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🎵 Here are some predictions and wish lists of Grammy winners for 2026 based on the nominations. Having Clipse and Kendrick on so many of the same tickets puts me in a tough spot, but here it goes:

Record of the Year:

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: DtMF by Bad Bunny

Album of the Year:

  • Wish: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse
  • Predict: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS by Bad Bunny

Song of the Year:

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: Golden from KPop Demon Hunters

Best New Artist:

  • Wish: Leon Thomas
  • Predict: Leon Thomas

Producer of the Year:

  • Wish: Sounwave
  • Predict: Dijon

Pop Solo Performance:

  • Wish: DAISIES by Justin Bieber
  • Predict: Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter

Best Pop Duo:

  • Wish: Defying Gravity by Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande
  • Predict: Defying Gravity by Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande

Best Pop Vocal:

  • Wish: SWAG by Justin Bieber
  • Predict: Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter

Best R&B Performance

  • Wish: Folded by Kehlani
  • Predict: It Depends by Chris Brown, Bryson Tiller

Best R&B Song

  • Wish: Folded by Kehlani
  • Predict: Folded by Kehlani

Best Rap Performance

  • Wish: Chains & Whips by Clipse, Pusha T & Malice ft. Kendrick Lamar & Pharrell
  • Predict: Chains & Whips by Clipse, Pusha T & Malice ft. Kendrick Lamar & Pharrell Williams

Best Melodic Rap Performance

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: Luther by Kendrick and SZA

Best Rap Song

  • Wish: The Birds Don’t Sing by Clipse
  • Predict: The Birds Don’t Sing by Clipse

Best Rap Album

  • Wish: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse
  • Predict: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse

Lot of repeats, but you can tell who I am pulling for most. That being said, it is an unusually strong nomination list this year. I am not mad for any wins that Dijon, Leon Thomas, Doechii, Tyler, or Billie get, as I am huge fans of each.

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💬 A classic zinger from the incomparable Peter Drucker:

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence. It is to act with yesterday’s logic.”

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🖍️ My sketch notes from this week’s “Managing the Growing Company” course. I find that interacting with the material while listening live is the best way to help it stick and spark more thought. May not be the prettiest, but it is effective (and fun).

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While Mamdani is being showered today with celebrations of his hard-earned victory, I hope Lindsey Boylan is somewhere also being applauded. There can be no doubt that this outcome, at least slightly, started with the courage she had four years ago to be the first to blow the whistle on Cuomo’s sexual harassment. That particular issue may not have reached its ideal conclusion, but the knock-on effects of her bravery are inextinguishable; keeping a man who is unsuited for public office away from the halls of power.

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✏️ New Word Learned:

Polysemous: the capacity for a sign, symbol, word, or phrase to have multiple related meanings

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💬 Thinking a lot on Phillip Larkin’s poem Aubade lately and taking comfort from it. May write on it soon. Here is one glorious snippet:

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood.

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I love to read, but I also believe that thirty minutes of conversation with real people is worth two hours of reading any literature.

I know it’s a little apples to oranges, but the sentiment, I think, is mostly true.

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💬 From Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”

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🎵 Been listening to:

I confess, I didn’t know that the Dennis Edwards song was the original sample for Hit ‘Em Up until NLE released his diss track, KO, this week. KO is a fun track, phenomenal video, but forgettable as a diss, especially when imitating Pac.

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📚 I am officially hooked on humor writing. I cannot believe that I have never explored the genre before, but diving into it now feels as significant (and as exciting!) as stumbling into philosophy was as a teenager.

Came across this classic from Woody Allen today that is an absolute must read.

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✏️ New Term Learned:

Kufungisisa: a Shona idiom from Zimbabwe that translates to “thinking too much.” It is a cultural term used to describe a state of mental distress that causes other kinds of bodily ills.

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It’s payday, which means that I will be suffering all day long as I resist the urge to spend an unreasonable amount of money on new books.

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📚 It’s Halloween y’all. Here are some good short stories appropriate for the holiday that you can read right now:

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Very fascinated right now by the genre of writing called Kmart Realism. The fact that sprinkling real-world products into your story and name dropping actual consumer goods in a narrative can be so effective at creating mundane, disenchanted fiction is very telling.

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❤️ Texts like these:

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💬 From Orwell, in As I Please:

But the claim that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ is one of the stock arguments of intelligent reactionaries… It is not very difficult to see that this idea is rooted in the fear of progress. If there is nothing new under the sun, if the past in some shape or another always returns, then the future when it comes will be something familiar. At any rate what will never come — since it has never come before — is that hated, dreaded thing, a world of free and equal human beings… Particularly comforting to reactionary thinkers is the idea of a cyclical universe, in which the same chain of events happens over and over again. In such a universe every seeming advance towards democracy simply means that the coming age of tyranny and privilege is a little bit nearer. This belief, obviously superstitious though it is, is widely held nowadays, and is common among Fascists and near-Fascists.

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🗞️ I just posted my first ever short story: A Grimm Night on Central Park South. In honor of Halloween, I center it around the spookiest thing imaginable: Big Tech. I would love if you checked out this little piece of dark fiction and gave feedback. Please read and tell me what you think! 🎃🐺🏙️👻

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Can’t believe I’ve never read Isaac Asimov’s self-proclaimed best story before tonight. My older brother put me on and it’s too good not to share. A short read: The Last Question.

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✏️ New Word Learned:

Hoi Polloi: the general populace ; MASSES

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📷 Light At The End Of The Tunnel — 35mm Portra 400 by me