Innervisions was a spiritual awakening. Nothing less. It introduced me to a new musical universe and left a clean schism in my life: before and after 1970s Stevie Wonder.

In the late 90s, my then-girlfriend bought me the LP for my burgeoning collection. I kind of knew Stevie had been a child star in the 60s and made a few cool funk songs, but that's akin to vaguely registering Michelangelo played with clay.

The second the needle dropped, the driving synthesizer on "Too High" had me nodding and by the time side one wrapped up on "Golden Lady," I was already dreaming of spending the rest of my life running in a field, watching flowers bloom.

After flipping the record, I got hit with "Higher Ground" (objectively the best distillation of soul-funk ever recorded at Motown) and by the time the Latin-infused "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" came on, Stevie had the Conn Smythe fully locked up.

Innervisions embodies that whole decade: funky, political, introspective, and sexy.

Stevie also played every instrument on most songs, which was like finding out Michael assembled the Air Jordans you're wearing.

Anyway. Listen to the god damn record. You'll never be the same.

It's not a self-help book or a philosophy book, either. It's more like growing a third eye in the middle of your forehead.

The Score gives you the words to explain why you feel out of breath running races you don't remember starting.

C. Thi Nguyen is a fascinating guy, a gamer, a philosopher who writes about games, a cook, and a climber. He's seen how letting the wrong numbers rule you can turn something you love into a slog.

Because we're all playing games. And games have scores.

I'm a writer. I live to write and I write to live. I'm obsessed with my daily word count. But after reading The Score, I realized I'm sacrificing what makes writing special (creativity, accomplishment) for something that doesn't even really matter (bIg NuMbEr gO uP!).

The Score isn't about eliminating numbers and scorekeeping. Scores help you make sense of a world that's too damn big. But you should know when you don't need them. Because games, real ones, end. You mark up the scoreboard and then throw it away.

Keeping a never-ending tally in the game of life will just fuck you up.

For years, my post dinner party ritual involved showing Christopher Scott Cherot's Hav Plenty (1997).

Sometimes my friends would wonder if I was joking about loving this film, which follows a struggling grad student writer, Lee Plenty, who for some reason gets invited to spend the New Year's holiday with his crush, Havilland Savage.

But though the film is full of jokes, I seriously love it. The tenderness of the crush, for one.

Lee, played by the film's director, exhibits a beautiful vulnerability. Throughout, there's an expectant kind of tension of having one's crush and eating it too. Then there's the poem Lee reads at the end, after a weekend full of near misses is resolved with his crush seemingly crushing him: "Havilland's eyes, I am thinking."

The beauty of the film is in all the ways one yearns and hopes and then has to play it off. A crush sends you reeling, imagining and hoping for some kind of consummation, or confirmation.

The first time I saw Hav Plenty, I also saw my Havilland and that tension never lifted.

When he’d introduce new menu items, his usually dismissive demeanor would dissipate with interjections of “that’s a Thomas Keller technique!” leaving him beaming for a moment like a burned-out cook at the sight of a pint after a 16-hour shift.

To this day, the TFL cookbook remains infinitely more than a piece of nostalgia (sous-chef Grant Achatz anyone?). It provides an earnest and immortalizing glimpse into the heart and soul of one of the most iconic restaurants to ever grace the New World.

The writing is pristine and soigné, just like Keller’s white truffle oil-infused custards set in eggshell and served with the absolute most perfect single potato chip (recipe included).

But most importantly, The French Laundry is a celebration of Napa’s rich terroir, a manifesto for the love of food and doing things right at all costs, a bible of elevated cooking techniques re-modernized by one of the greatest chefs of the century, and an absolute must for anyone claiming to be a “foodie” (whatever the fuck that means).

“When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy. That’s what cooking is all about.”

This isn't the Aaron Sorkin of Bourdain biopics. So stop your whining, bro.

But wanna watch the early chapters of Kitchen Confidential come to life, with a 19-year-old Bourdain chasing the girl to P-town, MA, circa 1975, washing dishes in a lobster shack and falling in love with the noble (and not so noble) way of life that is professional cookery?

Brigade in unison: Oui Chef!

Granted, the script's not quite a perfect medium rare, but you ain't seeing this one for the story.

The cinematography of Cape Cod summer days is so good you can practically smell the iodine from your theater seat. Banderas's performance is phenomenal. Plus, there are enough Kitchen Confidential Easter eggs, subtle BOH idiosyncrasies, crude cooking banter, and Lobster Thermidor to satisfy the most hardened of die-hard Bourdain fans. And did we mention the killer soundtrack featuring everyone from The Stooges to Brian Eno?

"I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Straight08, albeit only mildly clever when it comes to puns (808, get it?), excels at delivering an auditory mindfuck akin to "having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick."

Is it jazz? Honestly, who cares. Barsh, Guiliana, & Keyon in the same lineup feels illegal, like LeBron, Wade, and Bosh each dropping 30 in one night without ever fighting over who gets the rock.

Sure, there's a nod to Monk and one of the best covers of "Little Sunflower" ever (truly), but overall this thing just hits different.

The bass is swapped out for 808s, with Barsh's left hand conjuring lines unlike anything jazz has heard before, while his right lays down moody, ambient synth overdubs. Guiliana's nonstop slaying, because that's what Guiliana does. As the rhythm section steamrolls ahead, the structure somehow stays wide open for Harrold to soar over with beautiful, sweeping melodies.

One of my favorite albums of 2026 thus far. So grab your best pair of headphones (you'll need 'em for the 808s), hit play, and get ready to sit down (hol' up), and be humbled.