On Old Songs, Bookmarks, and 365 Days of Wordle

Sometimes it's the little things that bring us pleasure

I’m coming to you from the land of What’s Curation? this week with a story I wrote about a song my dad used to play on the family stereo. Here’s the story:

Telling stories about where songs take us is a specialty of

Nikhil Rajagopalan

, whose newsletter What’s Curation? is well worth a subscribe. In his “music recommendation newsletter with a human touch,” he (or a guest author like me) shares a song and tells a little story about it. It’s the story part I love! The stories dig into how songs touch us and burrow down into our souls, shaping who we are. If you like to explore new and interesting music, I’d urge you to check out Nikhil’s newsletter. I guarantee you will be exposed to music you’ve never heard before. 

At some point I’ll tell a story about another formative song from my childhood, a really bittersweet song for me. I think of it as the theme song for my parents’ eventual divorce, but it was sung by a real favorite of mine at the time, the first performer I ever saw in concert, at the Pontiac Silver Dome, when I was 12 years old. Any guesses? Bonus points if you get the song and the artist. My mom has the best shot, since she took me to the concert, but I bet she can’t name the song.

Bookmarks

Last week I shared a brief story about a funny old lady I ran across at the library.

You Should Put Up Posters

Something about that story struck a nerve: it was my most commented-upon story ever. Turns out that the way we bookmark reveals a lot about who we are and how we relate to the world. What’s our obligation to physical objects? What’s our obligation to other people, future people? NPR ran a story on this subject last summer, as the communications director at our awesome local library system pointed out to me.

I included a poll about bookmarking, but foolishly only supplied two options, because clearly there are more than two ways to save your place, as you’ll see in the delightful comments section. That’s where my readers reveal just how weird and interesting they are.

Results from last week’s poll

Wordle

Finally, I’ve been closing in on my 365th day playing Wordle and at the same time tying my longest ever win streak.

If you’re a Wordle nut, you’ll note that I started right after a charming New York Times article introduced the game to the world on January 3, 2022 (I missed a couple days camping off the grid). My game play has changed over time: I went from obsessing over getting it right each day and trying to find the “best possible” start word, to turning on hard mode and seeing if I could trip myself up with screwed-up start words like PZAZZ (kudos to my buddy Nick Mayo for that suggestion). But who’s kidding who? I still want to win (that is, finish) every time.

These days, Wordle is just the first of four word games I play every morning, timed to the second cup of coffee (the others are Waffle, Quordle, and Duotrigordle, played in that order). I give it all about 15 minutes. Are you a Wordle player?

To close this out, I’ll just say—once again—thanks a bunch for reading and if you think my particular flavor of whimsy (or whatever this is) would bring anyone else pleasure, please share this post with them.