Sayonara Wild Hearts wastes no time earning its reputation as “a pop album video game.” From the title screen on, the score is up-beat and catchy1, the visuals are vibrant and evocative, and the setting is mysterious but familiar. Also just like my favorite pop albums, this game won me over before I could articulate what makes it special. Although it may initially seem like a typical rhythm game, it actually offers tons of variety in gameplay–including sequences of drift racing, rail shooting, and even shmup.

My coworkers and I bought our company today. You can read about why we did that in the post I wrote for Bocoup’s blog if you like. I’ve set aside a URL on this domain to reflect on an aspect that might be less relevant to the industry but is no less important to me. Bocoup has been paying my bills since 2011, heady days when I apparently enjoyed referring to it as a “web development house”.

It might seem like the re-election of an insurrectionist has subverted the relevancy of books like Invisible Rulers. Really, though, I think it’s even more vital to understand how we’ve been (and are being) collectively manipulated. That’s what I was looking for, anyway. Social media has earned a ton of attention from academia, industry, and society at large over the past 20 years. As you’ve probably experienced, discussing it succinctly requires a good deal of jargon1.

Can you believe I’ve never read any manga? Thirty-eight years of nerding, more than half of that as a self-styled otaku, and zero comic books produced in Japan! The anime adaptation of Monster got me thinking I was really missing out, so although I first learned of Beastars through a positive review of its anime adaptation, I decided to check out the manga, instead. Image: Akita Shoten The novelty of the medium definitely colored my experience.

Books Albums NPR’s Tiny Desk Videos Articles Books Image: Crown Publishing Group Inc Highlight: On Freedom by Timothy Snyder My thoughts here Honorable mentions: How to Steal a Presidential Election by Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman My thoughts here Invisible Rulers by Renée DiResta Albums Image: St. Vincent Highlight: All Born Screaming by St. Vincent Honorable mentions: Little Rope by Sleater-Kinney Malhablado by Diamante Eléctrico Aghori Mhori Mei by The Smashing Pumpkins NPR’s Tiny Desk Image: National Public Radio Highlight: WILLOW Honorable mention The Philharmonik Ana Tijoux Videos Image: First We Feast Highlight: Conan O’Brien Needs a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones Honorable mentions: Dads when that random “just in case” piece of junk finally comes in handy 🥹 #shorts …Baby One More Time (from Kung Fu Panda 4) by Tenacious D (official video) Oscars 2024: How Batman defeated both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito CDK - Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel We’re guys, ya know?

Lawrence Lessig appeared on WBUR’s On Point to promote his and Matthew Seligman’s latest book back in April. Their review of technically-legal strategies for subverting the will of the people felt increasingly urgent as the 2024 US Presidential election approached. By October, when Lessig spoke at the Boston Book Festival, I felt I had to pick it up. Also I wanted his autograph1. It’s a solid primer on the US’s Electoral College, and as a critique, it avoids the kind of dryness you’d expect from election science writing.

Timothy Snyder published On Tyranny in 2017 partly as a response to the 2016 US Presidential election. It’s real good. When he released On Freedom this fall, the title and timing had me expecting a book of similar scope. The truth is, Snyder’s latest work is way more ambitious. It’s hardly a surprise that a history professor would build so much of his argument around stories of past movements. What caught me off guard, though, was how he reached beyond his bailiwick (eastern Europe) to include reflection on American history–a subject which doesn’t generally hold his interest.

In the time since I could be called a “young adult,” the books given that label have gotten…rougher. Take Hatchet, for instance. I remember Brian Robeson eating turtle eggs and making a raft. Fast forward to today, where Circe’s protagonist is taunted by her sister as she cuts into her womb to fish out a voracious monster. Even with this apparent maturation, I’m still apt to dismiss the genre as juvenile.

Inspired to read more about contemporary AAPI experiences, I had plenty of great options to choose from. Among the most well-received of them, Beautiful Country stood out because I could relate to some small aspect of the author’s circumstances (we were the same age in the same region of the same country) and because she experienced American sweatshops firsthand. While those did indeed turn out to be relevant signals, the book delivered so much more than I bargained for.

Dandelion Wine revels in the American tradition of summer vacation, making it a comforting book for the beginning of the season, and its structure (short stories with a simple frame) satisfies the conventional hunger for light reads in lazy times. Each time I read it, Bradbury’s contagious nostalgia minimizes the years and miles between my childhood and Douglas Spaulding’s1. This time around, I wondered whether it would be compelling to folks whose upbringing was still more distant.