Welcome to the third edition of Stuff & Things! Since I am constantly looking for a quick dopamine hit on the internet, I often find myself with a giant backlog of links, shopping carts, and memes that piqued my interest. Stuff & Things is my wrap-up of internet highlights from the previous weeks and will be published on alternating Tuesdays with my long-form essay/narrative content.
Like most Lex Type Thing(s), the Stuff & Things portion of the newsletter was quite inconsistent in 2025. It’s 2026 though, baby; new year, new me, new consistent routines! Get ready for stuff (as well as things) delivered directly into your inbox in a timey manner every other Tuesday. It’s going to be great, guys; it’s going to be so great.
The entirety of Cornelius Eady’s poem, “(This Moment Is Our) Proof,” which he read at the January 1st Inauguration of Zohran Mamdani, but this particular excerpt is really sticking with my proud New York soul.
Eady’s recent poem, “Renee Nicole Good Is Murdered,” is equally timely, and this excerpt has also been running around my brain since reading it Sunday morning.
This Substack note from America’s Sweetheart, Caleb Hearon
and a perfect reply from Bess Kalb.
I have been struggling to find unique home textiles that don’t cost one billion dollars but this Ducks in a Row runner from local New Orleans brand We Might Be On Fire looks like it might be worth every single penny. The duck rug is at the top of my home shopping list and I think I may have to make my purchase this week.
I am also madly in love with this Rattan Palm Tree Floor Lamp from Mrs. Alice, which I assumed was a brand from Georgia or South Carolina but actually has its roots in the UK—just like colonialism and white supremacy (ha ha ha). Still, it seems like the moment you move to the American South, all you want to do is buy rattan furniture. Thankfully, it appears not to be shipping until early June so I’m hoping I will forget how much I love it in the meantime and avoid spending close to $1K on a lamp.
I posted a Substack note about this the other day but I really am missing the slightly more “raw” era of Taylor Swift that was her work from 2014-2022. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of misses, musically, professionally, and personally, but I think her versatility as a superstar-singer-songwriter was at its strongest during the eight year period that brought us 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights. I’ve found myself revisiting my favorite performances of hers like:
“Out of the Woods” (Angry Version) from the Sydney stop of 1989 World Tour (2015)
“Wildest Dreams” on solo electric guitar at the Grammy Museum (2015)
This Rep-era clip of Taylor singing “Call it What You Want” to Joe Alwyn (or Karlie Kloss) from the 2020 documentary Miss Americana
The 2019 SNL performance of “False God,” arguably one of Taylor’s most underrated songs
The 2020 long pond studio sessions are near and dear to my heart, but “the lakes,” man. If you tell me that Taylor Swift can’t write, I’m going to refer you to “the lakes”
Taylor and Phoebe Bridgers, #1 Sad Blonde Lady, playing “Nothing New” during Phoebe’s leg of the Eras tour (2023).
This YouTube deep-dive inspired me to make a Spotify playlist, taylor swift: raw, chronicling the era of Taylor Swift that I fear we may have sacrificed to Billionaire Barbie. Go on and peruse that if you so choose, or at least appreciate the cover art I worked so hard on.
Speaking of playlists, I always forget to mention my monthly Spotify playlists where I keep track of every earworm, trending song, and interesting track I stumbled upon during each month of the year. They’re great for giving me a unique snapshot of what I was feeling or going through during that particular time of year, even based on the length of the playlist alone. Usually, if a playlist is long (over two hours), it means I was probably doing a lot of cleaning, or a project that did not require a ton of my full-attention. When I have projects that don’t require as much of my attention, I tend to listen to audiobooks more often because I can direct my brain to the narrative.
Spotify won’t let me link to the encompassing folder with over five years of monthly playlists but I’m going to try to link the current month’s playlist in one of the issues of Stuff & Things.
Here’s January 2026 so far. And just for fun, here’s:
I had a lot of Stuff & Things to share today but I think we all deserved it, right?
see you next Tuesday bbs
-lex
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