Sycamore Press February 2025: Hey, Let’s Hear It For Music, Am I Right?

For some reason, I thought I was going to start paring these down to be more streamlined and focused. That kind of went out the window this month. Can you blame me? How did they fit so many days in that month anyway? Also, how did they fit so many horrible things in those days?

I’ve been a little on the depressive side this month. But I’ve also been facing up to the things I can change in my own life and just kinda doing my best with the rest. For the most part, this newsletter will detail the highlights of my month. As you’ll see, I have actually experienced quite a few moments of joy already in the new year. Let me tell you a little bit about them.

“That’s so fucked up why would you say that to me”

— My friend and yours Griffin in response to my message about the joys of eating kiwi fruit with the skin on

Becoming a Minimalist by Buying Things

I’m always trying to simplify my life. Sometimes there’s a moral righteousness or a disdain for hyperconsumerism associated with that, and sometimes it’s just because I find beauty and joy in simplicity and need a respite from constant distractions and clutter.

The heading for this bit is mostly a joke, but it is true that, while my phone and wardrobe were each the focus of a simplifying effort this month, I also bought both a new phone and several new pieces of clothing. (I had good reasons to, or so I tell myself.)

Anyway, on the digital front, I started using KISS Launcher for Android (available on F-Droid and the Play Store) late last year, and I love it. I turned my phone from a brightly-lit marquee of icons and menus to a simple black rectangle with a few shortcuts and a text search for navigating apps (thought you can still use icons, wallpapers, and widgets with KISS if you like).

I also started using websites like YouTube in my browser rather than on a dedicated app. The experience isn’t that much different, but it offers a little bit of resistance to getting sucked in. Plus, ad blocking works this way!

Speaking of YouTube, I was thrilled to discover that I could turn off algorithmic recommendations altogether by deleting and turning off my watch history. Now I just browse my subscriptions, which are mostly the videos I want to watch anyway.

I don’t have as much to say about the clothes thing besides that it’s a big source of clutter that I’m glad to be making a dent in, and building a capsule wardrobe of decent quality items has been a neat opportunity to explore my relationship with clothes in other ways.

Finding Community

I got kind of a slow start in the new year with respect to my goals of building more friendships and community. This was honestly fine by me as I craved solitude more than anything coming out of the holidays.

Since then, things have picked up. I’ve had some really positive interactions while doing mutual aid type stuff. The album listening club I joined on campus also proved to be a huge success. I met some folks closer to my age (which I was worried about because it’s mostly undergrads) and have already made some friends with similar music taste.

Also, one of my new friends and I have the same first name! For whatever reason, this is endlessly amusing to me.

Webcomic & Website Updates

There’s a new webcomic up! That’s it for site updates this month though. The comic has definitely been my main focus of late. That is reflected both in the amount of time I put into this one and (imo) the quality of illustration relative to older installments.

I’m excited to have this one out. It’s fun to see the art style progress, and I already have so many future strips plotted out in my head.

Food & Drink

I’m bringing back this oft-neglected segment for now so that I can share two updates of critical importance!

First, for fish fans (or perhaps most of all for those who eat fish only occasionally on account of preference): I tried this recipe for “calabrian fish ragu pasta” (printable version here), and it absolutely rocked my block. It turned out really rich, savory, and spicy — great for someone like me who’s often going to have a glass of red wine with fish even if it doesn’t really go (but, in this case oh, does it ever).

Also — and know that I’ve gotten some flak for this — I discovered that I love kiwi fruit now that I’ve stopped trying to eat it with a dang spoon. I think it’s way better with the skin on anyway. The added chewy texture and tartness helps balance out the sweet and creamy flesh. As for the fuzz, I kind of like that too — just like on a peach!

Oh, while we’re here, let me share this nice vegetarian recipe with ya: Orecchiette With Broccoli and Toasted Hazelnuts. I’ve made it regularly for years, and it’s also gotten high marks from friends. Ignore the two-star review someone left on the site. I honestly think they just forgot to taste for salt.

Arts & Entertainment

Tragically, I only made it to the movies once this month. I saw Babygirl. It was fun! I need to keep better track of what’s showing in my local theater, somehow.

---

Tragically-er, all that time not seeing movies did not translate to tons of reading. I spent a long time reading Clarice Lispector’s debut, Near to the Wild Heart, but I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad for having taken my time with it. I kept re-reading passages in an effort to cling to that vividness and insight that permeates her prose. Her characters have such rich inner worlds, and reading about them makes me feel seen. Not surprisingly, this one was a satisfying read.

Trying to pump up my book numbers for the month, I read the bite-sized Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada, which I enjoyed, albeit not as much as her other two stories with English translations, The Hole and The Factory. As with those, there are interesting explorations of gender dynamics and expectations here.

Feeling depressed (as I have been lately) always makes me gravitate towards Dostoyevsky, so I’ve just started Crime and Punishment. Like The Brothers Karamazov, the relatively short chapters and compelling characters have made this one easy to pick up again and again.

Oh, and I ultimately didn’t catch up with Brian Eno’s 1995 Diary entires from January in time to realize my new email segment idea, “Did I have a better or worse month than Brian Eno did 30 years ago?” — sorry.

---

It was, however, a good month for music listening. I haven’t dug into too many of the new year’s new releases yet, but I became obsessed with quite a few songs and albums that I’d previously been sleeping on, which I will now talk about for way too long:

The Magnolia Electric Co. by Songs: Ohia is a record which probably doesn’t need any more talking up, but I came to this album weirdly late (even though I’m sure my friends have evangelized for it to me at some point). The opening track, “Farewell Transmission” floored me, and I had it on repeat all month. It’s all the more amazing if you read anything about the recording of that track.

I mostly only listened to the first two tracks of Victory at Sea’s 2001 album Carousel: “Third Place” and “Bloodline.” I think they’re phenomenal. Unfortunately, I find the lyrics of a few tracks in the middle to be anywhere from mediocre to wince-inducingly bad, but God are the hypnotic guitars and the sometimes 90s-affected vocal performances and especially the drums on this record so, so satisfying and basically exactly up my alley. Fans of slowcore are likely enjoy at least a couple of cuts off this thing. Also fans of cool drum fills.

I’ve been looking forward to a non-single release from Kassie Krut for a while, so I was excited to listen to their self-titled debut EP. Here, Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert of Palm fame join Matt Anderegg to make official their transition into noisy and off-kilter electronic “pop” music. It’s fun and makes me want to party despite striking me as at least a degree or two removed from dance or club music in the traditional sense. I listened to “Espresso” (not to be confused with a more popular song of the same name) and “Hooh Beat” a lot in particular.

Going Down Swingin’ is, as the name implies, the swan song of math rock/post-rock band Sweep The Leg Johnny. Others online have pointed out that it’s kind of wild how they basically nailed the sax-infused and melodramatic sounds for which Black Country, New Road is famous all the way back in 2003. OK, they might not always execute it to the level of BCNR’s best stuff, but both the 15-minute long tracks (of which there are two) and the shorter songs absolutely shimmer with complexity, earnestness, and relentless energy. There are many places where this combination could risk steering the music into corny territory, but post-hardcore-flavored guitars and the ever-alluring skronk of Steve Sostak’s sax keep the badass factor on this thing well above the minimum required levels.

Speaking of post-hardcore-flavored guitars, this album probably has my favorite guitar sound of any album, like, ever. Yank Crime by Drive Like Jehu feels crazy ahead of its time for 1994, but not in some artsy obtuse way. The minute that the opener, “Here Come The Rome Plows” comes on, you just get it. This thing simply rocks hard, and it keeps rocking hard all the way through seven- and nine-minute tracks without ever wearing on me. It’s catchy and barely lets up on the energy at all over its length. I just adore it. It makes me want to run around in circles or get smacked with a metal folding chair or something. Best enjoyed loud.

I actually first came upon The Power Out by Electrelane just browsing a list of albums that bore that esteemed signifier, “recorded by Steve Albini.” It took me a while to really sink my teeth into it, but I was immediately struck by the vocal arrangements and rapturous lyrics (some borrowed from a war poem by Siegfried Sassoon) on “The Valleys.” On further relistens, I became enchanted by “Enter Laughing” — just a great song all around and one I also had on repeat this month — and, after even further relistens, such instrumental cuts as the adorable closer “You Make Me Weak at the Knees.” It’s really a great indie rock/indie pop record overall with varied and unique songs and lots of tiny delicious moments to discover across its 11 tracks.

The follow-up to Fog’s (or is it The Fog??) 2000 self-titled debut is probably a more consistent record, but this one has an MF DOOM feature on the opening track (more of an intro) “A Word of Advice” — which is crazy! — plus two otherwise really standout songs in the form of “Pneumonia” and “Check Fraud” that scratch a very particular itch for me. Like I said, the follow-up to this record, Ether Teeth, is also really good. Fog/The Fog’s music with its combination of glitchy turntablism and awkwardly quavering (freak?-)folky vocals feels like a perfect soundtrack to aimless, lonely swaths of time. My new friend put me on to this!

---

Oh, I’ve also been playing Half-Life again. I can’t remember whether this is my first playthrough on hard mode or not. It’s kinda tricky with a trackball, ha! We’ll see how I fare when I get to the more punishing part of the game’s difficulty curve. Either way, it was nice to return to one of my favorite video game levels ever, “Office Complex.”

Potential Energy

I’ve been meaning to write to you all more individually. Got my nice pen inked up and everything. I feel kinda bad that I share so much here sometimes, since it ends up being redundant with the kind of chit-chat I usually put in those letters. But I also like to just write what I feel in the moment — it feels so natural when writing by hand. Maybe I will even have the courage to confide in some of you a little bit. I want to get better about that. Even with a therapist, it’s not healthy feeling like you’ve got all this stuff gumming up the works inside you that, for one reason or another, you feel obliged to keep secret from the “real world.”

Really, I’ve been looking for emotional catharsis in general. Sometimes it’s most easily found in solitude. In moments like this one. Come to think of it, it’s funny that this newsletter sees me in conversation with you all (often more so than any other time), and yet the actual moment of writing is just me in the darkness and silence with these words.

But it’s not lonely per se. I can feel you out there, by way of trust or something. Thanks for reading and subscribing! I love you!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ N.