“Call it whatever you want!”

Hello!

Afraid I’ve fallen fully into the holiday lethargy. My logistical capacity feels shot, just when it’s being called for (allllll the family events to plan around!); I’m still not even sure today’s Sunday, but that’s what the clock says, so I’ll play along.

Despite the lethargy, good—great!—things are afoot. After a hard 2025, there will be some bright spots in the year ahead. Even if the year brings unforeseen challenges (as many of this year’s challenges were), the foundations to weather them are firmly in place.

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Recommended writing (okay, evergreen category, but you know what I mean):

• I’ve been enjoying this year’s run of I thought about that a lot, an advent calendar of essays.
• Sara Hendren reflected on 2025 in a series of vignettes.
• Deb Chachra recently sent out a “hello again” issue of Metafoundry, which is worth subscribing to if you like anything at the intersection of “infrastructure, technology, culture, design, education, and more” (you’re here, so probably?).

Art and stuff:

• Love a roundup of “creative things” that leans heavily toward typography, as with “BTW № 4: People Make Amazing Things Edition” by Jason Santa Maria.
• Lovely reflections on a unique bench finding its home at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, with lessons on craft passed down to and from one of its makers, Peter Galbert.
• Speaking of galleries, the National Gallery has two exhibitions on right now that seem well worth a visit: Camera and the City and Winter Count: Embracing the Cold. While there, maybe check out one of my favourite works, The Smiths by W. Blair Bruce. (Clicking around the digital collection, I’m now also intrigued by Murder among the Wheels by Homer Watson.)

Specific reflections:

• Ken Whyte’s most recent issue of SHuSH (the house newsletter of Sutherland House) is all about the tired, unrealized potential of all these services meant to make life more convenient—but really, it’s about the pains of fitting your life and work to the service’s model thereof, where you only realize the “benefits” if you fully fit yourself to what it expects. And then so few of these services really talk to one another!
• Ava wrote about how disability and chronic illness can reshape thinking about retirement, increasing appreciation for whatever’s good in life right now.
• Alex, with a fun application of a research paper to a Statistics Canada press release about homicide rates—comparing change from year to year is not as straightforward as you’d think!

And, finally, I put the finishing touches on this year’s Christmas gifts while listening to the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner speeches—grateful to CPAC for recording and hosting the important videos like these (I think Don Davies gets my vote for the highest “funny to time” ratio).

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas

P.S. Today’s title is courtesy of T, who, as I despaired that I was ready to send the newsletter but for a good title, encouragingly said she always likes my newsletter titles. Then, after a pause, said “Call it whatever you want!” before cheerily bouncing away to eat fruit.