Here's Something: Best of 2023

Dec 20, 2023

How do you define “best?” For Melania Trump, it’s something you should “Be.” For the original drummer for the Beatles, who was “dismissed immediately prior to the band achieving worldwide fame,” it’s your last name. For the purposes of this newsletter, it’s gonna be defined by view count.

This year, subscribers like you seemed to enjoy a whole spectrum of themes, from hyper-topical pop culture and sports humor, to political satire, to writing about satire, to all-too relatable lower back pain. In even better news, almost all of your favorites were pieces I wrote exclusively for this newsletter. Unfortunately, this has only encouraged me to continue writing.

The following were the top five most-viewed Here’s Something pieces of 2023.

#5 — “Recall notice: Your lower back”

Over the summer I was having some lower back issues. (Probably a complete coincidence that I write while sitting.) It seems like many of you can relate. I’m hopeful that, as a society, we’re closing in on the ability to simply trade our bodies in for new ones like an iPhone upgrade. Here’s an excerpt from #5.

Dear Valued Customer,

We regret to inform you that we are issuing an immediate recall on all Lower Back™ models that have been in circulation for 35+ years. Affected customers should immediately stop using their recalled Lower Back™ and contact one of our representatives for a free* repair.

We have received numerous reports of Lower Back™ models unexpectedly doing the following: tightening; spasming; giving out; and feeling OK right now actually, oh no, there it goes again, I need to stop sitting down and then standing back up, I guess I should just stand more often, but standing hurts too, so perhaps I was meant to lie down all day.

#4 — “The firehouse has adjourned until Tuesday”

I wrote this piece in early October after Republicans called a vote to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, sending Congress into limbo with just over a month left to get a deal to keep the government funded, and then immediately adjourned for a week-long recess. In short: If the GOP ran a firehouse, this is the message you’d get when you call them for help after they set your house on fire. Here’s an excerpt from #4.

Ah, yes, we can see the fire from here. That’s your house? OK, just stay put — we’ll be there next week. Sorry, but the firehouse has adjourned until Tuesday.

You’re right, that is a long time from now. Which is why we recommend staying away from any areas of your home that are actively on fire until we arrive, seven days from today.

The cause? We don’t need to come investigate to determine the cause of the fire. We know the cause. We’re the cause. We started a fire at your house…

We did, in fact, start the fire

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#3 — “A few more last-minute baseball rules”

All the way back in March, on baseball’s opening day weekend, the world became fully aware of the MLB’s new rule changes. The pitch clock, the bigger bases — they’ve ruined baseball! many decried, not realizing that games shorter than 16 hours are, in fact, preferable. I took the moment to have some fun with other silly last-minute rules. Here’s an excerpt from #3.

The pitcher’s mound is now directly in front of home plate. Pitcher and batter should take this opportunity to do a little kiss.

The “Seventh Inning Stretch” is now a mandatory yoga class. Please feel free to continue to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” so long as you are simultaneously performing a downward-facing dog.

We have made the bathrooms (somehow) much harder to find.

For one inning each game, both teams must swap some players and mix everyone up so they can all make new friends.

It's a new game called basefieldball

#2 — “On satire”

In the run-up to the release of my debut book, I wrote an essay for Literary Hub’s “The Craft of Writing” newsletter. The piece is ostensibly about writing satire, while touching on a very scary, very American situation I found myself in earlier this year. Here’s an excerpt from #2.

I have a lot of bad ideas. For instance, remember way back when I started this essay by saying I have a lot of bad ideas? That was probably a bad idea.

I bring up my bad ideas because the act of writing satire — something I do between stretches of deciding whether I’ll ever write again — hinges on the patience to discern bad ideas from ideas that really work. But this raises two questions: 1) What does it mean when a piece of satire writing “works?” and 2) If a piece of satire “works,” should it look into unionizing?

Learn where my bad ideas come from

#1 — “In their words: The acorn balloon in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade”

Well, this one caught me by surprise. It’s probably the shortest piece I wrote for this newsletter all year, but it seems to have resonated. From here on out, ten words per piece! Just kidding. Some background, if you’re interested: I initially thought it would be fun to do a POV piece of one-liners from all the balloons in the parade, but when I looked up the balloons for this year’s parade, the first one I saw was an acorn — and all I could think about was how funny it would be if the acorn balloon was intensely disgusted by its own contradictory existence. I’m crossing my fingers for something equally as banal and full of dichotomy for next year’s parade. Here’s an excerpt from #1.

In a word, I am ashamed.

The crunch under-toe. The thunk on a parked car roof. The snap of a curious dog’s teeth. These are the sounds I was meant to create. Yet here I find myself, suspended in the air, inciting the awed cheers and jeers of a crowd of thousands with my grotesque existence. I ask, over and over, Whose sick idea was this?

My entire purpose is to fall, and yet they have made me float.

Looks like I need to do this every year

Speaking of “Best”…

This Won’t Help is a best book of 2023

In case you missed it, my debut collection is on The New Yorker’s list of best books of the year. You have to scroll a bit, but it’s there. Have faith. And if you haven’t yet, you can order it below (or better yet, get it at your local bookstore).