It’s Sunday evening, where I tap out a quick note about how I stayed off the digital grid as much as possible.
Now, obviously, I don’t abstain completely (I’m writing this, so yeah). And I do open my laptop around 8:00 p.m. on Sunday to prepare for the week (or at least the next 12 hours).
I try to follow some simple guidelines:
No checking, reading, or sending work emails during the weekend;
Read the printed word (as in, read a format people can’t call or text me on);
Spin some records;
Move around (walk, exercise, breathe in the air); and
Write with a pen and paper.
These aren’t rules to live by, they are mine alone and everyone else can do whatever they want. And I can break the rules at any time. Except that email one.
Reading: I was in the backseat of a family car, traveling around the state for a couple of family events. I took Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee after reading the opening sentence. I was able to read while riding in the car. I like science fiction, and this is my favorite kind. I shall spoil nothing.
Listening: Audiobooks don’t break my weekend rules, right? (Ed: nope.) The Freaks Came Out to Write is a long listen, an oral history about The Village Voice. Even if you have never read the publication, you’ve felt the influence of the writing.
Vinyl matters: Saturday morning was my beloved Record Store Day, my annual practice of lining up like a fool in front of my local indie record store to by exclusive-ish vinyl releases. Last year I got there four hours early but still wound up standing by the alley dumpsters because Taylor Swift was releasing an exclusive. (Zero shade from me: TS has kept the vinyl album industry alive.)
I missed it this year for the reasons mentioned above. To soften the blow of missing out, I bought a bunch of regular, non-RSD records. Among them was Taylor Swift’s latest. And I’ll say this: I could write about the evolution of Swift’s vinyl album packaging. Regardless of what one thinks about her music in general or this release in particular, I give five stars to this album packaging. It’s a book. It comes in four shades. It includes a handwritten Stevie Nicks poem.
Another newly-released title I picked up last week was Shabaka’s Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. I picked up his last full LP in 2020 when the pandemic was new and terrifying and that record took me out of all that. This new album is even better.