The Weekly, December 19, 2023
Hi all,
Questions for y'all this week:
One Christmas beer?
For me, it's got to be Kinkaider's Snow Beast. Kinkaider is a local brewery that started in Broken Bow, NE, a small town in central NE, but they now have a taproom down in the Haymarket here in Lincoln. The owners have also started a distillery here in town—I've only sampled their rye so far at the farmer's market earlier this year but it was quite good.
Two favorite Christmas books?
Mine, for the moment at least, are Dickens's "Christmas Carol" and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski.
Three favorite things for Christmas dinner?
Mine: This roast leg of lamb, these glazed carrots, and this kransekake
Four favorite Christmas songs to sing at church?
Mine: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Hark the Herald Angels Sing(Amy Grant link there is for my wife), I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, All Glory Be to Christ (This maybe isn't a Christmas hymn, but it's the last track on the Petersen's Christmas record, which is a favorite of mine and so it is now associated with the holiday for me.)
Reading
Books
I finally saw Master and Commander for the first time last week. I'm now reading the first of the O'Brian novels. It's great fun so far. A nice change of pace for me from my usual reading too.
I'm also reading the new Ben Smith book Traffic which is a kind of history of early 2000s era blogging and particularly the emergence of Buzzfeed and Gawker. It's professionally relevant, you might say, which is perhaps a sad commentary on the state of media and the writing life more generally.
I started the year reading Benedict XVI and I'm finishing it that way, resuming my slow read of his Jesus of Nazareth series. I read the chapter on the sermon on the mount in the first volume last week and... man, Benedict's way of talking about the faith is so bracing and beautiful. I've never regretted reading him.
Articles
Addison del Mastro on Christmas songs
Eve Tushnet in conversation with Erika Bachiochi
Matt Wolfson on therapy and identity
Carmel Richardson on surrogacy
Adam Smith on Hartmut Rosa
Matt Walther on why people go to Mass
Michael Lucchese on You've Got Mail
Elsewhere
Most of our end of year coverage is up now at Mere O: books, Eliot Awards for the year's best magazine writing. Our best of from Mere O for this year will be up on Friday.
Reminder: If you value our work and want us to keep doing it, give to our campaign. If small magazines are going to exist and thrive, they will only do so with financial support from readers.
Under the Mercy,
~Jake