Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite writers — he’s a poet and essayist who brings his passion for music into his work and loves to talk about the subject. He recently started a music podcast and spoke at length with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco about covers! In their conversation, they had this inherent reverence for the cover format — a way for an artist to show their own fandom and appreciation for the work of another artist.

When I think about the swathes of time that I’ve had over the last year of quarantine, I wonder where I spent my leisure time. Sure, I watched a good deal of anime, TV shows, TikToks, and movies, but where did the rest of the time go? Or in general, where have I spent most of my time on the internet in my life. I don’t have any statistics to back it up, but I’d guess that I’ve spent a good deal of time watching people play video games.

For most of 2021, I’ve felt like I was in some sort of writing rut. I didn’t write an essay for my newsletter on January 21, the first time I skipped a newsletter since September. The ideas just failed to come to me, I wondered if the well of writing had run dry — that I’d exhausted all of the things that I could possibly say with my limited range of experience.