a stat)? I don’t.

CVD: When a guy like James Wood is dominating AAA at 21 yrs old, and hitting lefties as well, playing good defense, etc- what else does he have to do to get called up?   Just keep doing it for another month?
Keith Law: It’s two weeks. You have to read the calendar.

Kris: Noah Schultz, the next Ryan Anderson or someone that can fill a 4/5 SP role.
Keith Law: If healthy, a high-end starter. High injury risk.

Mike: Going to a game in Charlotte this weekend. Any good places to eat there that you like?
Keith Law: Amelie’s for breakfast/lunch/pastries. Inizio pizza. Customshop for fine dining. I rarely stay in Charlotte when I’m down that way – I fly in there a lot but then drive somewhere else.

Chip: Gun to your head, odds the A’s build a ballpark in Vegas and actually move there?
Keith Law: 25%.

Ernest: I stopped following sports for 10 years and have gotten back into it this year and noticed a pitch called the sweeper. Is this a new pitch or did the slider go through a rebranding?
Keith Law: It’s a variation of a slider. And it doesn’t sweep, which is why I think the name is stupid. My stepdaughters agree that the Yankees’ name for it, the whirlybird, is a much better choice.

Danny: Does 50% strikeout rate in only 50 PA show Roderick Arias is not ready for full season ball?
Keith Law: Not in ~ten games.

Jake: Although he seems cooked now, how do you scout a soft thrower like Kyle Hendricks who has had a remarkable career for a guy out of Dartmouth that barely touched 90 at his peak?
Keith Law: I find those guys incredibly difficult to identify – most guys with that stuff won’t even be big-league starters, or maybe just 5th starters. Did anyone foresee Hendricks having this kind of elite command? The Rangers didn’t. I honestly don’t think the Cubs did either.

Danny: You were on Corbin Caroll during his draft year- how does he compare to Caldwell? Caldwell is even smaller right?
Keith Law: Caldwell is smaller and not as strong. Carroll had more power at teh same age.

Ben: Keith – do you celebrate Thanksgiving?
Keith Law: How does one “celebrate” Thanksgiving? Do I cook a meal and eat it? Yes. I do that a lot of days.

Kris: Salas over Caminero? How close is that one?
Keith Law: It’s not that close.

Heather: Why does the media treat Robert Kennedy as anything other than a crackpot?  If you actually remember his dad, you’re almost in your 70s.  The vast majority of voters in this country weren’t around for the Kennedy Dynasty.  Even Teddy died 15 years ago.  Robert Jr. isn’t Yogi Berra; he’s Dale.
Keith Law: The mainstream media is beshitting itself in this election cycle. It’s embarrassment after embarrassment.

Greg: Any early indications on who the cardinals are looking at for pick 7?
Keith Law: Way too soon.

Dan: Do you think a version of Whitey Ball could work today? As a St. Louis kid it was so much fun watching those sliding pits waiting for someone to run.
Keith Law: No, it wouldn’t generate enough runs.

Rob: Do you see Jacob Berry as anything but a bust at this point
Keith Law: I think he’s a bust. What a bad pick that was.

HH: You say trans people are a “non issue” but what have they ever done to prevent foul balls from hitting spectators?;
Keith Law: Fair point!

Mario: In regards to the commenters question about college programs, coaches and universities are free to invest in creating programs where players feel valued, cared for, and want to stay. There’s no rules against it, as it turns out.
Keith Law: Yep. You don’t see a lot of guys transfer out of LSU or Wake Forest.

Patrick: With the time you will spend in Chicago–or really, any of your ‘frequent’ travel spots, do you try to work in an Alinea-type visit?
Keith Law: Those long tasting-menu places aren’t really my cup of tea. I can’t speak to Alinea’s food specifically but I don’t think they’re worth the time or expense.

Ridley: Have you had a chance to check out Polyphia, and, if so, what do ya think? They were originally tagged as “progressive metal,” although “every genre at once” is a better descriptor for the last two albums.
Keith Law: I haven’t but that sounds interesting.

RoyalBlue: Agree on OPS. What’s your go to metric to measure offensive production?
Keith Law: In the majors I prefer to look at wRC+. For prospects I’m less interested in total production than in how they’re getting there.

The Second of the Two Jakes: I’m pretty sure Whitey wouldn’t play Whitey-ball in today’s environment. He built his approach for the low HR context of his day.
Keith Law: I’m not sure. I know he tried to replicate a lot of that with the Angels when HR were exploding. The game had passed him by at that point.
Keith Law: OK, I need to wrap this up a few minutes early today but wanted to get one of these on the books with the draft rankings today. Thanks as always for reading – and to those of you who watched our show on Stadium on Monday. I don’t know if you can watch archived episodes but I’ll ask this week when I’m there. It’s live at 2 pm ET on the Stadium app if you have the time. Stay safe!

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→ April 13, 2024
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Stick to baseball, 4/13/24.

I’ve got some new content coming up this week, with a new draft ranking due to run on Thursday and a draft scouting blog probably running Monday or Tuesday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the collectible card game Star Wars: Unlimited – Spark of Rebellion, which I enjoyed even though I’m not generally a fan of deckbuilders.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter, detailing a rather ridiculous dinner I had at the bar at The Publican, an acclaimed Chicago restaurant where, to say the least, one does not belch as loudly as one can.

I’m going to be on a new TV show, Diamond Dreams starting on Monday, April 15th, on the streaming channel Stadium. The show is a half-hour look at prospects around the minors and for the draft, and will be followed by a show on collectibles where I’ll also offer some comments on the prospects they’re discussing. You can watch via the app on pretty much any platform.

And now, the links…

  • There’s a big scam going around that has tricked a number of content creators into ceding control of their Facebook pages. It starts with what seems to be an invitation to appear on a big podcast, which of course is very appealing to most people trying to build their online audience.
  • Former SCOTUS justice Steven Breyer wants everyone to get along, like his former colleagues on the high court, even though some of those colleagues are busy destroying Americans’ basic civil rights, writes Elie Mystal of The Nation.
  • The Atlantic’s David Graham describes the “Trump two-step:” say something outrageous, claim that’s not really what he said or meant, and then quietly embrace the original statement.
  • Mehdi Hasan wrote in the Guardian that Justice Sonja Sotomayor needs to retire from the Supreme Court so President Biden can appoint a replacement, avoiding the possibility that Trump would get to appoint a fourth justice and give the court a 7-2 majority that would likely last decades. I’m not sure if I agree, but he at least offers a solid argument.
  • Here’s a great summary and index of economic research showing how consistently these sports stadium deals fail to live up to economic promises. If you’re writing about the topic, or know a journalist who is, this is invaluable, because the pro-stadium forces will always trot out fabricated numbers from consultants who give them what they want.
  • A senior editor at NPR wrote a bad-faith, error-filled critique of the public radio outlet on Bari Weiss’s blog. NPR responded, defending its hiring practices and its philosophy. You can find many takedowns of Uri Berliner’s original piece, but one fact that got me was that he accused NPR of downplaying or ignoring the lab-leak theory behind COVID-19’s origins, even when the evidence in favor of a zoonotic spillover kept mounting.
  • WFLA has the story of a young boy with autism who can no longer receive health services because Florida kicked him off Medicaid. We need more stories like this, showing everyday people getting badly hurt by state policies that cut funding for essential services like health care, education, and even school lunches for underprivileged people.
  • Chicago police killed Dexter Reed during a traffic stop where he fired first, injuring one officer, after which the cops fired 96 rounds in less than a minute. The Sun-Times reports that the five officers involved in the incident have been investigated a total of 41 times since 2019, and that the area where they stopped Reed has a disproportionate number of traffic stops. The cops have said they pulled Reed over because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
  • Delaware State Senator Sarah McBride is running to be our at-large Representative, vying to become the first trans person elected to Congress. She’s one of at least three Democrats hoping to win the primary, which is tantamount to winning the election in our very blue state. Full disclosure: I’ve met Sen. McBride and we often see each other at our local Brew Haha coffee shop.
  • Is social media really driving a surge in mental illness among teenagers, as Jonathan Haidt claims in his new book? The evidence is mixed at best, according to this review in Nature.
  • Eric Hovde, who is running for Senate in Wisconsin as a Republican, is now facing backlash over his comments from a previous campaign where he called for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, attacked single mothers, said alcohol should never have been legalized, questioned whether farmers work hard, and lots of other great stuff.
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→ April 5, 2024
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This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

I’m about as big a fan of Ann Patchett as you’ll find – I’ve read every one of her novels, including the Pulitzer Prize contender Tom Lake, made a pilgrimage to her bookstore Parnassus Books before the pandemic, and was even scheduled to do a talk and signing there in May 2020 that obviously never happened. Somehow in all my fandom, I’d never read any of her nonfiction, even though that’s where she got her start; I just loved her fiction so much that I couldn’t imagine reading her voice in a different milieu.

My wife recently got me a copy of Patchett’s 2013 essay collection This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and, yeah, of course it’s great, because Patchett could write about a ham sandwich and make it interesting. It’s her first essay collection and includes works published from 1996 through 2012, including her essay “The Getaway Car,” which was also published as a separate book. That essay alone was worth the time spent reading the whole book, as it’s one of the best pieces I’ve ever read on writing as a craft and a career, although the book has many, many other highlights across a range of subjects.

One of the most frequent topics is her marriages – the current one, yes, which in her telling is a happy marriage, but also her first, brief marriage, which ended barely a year in and which turned her off the institution for some time. She married young and unwisely (I can relate), but to her credit, realized it early and got out, a history she describes in “The Sacrament of Divorce,” which makes what was probably a painful period in her life wryly funny. Karl, her current husband of many years (and partner of 11 years prior to that), comes up often in the book, both directly as in the title essay and “The Paris Match” (the story of a fight), but also in the two stories about their dog Rose, “This Dog’s Life” and “Dog Without End,” the latter about Rose’s death. Karl certainly comes off far better than husband #1, at the very least. Also, the stories of women throwing themselves at him after his own divorce are hilarious, as if they came from a bad made-for-Netflix film.

“The Wall,” one of the longest essays in the collection, tells of her abortive plan to go through the Los Angeles Police Academy and write a book about it. Patchett’s father was an LA cop for a long time, and derisive of the people who led the department during the aftermath of the assault on Rodney King and subsequent acquittal of the four cops who beat him. Patchett took and passed the test, but didn’t go into the academy, in part for fear of taking up a spot that would have gone to someone who really wanted to become a police officer, but the essay itself also shows us quite a bit about her relationship with her father without her ever addressing the topic head on. It’s a masterful piece of writing, with a bit of a humblebrag mixed in.

Two essays deal with Truth & Beauty, Patchett’s memoir of her friendship with the late author Lucy Grealy, whom she met when they were both 21. Grealy had cancer of the jaw as a child and was left disfigured by surgery to remove part of her jawbone; her own memoir, Autobiography of a Face, told of her life with the emotional and physical consequences of the cancer and surgery, and was met with wide critical acclaim. One of those essays here is about an attack on the book by religious zealots in/around Clemson, South Carolina, when that university assigned the book to its incoming first-year class. An alum named Ken Wingate, who was a lawyer, a member of the state’s Commission on Higher Education, and a Presbyterian Bible teacher, said the book was pornographic and launched a campaign to get the requirement removed. Ain’t a damn thing changed, folks: Orange County, Florida, banned two of her books, including her greatest novel Bel Canto, from its schools.

There’s some filler in here, like her intro to the edition of Best American Short Stories that she oversaw, and an essay from Gourmet called “Do Not Disturb” about what amounted to a staycation in the Bel Air hotel in Los Angeles, but they’re short and unobtrusive amongst the gems that litter the collection, not least of which is “The Getaway Car.” If someone told me right now they wanted to be a writer of any stripe, I would tell them to go read this essay. I don’t think it tells you how to write or how to be a better writer, nor does it try to dissuade the reader from writing (a cynical response I hear too often from journalists – our industry is a mess, but the world needs journalists, period). And, not to put words in Patchett’s mouth, she doesn’t seem to have that sort of concrete advice. She offers no dictums like “write every day” or “write what you know” or any of the other bromides that you hear from writers; if anything, she writes for the reason that I write – because she has to. She does describe a more arduous writing and editing process than I imagined for her, given how beautiful and lyrical her writing is; I just figured this was how she wrote, and how she speaks (which we get an example of in “Fact vs. Fiction,” a convocation address she gave at Miami of Ohio). It’s an essay about her life in writing, how she saw herself as a future writer, how her career unfolded, how she had to work at a lot of things unrelated to writing – including building her relationships in the writing world – to get to be a writer as a full-time profession. It’s a marvelous piece of storytelling that, if you have a writing bone in your body, will make you want to grab a notebook and start. What more could you want from an essay about writing? This is the Story of a Happy Marriage does indeed have that story in it, but more than that, it is the story of a brilliant writer over the first forty-odd years of her life, and it is beautifully told even in its disparate pieces.

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→ April 4, 2024
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Music update, March 2024.

March had a slew of big album releases, even just limiting them to artists whose work I’ve liked at some point in the past: Ride, Everything Everything, Liam Gallagher/John Squire, Waxahatchee, Elbow, Kacey Musgraves, Judas Priest, Sheer Mag, Yard Act, and more. There are a few I liked, but several were just okay – not bad, but nothing that special. There were a lot of songs from upcoming albums that I’m excited for, and this playlist has tracks from four different albums due out on May 3rd, so I guess that’ll be a busy listening weekend for me. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the Spotify widget below.

Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice. Moctar became a global phenomenon with 2021’s Afrique Victime, bringing his blend of Touareg music and Western guitar to a much broader audience as the English-language music press began to sing his praises. (It was #5 on my top albums of 2021.) This is the title track from his follow-up album, due out May 3rd, and it’s very heavy on Moctar’s mesmerizing guitar work.

Elbow – Good Blood Mexico City. This banger from Elbow’s latest album, AUDIO VERTIGO, feels like the best song Doves never recorded. It’s fast and loud and intense, with a great hook at its heart. The album is solid and I think it’s the best new album from last month, at least of the ones I’ve listened to all the way through.

The Libertines – Oh Shit. The lads’ fourth album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, is due out on Friday, a week later than originally scheduled, and the singles so far have still been rough-and-ready but definitely show a mellower side of Barât and Doherty.

Kaiser Chiefs – Reasons to Stay Alive.The Kaisers may be approaching 30 years together as a band, and their most popular record, Employment, may turn 20 next year, but their new album has two absolute bangers in this and “Beautiful Girl.” I doubt it’ll get much play outside of the U.K., given the way we dispose of bands in the U.S. music scene, but they’ve had more than a few winners even post-“Ruby.”

Kid Kapichi – Can EU Hear Me? Angry Kid Kapichi is the best Kid Kapichi, and I wish the whole album – There Goes the Neighborhood – maintained this level of righteous rage throughout. This is obviously an anti-Brexit track (“I don’t wanna live alone on this island/But they put it to a vote, and they just kept lyin’”) but like all of the best Kapichi tracks it has some incredible hooks and the indignation shows up in the furious rhythm guitar.

Liam Gallagher/John Squire – You’re Not the Only One. Yeah, well, the anticipation was fun, but the album is kind of a snoozer. I think everyone – myself included – was so excited at the potential for some real John Squire material on par with his Stone Roses output that perhaps we ignored two key facts: Squire is a terrible lyricist, and Liam hasn’t seemed engaged with any music he’s put out since Oasis’s 2005 album Don’t Believe the Truth. One track on the album is called “I’m So Bored,” and when Liam sings it, I believe him.

Mourn – Endless Looping. I thought Mourn had disbanded after 2021’s Self Worth, as they seemed to vanish from the internet, but they returned in March with The Avoider, which feels oddly muted for a trio whose songs usually burst with energy that helped power them through even when songs weren’t polished or their vocals were (deliberately) a little off key. This opening track is the best on the record, although “Could Be Friends” is solid too.

White Reaper – I Can’t Escape Myself. White Reaper released this one-off single, a cover of the opening track from UK post-punk icons The Sound’s debut album Jeopardy!, to tide fans over until there’s a new Reaper album on the way. It’s a faithful cover translated through the White Reaper sound, with more polished production than the original but still the same haunting quality.

Yard Act – A Vineyard for the North. Where’s My Utopia?, the second album from these UK post-punks, didn’t quite hit as hard as their debut album did, although I applaud the band for experimenting further with their sound rather than just resting on the plaudits from the first record. This is maybe the fifth-best song on the record, but I’ve already included “We Make Hits,” “Dream Job,” “Petroleum,” and “When the Laughter Stops” on previous playlists.

Sheer Mag – Golden Hour. Sheer Mag were lo-fi critical darlings in their early EP stages, when they were harder-edged and leaned more into garage rock and punk, even flirting with metal at times, but their new album Playing Favorites – which started out as a disco EP during the pandemic that grew into a full-length album seems to dispense with punk influences entirely. There’s a lot of 12-bar blues here and some rockabilly sounds (“Golden Hour”), with some great melodies (“Moonstruck”) but not a ton of experimentation – except on this track, which features a killer guitar solo from none other than Mdou Moctar.

Lauren Mayberry – Change Shapes. I’ve been surprised by Mayberry’s solo output so far, including this sugar-sweet pop track about how to survive in a relationship with a manipulative partner; if the lyrics didn’t have a dark edge I’d call it twee and leave it off the playlist entirely.

Richard Hawley – Two For His Heels. Hawley, formerly of the shortlived Britpop band Longpigs and then briefly of Pulp, hasn’t released anything since his 2019 album Further, but he’s back with this single (taking its title from a cribbage rule, so, hey, boardgames!) ahead of the May release of his latest album In This City They Call You Love. This track is very noirish, suiting its lyrics about a deal gone wrong.

La Luz – Strange World. Speaking of noir, La Luz doesn’t do anything other than that, and that’s fine with me. The quartet has changed by 50% since their last album in 2021, but leader Shana Cleveland is still on board. They’ll release News of the Universe on May 24th, featuring this track and the lugubrious “Poppies.”

Khruangbin – Pon Pón. A LA SALA, their first album of new material since 2020’s Mordechai, arrives this Friday; I loved Mordechai but it didn’t land with critics the way their earlier work had. This and “A Love International” are both standouts already, ahead of the slower (and non-instrumental) “May Ninth” of the three singles they’ve released from the album.

Kamasi Washington – Prologue. The acclaimed jazz saxophonist will release his latest album, Fearless Movement, on May 3rd, and this track is actually the last one on the record, despite the title. Nobody is the new John Coltrane, but Washington’s work does remind me a bit of the GOAT.

Kacey Musgraves – Cardinal. I guess I’m a Kacey Musgraves fan now.

Waxahatchee – 3 Sisters. I still haven’t listened all the way through Tigers Blood, and I think part of it is that I thought Saint Cloud (her last album, released almost exactly four years before this one) was so good that I can’t imagine this will live up to it. I don’t think there’s a “Lilacs” or an “Under the Rock” here, at least not yet, but this song is quite lovely, especially the harmonies in the chorus.

Parsnip – Turn to Love. I wouldn’t rate this above the Aussie’ quartet’s previous single, the incredible power-pop gem “The Light,” but if you hang on here until the chorus you’ll hear what they’re capable of. Their sophomore album Behold drops on April 26th.

Love Fame Tragedy – My Head’s in a Hurricane. LFT is Matthew Murphy, lead singer-songwriter for the Wombats, and his second solo album under that moniker, Life is a Killer, actually feels like a really good Wombats album – more than his solo debut did, certainly.

Courting – Battle. Courting’s New Last Name might be my top album of 2024 so far, and this extra track from those recording sessions has the same jangly, alt-poppy vibe as much of the LP did.

Blushing – Tamagotchi. The second song with this title to appear on one of my playlists this year, oddly enough, this “Tamagotchi” comes from a shoegaze band from Austin who’ve released two albums already, one co-produced by Mark Gardener of Ride. Their sound is very similar to early Lush, and indeed they covered “Out of Control” on an early release. Blushing’s third full-length album Sugarcoat comes out May 3rd.

Ride – Portland Rocks. Speaking of Ride, their latest album Interplay came out last month, and it’s a solid grade-B record: exactly what you would want and expect from Ride, nothing more, nothing too novel, but nothing amiss, either. They came back from hiatus at the same time as slowdive, so the comparisons are a little too easy, but where slowdive has leaned more into their shoegaze roots and are riding the wave of the genre’s revival, Ride have reemerged in a softer form, closer to dream-pop than shoegaze, with Interplay harkening back more to British new wave than the original shoegaze movement that Ride helped pioneer.

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Venal Eyes. The Guardian called the Reid brothers’ second comeback album “three-quarters of a good record” by way of praise; I might put the ratio closer to half. (Their real comeback album was 2017’s Damage and Joy, coming after a 19-year layoff; the wait this time was just seven years.) TJ&MC were always more shoegaze-adjacent to me, with more noise-rock elements and I think a pretty clear intent to create some chaos on record. This song does all of that, and does it well.

Drop Nineteens – Nest. Concluding the shoegaze portion of the playlist we have perhaps the only American band associated with the genre’s original heyday. Drop Nineteens put out a new album, Hard Light, in November of 2023, their first album in 30 years; this song didn’t make the album but came out of the same sessions.

Wheel – Empire. One of my favorite progressive metal bands going, Wheel has put out two singles from their forthcoming album Charismatic Leaders, this and the seven-minute “Porcelain.” The new album drops May 3rd and will be their first as a trio after bassist Aki Virta left the band amicably last July.

Ministry – New Religion. Al Jourgensen is 65 years old now and as pissed-off as ever, with Ministry’s new album HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, which he’s hinted might be their last, a furious tirade against incels, white nationalists, right-wing grifters, and Trump himself.

Judas Priest – Invincible Shield. Then we have Judas Priest, with three members in their 1970s, still shredding like in their peak, but definitely with a way more uplifting message than I’d expect from the folks behind “Breaking the Law” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.”

Pallbearer – Where the Light Fades. The kings of American doom metal will release their fifth album Mind Burns Alive on May 17th, their first new music since 2020’s Forgotten Days.

Ufomammut – Leeched. An Italian doom metal band who’ve been around for almost a quarter-century now, Ufomammut just crossed my radar for the first time about a week ago; this is some seriously heavy stuff, with menacing vocals to go along with it.

Messiah – Sikhote Alin. Messiah were part of the Swiss metal vanguard in the 1980s along with Celtic Frost and Coroner, then broke up in the mid-1990s and, as far as I knew, were done for good. They actually returned in 2020 with their first new album in 26 years, and just released their second post-reunion album, Christus Hypercubus, last month. Their music is still heavily rooted in thrash, with shouted vocals that are a little less abrasive than the typical death-metal style. This isn’t totally my cup of tea, but old-school thrash riffing will always appeal to me on some level.

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→ April 3, 2024
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Perfect Days.

Perfect Days is a beautiful, lyrical slice-of-life story from veteran director Wim Wenders, making his first film in Japanese, with a superb performance from K?ji Yakusho as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who seems to find happiness in the simplicity of his daily routine. It earned Wenders his best reviews since his signature film, Wings of Desire, came out in 1987. I just wish it wasn’t so monotonous and inert, even with such a fantastic lead. (You can rent it on iTunes, Amazon, etc.)

Yakusho plays Hirayama, who cleans public toilets in a fancy neighborhood of Tokyo and lives a spartan life built around reading, eating, and listening to music. He’s a solitary person and seems to want it that way, barely talking to anyone through his daily route – especially not his incredibly annoying co-worker, Takashi – and visiting the same few restaurants and the same used bookstore and the same park to eat lunch, and while he’s driving he listens to the same small set of cassette tapes of music from the 1960s and 1970s. He takes tremendous pride in his job, using a tiny mirror like a dentist’s to make sure the undersides of fixtures are clean, and appears to have his route and work timed to the minute. His routine is interrupted a few times throughout the movie – his whiny, arrested-development coworker Takashi, who barely cleans anything, cadges money and a ride off him; his teenaged niece shows up, having run away from home – but he’s mostly stoic throughout. That is, he’s stoic until two encounters shake him enough to get him to show some real emotion: a visit from his sister, whose appearance makes it clear that Hirayama has chosen to live this somewhat ascetic existence; and an incident where he sees the restauarant owner who seems to flirt with him whenever he comes in hugging another man, which leads to a very surprising meeting that I thought was the film’s strongest scene.

In many ways, Perfect Days should be right up my alley: It’s small in scope and story, with a modest character list, and the emotions it generates in the viewer are real and well-earned. The script has a ton of heart and respects its protagonist. But after seeing Hirayama get up and go through his morning routine for the fifth or sixth time, my attention started flagging. The film may very well be asking you to ask whether this is a man who’s found happiness in a simpler existence or whether there’s something pathetic about someone who has chosen to partake so little in the modern world or enjoy the company of others. If so, it doesn’t push hard enough in that direction, even with the two scenes at the end that should at least give the script a chance to explore more of Hirayama’s character; instead, all we get is seeing him cry, the first time he shows any real emotions other than annoyance or mild pleasure in the entire film.

The film has few side characters, and the one with the most screen time, Takashi, is the most annoying character I saw in any movie other than maybe May December. He’s ridiculous, but not in a funny way. He exists just to give Hirayama something more to do than eat, sleep, and read, but he wears out his welcome before his first scene is over – and then he comes back multiple times. Hirayama’s niece has the opposite problem – she’s almost a cipher, with very little personality of her own. There’s the hint that perhaps she’s more like her uncle than she is like her own mother, but the film doesn’t explore that angle before she returns home.

Perfect Days does have a great soundtrack, comprising mostly the songs that Hirayama listens to in his van, with tracks from The Animals, The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, The Kinks, and Nina Simone. There’s nothing in the film from later than about 1979, so we can infer that Hirayama has no interest in newer music and prefers the music of his youth – perhaps feeling that those songs are enough for him, or perhaps because he just has no interest in anything more modern. There are ideas in here, certainly, but the script doesn’t show the curiosity to learn more about its main character. Takusho’s strong turn is largely wasted here in a film that looks beautiful but never fully engages with its subject. I had high expectations for Perfect Days, but in the end, it just couldn’t hold my attention all the way through.

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→ April 1, 2024
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Knoxville eats.

This was just my second trip to Knoxville, ever, since the Volunteers weren’t that relevant for a huge portion of my career, and it’s not as easy to get to some of the other SEC schools. The first time I went was a barely 24-hour trip in 2022, too short for a writeup, and the one meal I had on that trip was at a restaurant that closed last year (Olibea). So this is my first-ever Knoxville post.

Last time through, I wanted to try A Dopo Sourdough Pizza, but couldn’t make the timing work around the game, so this time I was determined to give myself two shots to go but got in after the Friday game, possibly with the last dough of the evening. It is Neopolitan-style pizza in the baking and the thickness, but the dough is different – it is noticeably tangy, clearly made from a sourdough starter rather than commercial yeast as most Neapolitan doughs are. I went with the margherita and added mushrooms, because their white pizzas all have a sauce of mascarpone & cream on them, and that’s more lactose than I really need; the tomatoes were out of sight, blasted with sweetness and just a little acidity, while the mushrooms were mixed wild mushrooms rather than just cremini. I didn’t quite finish it because the menu demanded that I save room for gelato, and I do listen to orders, at least at restaurants. The dark chocolate gelato was not dark in the least, but the texture was excellent. I probably should have ordered the pistachio instead.

Last trip, I tried Remedy, a local coffee shop that served Intelligentsia beans, so I planned to try another coffee shop this year after going for breakfast … and then I went to Paysan, a bagel/bakery window that, I realized as I pulled up, is right next to Remedy. This turned out to be a bit of serendipity, as Remedy now uses Rowan Coffee from Asheville, NC, so I got a chance to try a new roaster. Their Peru San Juan Pueblo Libre was on pour-over, with some raw cocoa and caramel notes. The Remedy space is really great – it was busy but not noisy, there’s plenty of light and seating, and it’s not as sparse as a lot of coffee shops (with no subway tiles). Paysan’s bagel was very good – it’s probably an average New York bagel, maybe a high 45, but on the non-NY scale it’s at least a 55. I actually was more disappointed in the egg on the sandwich, which was a square of scrambled egg that had no taste and a texture that was oddly homogenous. I’d just get something else on a bagel next time.

The best thing at Sweet P’s Barbecue is actually the “greens n’ things,” which is slow-cooked collard greens sauteed with black-eyed peas, carrots, celery, and bacon, although I barely saw any of that last thing. I like collard greens, and if they’re made well I love collard greens, but they almost always have a little bitterness left in them. These had none. It was all of the good of collards, without that bitter note, and because they were cooked and then sauteed they were really tender. The pork ribs were fine, with good bark and a nice salty-sweet rub, although they weren’t as tender as they should have been, and the cole slaw is vinegar-based so it’s a good complement to the meat. It’s fine as Q goes, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

My least meal was downtown at Vida, a cocktail bar and Latin American restaurant, and I am afraid I just ordered the wrong things. I was debating between just getting ceviche and getting two smaller plates; I ended up with the latter because it meant more things to write about, but those smaller plates are definitely better for eating with a group because even two of them didn’t really add up to a meal. I ordered the panko-breaded shrimp and the corn croquettes, each of which was fine on its own, but it was too heavy as meal in total. The shrimp were in a combination of two sauces – a smoky adobo aioli and a sesame-sambal vinaigrette – with what they called a daikon and carrot “kim chi” that I think was just pickled with vinegar. The plus side was that it had a ton of flavor and it all worked well together, with smoky, salty, sour, and sweet elements, and if there’d been more umami from fermentation it would have been even better. It also needed more of the kim chi/slaw, but that’s part of my mistake in getting small plates rather than a more complete meal. The croquettes were extremely soft inside, tasting mostly of Manchego and the cilantro-lime crema underneath with just a hint of corn, and some ‘marinated avocado’ (I’m not even sure how that works, what on earth is absorbing the marinade here?) on top. The food was just okay, but the cocktail I tried was kickass; I asked another served who was picking up drinks next to my seat – sitting at that end of the bar can be great because you can ask servers what they like – what I should get as a rum drinker, and she said the Trinidad circuit race was her favorite. It contains two Trinidadian ingredients – Scarlet Ibis rum, a blend of column-stilled rums from 3 to 8 years old; and amaro di Angostura, a dark, potable bitter liqueur with strong notes of cinnamon and clove, a little like a fancy root beer. These are finished with passionfruit and lemon juices for the fruity Caribbean punch flavor profile, but without the cloying sweetness of more common mixers like pineapple juice or coconut or straight-up sugar in simple syrup or Grenadine. I’d really like to try Vida again and either just get the ahi ceviche or go with a group and try a bunch of smaller things. I’ll get the same drink, though.

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→ March 30, 2024
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Stick to baseball, 3/30/24.

I had two new posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week, my annual season predictions post and scouting notes on the Nationals’ Futures Game at Nats Park. I wanted to do a chat, but about 20 minutes before I was going to do it, our Internet went down for four hours. Good times.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Wyrmspan, the new standalone sequel/spinoff to Wingspan, adding a few rules changes to make it more complex while also replacing the birds with dragons.

I spoke to my friend Tim Grierson this week for RogerEbert.com about baseball movies, good, bad, and horrendous. I also appeared on WGN-TV to talk Cubs/White Sox.

I did indeed send around another issue of my free email newsletter, which you should definitely subscribe to if you enjoy my ramblings.

And now, the links…

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→ March 27, 2024
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Prophet Song.

Taking his cues from the devastating civil war in Syria, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of populist authoritarian movements in the West, Paul Lynch has crafted a terrifyingly personal dystopian vision in his newest novel, Prophet Song. Winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, the book follows the decline into tyranny and civil war of the Republic of Ireland through the eyes of Eilish, a mother of four who tries desperately to hold her family and herself together even as the world around her crumbles.

The story begins in the not-too-distant future, where an unidentified party has taken control in Ireland and turned the national police (the gardai) into state security, choosing labor unions – especially the teachers’ union – as their first targets. Larry, Eilish’s husband, is a leader in the teacher’s union himself and after one interrogation finds himself arrested by the national government, disappearing into the state’s growing apparatus for political prisoners and leaving Eilish alone with four kids, ranging from the teenager Mark to the still-nursing Ben. The state gradually increases its authority and rounds up more and more dissidents, even firing on protestors, leading to a near-total breakdown in the social order, food and water shortages along with bread lines, neighbors denouncing neighbors, and the inevitable rise of a ragtag rebel army. All the while, Eilish is trying to keep her family safe, including her father, who is in the early stages of dementia and only half understands what’s happening. Eilish can access some foreign news sources, such as the BBC, to get an outside view of the conflict, and the ubiquity of cell phones changes some of the dynamics of survival, but none of this changes the more fundamental needs to get food, shelter, and medical care, all of which become critical as Eilish has to decide whether to stay or make a dangerous bid to cross the border with Great Britain and join her sister Aine in Canada.

There’s something very It Can’t Happen Here about Prophet Song; this is the kind of collapse we associate with countries where the populace is mostly non-white – Syria, Somalia, Yemen, the D.R. Congo, and now Haiti. Lynch’s Ireland goes from an affluent, stable democracy to a police state that resembles the early U.S.S.R. but with the weaponry and technology of modern conflicts. A staid middle-class life sits on a shaky foundation of civil society that, as we’ve seen in the U.S., depends in large part on people not losing their minds and voting for would-be fascists. (Lynch never identifies the party in power by name or ideology, but they are at the least anti-labor; their specific policies aren’t relevant to Eilish’s story and he doesn’t waste time on them.) Hungary had a functioning democracy for a short while, but its people voted in an irredentist autocrat who has gone after two of the most common targets for authoritarian regimes – Jews and LGBTQ+ people. Venezuela and El Salvador have slid from democracy to dictatorship, with the former’s economy collapsing after its first strongman died. It can happen, but we never dream that it will until it’s too late, often by our own hand.

The real power of Lynch’s work is that he focuses exclusively on one family, and one person, rather than telling the story of the collapse of a country. In that way it’s more in the vein of survivalist or post-apocalyptic fiction, like Testament, In a Perfect World, and The Road than the standard dystopian novel. The leaders of the country are never named; in fact, no one in any position of authority, not even a police officer, gets a name in Prophet Song. Names are reserved for the ordinary people – Eilish, her family, a few neighbors. This choice makes the book more intensely personal, and becomes its own form of psychological horror – will Eilish’s family survive another day, and what calamity might lurk around the corner? You can experience the terrors of the police state from the most granular level, where the lights don’t stay on and food is scarce, where you can’t get across town to see your ailing father and you have to worry one of your kids will be arrested or shot for being out past curfew.

Lynch doesn’t shy away from the inevitable tragedies of his setting; Eilish is fighting a losing battle but refuses to admit it. Even the ending leaves some questions unanswered, and Eilish still isn’t certain if she’s made the right choices for her family, because in that situation you will never have that certainty. Instead, Lynch makes the smart choice to lean into the crises, but move us quickly in and out of them, so the story is never lurid, never ogling Eilish’s misery for the reader’s pleasure. It’s a masterful blending of the dystopian novel, the political thriller, and an exaltation of the power of one person – of one mother – to carry the weight of two different generations and somehow make it through.

Next up: Ann Patchett’s essay collection This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

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→ March 23, 2024
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Stick to baseball, 3/23/24.

At the Athletic, I wrote about a bunch of prospects I saw in the Cactus League, including two Breakout games; plus a list of six breakout candidates for 2024; as well as a Q&A with our fantasy expert Nando di Fino.

At Vulture, I wrote about the surge in cooperative tabletop games that started with Pandemic and then picked up during the … pandemic, really, along with a list of 14 of the best.

Now that this post is up I’ll begin the next edition of my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

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→ March 22, 2024
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Arizona eats, March 2024.

So the most interesting meal I had on the trip wasn’t because of the food, but because two days after I ate at Cocina Madrigal, a kitchen fire broke out and closed the restaurant indefinitely. There were no injuries, and the structure was intact, so I’m hoping they won’t be closed for long. It’s a taqueria and tequileria that just does what it does exceptionally well – scratch tacos, enchiladas, and a few other items with very high-quality inputs. The tropical fish tacos came with a roasted salsa, a slaw of coconut, cabbage, and mango; and a mild chipotle aioli, and the fish was grilled, not fried, so I stumbled into the most healthful meal I had all week. I think the fish was mahi-mahi, but they didn’t identify it on the menu; it was very fresh, whatever it was, as were all of the vegetables, and the corn tortillas were some of the best I’ve had. Nana in Durham has long held that particular crown for fresh corn tortillas, but they have some competition here – these were still soft and tender even with some browning from the grill. I’m not even sure I’d even try anything else on the menu. Good luck to Chef Leo Madrigal in reopening soon.

Cocina Chiwas is the new full-service restaurant from Nadia Holguin and Armando Hernandez, the owners of the wildly successful Tacos Chiwas mini-chain in the Valley, and this rivals Bacanora and Barrio Café as the best high-end Mexican restaurant in the Valley. I went there with a pair of friends, so I tried quite a few dishes, with zero misses in the group. The elote is straightforward, but also a perfect exemplar of the popular grilled-corn dish. The asado de puerco (pork spare ribs) come with a rich, earthy chile colorado sauce along with beans, rice, and tortillas, but honestly I would put that sauce on anything. The oysters come with a jamaica and habanero mignonette, less spicy than you’d expect, more like a strong red wine vinaigrette because the astringency of the hibiscus. The “chile con queso” was not what I expected – it was roasted peppers, tomatoes, and onions with a topping of two mild white Mexican cheeses, and even as someone who’s not a huge fan of cow’s-milk cheese, I was all over this because the vegetables were so good and the cheese was an accent rather than the dominant flavor. And the carrot-cake tres leches with candied pecans and a berry compote was superb – by that point, I’d had enough to eat and drink that I needed a dessert with some punch to get through, and this offered it with plenty of sweetness plus some tang from the berries and bitterness from the cajeta (caramel) sauce. If I have a nit to pick, I didn’t love either cocktail I tried – their takes on a Manhattan and an Old-fashioned, both of which were fine but didn’t improve on the originals. Both drinks had a smoky flavor that overtook the rest of the ingredients.

Espiritu Mesa is the new East Valley outpost from the folks behind Bacanora, which might be the best restaurant in the Valley based on locals’ opinions plus my one time eating there. The drinks here were well ahead of the food, for better or worse. Their ceviche changes often, so what I got may not be what you get if you go this week, but I will vouch for the freshness of the fish and a tangy soy-lime base; it came with sliced radish and a lot of cilantro. The aguacate was just a big ol’ thing of guacamole, served with enormous chicharrones that were really hard to break or chew. I’d either skip that or ask for tortilla chips. You could have made a coat out of all of the pig’s skin on that plate. You’re really here for the drinks – you get a little book of their various signature cocktails, with lists of ingredients, descriptions of the flavors, and ratings by bitterness, booziness, sourness, and sweetness. I had two cocktails, the Maduro and the Desu Notu. The Maduro has charanda (a white rum from Mexico), reposado tequila, crème de banana, cocchi Americano (a bitter aperitif), and blackstrap and chocolate bitters. The Desu Noto (Death note) also has charanda and crème de banana, along with bacanora, an agave-based spirit similar to mezcal, along with palm sugar and chocolate bitters. I preferred the Desu Noto, which wasn’t as sweet and let the flavors of the two liquors come through more, although I’d gladly have either again.

Vecina calls its cuisine “Modern American, Latin-inspired,” and I have no idea what that even means, but the food was good so they can call themselves Tralfamadorian for all I care. This was my last meal before departing, so I was trying to keep it light after eating and drinking too much all week. The ceviche was classic Peruvian-style, marinated in leche de tigre (lime, garlic, onion, chile, fish stock) and tossed with some grilled pineapple and other veg, served with tortilla chips. I’m an easy mark for ceviche as long as the fish is fresh, and this was. The charred broccoli with cashew crema, fermented honey, and Thai sauce (again, not sure what that means other than that there was definitely fish sauce involved) was a new way of serving what is probably my favorite vegetable to cook at home, something I’ll try to adapt for the family. The broccolini were indeed lightly charred, but the combination of the other elements made for a sauce that was sweet, tangy, heavy on umami, and slightly fatty to cut any bitterness in the brassica itself. I had debated that versus the shaved Brussels sprouts, but that dish had dates and I have had two very odd allergic reactions to date syrup so I’m a little wary of them. I made a good call here. One note – parking is scarce and you may end up in a nearby lot.

Hodori is in a Mesa strip mall that’s a sort of ASEAN of food – there’s a Thai place, a Chinese place, two Japanese places, as well as this bare-bones Korean restaurant that serves various bulgogi and soft-tofu dishes. I went with some friends and we shared four dishes – a kimchi pancake, a seafood-scallion pancake, pork bulgogi, and seafood bibimbap. The seafood-scallion pancake won out for me, primarily because the kimchi pancake was so tangy and didn’t have enough to balance out the spice and the sourness. The pork bulgogi was also pretty spicy but the sauce had enough sweetness and umami (there’s usually soy sauce and some fermented product like gochujang in bulgogi) that the heat didn’t overtake the dish, and the pork was extremely tender. The total tab for all three of us, including some shoju and beer, was about $70 before tip.

I’m loyal to my breakfast spots – the Hillside Spot, Crepe Bar, and Matt’s Big Breakfast, all of which I hit while in Phoenix – but did try one new one in Ollie Vaughn’s, meeting my longtime friend (literally – I think we’ve been friends for 15+ years now) Nick Piecoro there. Their sausage and biscuit sandwich, with egg, cheese, and jalapeño marmalade on a buttermilk biscuit is a tremendous amount of food, and the biscuit just fell apart by the time I was halfway through it, but I have zero regrets. They use Schreiner’s sausage, the best sausage vendor in the Valley that I know.

Lom Wong was the one mildly disappointing meal of the trip, although it’s more about my palate than the food at this acclaimed northern Thai restaurant, where many of the recipes come from the chef’s extended family across Thailand. The green mango salad was pretty incredible, better than any similar dish (usually green papaya) I’ve ever had, with fried shallots, toasted coconuts and peanuts, a dressing of coconut milk, lime, and fish sauce, and “hand-torn” shrimp, which, well, I hope they were dead first? I ordered the arai kodai, in which the server picks dishes for you based on what you indicate you do/don’t like and your spice tolerance, but even after saying mine was pretty low, I ended up with a chicken dish that had just been added to the menu, very similar to larb gai, that tasted only of chile pepper and a little of cumin, which gave it the overall vibe of spicy dirt. I did enjoy the Three Kings cocktail, with dark rum, dry curaçao, fernet (an Italian amaro that’s very herbal), guava, palm sugar, and what I assume is a bitters from Som, founded by the chef-owner of Portland’s legendary Thai restaurant Pok Pok. It’s reminiscent of Caribbean rum cocktails, but far less sweet and cloying.

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