Mark Carney has struck a trade deal with Xi Jinping, and now it seems like we’ll be getting cheap Chinese EVs here in Canada. I’m pretty excited at this development. Have you seen those BYD hatchbacks? My girlfriend and I are basically certain that one of those will be our next car, in hopefully many many years, as we just bought our current car, and oh dear god please I do not want to buy another car any time soon.
I do have some reservations about EVs, though. I really don’t like that the way we’re addressing climate change is by finding a climate safe version of a system that sucks for a lot of other reasons in addition to CO2. Cars are a really stupid way to move people around. I mean, seriously, look at a busy highway, consider that most of those cars are only holding one or two people, and then tell me with a straight face that the whole enterprise isn’t stupid and inefficient. You can’t.
Cars just take up too much space. Look at how much space we waste on parking lots. It’s ridiculous. We could be relying on trains and bicycles, like a civilized country. You can fit like a dozen people on a traincar -- cars cap out at 5 with a similar footprint! Of course we have traffic issues, everybody is driving a personal vehicle, and those personal vehicles are getting bigger and bigger. Have you seen these new pickup trucks? Forget toddler killers, some of these grills are as tall as I am, and I am a statistically average height adult man.
So, I’m glad we’re taking tangible action to move towards all electric cars. However, I get sick to my stomach considering that this is basically futureproofing the car as an institution, guaranteeing that our grandchildren will live in nearly as stupid a world as we do. I hate cars. At least that BYD hatchback is snazzy.
I’d like to take a moment to talk about my plans for this segment once the MLB season starts. I’m still a new fan, so this season I intend to take some time to familiarize myself with each of the league’s teams. For each of the first 15 weeks of the season I’m going to pick one AL and one NL team to follow, pretending all the while that I’m a fan of theirs. This will mean watching as many of their games that week as I can, reading articles from their beat writers, and following fan discussion online. My goal will be to get to know each team well enough to talk about them competently, and to put together a rooting hierarchy: a ranked list of teams by which I will decide who to root for in the postseason, should my beloved Blue Jays not make it.
The first teams I follow will be the San Fransisco Giants and the New York Yankees, since they’re playing the first game of the season. After that I’ll decide more or less at random, though I will try to pick teams each week who aren’t playing against the Blue Jays that week, and who ideally have some home games going. Part of getting to know a team is gleaning the vibe of their home stadium, after all.
Now, I thought today’s blog would be a good time to give, in brief, my preliminary impressions of each team, to establish a sort of baseline before I flesh out my opinions during the season. Here are very quick blurbs about each team, in no particular order.
Toronto Blue Jays: Let’s get this out of the way first. You know how I feel about the Blue Jays. They’re my guys. I love them dearly.
Seattle Mariners: The Mariners are everybody’s team. It’s hard to imagine a Mariners hater; doing so confounds in the same way as trying to imagine JD Vance’s inner life. They’re whimsical as hell, such that even when they’re doing great, they’re doing great on the back of a guy whose nickname is “Big Dumper,” on account of his large ass. As of this moment, they’re my second favourite team.
Los Angeles Dodgers: People like to frame the Dodgers as villains, but I mean, come on. Look at Shohei Ohtani. That man is a folk hero. People also like to claim the Dodgers are ruining Baseball, but for real, did they watch that World Series last year? It was great! It was great BECAUSE the Dodgers are so good, and because the Jays are so good. It is good, actually, when teams spend money. That said, these guys are my enemies and I look forward to a day when Vladdy and co. can get some sweet revenge.
Colorado Rockies: These guys are named after their state instead of their city, which I think is silly. They’re also just really weird, which I love. They don’t really spend money, they have a weird outdated player dev system, and their idea of making a bold, modernizing hire was bringing on one of the guys from Moneyball as POBO. The guy in question has been in Football for most of the last 20 years. Dick Monfort’s mind...Not to mention that they play on the moon, which rules.
Arizona Diamondbacks: My buddy Mark likes these guys a whole lot. And that colour scheme is real good. So those are both points in their favour. I look forward to learning anything about them.
Chicago White Sox: There’s a special allure to a team that’s really, really bad. You see win/loss numbers like the White Sox and Rockies have put up the past couple years and you just wanna see what exactly is going on. These guys have taken a big swing by signing Munetaka Murakami, and they have the pope in their corner now. So, I look forward to seeing if those two things turn them around.
Chicago Cubs: Evil. Rancid vibes. You hear about this Matt Shaw guy? Yikes! And they lack the courage of their convictions to have a cute baby bear as their logo. It’s just a C. They aren’t even the only team whose logo is just a C. I mean, come on.
Cincinnati Reds: The other C team. Elly De La Cruz is incredibly cool. That’s all I got.
Pittsburgh Pirates: I think it would be really funny if the Pirates did well this season. They should do it, just to spite Bob Nutting. For real though, it’s tragic how Paul Skenes is currently being wasted. I look forward to his free agency, and a long and illustrious career for him with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
New York Yankees: The New York Yankees play terrible defense and win games by having a bunch of really tall guys hit the ball really hard. It’s a child’s idea of a good Baseball team. Every time they win it is an insult to the integrity of the sport. They must be destroyed. As I mentioned before I plan to start this season by attempting to adopt Yankees fan mindset, and I fear this may kill me.
San Fransisco Giants: I always just assume this team is good. They’re sort of just okay right now, I think? I think the fact that they once employed Barry Bonds just has them lodged permanently in the “good team” folder in my brain. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually watched one of their games.
San Diego Padres: A mystery to me. They made the playoffs last year; that’s nice.
New York Mets: Somehow, even though I should hate them for it, the Mets acquiring Bo Bichette has made me like them. Honestly, this offseason in general has reflected well on them, to me. They lost some important guys, but have done a really remarkable job turning around and filling the roster back out. It’s been cool to watch. Also, I like when the various New York based writers I follow are happy. So let’s see it: Blue Jays/Mets World Series this year.
Baltimore Orioles: Best logo in Baseball. Best logo in pro sports. Best logo of all time? I’m partial to all the bird-based teams. Birds are cool. The Orioles are also great to watch because their lineup has many lovely names, such as “Coby Mayo,” “Gunnar Henderson,” and “Jackson Holliday.” One of the most Baseball Names teams in the league. They’ve been active in the offseason, and I hope it works out. I’d love to see them do well (though not too well, seeing as they share a division with my Blue Jays).
Boston Red Sox: These guys took a photo with Trump last year for like, no reason. They just sort of visited the White House for fun, I guess. I’d root for them against the Yankees but that’s about it.
Miami Marlins: I do not believe that the Miami Marlins are real.
Philadelphia Phillies: This is a team of and for deranged psychos.
Milwaukee Brewers: I love this team's vibe. Just a bunch of random guys doing smallball stuff. I wish they would spend some money sometimes (I mean, come on, trading Peralta?) but they sort of don’t seem to need to. Their internal development is pretty impressive.
Minnesota Twins: I made fun of the Rockies having a state instead of city name, but I read that Twin Cities based teams often go by Minnesota to avoid showing a preference for either of the Twin Cities, and that makes sense to me. The Twins seem like they’re just in a state of constant turmoil. They traded so many guys at the deadline last year that I’m unsure how they even have players left. But hey, the Jays got Louis Varland out of it, so that’s cool.
Los Angeles Angels: Somebody should go to prison over how Mike Trout’s career has been squandered.
Washington Nationals: GIVE ME BACK THE EXPOS YOU MONSTERS!
Athletics: What do you even say about these guys? Poor, poor Oakland. Nick Kurtz is cool.
Kansas City Royals: I kinda like these guys. Nice shade of blue, some cool players.
Texas Rangers: I don’t know very much about them, but I do believe that they are evil.
Houston Astros: See above.
Cleveland Guardians: Awesome logo. All time funny move to last minute beat the Tigers for the division title and then immediately lose to them in the wild card round. Jose Ramirez is cool.
St. Louis Cardinals: Another bird based team, which I like. Similar to the Giants, they’re a team I just think of as good even though they sort of aren’t right now. I don’t really know why.
Detroit Tigers: Tarik Skubal is a sight to behold. Good pitching is just beautiful. Skubal in particular has this incredible, intimidating aura. He will wear down an entire lineup by just throwing fireballs forever. Aside from him I know very little about the Tigers. I did not really watch their division series against the Mariners last year, which I sort of regret.
Atlanta Braves: Henry Aaron is one of the coolest players of all time. This is the only thing I know about the Atlanta Braves.
Tampa Bay Rays: They’re the much less fake Florida team. I get them mixed up with the Royals, due to their similar but inferior shade of blue. The Jays got absolutely embarrassed by them late last season, which was funny (though it would’ve been not funny at all had the Jays ended up losing the division).
“Jana Horn” is a self titled album by Texas singer/songwriter Jana Horn, recorded after she relocated to New York. It deals with themes of change and uncertainty with wonderfully poetic lyricism and perfectly atmospheric instrumentation. It’s recorded with a close clarity that makes it sound warm and friendly, avoiding every potential pitfall in the making of a sad indie folk album to get somewhere intimate, human, honest, and true. I love it.
I can really explain most of why I love this album just by discussing its opener, “Go on, move your body.” This is a song about being in a slump, forcing yourself to move through life because there is nothing else you can do. Lyrics are rarely the most important part of a song to me, but they really took center stage in my experience with this album, because Horn is an excellent lyricist. This song doesn’t have many lyrics, just two short verses and a refrain, but it manages to perfectly capture a real feeling. “Nothing prepares you for this or is a cure, no way” is the opening line, immediately establishing daunting, overpowering depression. The refrain “You just go on moving your body” is a perfect encapsulation of what it feels like to go on existing within such a feeling. This is poetry at its best: concise, elegant expression.
The real genius of this album, though, is how the music works to express the same feelings as the lyrics. “Go on, move your body” is built on this slow, lurching groove that just barely holds itself together. The drums move almost impossibly slowly, the guitar and bass are sparse, and dissonant strings creak softly in the background. It sounds as though the song itself is forcing itself to press forward, to just keep moving, in the same way as its narrator. This could be an instrumental track and it would still successfully convey the same feeling as the lyrics.
January and February are pretty depressive months for me, due in large part to grief. I’ve run into very few works of art that hit on grief as I experienced it and continue to experience it as well as “Go on, move your body” does. Nothing does prepare you for it, and really all you can do is just keep moving your body.
The lyrics and music compliment each other just as elegantly across most of the rest of the album. “Don’t think” is about progressing through a period of change, sort of elaborating on the subject of “Go on, move your body,” but with more emphasis on forward momentum. Its instrumentation starts off slow and sparse, but gradually coalesces into a more full groove, mirroring this determination to move forward. “All in bet” represents a sort of culmination of this momentum, as while the narrator expresses being committed to the changes she’s experiencing, ready to embrace uncertainty, the arrangement is as full as it has been so far, with a cohesive, straightforward groove that evolves as the song goes on, crescendoing to a peak as Horn sings the refrain about making an “all in bet.”
In addition to being great songwriting, this is really excellent album sequencing. Those first three songs build perfectly off of one another, both musically and conceptually. This is, for me, a lot of what makes a great album. It can’t just be a collection of good songs, they have to cohere as a larger whole.
Now, I’d like to talk a little more aesthetically. I love the arrangements on this album. It works with a really simple, minimal musical palette: guitars, bass, a drum kit, a piano, occasionally clarinet and flute, and some violin on the opener. Over the course of the album, the performers deploy these elements in just about every permutation possible. Sometimes the acoustic guitar is just a harmony layer, sometimes, like on “It’s alright,” it drives the groove, letting the bass play a more melodic part. Usually when the clarinet shows up it’s as countermelody or more harmonic accompaniment, but on “Come on” it serves as a sort of droning base layer for the rest of the song to build around. The drums are never as simple as they could be, opting always for a something more complex than a basic rock beat. Sometimes they’re sparse, sometimes they’re dense; sometimes they carry the groove, sometimes they’re ornamentation. All of this means each song has its own flavour, despite them all having similar instrumantation. As a result the album is never boring, despite being sad and slow.
Horn’s vocal performances are great, too. She has a lovely voice, and deploys it in a few different ways, sometimes straightforwardly singing, as on “Unused,” sometimes nearly speaking, as on “Go on, move your body,” often singing incredibly softly. The vocal melodies are great too: all nice and simple, but with enough style and variety to stick in the brain and carry the songs. Her voice is mixed quite close -- clear, centered, with relatively little reverb -- which lends an intimate quality to each song. It feels like she’s talking directly to you, and the album is warm and friendly as a result.
The production and mixing in general support this feeling. Everything is so clear, produced minimally and mixed well. It really feels like you’re in a room with all the performers. As I discussed in my piece on Carole King's "Tapestry," this is my favourite way for singer songwriter music to sound.
So, this is a lovely album, about as good as indie folk gets, and an early favourite for me in 2026. I discovered it by chance on a list of recent releases from Paste Magazine, which I will link here. Jana Horn is a really special talent as a songwriter, and deserves a bigger following.
Rating: ☆☆