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- On the Lazy & Entitled Podcast<\/em>, Brendan and I do some year-end stuff! What were our goals with this podcast, and how has the first year gone? How do we feel about our art this year? Find out, if you like. Apple<\/a> | Spotify<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
What I’ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
A book that, as I started it, I had a bunch of “I really love this, but maybe reading it at the end of every year is a lot of pressure around December.” It’s 119 pages of relatively dense poetry, some prose poetry. While I like it a lot, do I love it<\/em> enough to read it every year<\/em>? Then, I read it, and was so moved by the last two sections that I was like “YES READ THIS EVERY YEAR.” Idk. I might start alternating it with Ross Gay’s Be Holding<\/em>\u2014the idea of finishing the year on a book-length poem is<\/em> appealing, and that book has a winter holiday spirit, I’d say. Still, it’s not the one we’re talking about today. We’re talking, of course, about Midwinter’s Day<\/em> by Bernadette Mayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Midwinter's](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_6811-768x1024.jpg\")
Midwinter’s Day by Bernadette Mayer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Midwinter’s Day<\/em> by Bernadette Mayer: <\/strong>the more you read a dense poem, the more it reveals itself to you. This is my third time reading this, and I did find myself recalling various lines. Sometimes clapping like a seal at favorites (“there is<\/em> something about America that’s unthinkable, Bernadette! You’re so lucky you died before Operation Midway Blitz!”). Part of why I love this so much is the project of it\u2014domestic poems, making art out of the routine. More and more, I feel like that is the goal. Ambition is for sociopaths. Find the beauty in the every day. Plus, I’m a house husband. There’s a few pages, I wanna say in section four, where she puts the kids (ages three and one maybe?) down for a nap and looks outside and describes what she sees and reflects on how the younger one will be mad when she wakes up because Mom left the bed and I was like “damn, yeah, I’ve been here, too.” There’s also that part, where Bernadette is making spaghetti and the kids are yapping and she keeps having all these flashbacks or thinking about random shit she knows and then stanza after stanza starts with one kid or another asking for something, then Bernadette zoning out again. Is that ADHD? Or is it just parenting? Is unleashing the part of your brain that wants to give into ADHD thinking the trick to parenting young children? Who knows, dude. Not me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, losing yourself in the minutiae of parenting is better than joining ICE\/CPB, or developing AI, or doing a comedy set for the 9\/11 Bros, or pouring your life savings into prop bets on NFL games, or working in a Congressional office, or being a billionaire- and empire-worshipping sellout like Noam Chomsky, or sexting anti-vaxxers. Spend time with your kids and partner and friends, cook good food, make and\/or listen to music, write and\/or read books. Much better than being in the C Suite anywhere. At one point, Bernadette says “I think I’ll have a beer.” I think I’ll go smoke a joint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something to listen to while you browse? Look, this was served to me by the YouTube algo, and I gotta be honest: I’m always in the mood for Santana. Here’s Jinsung Lee playing a fingerstyle “Europa (Earth’s Cry, Heaven’s Smile).”<\/p>\n\n\n\n