✉️: Welcome to January, 2025

You Will Be Visited By Three Spirits, Top Jokes Of December, Podcasts, Interviews, and Recommendations!

— This is a longer post than usual, so if you’re reading this via email, you might want to hop on over the web version here to read the full thing! —

Paid subscribers get early access to this monthly update!

Table of Contents:

• January Letter From African America:

  • You Will Be Visited By Three Spirits

• Last Month Right Now!

• Stuff You Might’ve Missed:

  • Chemistry Test & Your Favorite Jokes From 2024

• Current Obsessions

• Somethin’ Else

• Song of the Month

  • When Am I Going to Make a Living by Sade

Letter From African America (January, 2025)

Dear readers,

During the month of December, three strange prophets — Nikki Giovanni, Jimmy Carter, and Ray Bradbury — conversed in my brain.

Giovani was on my mind the very day she died and before I knew she had. I was working at the bookstore, as I tend to do on Mondays, and a warm family trio wandered in with expressions of love, urgency, a hint of sorrow on their faces as they searched for her latest children’s book. I hadn’t even realized (or perhaps simply forgotten) that the titan of poetry wrote books of that variety, but took a moment cobble a rant on how much I loved the documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project — all the while talking in the tense of her still being alive. The trio never corrected me, perhaps not noticing what I did not know… Perhaps not wanting to be the bearer of bad news…

Jimmy Carter was one my mind before he died. I was seated in the sky via Delta airlines headed to and from Florida, the land of the in-laws, watching a different documentary on his life each way. I couldn’t help but consider him the Luke Skywalker of American presidents. A farm boy turned idealistic leader driven by a firm sense of good and evil and an eagerness to understand the nuances of the space in-between.

On one of the bookshelves in my mother-in-law’s new home sat a copy of Fahrenheit 451. It’s the same make and model of the edition I first read during the summer bridge between middle and high school. In re-reading it I was reminded — in full force — of the majesty of Bradbury’s work and why I’ve cherished him since crossing that educational bridge. He died in 2012, but I was lucky enough to be in the same space as him, once, in a Santa Barbara theater where he sat in a wheelchair and pontificated on the value of a lone pedestrian walking down a street.

All three of these people lived lives of contradiction. All three obsessed with utopia. All three children of Baptist churches. All three wise enough to wrestle with and re-mold what they were taught instead of following it blindly. All three understanding that we are first and foremost, earthlings.

December was one month that felt like three. And on the subject of time, I don’t care all that much for the birth of new years. The old one was just fine. In fact, the old one is still here — eager to talk and hold our attention.

Somehow, at long last, December allowed me to catch up with myself. I’ve been very scatter-brained — split between ideas, projects, and obligations. Moreso, I’ve come to realize I’m also split between new titles. Suddenly, I’m an uncle, husband, brother/son-in-law, comedian, writer, Monday bookstore clerk and dog owner. Re-shaped by the invisible hands of other people’s eyes.

In 2025, dear reader, I hope you discover (or re-discover) the same goes for the trailing faces shining back as you stroll down a hall of mirrors. More so, I hope you’ll create something that leaves strangers believing, briefly, that you’re alive, even when you aren’t.

Best,

-Tim

last month right now! (best jokes)

Each weekday, I email five jokes and subscribers vote on the ones that make them laugh the most! Here are your favorite jokes from December 2024!

TUESDAY: 12-3-2024

• ‘Brain rot’ is the Oxford University Press word of the year — ‘Brain rot’ is, of course, most accurately defined as: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[read the other jokes from that week here]

THURSDAY: 12-12-2024

• Unexplained sightings of drones in the night skies over New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have people asking: Is it legal to shoot them down? “Welcome to our world…” said every brown person on the planet.

[read the other jokes from that week here]

THURSDAY: 12-19-2024

• You can now call 1-800-CHATGPT to speak with A.I. for 15 minutes. For the same effect, try calling your congressperson.

[read the other jokes from that week here]

stuff you might’ve missed

• SHORT FILM: Chemistry Test

  Recently listed by Vulture as one of the best comedy shorts of December 2024, Chemistry Test is finally out for you to enjoy!

• POST: Your Favorite Jokes From 2024

  Your Favorite Jokes From 2024

• PODCAST: You Are The Genre

  The You Are The Genre podcast will return on January 13 (my birthday!) but paid subscribers can currently listen ahead to the first two episodes with…

  • Rae Sanni —

    [Rae Sanni] Is The Genre

  and

  • mamoudou n’diaye
    —

    [Mamoudou N'Diaye] Is The Genre

current obsessions

SOUNDS:

• ALBUM: Vince Guaraldi Trio (1956)

  Vince Guaraldi is one of the ultimate sounds of winter with the A Charlie Brown Christmas album. It’s been fun branching out of his Charlie Brown context and digging into his other work, like this first record with his trio.

  

• PODCAST: Studs Turkel Archive Podcast: Ray Bradbury discusses his books

  I hadn’t listened to one of Turkel’s interviews in a while and this time around his impact on podcasting (a phenomenon he never lived to see) became clear. There’s a unique casual nature to his conversations that feels like it could be taking place in a garage à la Marc Maron’s WTF podcast despite taking place in a radio station.

• PODCAST: One Song Podcast

  The clips of this show that pop up on socials media are always a good time as Diallo Riddle and Luxxury go through the layers of sound that make up our favorite songs.

SIGHTS:

• DOCUMENTARY: Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovani Project

  An honest look into the life of the life of a legend.

• TV: Fishing with John

  The best fun is always low key and strange — and that combination makes for a low rumble of fun in every one of these episodes.

• INTERVIEW: Nikki Giovanni and Doreen St. Felix

  So much grace, reverence, and understanding in this conversation.

• INTERVIEW: Nikki Giovanni eads From Her Book, “Chasing Utopia”

• STREAMING: SELF-PORTRAIT AS A COFFEE POT

  I started watching these episodes as soon as I returned to New York. It’s a visual and mental palette cleanser, reminding me of all that can be done if I give my body and mind space to think and explore.

• TV: No Good Deed

  Not only is this a great ensemble, but it’s also somehow the perfect dissection of where America is as a whole — tackling our obsession with murders, the mythical status of home ownership, the treacherous nature of the entertainment industry, and the unique ways, large and small, that we to lie to each another. A rare, near-perfect package of a show.

• INTERVIEW: Directors Roundtable: Dennis Villeneuve, Brady Corbet, Coralie Fargeat, Malcolm Washington & More

  Ya boi loves roundtables, and this one doesn’t disappoint. 20204 proved to be year of cinematic surprises and it’s a good time seeing this group find commonality in their different approaches.

• TV: Man on the Inside

  I laughed, yes. And perhaps even cried a few times with this one.

• YOUTUBE: David Letterman | The GQ Video Cover Interview

  A grounded conversation with David Letterman at a racetrack.

READS:

• BOOK: Fahrenheit 451

  Re-reading one of your favorite books is never a bad idea. In doing so, this time with Fahrenheit 451, I was transported to my teenage self who first read it, and amazed at how age and experience has allowed me to visualize each character in new dimensions. One of many quotes that pop out —

  “Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so...full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.” - Captain Beatty

  

somethin’ else

A reminder of why I email five jokes a day.

Why I Email Five Jokes A Day

song of the month

This song came up in an episode of the One Song podcast and I’m not sure if I’m coining a term here, but it’s a perfect struggle-bop — as in, a jam about struggling. May it guide you through your own personal struggle-bops this January.

🎶Haven't I told you before / We're hungry for a life we can't afford? /
There's no end to what you can do / If you give yourself a chance to prove 🎶

Until next time, remember YOU ARE THE GENRE!

✉️(PAST LETTERS)✉️