1. My disdain for modern social media has been widely shared here in recent years, after I bailed completely on the idiom and shut down my various accounts around 2016. (I actually gave up on Facebook all the way back in 2012, though I have had to re-open accounts every so often for various professional reasons). But now, as related to the creative news posted recently here and here, I do find myself needing to have a promotional outlet on at least one of the major social media platforms in the months ahead, so I have once again recreated my Facebook account, because needs must. I’m here, if you’re interested in connecting in that fashion. I can’t swear that I will be a good correspondent within that idiom, as my focus will be on promotional activities and on avoiding seeing things that I really don’t want to see, and on making sure that I don’t fall into the platform’s time-suck potentialities. But I always try to be polite, and I always reply when spoken to (not so much when spoken at), so there’s that. I will note that I often see significant traffic being driven to this website from Facebook, and without an account, I’ve not been able to figure out where and why such interest is originating. So it’s a nice and helpful side effect to now be able to thank people there who are supporting my various projects, without me having known about it for the past six years or so.

2. In my Best Albums of 2022 report, I noted that I would do a supplemental post if something slipped in under my radar after I had published my list. As we get deep into February 2023, only one new-to-me 2022 album deserves such a supplemental post: The Ghost of Alexander by Buggy Jive. I’d lauded Buggy’s EP I Don’t Understand How the World Works, and Alexander‘s lead single “Make Me Water (Extended Schenectady Vasectomy Mix),” but somehow the full album slipped out without me noticing in real time. Shame on me. Guess I should have been on social media. But in any case, better late than never, and Alexander stands as yet another incredibly fine entry in Buggy’s soul-rock catalog. He’s always been great, for as long as I’ve known of him (and known him), but when I look at the incredible volume of incredible music that he’s released over the past five years of so, the mind boggles and the jaw drops at his ability to compose great songs, write great words, sing stellar harmonies, and drop super sublime instrumental arrangements and performances, song after song after song, all by his lonesome. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’s also one of the finest video producers working that idiom in recent years. I mean, check this one from Alexander out:

How and why is that thing not destroying the internets and commercial broadcast outlets? It’s got everything going for it, and then some. No accounting for popular cultural tastes, I guess. One of my favorite things about Buggy is his ability to craft deeply personal first-person narratives that explore monumental themes with perfect little details that make them feel real, lived-in, organic, and whole. The coda section to “Make Me Water” is especially awesome in this regard, especially for those of us with deep familiarity with the 518. It made me smile big from Sedona to know exactly why we need to raise our capes when we ponder the City that Lights the World.  Tee hee hee! Had I been on my game at year’s end, or had this album come out earlier in 2022, it could have been a contender in my mind for Album of the Year. Sorry I missed it in real time, Buggy. It won’t happen again.

3. I also picked up a couple of late 2022 reads that I missed in my Best Books of 2022 report that I’d like to laud and celebrate at this point. First, on the fiction front, Expect Me Tomorrow by Christopher Priest, one of my very favorite currently-working authors. Key to his canon are his Dream Archipelago books, one of which (The Islanders) I would count among my dozen favorite novels ever. (Though I have to use the term “novel” in its loosest possible meaning in this particular case). Expect Me Tomorrow is not a Dream Archipelago story, but it taps another of Priest’s cornerstone concerns, where obscure but true historic events and characters are deployed in service to the creative world-making in which Priest excels. This one explores a 19th Century true crime story, tying it to the 20th and 21st Century concerns that might have followed the skein of the historic story. Priest’s depiction of a post-climate change England in 2050 is heartbreaking and harrowing in equal measure, and he manages to make that component of his narrative fit flawlessly with the past tense elements of his story. It’s fine writing from a fine writer, highly commended to your attention.

4. The other great 2022 book I read recently goes into the nonfiction bucket: Some New Kind of Kick: A Memoir by Kid Congo Powers and Chris Campion. Kid Congo (botn Brian Tristan) was a member of three hugely influential bands who I adore: The Gun Club, The Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. His book is delightful in exploring how he came to serve in each of those camps, and how the perhaps better known members of those groups interacted with him and with others. But even more enjoyable was getting to know Kid Congo as a person, as his story is a fascinating one that made me really root for him in a most supportive and affectionate fashion. Also fascinating: he was Johnny on the Spot for an incredible number of highly significant events in highly significant places with highly significant people during the first eruptions of the punk and post-punk eras. His first-hand accounts of things that I’ve generally only seen reported in third-hand voice is eye-opening, educational, and fun. A great read from a great artist and human being. Win, win, win.