There Is Only Emptiness Against Us

Here in January 2026, it seems indulgent and a little selfish to spend time listening to and writing about music, but we're going to do it anyway. At worst, it's a distraction, but at best it might make us think, or bring us closer to the divine and/or to each other. Hopefully it will also help get us off our asses.

Top Ten Albums of 2025

 

10. Wednesday — Bleeds

One can almost smell the Carolina summer night, with the lake and the car and the weed and the moonlight. Fuzz bass and heavy dynamic shifts add to the wooziness. I'm not sure what Karly Hartzman has against Phish, but I’ll give her a pass this one time.

9. Juan Wauters — MVD LUV

Maybe Montevideo is the only civilized place left on this earth, where people like Juan Wauters – by far the most likable character on the list this year – will greet you and ask you what’s bothering you and promise to listen to you and invite you for coffee, like a Roke wizard, gently weaving spells to protect the last sane, good place on Earthsea from the warring kings from the other islands. (Someone has been reading a lot of LeGuin lately).

8. Great Grandpa — Patience, Moonbeam

Identifiable as folk-rock, or alt-country, and I think there may be some lyrical references to farms in there somewhere, but this is more than a genre exercise. The band appear to be nice, down-to-earth folks in the “Ladybug” video, in which the bass player also appears to be 8 months pregnant.

 

7. Telethon — Suburban Electric

Fun and lively dudes from Wisconsin, who are knd of like The Hold Steady, kind of like Weezer, kind of like Nirvana, kind of like Schoolhouse Rock, and not at all afraid to break into a polka. 

 

6. Neko Case — Neon Grey Midnight Green

Everyone’s here to see the singer, but I'm fixated on John Convertino, barely visible behind the drum kit, brushes teasing and tapping and swishing and stuttering on the snare, evoking the rising snowdrifts outside the bar off I-94 and inviting you to order another round and wait out the blizzard in here, while listening more closely to what the grey-streaked redhead on the microphone has to say. 

 

5. Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover — What Of Our Nature

Acoustic guitar way down in the mix, like a cat skulking through the tall grass. There’s disapproval and some anger and generous serving of cleverness here, but over an undercurrent of hope and belief in eventual justice. Go ahead and draw comparisons to Dylan and Baez. Which reminds me: where the fuck are the protest singers in America right now? 

 

4. Richard Dawson — End Of The Middle

In which, like Odysseus, our hero returns from the epic, millennia-spanning journey of his last three albums. I heard him say in an interview that he was going for “domestic” with this album, and there are plenty of northern English homey signifiers: community gardens and under-21 matches on the telly, and many stiff yet heartfelt (i.e. northern English) human exchanges which Dawson always captures so masterfully. Yet, by the time we reach the terrifying(ly gorgeous) middle 3:4-over-4:4 bit of “The Question," in which we learn the gruesome backstory behind the decapitated apparition haunting the track’s young female protagonist, you are reminded that this is Richard Dawson, and shit is going to get crazy in an awesome and delightful way. My wife cannot stand his voice, and I can understand why, but I can’t get enough of this guy.

 

3. Car Seat Headrest — The Scholars

A few years ago, I saw CSH at a small venue in Amsterdam, and I bumped into the guitar player on the stairwell and told him I was sorry they didn’t play “Cosmic Hero,” and he said (looking mildly annoyed as he turned from the young woman he was hitting on to answer me) that yeah, they don’t really like playing the, like, longer songs live. With that exchange in mind, I’m not sure how they’re planning on touring this release, which finds Will Toledo giving broad license to his more operatic tendencies, and which includes several tracks longer than 10 minutes. I find this more inscrutable and frankly less likable than when he used to sing about drugs being better with friends and vice versa, but I can't fault his ambition, and I could spend all day listening to him harmonize with himself.  

 

2. Min Taka — I Think We Should Just Move In Together (EP) 

The best act to come out of the Netherlands since… Golden Earring? Like Olivia Rodrigo without the performative anxiety, like Lily Allen without the defensive sarcasm, like (dare I say) Tay-Tay without the baggage of being Tay-Tay. Clocks in at 19 minutes and change, including a track which is a reprise of the opener, leaving me very hungry for more. 

 

1. Black Country, New Road — Forever Howlong

A couple of years ago, Isaac Wood packed his rags and went down the hill, and the band was left a-lying still without a frontman and an essential part of their sound. Rather than calling it a day or going their separate ways, the rest of BCNR responded by turning toward one another, divvying up the vocal responsibilities among the three women, hitting the road, playing a ton of music, and releasing a live album. Nowadays what they might lack in drama and urgency they make up for with patient song evolution, voices like Sirens, and (always earning points from this listener) a surprisingly inventive and musical drummer.  

 

 

P.S. (* = recommended):

 

*Lily Allen — West End Girl

Adds to the canon of post-breakup albums with merciless autobiographical detail, while showing off her prodigious acting chops (the album title is not incidental). One wonders if fiction would have been more interesting, but I won’t deny her her catharsis. As an aside, if you’re looking for a thrilling couple of hours, pick up a copy of “2:22,” the play she was in. No spoilers here.

 

Allo Darlin’ — Bright Nights

Friendly and folksy, like a warm quilt. Nature metaphors abound.

 

Basia Bulat — Basia’s Palace

Benign pop/folk, and refreshing to hear a female vocalist eschew the typical pyrotechnics one hears on contemporary radio, because Basia Bulat sings as though she has moderate to severe asthma. 

 

*BC Camplight — A Sober Conversation

Piano, musical-ish, but smarter and less campy. Merits a few more listens.

 

*The Beths — Straight Line Was A Lie

I love this band, and I won’t deny Elizabeth Stokes her blue period, but this release made me long for some of their former energy and joy. I admit that in early 2026 I also long for some of my own former energy and joy.

 

Big Thief — Double Infinity

I should probably like this band more than I do. Sometimes the timbre of the lead singer’s voice makes all the difference.

 

*Rodney Crowell — Airline Highway

A first-ballot songwriting hall-of-famer shows us what aging gracefully looks like. The fact that I’m less familiar with his songbook than I am with, say, Steven Malkmus’s, is my fault, not his. 

 

De La Soul — Cabin In The Sky

Always nice when old friends drop by. As I get older, I talk healthier too. RIP Trugoy the Dove.

 

Drake & Partynextdoor — Some Sexy Songs 4U

Another year, another quality Drake release, but at this point we should concede that he hasn’t really progressed from high-school-level relationship psychology. “Pussy so good I should stay inside, but I had to step out with the guys” is not a line I need to hear from a soon-to-be-40-year-old.

 

Earl Sweatshirt — Live Laugh Love

Confusing and sometimes enjoyable, like middle age. 

 

*Robert Forster — Strawberries

Sometimes you don’t need to be so clever, sometimes you don’t need to smother your vocals in layers of reverb and echo, sometimes simple rhymes (floor/door, stay/day, ten/men, town/town!) and basic instrumentation work just fine. See also Rodney Crowell.

 

*Foxwarren — 2

I thought the singer’s marble-mouthed diction sounded familiar, and sure enough it’s Andy Shauf, who had an appearance on my top ten list a few years ago. Andy is not looking for any trouble, just some gentle cooing over a top-notch rhythm section and samples from old movies. There may be a theme in there worth unpacking. 

 

Ezra Furman — Goodbye Small Head

I held my breath as I pressed play, hoping this would not be a concept album about bottom surgery. I think it wasn’t? 

 

Geese — Getting Killed

Top-notch drummer and grooves tastier than a sloppy joe, undermined by a frontman who channels a caterwauling Thom Yorke. I don’t understand what the fuss is all about.

 

Gloomy June — Gloomy June

If a management consultant were to plot Gloomy June on one of those 2x2 grids that management consultants are fond of, where the y-axis represented “energy” and the x-axis represented “engaging,” this would go in the upper left quadrant. 

 

Cory Hanson — I Love People

The dude from Wand does a credible imitation of Dewey Bunnell from America. 

 

Home Is Where — Hunting Season

Just as this band is missing a relative clause in its name, so it is also missing a competent vocalist to complement the nifty guitar playing. 

 

Hot Mulligan — The Sound A Body Makes When It’s Still

Generically likable emo. I realize that I say pretty much the same thing about every emo act on this list. 

 

Jane Remover — Revengeseekerz

Yikes. Makes Danny Brown seem laid-back by comparison.

 

Jeanines — How Long Can It Last

As if Jane Wickline from SNL started a Guided By Voices tribute band. That’s too harsh: there’s nothing wrong with some jangle and some harmonies, and I imagine this crushes on the east side of the East River.

 

*Sophia Kennedy — Squeeze Me

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome. I had no idea who this artist was, and for some reason my first listen through what kept coming to mind was The Berlin Stories. Androgynous, affirmative, club-friendly. And what do you know: this woman grew up in Germany. I would make a wry reference to Weimar here, but my wife (also German, with a keen sense of history) reminds me that we’ve already reached 1933.

 

Kerosene Heights — Blame It On The Weather

Serviceable emo. I would have loved this when I was 19-22.

 

Lady Gaga — Mayhem

At her best, she reminds us that no one does gay club anthems better. At her worst, she’s almost embarassingly derivative: a Wham! Guitar part here, a Depeche Mode synth there, and a Taylor Swift knock-off that’s so convincing you reach for the liner notes to see who wrote it. 

 

Maddie Jay — I Can Change Your Mind

Pretty. Chill.

 

Mamalarky — Hex Key

Starts encouragingly, with late-Blur woozy guitar, before pivoting to synth-heavy mushrock. May also be an anagram for the current FDA commissioner. 

 

*McKinley Dixon — Magic, Alive!

Euphoric, mile-a-minute rapping integrates well the Mahavishnu Orchestra-style backing band. We’re outside, rejoice, indeed. 

 

*McLusky — The World Is Still Here And So Are We

Welsh kings of the dynamic shift make an emphatic return

 

Jensen McRae — I Don’t Know How But They Found Me

Kind of the whole package here: great set of pipes, well-written songs with bridges as sturdy and elegant as the Zakim, flawless backing band. I wish she wouldn’t affect one of those à la mode speech impediments, but the fact that I don’t want to listen to it is my fault, not hers. 

 

Melody’s Echo Chamber — Unclouded

I listened to this at the gym one morning in Orlando, and I don’t recall much other than the super-dry drums. Still waiting for her to show up in a Louis Vuitton ad campaign.

 

Parcels — Loved

As if Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons came back as a Praise act. 

 

Hayden Pedigo — I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away

Pretty, skillful acoustic (meaning no singing) modern folk. I will have to keep this in mind if I ever start a YouTube channel about hiking.

 

Rosalía — Lux

Cool strings and synths and hints of percussion, Spanish vocals that channel something divine and terrifying. Inscrutable guest performances. Not something I’ll put on when I’m setting out a plate of cookies for company, but it’s impressive.

 

Ruby Haunt — Blinking In The Wind

Fleet Foxy, with a lead vocalist so laid back, you fear the entire operation may grind to a halt any second.

 

Saint Etienne — International

Bouncy and happy and sounding like they’re misreading the geopolitical room here in 2026. Possibly angling for a retirement gig on a cruise ship.

 

Samia — Bloodless

Sheryl Crow-esque, relatively inconsequential.

 

Saturdays At Your Place — These Things Happen

Likable emo act, not so bound to the genre that they will miss an opportunity for a shuffle beat or a handclap break.

 

Serengeti — Universe

“This is Mr. Floyd calling for Mrs. Floyd, are we reaching?…He keeps hanging up…There must be somebody else there besides your wife, sir.”

 

*Skrillex — Fuck U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol But Yr Not!!

The musical equivalent of scrolling TikTok, perhaps while taking amphetamines. The listener is encouraged to play the album in its entirety, which feels appropriate, as each “song” hurtles into the next with frantic, ADHD-like speed. The music itself approximates the sounds of those chariot-things in Star Wars Episode 1, and guest artists appear, evidently for the primary purpose of saying their own names into the microphone. Despite all that, there’s a self-mockery, from the album title on down, that makes this oddly likable and super-fun. 

 

Sombr — I Barely Know Her

Boy chases girl, boy loses girl, boy misses girl. All the right moves are here - vox are distorted just so, middle 8’s are sturdy – yet I can’t help but get the impression that we’re dealing with a narcissistic jerk here. Maybe it’s that line about not wanting the kid of another man to have his ex’s eyes, a line I can’t imagine, say, Juan Wauters delivering.

 

Smerz — Big City Life

Like a dance party on tranquilizers on a cruise ship on rolling seas. Girl seeks boy, but stakes are low and ambivalence reigns. “Talk to me if you want to.” Perhaps this is what the dating scene is Copenhagen is like, and why the Danes are so happy.

 

Stereolab — Instant Holograms On Metal Film 

Madame Sadier’s vox are a little too high in the mix, which makes this effort feel more like a PoliSci lecture than a night out at the club, but then again Stereolab has always been a pretty didactic project. Pairs well with the Zesinger Fitness Center at MIT.

 

*Tame Impala — Deadbeat

Has there ever been a situation where an artist leaning into parenthood has made their art better? This is nice to have on in the background, but is that where Kevin Parker really wants to be?

 

Taylor Swift — The Life Of A Showgirl

I can’t add anything useful to the conversation here. 

 

Tops — Bury The Key

Breathy lead singer, 80s pop sounds. May induce mild to moderate head bobbing.

 

Tyler, The Creator — Don’t Tap The Glass

Apart from the opening track, on which Pharrell reminds us of his chromatic mastery, nothing to see here. Liked him in Marty Supreme. 

 

Weatherday — Hornet Disaster

The band you are looking for, and I believe they are looking for, is The Hives. 

 

The Weather Station — Humanhood

Tasteful and adept, evoking Tori Amos. Unlike Tori, nothing here to grab you by the loins.

 

Wet Leg — Moisturizer

Something about this band creeps me out. The band name and the word “moist” in the album title is not helping matters.

 

*Steven Wilson — The Overview

This is ground control to Stanley Kubrick, backed by his usual band of studio wizards. RIYL: Greg Egan

 

The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die — Dreams Of Being Dust

This year’s model is lighter on the tension and heavier on the release. The screamy stuff isn’t my cup of tea, and the nihilism is turned up to 11, but they have a point that we humans are royally fucking things up, and they do what they do very very well.  

Wastin' Away Again

The start of Labor Day weekend brought news of the passing of Jimmy Buffett (no relation to Warren).  He was only 76, the same age as both of my parents. If you’ve come anywhere near classic rock radio and/or Times Square recently, you’re familiar with Buffett's work, especially “Margaritaville,” the catchy, calypso-infused 1977 single which he parlayed from modest chart success into a multibillion-dollar empire of themed restaurants, resorts, cruises, and senior living ("55 and Better") communities. The song and the enterprises it spawned all celebrate a singular statement of purpose: the sea, the sun, and (especially) frozen tequila-based cocktails will deliver succor and redemption in the face of life’s hardships, be they severe foot injury, regrettable drunken body-art-related decisions, or existential angst represented by misplaced dispensers of sodium chloride.

Like no other artist of his generation, Buffett’s trajectory and philosophy were the ideal representation of Boomerism: youthful hedonism co-opted by the comforts of American-style capitalism.  All of the tourists covered in oil were not just objects of artistic reflection from a porch swing: they were a market to be catered to. Which Buffett and co. did, cultivating a lifestyle of tasty waves and cool buzzes which particularly appealed to those in their autumn years.  As a few cocktails at the end of a long day make everything feel all right now, so would the Margaritaville lifestyle deliver a breezy coda to one’s retirement. No bad days, as the bumper sticker says.

What keeps the narrator of “Margaritaville” just on the right side of sympathetic is his sheepish acceptance of responsibility. Some may blame their exes for their misfortune, but by the third chorus, he's ready to concede that it’s his own damn fault.  By all accounts, Buffett himself was a decent guy: he spent generously on conservation and hurricane relief. He bailed on the Florida Keys after they became too commercialized, perhaps understanding that the hazy good times would not roll on forever; that sooner or later Americans, especially those close to the shoreline, would have to contend with the bummer consequences of limitless consumption. I wonder if he appreciated the irony of building a business empire based on a scene that will most likely be underwater by the end of the century.  Or maybe he understood it perfectly, and concluded that strumming his six-string all the way to the bank was as good a response as any.

Welcome to Acedia

Over the past few months, I’ve run into several people who have told me that they read and appreciate the stuff I write here.  This always leaves me surprised and humbled.  It also makes me feel guilty for how little I’ve written the past year or so.  I have a trunk full of excuses for why that might be: too much work, too many early morning meetings, too much going on with the new house, etc. 

I also think that living in the US again changed the way I perceive things, moreso than I thought it would.  I recently read an interview with Wes Anderson, who talked about living outside one’s home country: “I think there’s something about when you’re living in places where you don’t really speak the language…There’s something that isolates you…You’re sort of an observer…Every day that you’re abroad, you’re discovering something new.  It’s sometimes challenging to do basic things.  I remember when we were doing The Life Aquatic [in Italy] I had to go buy lightbulbs.  I was able to communicate what I needed to communicate in order to find a buy the right lightbulbs.  In America that would not be a particularly rewarding experience.”

In any case, perhaps most importantly, this website is supposed to have something to do with spirituality, and, for whatever reason, I’ve been feeling pretty spiritually languid lately.  I still say a small prayer of thanks most mornings, but I’ve been going to church like once every two or three months.  The “spiritual” books on the shelf next to my desk at home sit there untouched.  Nothing seems really novel or energizing, God-wise. 

* * * * *

I read Dante’s Inferno over my summer holiday, an appropriate choice for a heat wave, or a rapidly overheating planet, or a society plunging ever deeper into a spiritual abyss.  I had read at least part of it years ago for a college class, but I didn’t remember much.  I suppose the Divine Comedy wouldn’t be labeled a “fun vacation read,” but there’s a reason why people make such a big deal about Dante.  Granted, he plays to the LCD a bit with some of the gory punishments he inflicts on the eternally damned.  His hierarchy of sins can also seem puzzling (do alchemists and counterfeiters really belong on a lower rung of hell than murderers?).  But structurally, thematically, symbolically, it’s hard to find any work of art so rich and rewarding.

Dante drops us right into the action in Canto I, where the narrator finds himself in midlife/spiritual crisis.  Volumes could (and probably have been) written about the opening line alone: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”  His gently sloping but straightforward path is suddenly blocked by three beasts -- a she-wolf (understood to symbolize the sins of incontinence), a lion (violence and bestiality), and a leopard (fraud).  His path to salvation must pass through the recognition of sin (Inferno), the renunciation of sin (Purgatory), before finding the rapturous presence of God (Paradise).  He can’t make this journey by himself: first Virgil (human reason) and then Beatrice (divine love) must guide him.   

This preceding paragraph was liberally plagiarized from the fine “How to Read Dante” by John Ciardi, who translated the version I borrowed from the Cambridge Public Library.  Discussing the key themes introduced in these first Cantos, Ciardi talks about sin, specifically the deadly sin of acedia.  This is better known to us as “sloth,” and we typically associate it with being lazy, sitting around staring at your phone, that sort of thing.  But to Dante, Ciardi argues, acedia was the central spiritual failure: “the failure to be sufficiently active in the pursuit of the recognized Good…to acknowledge Good, but without fervor…The Divine Comedy is the zealous journey from man’s recognized spiritual torpor (neglect of God) to the active pursuit of his soul’s good (love of God).” Emphasis mine.

* * * * *

I’ve been sick for the past week.  Not Covid, one feels obliged to say these days.  It was one of those old-fashioned upper respiratory things which starts out with a nasty sore throat, then spends a couple of days in your sinuses, then spends a couple more days in your chest.  Nothing serious, and almost quaint in its course, recalling a time when a tickle in your throat did not come with the psychological and logistical baggage of a global pandemic.  Still, I was pretty tired for a few days. 

This morning was Thanksgiving and I woke up early and fed the cats.  Then, rather than doing what I usually do (eat breakfast while staring at my phone), I meditated and stretched and did a little Pilates and tried to write something about Dante and I started to feel better again.  

With apologies to Candidate Moree

I realized on Monday night that Tuesday was Election Day and that I had no idea who to vote for.  It’s not a “big” election year – in Cambridge, only city council, school council and three questions were on the ballot – but I still felt like I should vote, to do my civic duty in a country where civics seem to be on shaky footing, and to honor my inchoate belief that local politics somehow matter, perhaps moreso than national politics, which at this point are basically a circus / opportunity to reaffirm one’s sociopolitical tribal allegiances.  To wit, this morning I saw Democrats far north of the Mason-Dixon line gnashing teeth and rending garments because a Republican won the Virginia Governor’s race. 

So on Monday night I opened the laptop and began the problematic exercise of trying to evaluate around 25 candidates based on a ~60 second video clip and a few bullet points.  This being Cambridge, there were no QAnon zealots or other obvious kooks, and they all echoed many of the same themes: affordable housing, fair wages, diversityequityinclusion, etc.  So with little to go on as far as “issues,” I found myself rating candidates based on superficialities: this one seemed reasonable, that one looked uncomfortable reading from her laptop, that one was wearing a shirt I didn’t like.  I did my own “diversity” calculations, looking for a balance between incumbents (who might know what they’re doing, but who might just as easily be jaded organs of certain unsavory powers) and newcomers (who might bring fresh eyes and new ideas, but who also might have no idea how to operate in local government).  This also included complicated trade-offs around race and ethnicity, as I found myself searching for equilibrium among Black/White/Asian, younger/older, immigrant/native, activist/pragmatist.

Last year, when we were planning to move from Europe to Cambridge, I had toyed with the idea of getting involved in local politics, maybe at some point running for something.  I realize now that I wouldn’t stand a chance: Joe and Jane Cambridge are not interested in voting for a carpetbagging representative of Big Pharma when they have their choice of lifelong Cambridge residents, Harvard graduates, second-generation Haitians who grew up in public housing, etc. 

After an hour or so, I had typed my list of favored candidates into a “Note” on my phone (Cambridge does ranked-choice voting, so you need to pick more than one).  On Election Day, I managed to sneak out during a window between meetings and walk over to my voting place, conveniently located at the middle school on the next block.  I entered the gymnasium where volunteers stood behind long folding tables on the sidelines of the basketball court, and I helped the tall, young light-skinned Black guy locate my name on a printed list.  They didn’t ask for an ID, which I admit felt a little odd, even though I have read all the articles you have about how voter fraud is not really a problem and that “voter ID” laws are discriminatory and suppressive.  A fleece-vested retiree handed me a black felt-tipped pen and three papers of different lengths which kind of nested together neatly, and I made my way to midcourt, and the curtained round high-top tables where you fill out the ballots.  The tables reminded me of the portable urinals I’ve seen at running races in Europe: chest-high, yin-yang shaped fiberglass structures which demand the uncomfortable act of peeing while you’re facing another person who is also peeing.

After feeding my completed ballots into something resembling an industrial shredder (I noted the “Dominion” logo embossed on the lid), I exited the gym and started home.  At the corner I encountered a middle-aged guy in glasses and a baseball hat who was carrying a “Gregg Moree for City Council” sign, and whom I realized I had seen there most mornings this fall during school drop-off.  I thought the red, white, and blue “I voted” sticker on my left jacket breast might confer immunity from canvassing, but he approached undeterred.  He said to me, loudly and with severe indifference to the integrity of one’s personal space, “YOU LOOK LIKE A SMAHT GUY, SO WOULD YOU GIVE THIS TO ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS?”  He handed me a 4x6 “Gregg Moree for City Council” flyer, and, after a quick glance at it, I realized that I stood before Gregg Moree himself.  On the back of the flyer was a photo of Gregg Moree next to an auburn-haired woman, who smiled nervously and seemed to want to escape out of the frame of the photo.  Below the photo was a subtitle: “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY,” a fact which Gregg Moree now highlighted by saying, “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY!”  I wouldn’t know Vicky Kennedy from a hole in the ground, but I suppose that name-dropping a Kennedy is a safe bet when running for office in Massachusetts.

I wished Gregg Moree luck, put the flyer in my pocket and continued home.  At the corner, I pulled out my phone to make sure that Gregg Moree was not one of the people I had just voted for.

Alexis de Jokeville

I expected to have all sorts of pithy observations after returning to America after so many years living abroad.  I suppose my main observation is how quickly and efficiently I have been reabsorbed into the American work cycle, which devours all of one’s time and energy and leaves very little room for pithy observations.  I think it mainly has to do with the time zone and my company’s tendency to begin every day with meetings at 7am or 8am (there’s even a 6:30am call on my calendar this week).  So that by the time the workday ends, one doesn’t have much left in the tank for anything else.

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In our neighborhood there are, staple-gunned to telephone poles, signs which read, “CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS,” in black all-caps scrawl on a safety yellow background.  A visitor to Cambridge might see this and not understand what it means.  I’m not sure if I understand what it means.  I assume it means that someone (call them Person A) will give money to someone (Person B) in exchange for the strips they use to measure their blood glucose, under the assumption that someone else (Person C) who needs them will pay a greater amount of cash for them.  In the most optimistic scenario, this is a simple correction of a supply imbalance: Person B ended up with too many test strips – maybe because they recently purchased a new blood glucose monitor – so they make a little money off of them rather than throw them in the garbage, and Person A can make a legitimate margin for their service connecting buyer and seller.  Like Air BnB, but for medical supplies.  But what about Person C?  The scenario assumes that they aren’t able to get test strips – which they need so they don’t die – by means other than buying them off the black market.  Not to mention the darker scenarios: Person A sells their test strips not because they have extras, but because they need the cash and they’re willing to roll the dice and test their blood glucose a little less frequently; or Person A’s cousin steals their test strips and sells them to Person B because they need the cash; etc.

One would assume that this sort of hustling and margin-chasing would be unnecessary in a developed country with a functioning health care system.  One would be mistaken.

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The dryer has turned all my nice Hanro undershirts into crop tops.  This isn’t the ideal look for me.

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On Easter Sunday, I got up early and drove down to Cambridge Common for the 7am outdoor service that Harvard-Epworth was putting on.  On my way down Mass Ave, the maroon minivan in front of me kept slowing down as if to turn right but then changing its mind at the last second and continuing straight.  After a while, I semi-angrily passed it, and then saw that it pulled in behind me to park at one of the meters next to the common, as the driver too was on his way to the outdoor service.   

Around 40 people were arranged in three-ish rows which emanated out like the wifi symbol.  I was greeted by Alissa the divinity student from Arkansas, who handed me an order of service, which they call a “bulletin” here.  I said hello to a few people I didn't know, and I thought I recognized one of the women from the Lent group Zoom, whose name I want to say is Terri or Charli or something like that.  I caught Pastor Herb’s eye, and we exchanged waves.

It was a short service, which was appreciated because we were standing outdoors in the early-April chill, squinting into the rising sun, and my glasses kept fogging because of the FFP2 mask I was wearing.  A brief welcome. “Morning Has Broken” (which we were asked to sing in sotto voce). The standard reading from Matthew with the stone rolled away, including the great line which landed especially heavily this year: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” A short message from Herb, in which he inverted the stone being rolled away not so JC could come out as much as we could enter in and join him. “Christ Our Lord Is Risen Today,” whose melody will be familiar to the C&E churchgoing crowd.  Since these are Methodists, it's the Charles Wesley version, which includes the superb middle-finger-to-Satan of a 3^rd verse (Lives again our glorious King / Where, O death, is now thy sting? / Once he died our souls to save / Where's thy victory, boasting grave?).  All atop an audio bed of whoosh from the passing cars on Mass Ave on one side and Garden Street on the other.

At a few points during the service, we engaged in some "Christ is risen!"/"Halleluiah!" call-and-response, an activity which several years ago I probably would have felt very self-conscious about doing in any setting, much less while standing in the middle of a public square in broad daylight.  But for whatever reason this year it didn't feel awkward at all, and in fact it felt cathartic and right to praise the coming of spring, the promise of rebirth, the hope of return.

Transit

For a moment, it felt like we were on top of things, but by the last couple of days in Geneva our possessions had gotten the better of us.  We did manage to get rid of a lot – friends of one of our musician friends were happy to take the washing machine and a lot of the furniture and appliances – but, inevitably, a few loose ends remained on Wednesday morning at 5 when the taxi came to remove us. 

Geneva Airport was less crowded than the last time I was there back in March, but there was no shortage of check-in tension.  We were flying KLM through Amsterdam, and a few days earlier the Dutch authorities had issued a new regulation requiring a negative PCR test before boarding any plane into the country.  Fortunately, I had received an email from the airline over the weekend, so we were able to scramble and get tested at the private clinic in Champel.  Others, including a group of Irish kids returning from a ski holiday, were not so lucky and were queuing up across the hall to have their flights rebooked.

My main source of worry leading up to the trip was going through security with the cats, which would require me to take them out of their carriers and walk them through the metal detector thing.  Fortunately, my nightmarish images of their clawing their way out of my arms and disappearing somewhere in the bowels of the airport went unfulfilled, and the other passengers were treated to the image of a middle-aged man in stocking feet walking back and forth three times through the metal detector, each time with a different Siberian clutched to his chest.  The cats themselves were basically fine for the rest of the trip, save some complaining and panting from Nocturno the larger male.  I put his carrier on my lap and petted him through a slightly unzipped opening in one of the doors, and that calmed him down a little.

There were maybe ten people in the normally heaving passport control area at Logan.  We handed the documents for L&C’s immigrant visas to the Customs and Border Protection guy in his booth.  These were in manila envelopes that I had picked up at the embassy in Bern a few weeks before, all edges of which had been sealed with packing tape and rubber-stamped with warnings not to open or the applications therein would be invalidated, which lent a silly cloak and dagger vibe to the whole process.  The CBP guys try hard to project a stern and menacing aura (and I’m sure the experience is not at all pleasant for some people trying to enter the US), but they can’t completely suppress their innate American friendliness.  The guys downstairs who gave our bags a final run through the x-ray seemed more interested in admiring the cats than in sussing out any contraband.  I breathed a slight sigh of relief, realizing that I would not have to explain the sourdough starter and kombucha scobys in plastic bags deep in my suitcase.

We took a taxi to the apartment we had rented, sight-not-exactly-unseen, but only seen through a YouTube video.  The driver took us up 93 and around Cambridge, along the Mytsic River and then along 16 which snakes alongside Alewife Brook.  These are not the prettiest parts of town, especially in the grey sogginess of winter.  L&C commented how everything looked like a movie to them.

Rob the property manager, well-groomed and wearing a property-management-branded mask and a dark necktie, was waiting for us when we arrived.  We trundled bags into our apartment, which felt bigger than in the videos.  We released the cats and showed them where the litter was.  Later we would take an Uber back to the airport to pick up the rental car.  We could have done this right when we arrived, but the idea of dealing with the shuttle bus and another line at the rental car place after 14 hours of travel was too daunting. 

It was already dark as we drove back into town.  I opted to go the longer way, over the Longfellow Bridge and through the middle of Cambridge.  Still disoriented with jet lag, we realized we were hungry, so I stopped by the Clover in Kendall Square.  For the uninitiated, Clover (officially Clover Food Lab) is a chain of healthy fast food joints started by a Harvard MBA, with a highly optimized user experience and killer rosemary fries.  As we pulled up, the seating area was empty, and a lone person puttered in the kitchen area, so I thought for moment it might be closed.  The door swung open though, and I entered a makeshift vestibule, walled off with three big plexiglass screens in a half-hexagon.  The young woman on the other side explained that they were only doing pick-up service, but that we could order online, and she pointed me to a QR code taped to the door.  We ordered and paid for our food from my phone, and the website told us that it would be ready in 7 minutes.

8 minutes later, we ate our food – chickpea fritters and hummus and Japanese sweet potatoes and egg and eggplant platter and ginger soda – sitting in the parked car.  I felt the stress and anxiety of the long day of travel displaced by, for lack of a better term, fun.  Fun that America, with its market-honed ability to comfort and gratify, is especially good at enabling.  Fun which I know in the longer-term can lead to some dark and unhealthy places.  But that night I chose not to think about it so much, and I reached into the compostable bag for another handful of fries.

Moving Pictures

 

So my plan to post something here every day in November kind of fizzled.  I did end up writing most days, but without time for ideas to simmer and for prose to get edited, quality suffers.  Maybe once a week is a better frequency for me.  Although I reread a few of the things I had written kind of offhandedly, and in retrospect some of them are not too bad. 

For example, from the day after Thanksgiving:

“Everyone sent pictures of food yesterday.  Aerial shots, camera hovering over plates and platters.  I indulge too from time to time, and I suppose it’s relatively harmless.  On one level it’s a simple celebration of a custom, and a way to share the experience, especially poignant this year, with (at least some) people abstaining from family gatherings.  But on another level it’s straight up narcissism: look at me and what I have done.  Not only in the sense of look at the dish I’ve prepared, but look at the status I’ve achieved, and at the comforts I have gathered around me.  Of course one could say the same thing about everything on social media, more or less.

Perhaps I’m just bitter and a little jealous.  Next year if I happen to be in the US for Thanksgiving, surrounded by my broader family, maybe I’ll send pictures around too.”

A handy transition to the news that we are moving to the United States in four days.  I choose my words carefully here: I resist saying “moving back” to the US, even though it is my home country and I spent the first 35+ years of my life there.  Because I’ve been living in another country for the past 13 years, and because meanwhile the US has changed and I’ve changed, I’m under no illusion that this will be anything like settling back into an old, familiar life.  Not to mention that, for my wife and stepson who have never lived there, this move is not “back” anywhere.

There’s also an element of not wanting to admit defeat.  As if by saying moving “back” to the US (or, even worse, “back home”), I would be classifying my time in Switzerland as an aside from the main plot.  There is a strong tendency among my countrymen to do this: to treat any experience outside the US as “an adventure,” fodder for future stories to be told to friends back in the states, delivered with a bemused fascination of the exotic Other and a glib satisfaction of being back in the Land of the Free.  See also “Emily in Paris” (or, rather, don’t, and take my word for it).

Meanwhile, we spend the remaining days of the awful year that was 2020 dealing with visas and pet vaccinations and administrative processes in different countries and finding new homes for appliances that won’t run on 110 volts. 

The other day we had to go to the caisse de chomage, which sits in the office complex on top of the big post office in Montbrillant, which I never knew existed.  The knowledge that we’re going to leave soon made Geneva feel different, as if the city’s existence was starting to cleave away from my own.  The people walking between the buildings in the office complex – a community into which I have been trying to assimilate for the last 13 years – start to become just another group of people in another country, who were here before and who will continue to go about their business when we’re gone. The big Swiss and Geneva canton flags which flank the Mont Blanc bridge were waving, and they will go on waving after we leave.