Links I'd Send to My Boyfriend, If I Had One

So look, I'm just going to put it out there: I went through a breakup in December that followed a particularly emotionally difficult fall. Something I miss a lot is our daily exchange of links and ongoing text conversations about our thoughts on said links. 

So the theme of today's newsletter, hitting just as you hopefully start to unplug from work and take some time off for the holidays, is links I'd send my boyfriend if I had one. It may become a regular thing. I guess we'll see.

Rolling Stone reported on the two women who are suing the estate of music industry legend/executive Ahmet Ertegun for alleged sexual assaults. It details the assaults, which the women say were repeated, sometimes public, and, in my opinion, egregious. Ertegun, who was responsible for the careers of massive artists, including Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, John Coltrane, and Aretha Franklin, is a co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has an award in his name that is given out on a non-annual basis to non-performing music industry execs and professionals. I've seen a lot of conversations on social media about if it's time to remove his name from that award. It is. No matter how big the name is, the message to every single survivor of sexual assault that their experience matters and that they are believed is more important. The message that sexual assault is unacceptable even if you're powerful is more important. Not addressing it tells us what the priority is.

If you'd like a little holiday cheer, my curated list of holiday songs I love is on Spotify as "Trim That Tree, Deck Those Halls." Obviously, I have a heightened sensitivity to it this year, but why are modern Christmas songs so sad? It's like Judy Garland doing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" set the tone in 1944, and we've stuck with bummer holiday as a theme ever since. It is for these reasons that the Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping" is my forever favorite Xmas song. Belle and Sebastian doing it is extremely cute and joyful. Related: where can I get some jingle bells?

So y'all are super excited about the Postal Service, huh? I keep hearing it described as a Postal Service tour, and I get that scarcity makes it thrilling, but I'm going (uh, I hope) to see Transatlantacism in full. I have such vibrant memories of that album coming out and listening to it while I was on a flight to Seattle to meet the folks at Barsuk, which was Death Cab's label at the time. Feels like a huuuuuge deal to see that front to back, and I'm seriously wondering if Chris Walla is going to join (I doubt it, but I hope so!).

Call me basic, but Seth Goes Day Drinking is my favorite thing, and the new one with Lizzo is adorable. (In fairness, if I sent this to my boyfriend, I'd probably have to explain to him who Lizzo is but I'm going to assume that's not necessary for you, bestie.)

I'll never listen to "Jingle Bell Rock" quite the same again now that I know the songwriter credits were stolen. (h/t MusicREDEF)

We dropped a couple of new episodes of Songs My Ex Ruined. A funny one with a comedian named Gianmarco Soresi who told a story about taking a girl he liked in second grade to a Spice Girls concert and having to leave before they played because of their curfew — and then she dumped him in a note her dad wrote. And one with Jamaican pop and reggae artist Naomi Cowan, who told the story of her first love and high school boyfriend who dumped her and told her he'd been cheating by sending her an Usher song. In the immortal words of Olivia Rodrigo: god, it's brutal out there.

I can't stop thinking about this post in The Cut on what middle age looks like. In part because, ugh what if I get back on dating apps next year and have to float through scads of men who say, "You don't look like you're 45" as if it's a compliment or they have any idea what 45 looks like anyway. I mean, I must look 45 because I am 45 and therefore this is what 45 looks like, with my particular genetics. I went through a phase with Snapchat filters in my early 40s where it started to feel like those looked more like my face to me than my actual face. I've landed firmly on "here's how to do your makeup now that you're old to not look older" TikTok. And I won't stop talking to people about perimenopause. 

So anyway, thanks for listening.