I didn’t write much in 2025, but I was generally pleased with what I did write. A few posts got some attention (it’s all relative). In this post, I list what I consider my top three essays of the year and my ten or so favorite essays by fellow substackers.
The essay I put the most thought and heart into was on nature, suffering, Herzog, and McCarthy.
It's bleak, man
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June 3, 2025
There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.
It was difficult but fun to write about musical fugues, and a good pretext to share some mind-bending music.
My favorite fugues
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June 11, 2025
Some of my favorite things are fugues. I find them exhilarating. Bach, of course, was the ultimate master. He did not invent the fugue, but he perfected and mastered its art. He learned it from the masters and became the master from whom future masters would learn. Fugues run through the history of Western classical music like, well, a fugal subject.
My short post on bats got lots of attention, somewhat unexpectedly. It’s based on one of those “fun facts” I keep talking about in class.
The world according to bats
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June 16, 2025
For mammals, much of the world, outside of farms, is not seen. Not because it is invisible, but because it is perceived through echolocation. Much of the world, outside of farms, is perceived by bats. Bats are mammals, and a lot of their navigation and foraging is guided by echolocation, which works like this. Bats emit high-frequency sound waves throug…
I left out many excellent posts, but here goes, organized alphabetically by author's last name:
Evan Goldfine, 37 takeaways from 200 hours with Bach
Daniel Greco, How to cheat the thief of joy
Ethan Iverson, The greatest jazz piano albums of all time
Victor Kumar, The last of us (against population decline)
Jac Mullen on AI and literacy: How to do soul-craft with state tools and The loom and the weavers
Daniel Muñoz, What police owe the people (a review of Jake Monaghan’s book)
Bonus: live conversation between Daniel and Jake
Elena Reiziger’s profiles of great composers: Death of a prodigy (Mozart) and Rêverie (Schubert)
Misha Valdman, A theory of aging
Dan Williams, On highbrow misinformation
In Memoriam, Helen De Cruz’s last post
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