(Sunday Paper, Year VII, Issue 49)

On Wednesday it occurred to me that since it was the last day of November, it was about time to do some end-of-year wrap-ups.

I had planned on doing some sort of recap of all of this movie-watching and album listening anyway.

Then, later Wednesday morning, I got my Spotify Wrapped.

So, although I have a few movie-related posts to get to, I guess the music is as good a place as any to start.

I remember wondering back in January how my attempt to listen to all of these albums would affect the algorithm when it came time for the year-end summary.

I mean, the algorithm is flawed anyway. Since it’s based on what I listen to on Spotify it never includes my favorite artist of all-time (Billy Joel) because I hardly ever listen to his music on Spotify. (I kind of hardly ever listen to his music at all these days, actually. Maybe he’s not my favorite artist of all-time anymore? Maybe the algorithm is better than I think. But this is a conversation for another day.)

I distinctly remember, on one of my long runs on an icy day in Boston back in January, listening to “Pet Sounds” by The Beach Boys twice. And I thought, “I bet that messes up the algorithm,” since I knew I’d be listening to a lot of albums just one time through this year.

Sure enough, there The Beach Boys are on my list. (But it’s probably deserved. I think I popped that album on another time here or there as the year went on.)

And, I mean, I do listen to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie (and it increased right around the time I went to the concert), but it’s not like ‘Little Bribes’ is my favorite song. It’s a good song. I like it…but not as much as Spotify thinks I do. (They didn’t even play it live!)

The same is true of my most-listened-to song of the year, “Handle With Care” by Traveling Wilburys. I like to throw on the Daily Drive when I’m in between album listens, and there’s not a whole lot of variety to the music there. It’s the same songs over and over again - “Little Bribes”, “Handle With Care”, “Solar Power” (another song I like but wouldn’t say it’s in my top five of the year), and “Don’t Leave Me” by Regina Spektor.

HAIM’s presence on the top artists and “Little of Your Love” on the top songs is pretty accurate.

I find it hard to believe that Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” isn’t on there. I played that song a lot. (It is in the top 10.)

I will say, I was a little worried One Direction and Harry Styles would dominate my algorithm because I listened to a lot of it with the girls. Not that it was bad - but it would be a misrepresentation of my musical tastes.

Otherwise, this was kind of a fun Spotify Wrapped, to see how it interpreted my listening for the year. My ‘listening personality’ sums it up pretty well there at the right. That was kind of the idea here, with the music, anyway.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

Oh, speaking of what I’ve been listening to and watching…

“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” - The Flaming Lips
“Parallel Lines” - Blondie
“Life in Slow Motion” - David Gray
“Disintegration” - The Cure
Gladiator
Mr. Baseball
White Christmas
X-Men: First Class
Ordinary People
Spirited

After I didn’t watch very much over Thanksgiving I kind of overcorrected this week. I had to stop and remind myself that I can still watch movies in 2023. The pace at which I watched movies this week will not be sustainable for the rest of the month.

And it’s worth nothing that, with 27 days left in the year (through 337 days, more accurately) I’m at 329 for a total. Maybe a 365 total isn’t so out of reach.

Notes

*I created a little running challenge for myself to spice up training a little bit in December. I created an Instagram Reel (my first!) explaining it and I’ll be posting about it over on the Instagram link, which you can find at the end of this post. It involves a Framingham holiday tradition - maybe I’ll provide updates here. I don’t know.

*The U.S. men in the World Cup was fun while it lasted. You watch a team like the Netherlands play soccer and they’re just clearly better. I wouldn’t mind rooting for them the rest of the way.

*Jacob deGrom signed with the Texas Rangers on Friday. I kind of felt he was leaving most of the year. I didn’t think it would bother me, but I kind of feel sick to my stomach about it. Change is hard.

*Good thing the Jets are still keeping things interested as December gets underway. Hard to believe, actually. But they’re on local TV this week so I’m watching from home today and I’ll probably head down to New York for next week’s big game.

*Last week I told you I was adjusting to fully on-line newspaper reading after we canceled home delivery. Still adjusting to the digital newspaper-reading routine. But I’m doing great with the games app, I’ll tell you that.

*Well, kind of great. I had stopped Wordle months ago but picked it up again with the other games…and not three days into it I failed to figure out the word. Oh well. At least it didn’t snap a huge streak.

*I’m making my way through my top 100 songs on Spotify here and there. It offsets the Christmas music I inundate myself with when I’m in the car. (Side note: I’m hearing ‘Underneath the Tree,’ which I felt had been underplayed in recent years, much much more this year.)

*The social media links are below, where you can read up and keep tabs on my December running goal on Instagram. Thanks for following along!