This is my first day in my new custom seat insert. My previous insert served me well for fifteen years, but it no longer provided the support I need as I approach middle-aged decrepitude. This new seat is certainly more form-fitting and it grips me in a way that my previous seat never did. All this is to say that I should be doing less sliding as I traverse bumpy sidewalks and the occasional grassy field. But it also feels a bit weird, like putting on a new pair of jeans that haven’t been broken in yet. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in short order and this new seat will feel as familiar as the previous one. It also has that new car smell, which was novel for about five minutes but is now a little noxious. Hopefully, it dissipates before my work meetings tomorrow.

Tony Judt, a writer and scholar, writes about his personal experiences with the progression of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) for the New York Review of Books. He focuses in particular on how the onset of his disability has changed his nights:

I am then covered, my hands placed outside the blanket to afford me the illusion of mobility but wrapped nonetheless since—like the rest of me—they now suffer from a permanent sensation of cold. I am offered a final scratch on any of a dozen itchy spots from hairline to toe; the Bi-Pap breathing device in my nose is adjusted to a necessarily uncomfortable level of tightness to ensure that it does not slip in the night; my glasses are removed…and there I lie: trussed, myopic, and motionless like a modern-day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts.

The inconveniences of physical disability can make for some long and uncomfortable nights. When I was a kid, I was always reluctant to wake my exhausted parents when I needed to be turned or otherwise repositioned. They never minded, of course, but I still didn’t like being the one to interrupt their sleep. Now, I’m spoiled; I have nurses who are available to reposition me without me ever completely waking up. And I usually have little trouble getting to sleep once I find my comfort sweet spot. For someone like Judt, who is still coping with a recently acquired disability and its attendant sense of loss, the nights are probably an entirely different experience that I can only vaguely appreciate.

Thanks to Ezra Klein for the tip.

1. Mass Romantic by The New Pornographers–The decade opened with a power pop chorus from this Canadian group. “Letter from an Occupant” showcases Neko Case’s full-throated vocal delivery and her bandmates’ pop virtuosity to stunning effect. The subsequent years would be filled with plenty of sonic darkness from various indie flavors of the month, but TNP demonstrated that music could be heady without losing its sense of fun and excitement.
2. Untrue by Burial–British producer Burial weaved together a complex, haunting album that isn’t easily classified. Mixing elements of electronica and hip-hop, it sounds like a desperate, pleading love letter from an obsessed stalker in some parallel universe. In the world of Untrue, it’s always just after midnight and everyone has a broken heart, but they’re still in the mood to dance.
3. In Rainbows by Radiohead–This is the album I’ve been waiting for since OK Computer. Plenty of critics fell in love with Kid A, their first album from the decade, but its atonal experimentalism left me cold. In Rainbows has the baroque grandeur and tunefulness that first made me a fan of their music, but it doesn’t sound like a retread of previous material. “House of Cards”, with its simple guitar bassline and Thom Yorke’s soaring vocals, is a good example of the band’s ability to craft a gorgeous song that sounds stripped down at the same time.
4. Silent Alarm by Bloc Party–Bloc Party made an album of shimmering guitars and earnest vocals that is also completely sincere. It has echoes of Eighties New Wave in songs like “So Here We Are” and “This Modern Love” while “Banquet” has a more propulsive feel. The band generated huge buzz when this album came out, which led to the nearly inevitable sophomore slump. Still, this album stands out as one of the most brilliant debuts of the decade.
5. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens–If every album in Stevens’ fifty-state music project sounds this good, he’ll be declared the greatest musical genius since Lennon and McCartney. I’m not sure he’ll ever fully realize his ambition, but Illinois is a testament to his vision. Each song tells a story that is somehow related to the state, but the tone shifts from breathy personal narrative to exuberant walls of sound. “Chicago” is particularly gorgeous, capturing the city’s vitality in a chorus of youthful voices. Stevens has an exceptional talent for capturing the voices of the characters in his songs, many of whom are throwbacks to a younger, more hopeful America.

1. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell–Long-time readers of this blog have already had to endure multiple love letters to this book of six interlocking tales that span every genre from epistolary bildungsroman to post-apocalyptic adventure. The stories form a narrative Mobius strip that is dazzling in its execution. The book’s sobering study of human cruelty and oppression lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned.
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon–Chabon gives comic books and comic book creators some long-overdue literary love in this sprawling novel. It traces the careers of a couple Jewish cousins who partner to write comics in the days leading up to World War Ii. Their tales of the Escapist become a huge commercial success, but they are also a vehicle for the cousins to articulate their utter contempt for Hitler and his Nazis. Chabon’s prose is lovely and his characters quickly earn our empathy and affection in a vivid story about the enduring power of imagination.
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke–Clarke’s mannered and imaginative novel about the rivalry between two 19th-century sorcerers in an alternate England is a kind of Harry Potter for adults, complete with footnotes. It melds historical fiction with high fantasy to create a fully realized world where magic exists but it rarely seen. Clarke spent ten years writing this book and it shows in the carefully crafted plot and the distinctly British touches of humor.
4. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson–I love to read science fiction, but I find a lot of it pretty forgettable. Not so with this book that describes what happens to three friends and the rest of the world after the stars disappear from the sky. Wilson’s grand idea is a whopper, but he’s just as interested in examining how his Big Idea changes the lives of his characters. Good science fiction asks “What if…?” and then sets about answering that question on human scale. Spin does just that.

Today, we look at the television shows that routinely bathed me in blue light over the last ten years:

1. The Wire–This seminal show is most easily described as a cop show, but it’s really a Dickens novel on television (except with a lot more swearing and drug use). Over its five seasons, it put a magnifying glass to the city of Baltimore and its entrenched but deeply dysfunctional institutions–the police, city hall, labor unions, public schools, and the media. It offered a devastating critique of how each of these institutions fail Baltimore’s citizens and how easily well-intentioned people can be corrupted by the power they seek. But the heart of the show is the endless battle of wits waged between the cops and the city’s byzantine network of drug dealers. In the end, nobody wins, which is in keeping with the social realism that underpins the entire series.
2. The Daily Show–What started out as just another obscure Comedy Central series is now essential viewing for us political junkies. While most of the “real” news media fed nothing but jingoistic pabulum to the country in the years following 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, Jon Stewart and his crew of brilliant writers couched their horror at world events in cutting satire. Stewart never is shy about wearing his politics on his sleeve, but he also demonstrates that he’s capable of having a reasonable conversation with those with whom he disagrees; a skill that seems to be rapidly disappearing from the media landscape. The show is at its best when it puts on a grim smile in response to our leaders’ stupidity and and hypocrisy. 
3. The Colbert Report–This companion to The Daily Show is even more blatant in its satire. Stephen Colbert plays Stephen Colbert, a brash and smug right-wing host in the mold of any number of Fox News personalities. The show’s conceit allows him to poke fun at the media’s vacuity while keeping himself firmly ensconced in the joke. Colbert also loves to deconstruct our consumerist and celebrity-obsessed culture, as evidenced in his Doritos-sponsored presidential campaign and his efforts to get a space station module named after him. His self-aware buffoonery is one of the best running gags on television today.
4. Battlestar Galactica–Who would have thought that a remake of a super-cheesy science fiction series from thirty years ago could be this good? In its story about humanity on the run from a genocidal race of robots, BSG created a palpable sense of desperation and dread. In something of a rarity for science fiction on TV, it usually didn’t solve problems with science-cum-magic, instead forcing the survivors to muddle through as best they could. As the years went by, the show got even darker, focusing on themes of occupation, torture, and tyranny. The final season relied too much on generic and hokey mysticism, but when BSG was good (see in particular the two-parter “Exodus”), it was riveting.
5. Lost–The hatch. The polar bear. The black smoke. The statue. Dudes wearing mascara. I’m still not sure what it all means and I have a feeling that this season won’t offer completely satisfying answers, but Lost is always interesting. A show about survivors from a plane crash stranded on a desert island could have turned into cliché really fast, but the creators did a couple of smart things to keep the story fresh. First, the extended flashbacks provided compelling background stories for the main characters that ultimately informed their actions on the island. Second (spoiler alert!), getting several of the main characters off the island established a pair of parallel narratives that kept the plot moving forward. Oh, and adding time travel didn’t hurt, either.
6. The Office–Adapted from the original BBC series, the American version provides its own absurd take on office life in a struggling paper company. Michael Scott is every bad boss you’ve ever had writ large: oblivious to his own incompetence, narcissistic in the extreme, and perhaps borderline mentally ill. Still, the writers resist making him a complete parody. Scott understands that work, the place where we spend roughly a third of our adult life, should be fun and that no excuse is too small for an office party. As the economy tanked, the show played up the anxieties of a workplace in crisis mode without losing any of its funny. 
7. Mad Men–Ad man Don Draper is a misogynistic jerk whose world is crumbling around him, but he still embodies a bygone era of cool. Watching Mad Men is a bit like peeking into a bizarro version of our own reality; a reality where everyone has a scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. A reality in which women are regarded as children or objects of lust. It’s a show that reminds us how much of a difference a few decades can make in shaping the world we inhabit. When someone makes the inevitable drama about life in Silicon Valley in the first decade of the twenty-first century, our mores and habits will probably seem equally quaint to younger viewers.