Well, here you go: 8K words about my 50 favorite albums of 2025. My long annual nightmare is over. (jk I love this of course.)

Tiny Tim was dead, to begin with.

25 Dec 2025

they don't make christmas movies about guys being nostalgic for WWII like they used to

What if three ghosts visited you in the night and taught you to stop compulsively sharing Thomas Chatterton Williams pieces that aren't even interestingly bad

"And Tiny Tim, who died anyway because it was the 1840s..."

This time of year I always think of this deliciously unhinged photo shoot with Truman Capote & Andy Warhol for High Times magazine's 1978 Xmas issue, with Capote soused to the gills & Warhol gamely playing along as Santa. I want someone to write an extended oral history of this photo shoot alone

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

The Nextdoor Act

What do Racket readers actually read from Racket? Glad you asked.

wee-woo wee-woo paging dr. christmas 🎄🩺 on.soundcloud.com/R57rFImL6HMX...

these are some of my favorite restaurants that opened this year, tell me about your favorite restaurants that opened this year!

i don't know if i've ever posted about the 1959 project here but it's one of my biggest accomplishments to date i think the1959project.com

*Pat Benatar voice* Fire and Ash

Since we're approaching the end of the year, I'm re-upping my Best of 2025 lists. First, here are my favorite albums of the past year. sterlewine.substack.com/p/stes-best-...

This is probably the best Racket story of the year.

Well, here you go: 8K words about my 50 favorite albums of 2025. My long annual nightmare is over. (jk I love this of course.)

I MEAN IT

Why are you sharing City Journal stories and acting like the people they talk to are representative of... anything? Don't do that!

Fame going to their heads, it’s the Gallaghers all over again, I hope you EOY list makers are pleased with yourselves www.bbc.com/news/article...

Tom Cruise should've kept a diary and killed everyone at the end.

A little peeve of mine from reading year-end music packages: Everyone's "bursting on the scene" with "hits" that aren't hits and whatnot. Feels a little like a (badly conceived) anticipatory reaction to the inevitable "I've never heard of these people" complaints. Like, "Well, you SHOULD know them."

I love my two blackout drunk Minnesota sons

My year is starting to end. Here's the best MN music I heard in 2025.

The U.S. is giving dying mall vibes. I can't explain it, but you know I'm right.

Resharing one way to support a vital St. Paul grocer (El Burrito Mercado) AND a person or family who may need groceries. 👇👇👇

No matter how you slice it, US police officers are safer on the job and paid waaaaay more than other countries' police despite doing a…less than stellar job The question isn't more police vs. less police. It's why are US police paid so much while doing such little and such poor police work?

You know how if a cop wants to pull you over, he can find *something* wrong with your car. Well, if an immigration official wants to find something "fraudulent" about a filing they will—a misremembered date or address, a typo, whatever.

wait, mayors can do this?

WHAT THE FUCK - dashare.zone ADMIN

it's that time: Don't Rock The Inbox's best country albums of the year - read all about them over at @stereogum.com!! stereogum.com/2483029/the-...

There’s a rally planned Saturday- please encourage anyone you know attending to stay and shop!

That's a lot of words to say "waah!"

Legal observers at the Whipple Federal Building witnessed ICE agents swapping out license plates in the ICE staging location. Masked agents who already routinely refuse to identify themselves are now swapping license plates at whim to kidnap our neighbors and tear apart families.

Catholics: Yeah, we noticed.

presenting: 40 of my favorite pop songs of 2025, from big hits to rising artists to a wildcard or two

Here's the video we put together about Monday's standoff with ICE agents in South Minneapolis (29th and Pillsbury). More details at MPRNews.org: youtube.com/shorts/ZgQpV...

Hey there, has anyone in MN worked with an insurance broker, the sort who might be able to suggest a plan for a four-person office? We're considering our options.

I think it's important not to misunderstand what these social media platforms are. They are not public arenas where we bravely take on reactionary forces in honorable combat. They are apps that expose you to stress and thereby simulate the feeling of having done something useful

We've reached a critical point in our contract fight. Take a look and support us if you can by following, sharing, liking and/or with a signature on our petition! ❤️

You probably have an vague idea that ALL IN THE FAMILY was a unique TV show with a provocative theatrical vibe. But I urge you to take a minute and rewatch the pilot. I promise you are not prepared for what it feels like, the energy, the aggression. You used to be able to DO things on television.

just because someone (let's call him the president) wants to make everything about himself doesn't mean you have to oblige him

We really have to retire nothing burger. What an awful phrase.

Goddamn, these people are beautiful. What beautiful people. It makes me cry.

what, me going overboard on my year in music package, couldn't be

Please read this Facebook post from Darnella Frazier about her sister Rekeya, who is in federal custody. For those who don't know, Darnella was the girl who shared the first viral video of George Floyd's murder.

The vast vast majority of ethnic Somalis in Minneapolis are American citizens, having either arrived as refugees in the 1980s and 1990s with the fall of Siad Barre, or been born in America. The number who are undocumented is almost certainly vanishingly small. There's no immigration enforcement here

hell yeah Gully Boys!

I wrote about the best to ever do it and the 45-year-old film that, for me, defined 2025 www.newyorker.com/culture/2025...