Keeping warped minutes: on Popular Crime by Bill James

While this review will be unwieldy — I'm not sure I've ever reviewed something about which I had so many conflicted things to say — and parts of it will be negative, my basic attitude towards Bill James’s 2011 book Popular Crime is enthusiasm. It is fascinating, insightful, and fun. I recommend it highly.

It is not an easy book to summarize, and later I will take my time helping you through its odd structure. But to start with samples of its topics, my favorite sections include the ones where Bill James, who made Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential Thinkers in 2006, argues

* that Lizzy Borden was innocent (she never took an ax and gave her father forty whacks);
* that John F. Kennedy was accidentally killed by a Secret Service agent who was flustered by Oswald’s shots;
* that Sam Sheppard, the kindly doctor-on-the-run who inspired the TV series the Fugitive, in fact hired and collaborated with the killer of his wife;
* and that JonBenet Ramsey’s parents were definitely innocent of her killing, and likely framed by an intruder deliberately trying to ruin the dad’s life.

That would seem an immodest project already, perhaps. More ambitiously, and to varying degrees of success, James

Walking through paradise: the best music of 2016, part two

(Continued from part one. The list is immediately followed by actual writing/ blogging, I promise.)

Single of the Year
1. Regina Spektor, “the Trapper and the Furrier”
2. Shearwater, “Quiet Americans”
3. Esperanza Spalding, “Good Lava”
4. Saul Williams, “Burundi”
5. Aesop Rock, “Blood Sandwich”
6. Xenia Rubinos, “Mexican Chef”
7. Deerhoof, “Criminals of the Dream”
8. Anderson / Stolt, “Knowing”
9. Emma Pollock, “Dark Skies”
10. Anna Meredith, “Taken”

Single honorable mention(s)
Aesop Rock, “Dorks”
Aesop Rock, “Rings”
Beyonce, “Formation”
Birdeatsbaby, “Mary”
Blackpink, “Whistle”
David Bowie, “I Can’t Give Everything Away”
Dear Hunter, "Gloria"
Death Grips, “Giving Bad People Good Ideas”
Dowling Poole, “Rebecca Receiving”
Everything Everything, “Distant Past”
Field Music, “the Noisy Days are Over”
4Minute, “Hate”
Jesus Jones, “How’s This Even Going Down?”
Julie Ruin, “Mr. So-and-So”
King Gizzard + the Lizard Wizard, “Robot Stop”
Knifeworld, “High / Aflame”
Let’s Eat Grandma, “Eat Shiitake Mushrooms”
Marching Church, “Heart of Life”
Melt Yourself Down, “Jump the Fire”
Momus, “Fuck This Year”
New Model Army, “Devil”
Overlord, “Mission to Mars”
Sleigh Bells, “I Can Only Stare”
Esperanza Spalding, “Unconditional Love”
Regina Spektor, “Small Bills”
Kate Tempest, “Europe is Lost”
Tribe Called Quest, “We the People”
Kanye West, “Ultralight Beam”
Jane Zhang, “Dust My Shoulders Off”





Regina Spektor emerged this year as one of our great protest songwriters. The “protest” is surprising. “Great” shouldn’t be, yet