Hey, remember in 2019, how Peloton was a laughing stock because of a questionable advertisement? And how their actual stock dropped 10% overnight as a result of said advertisement? And then that same company's stock surged 350% in 2020 because of a pandemic? All for an exercise bike whose technology will be obsolete in a few years? 

If I have learned anything within the past year, it's that no amount of watching people exercise on television will motivate me to exercise. Which is why I am decidedly not Peloton's target client. The amount of hours I've spent watching people exercise has far outweighed the amount of hours I've actually spent exercising this year, and no matter how many episodes of The Last Dance I watch  — each time swearing I will wake the next morning and do at least one push up — I inevitably hit snooze and skip working out yet again. But I'm not about to beat myself up over it, because I also don't watch The Great British Baking Show and run out to buy a KitchenAid mixer (in fact, I have used my oven exactly zero times in the 18 months since I moved into my apartment, and have no plans to break such a remarkable streak).

I have a complicated relationship with television because I'm not sure if it's meant to be aspirational, inspirational, escapism, reality, something else entirely, or nothing at all. Perhaps it's because I grew up without cable television? The only channel I recall having regular access to was PBS, and even that required going up to the creepy attic to jiggle the metal bunny ears to cut down on the static. One person went upstairs while the other stayed downstairs, shouting directions at the ceiling, and the first person shouted back "STOP SHOUTING, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" I remember Wishbone and Reading Rainbow and Arthur. I remember being home sick one day and my dad wouldn't let me watch TV because he thought I was fake sick. I remember how I had to go to someone else's house to watch Power Rangers, and whenever I was at someone else's house all I wanted to do was sit and watch TV, awed by all the options. To this day, if there is a television in a restaurant, bar, or lobby, I am physically unable to look away. If I don't choose the seat facing away from the television, there's no hope for conversation.

Now I'm less in awe of all the options and more overwhelmed to the point of opting out. I feel perpetually behind; still have yet to watch and probably will never watch The Crown, Tiger King, Queen's Gambit, Emily in Paris, or Bridgerton. Anything steeped in hype is viewed with suspicion. But mostly I feel anxious attempting to keep up — by the time I start a show, everyone else is already onto the next one. So I return to what I know, rewatching the same things over and over, like I used to rewatch the same tired VHS tapes — turning the dial with a butter knife when the thread slackened (if you know, you know).

Who knew the same strategy could apply to sports, or as I like to call them, SPROTS! (A term cribbed from comedian Jacy Catlin, whose home and belongings were destroyed in a fire this year, if you'd like to donate.) The fact that I call them SPROTS is not necessarily indicative of how much I know about SPROTS (not a lot but not a little), so much as it is a way to make something ubiquitous a little more uncommon. Recently, I wrote about my SPROTS-watching obsession for Dirt, a newsletter about streaming and entertainment that makes me feel like I watch more TV than I actually do (thanks, Dirt). In February, I wrote about how watching and rewatching The Last Dance made me a little less depressed this year. And this week, there's a round up of big-wave surfing documentaries, because let's face it, most of us will never know what it's like to paddle into a sixty-foot wave (another experience I'm happy to opt out of).

The last three pieces of writing I've published are about television or film, which is indicative of the times. Writers respond to whatever they're interacting with, and this past year I've interacted with a screen more than any thing or any one (hence the aforementioned depression). And watching television has become even more surreal lately when it's my main connection to the outside world. Binge-watching Call My Agent suddenly makes me feel as though I live in Paris, and for a split second while watching Suits I consider hopping the subway to Midtown to grab lunch at a hot dog stand, chasing it with one of those coffees served in the iconic Grecian-style cup. And then I remember I am not an agent or an attorney, and I am decidedly not in Paris or New York — I am still on my couch in Wisconsin, still in the middle of a pandemic, still so easily seduced by the ever-multiplying streaming services and the convenience of autoplay. So if anybody needs me, I'll be binge-watching Suits and pretending I could pass the bar exam. 
 

A Partial List of Further Reading & Recent Obsessions - As a reminder, the only affiliate links in this e-mail are my personal reading recs via Bookshop.org. If you'd like to support my work, you can forward this to a friend or share it on social media. Thank you!

In October, as the NBA Finals commenced in the Orlando-based Bubble, I created a bubble of ‘90s-era Chicago Bulls. I finished The Last Dance in five days, watching two episodes of the Michael Jordan documentary miniseries per night. And then I watched it again. And then again, three times in a row. Read more on Dirt! 

Even if you can hardly stand on a surfboard, let alone shred the gnar or send it on a forty-footer, you can still live vicariously through the select few who are brave and skilled enough to traverse the world in search of swells. And if you, like me, have recurring nightmares of tsunamis, you can tuck in for some light exposure therapy from the comfort of your couch. Read more about big-wave surfing docs on Dirt! 

What I'm Reading:

• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (YEP, still slowly reading)
• Never not thinking about Lost in Summerland, Barrett Swanson's forthcoming collection that you should definitely preorder, if you haven't already. 
• Immensely impressed by Eula Biss's Having and Being Had, which interrogates affluence, class, economics and capitalism. Dare I say it's a "must read"? I dare it.  
• This piece on the popularity of pop music: "But in the absence of pop music as a commodity — an evolving set of chart hits; songs emanating from overhead speakers at supermarkets and between innings at ballgames; hooks internalized by the hoi polloi as if by osmosis — institutions like the Times and the Grammys have internalized pop music as an aesthetic, while still propounding the referents and language of a monoculture."

What I'm Looking Forward to Reading:

• Hanif Abdurraqib's latest, A Little Devil in America, and his virtual book tour! 
• Rachel Cusk's forthcoming novel Second Place and whatever brilliant, searing interviews she'll give when the novel comes out in May.

ALSO, Quotidian is available! Digital downloads are $2 and print pre-orders ship in February. 90 pages of poetry, photography, art and fiction. I'm honored to have a piece amongst such stellar artists, poets, photographers, and writers, all curated and edited by the inimitable @readwritebooks. And there’s something especially special about contemplating ‘the mundane’ during a year when the small daily things have begun to mean so much to me. Snap it up at https://readwritebooks.bigcartel.com/