Solstice 2024: May 2025 Never Arrive

Favorites (and frustrations). And some gifts for you.

Dec 20, 2024

Photo by **Andy Adams** ©2024, from his highly recommended *FlakPhoto Digest* newsletter on Substack.

You’re reading WOODRUFF. I cover the convergence of pop culture, psychology, and astrology. Join my entourage of subscribers—you’ve been missed.

AS THE YEAR (AND DEMOCRACY) collapses and we prepare for the release of the Kraken—it’s time for highlights and recommendations.

Some Substack Newsletters That Set Standards

I read these in full right as they hit my inbox. And, I’ll tell ya, that’s saying a lot. Too many Substack authors suffer from not working with an editor. Good writing is about brevity and entertainment.

Stephen Moore

’s Trend Mill. Moore writes scathing and insightful (and delightful) takedowns on the cyber bell jar we’re trapped beneath—and the horrid tech lords that oversee it.

Seth Werkheiser

’s Social Media Escape Club. As Rainer Maria Rilke concluded his stunning poem Archaic Bust of Apollo: “You must change your life.” And this applies to anyone who still believes social media is a viable option for making their presence register online.

Cynthia Giles

’s Tarot: An Exploration Project. There isn’t a finer Tarot scholar working today.

Harry Stooshinoff

’s Harry Stooshinoff’s Painting Newsletter. As AI slop clogs bandwidth from here to Pluto, Stooshinoff’s creations act as both a palliative and a reminder that the creation of beauty is the purview of humans.

Eva Sylwester

’s Weekend Entertainment Guide. I don’t jibe with 90% of the astrology newsletters on Substack. Eva regularly does a ‘wheat from chaff’ round-up that usually delivers. I also like her interesting take on her post-religious life that dovetailed into mysticism.

Ken Klippenstein

’s newsletter. Ken gets vital news published a day or two before legacy media can whitewash it.

Also, novelist

John Calendo

’s Movieland, and Brian Merchant
’s Blood In the Machine (because the robots are coming for us). And, finally, Songletter—a great song a day for your soul newsletter.

Words I Can No Longer Tolerate In My Life

Journey.
Influencer.
Literally.
Wellness.
Patriarchy

George Orwell pointed out that when words are overused and often misapplied, they devolve into petrified cliches.

A Solstice Gift for You

I created this mix over a decade ago. It is a collection of off-of-the-grid hymns, chants, Medieval carols, and songs—a compendium to reflect on and celebrate this sacred moment in the Earth’s cycle. ~~Miraculously~~~~, the playlist is still up on MixCloud.~~ Uhm, as soon as I posted this, the file was taken down. I moved it over to Soundcloud.

The longest night, the Solstice, marks the return of a gradually growing luminosity as Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and radiance gains prominence.

Light has always symbolized awareness, consciousness, and life-giving properties. And we are each bodies of light, with the Sun as both our source and sustainment.

Shows and Films I Obsessed Over as Saturn transited Mars in the Eighth house—Mine

Diane Keaton in Richard Brooks’ *Looking for Mr. Goodbar*, 1975

Slow Horses on Apple TV. Thank you, Jessica Murray. I binged four seasons in what seemed like four days. Gary Oldman aged himself into the ultimate role of his career.
Ripley on Netflix. A slow-burning Patricia Highsmith retelling that seeps into and invades the black-and-white world of a gorgeously depicted Italy. The Caravaggio section was brill.
Chimp Crazy on MAX. If John Waters made compelling documentaries.
Looking for Mr. Goodbar on YouTube. Diane Keaton’s pinnacle performance (she’s never topped it). Her character’s narrative was a template for anyone—male or female—longing to escape the suffocation of the church and nuclear family. Sex and drugs were the way through. When I first saw the film in the mid-70s, an ambulance was summoned for a guy in the audience who had a psychotic break during the finale’s horrendous murder. It is a heartwrenching scene made emphatically freaky and ritualistic with a strobe light—where all of Keaton’s character’s vibrancy disappears into a flickering pinhole in space, which I imagine death must be like. Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce’s review (“It’s not so much a cautionary tale against female promiscuity and hedonism, but rather one against those who deny their own desires and project their rage and frustration onto the Other”) nails it together with his trenchant take.
32 Sounds on Criterion Channel. Find this film somehow. The Cuban Black female political activist from the late 70s, who we watched while she played McFadden and Whitehead’s Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now on her Walkman, made me cry. The most original movie I’ve seen in years.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix. When murderers become sex symbols. What’s not to love? As John Waters noted: “Everyone looks better under arrest.”
Last Summer on the Criterion Channel. An incest tale that the New Yorker described succinctly as: “A ferocious vision of sexual frenzy.”
Gilda on the Criterion Channel. Watching Glenn Ford stalk and long for Rita Hayworth (Jesus, who wouldn’t?) with his grudge-based priapism is the best depiction ever of how love and hate are inexorably intertwined.
Dune Prophecy on MAX. The Dune universe never moved me much, and I’m light-years over Timothy Chalemet. What’s always intrigued me is the Bene Gesserit witches, and this origin tale is divine with all of its crazy-ass DNA tinkering. Plus, there is the fabulous Emily Watson.
Schitt’s Creek. “Ew!” I watched the entire series four years ago and decided I’d waited long enough to rewatch it again. Because, well, Trump—I needed a steady surge of belly roll-laugher. Forget Brokeback Mountain; the love affair between David and Patrick is the benchmark for depicting romance in this century (and no one dies).
Perfect Days on Kanopy. I watched this beautiful, understated Wim Wenders film three times. I can’t emphasize enough the need for you to drop into this story, especially after the hell ride of this year. It will recalibrate your orientation to life. If I describe it in detail, you’ll think, “Oh, I’m not interested.” But trust me, you’ll thank me afterward. (Alright! So here is the trailer.)

Music—A Trove

According to Spotify, I listened to over 66,000 minutes of music this year. My 2024 playlist, Titanica, contains 52 hours of music—old and new. Set it to Shuffle for maximum enjoyment.

In The Works on WOODRUFF for Paid Subscribers

The new year will be unprecedented. The three outermost planets (that define generational and cultural shifts) will move from one sign in the Zodiac to another. Pluto, the destroyer, settles into Aquarius for a twenty-year transit, and Neptune, the dreamer/deluder, moves into Aries—the sign of leaders and martial wrangling. And Uranus, the itchy trigger finger revolutionizer, moves into Gemini, where, as Nick Dagan Best points out in our recent interview, the US tends to become enmeshed in identity-changing wars. There is a psychic necessity for each of us to reconsider our relationship to technology. ‘Internet culture’ is now the culture. And with that comes the feasting. Each of us who lives in any way online becomes food and chattel for the zombie tech bros who control the internet and social media. This sounds hyperbolically insane, but in the new piece I’m writing for the new year, I’ll explain the importance of dodging or minimizing the “Down with People” techno-death rays of Pluto’s Aquarius transit. Our private data and the essence of our lives are the product now.

Wishing everyone a lovely Christmas! Thank you for your support!

Love,

PS: Wanna give astrology books as gifts? Here’s my list of 10 of the finest. 🔒