What to get for Christmas

Christmas is here and we've got some ideas for last-second gifts broken down roughly into wants, needs, and reads.

In Praise of Floods by James C. Scott The late, great James C. Scott passed away earlier this year, but he left one last book behind, In Praise of Floods, which examines the life of a river in Burma and draws out the importance of rivers to mankind. Scott was a political scientist and anthropologist at Yale who authored two proir books that had an immense impact on how I view the world and understand politics. Both Two Cheers for Anarchism and Seeing Like a State would make good gifts if you want something more immediate as this last book won't ship until February. For a preview, you can listen to Scott's lecture on the topic here. Davis Hunt

Scammer by Caroline Calloway Like it or not, Caroline Calloway is the closest to Andy Warhol we have in a world reeling from the irrevocable impact of social media. The Instagram trailblazer more renowned for not writing than her actual output finally finished her beleaguered memoir in 2023. And it was more than worth the wait. Avoiding hipster navel-gazing and late-millennial posturing, Calloway forges a portrait of the brand as a bona fide artist. It may take until Easter for the new tricked-out edition to arrive in your mailbox, but that’s all part of Calloway’s trademark charm. Jerod Hollyfield

The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas I’m surprised I didn’t choose this book sooner. Illustrious in both life and death, Alexandre Dumas is best known for guiding his readers through swashbuckling adventures. Once you’ve found yourself between the pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, there’s no turning back. Just as wine replaces Welch’s and charcuterie becomes a glorified stand-in for Lunchables, The Count of Monte Cristo reignites a sense of adventure in adulthood similar to the experience of reading something like Treasure Island for the first time as an adolescent. 

Though tempting, I suggest avoiding the abridged version and committing to all 1,250 pages. Originally serialized in a Paris newspaper called Journal des débats, the storyline is both addictively engrossing and conveniently episodic. Rest assured, the novel can be easily re-engaged if you have to take a few breaks along the way. As it turns out, a new mini-series adaptation of the book premiered during the Rome Film Festival this October and is now available on streaming services. Megan Podsiedlik

🍻 Dry January The council passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring January 2025 “Dry January.” Since 2022, Nashville’s Meharry Medical College has spearheaded the national Dry January USA movement, encouraging individuals to “reflect on their relationship with alcohol, adopt healthier habits and reduce the harmful impacts of excessive alcohol use.” Over the last two decades, we’ve seen several similar monthly trends pop up, such as Movember, where men rock a mustache in November. If you’d like to give Dry January a try, there’s an app called Try Dry that’s been proven to help participants achieve their alcohol-free goals.

🎄 Deck The Halls, Not Each Other The Tennessee Department of Transportation is asking for help selecting a holiday slogan to be displayed on digital roadsigns across the state. You can choose from a list of suggestions submitted by Tennesseans that include slogans like “Did you have a half a drink more? Please Don’t Drive,” “Deck the halls. Not Each other. Stop road rage,” and “All I want for Christmas is you! Drive safe.” Cast your vote here.

🚧 East Bank Authority Appointments Yesterday, Mayor O’Connell shared his five picks for the East Bank Development Authority. According to Axios, his choice for chair, Emily Lamb, is a former Metro attorney. He also selected real estate exec Brian Reames, urban planning nonprofit worker Kaitlin Dastugue, architect Mona Hodge, and veteran nonprofit exec Hal Cato. In November, the council voted on their two appointments and chose Stand Up Nashville Director Nathaniel Carter and attorney Scott Tift.

DEVELOPMENT

• Hospitality veterans debut Perfectly Fine in The Nations (NBJ)
• For-sale Broadway building sees major asking price reduction (Post)
• Handel’s Ice Cream headed to Nashville Yards (Post)

✹ REVIEW: Y2K (2024)

While previous generations have little choice but to reminisce about the good ole days, millennials just have to make a quick detour into the toy aisle at the nearest Target or Wal-Mart. There’s little difference between the bins of Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles that live in a corner of our parents’ garages and the franchise toylines catering to millennials’ offspring. Chalk up our incurable arrested development to a lack of imagination or Post 9/11-Great Recession trauma, but, contrary to the latest thinkpiece, my generation doesn’t live in a world governed by nostalgia. Most of us just refused to leave the one we grew up in.

Such may explain the hostile reception that met SNL alum Kyle Mooney’s new horror-comedy Y2K when it made a resounding thud at the box office last week. Set at the turn of the millennium, Mooney’s film fashions itself as an heir to Superbad before making a wild left turn into the rise-of-the-machines carnage not out of place in Stephen King’s coke-fueled genre classic Maximum Overdrive. In this parallel reality, Y2K isn’t just manufactured hysteria, but a global threat from sentient devices that turns the high school NYE party dorky Eli (Jaeden Martell) and his best friend Danny (Julian Dennison) crash so the former can kiss his crush, Laura (Rachel Zegler), into the most outlandish teen massacre since Carrie.

While Mooney relishes references to 90s staples from Surge to “Thong Song,” the movie is not a blood-soaked love letter to empty nostalgia. Like its predecessor Gremlins, it’s a genre film that attempts to diagnose its generation’s implosion while offering a damning critique of the victimization that defines peak millennialism. Its heroes aren’t the type to lap up promises of Hope and Change, but inquisitive skeptics whose distrust of Clintonian politics and the promise of the Internet would prove ascendant in 2024. 

Although its “slaves to technology” undercurrent and Zegler’s lack of charisma prove quite the hindrances, its weaknesses fade away in the face of Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst’s glorious supporting turn–an act of go-for-broke self-deprecation not seen since 1999’s similarly unhinged Being John Malkovich.  

Y2K may be getting the type of reception reserved for Limp’s late-career output, but, unlike Durst, its critics don’t seem willing to come to terms with themselves. For Mooney and Co., nostalgia is no mere creature comfort reserved for trivia night and memes about getting old. It’s a rallying cry against millennials’ worst tendencies.

Y2K is now playing in theaters.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 A Mall Gag Xmas feat Pujol / Dee Oh Gee / Ariel Bui @ The East Room, 8p, $13.36, Info

🎸 Suki Waterhouse with Bully @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $35+, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
+ vet community here

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.