2025 in review

this is a shortlist (so, non-exhaustive list) of the stuff i enjoyed this year, either from this year, or that i got to spend time with this year.

read

• the MANIAC by benjamin labatut
  • i've been waiting for this to drop in paperback since it was originally announced. labatut's work for me highlights the difficulty of empirical and ontological transitions from the ground: the absolute difficulty, nonneutrally, of learning to and striving to think the world differently. while his work concerns, primarily, math and science, his emphasis on the humans involved in these transitions asks us how, and at what cost, we learn the world anew over and over.
• 2666 by roberto bolaño
  • this is a re-read that i've been wanting to get around to for years. it is both funnier than i remember, but also more brutal than i remember. i love everything about bolaño's writing and world building, but i love this novel because it's so much bigger than itself -- it's so much about the world in the wake of wwii, but how we've never escaped it, and the consequences of its historical and eco-political gravity.
• ordinary notes by christina sharpe
  • been meaning to read this since it came out. sharpe helps me think, and asks her reader to think, about the work of the work: a museum; an invited lecture; obama's response to a mass shooting. there seems to be this question of who and/or what is addressed and addressable, and ordinary notes asks you to sit in this aporia.
• on the calculation of volume vol. 1 by solvej balle
  • everyone seems to love this book/series, and so did i. excited to read more.

watched

• anora (2024)
  • the tone is what got me. it's so funny and then sways into these quiet tender moments towards the end. the performances are incredible.
• nickel boys (2025)
  • this was probably the movie of the year for me. just see it.
• friendship (2024)
  • this is a horror film. full stop. i think the chair company has been much more successful at thinking about existential dread of modern (middle-class, white, male) life, but this comes close.
• the lowdown (2025)
  • i don't know why every large production company isn't writing sterlin harjo a blank check. it's great, and i loved seeing ken pomeroy lean into acting.
• one battle after another (2025)
  • it was great to watch something that nailed pynchon's tone so hard.

listened

• perverts by ethel cain
  • probably the album i listened to the most. brooding; droney; long ambient works.
• dead channel sky by clipping.
  • coding music for sure. revisiting cyber punk through an afrofuturist lens, though in a much different way than del.
• lonely people with power by deafheaven
  • they're gonna keep ripping 'em. while i really enjoyed the vocals on infinite granite, it was nice to return to something much harsher here.
• snocaps by snocaps
  • crutchfield sisters forever. had the immense pleasure of seeing them live at thalia hall and they were incredible.
• choke enough by oklou
  • grimes sans-fascism.

worked on

• i18n system for client and participant facing products at limber
• monorepo
  • unified tooling (lint, test)
  • ci/cd
  • modernized infra for aws lambda/gateway
  • centralized dependencies
• internal admin ui and tooling
• poc react native/web app

a year of the changelog

• helpful in tracking things longitudinally -- it's been a long year; i actually did a lot
• still want to work on the how of tracking this stuff
• want more emphasis on 'worked on'