We're going supersonic

The Friday Newsletter watches the credits roll, then starts playing again.

Hello, friends. Welcome to the first Friday of 2022.

Hard to believe we’re here, isn’t it? A little more than a week ago, we were in the thick of year-end remembrances, taking stock of the twelve months that had elapsed and compiling our bests-of, our #2021Faves, our odes to a year that was equal parts promising and frustrating.

Then, just like that, it was over.

It brings to mind beating a classic video game: you’d toil and struggle and claw and scrap your way through level after level, often suffering setbacks but slowly, if surely, progressing forward. It’d seem like the end would never come, but then you’d finally defeat the final boss, watch the far-too-short-for-all-the-work-you-put-in ending, the credits would roll…

… and then you’d just start playing again from the beginning.

Some of these games might mix things up after you beat them; the rules would change slightly, the opponents would behave different, the music would pick up a little bit—but then, you’d have new skills too. Yo…