Take My Breath Away

Augustinus redivivus

[Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), pictured in a sixth-century fresco, composing speeches for The Young Pope and Joe Biden.]

For purposes of comparison:

 Reading, Watching, Listening

–Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
–Barack Obama, A Promised Land
–Jason Lutes, Berlin
–Jessica Maier, The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps

–Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

–Small Axe (Steve McQueen) 

–Terrified (Demián Rugna)

–The Queen's Gambit (Scott Frank) 

–Kiki's Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki)

–Beau Travail (Claire Denis) 

–Sinéad O'Connor, The Lion and the Cobra + I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

–The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? + No Need to Argue

–Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher

–Carly Rae Jepsen, Dedicated Side B

–My "Best of Gillian Welch" playlist on Tidal

But I've got no time / to live this love


Cinema, television, however we might classify it –– in any event, the soundtrack for (by far) the most indelible scene on any screen-based platform this past year.

 Excellence 


It should not escape our attention or appreciation that CRJ's B-side-album toss-offs are better than most artists' lead-off singles, and this has been the case for nearly a decade. This is consistent excellence like Prince in the '80s, PJ Harvey in the '90s, Timbaland in the 2000s. Or maybe, for a more categorically apt comparison, Kyle Minogue's stellar run between Impossible Princess and Body Language.