A Selection of Jokes About the Pope’s Momma

What it’s like to lose $225,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire

FILMS: It’s not original to say that Carol was great, but three underrated parts: Sarah Paulson, the music, the ending. | Ex Machina, because I’m a sucker for sci-fi chamber pieces like this, and because the dancing scene was the greatest single scene this year by a mile. | Honorable mentions: The Look of Silence, Birdman, The Lobster, Phoenix, the final wedding segment of Wild Tales.

The earthquake piece you’ve probably already read

Strunk and White: Grammar Police

TV: I thought The Jinx would be the runaway winner of the best true crime documentary short series award, but then Making a Murderer came along at the end to make it a tie. | Farewell to Mad Men, probably my favourite (long/American) TV series from beginning to end. Some favourite moments: what you call love, carousel, litter, lawn mower, dancing, roller skating, …

Two pieces by Dana Stevens, Slate film critic (and culturegabfester) : on watching films with her daughter; on visiting Japan and finding films there

MUSIC: Best album: Björk’s Vulnicura, especially the magnificent first half. Review by Carl Wilson (“The fact that time does heal is merciful but also reducing. It renders our past losses unjustly banal.”); interview with Jessica Hopper. (Runners-up: Natalie Prass, Tame Impala, Sufjan Stevens, Grimes) | Best singles: “The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar, “Dreams” by Beck, “REALiTi” (demo over album), “Seesaw”. | Best EP: FKA twigs [above] (runner-up: Nao) | Best video: FKA twigs [above] (runner-up: Nao) | Best rejected Bond song: “Spectre” | Best Bach prelude played on boomwhackers: No. 1 in C major | Best cast recording of a Broadway musical based on the life of a US treasury secretary: Hamilton | A playlist

Janet Malcolm on Joseph Mitchell – I disagree with almost all of this, and it’s still great. (For a start, Joe Gould’s Secret is better than The Bottom of the Harbor.)

How different popsingers sang the national anthem at the Superbowl

PODCASTS: Love & Radio: The Living Room | Mystery Show: Britney | This American Life: on a winner of the green card lottery and on school desegregation | No Such Thing As a Fish | Slate’s Culture Gabfest, especially Dana’s nutmeg endorsement (from 48:01)

“Blood Ties” is just a very well done crime piece

Trump lolz: [1] [2] [3]

Perfect magnets

Remarks by the President in Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (Go from 18:08 – “This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace” – if you must, but don’t just skip to the end)

OLD THINGS I CAME ACROSS THIS YEAR: “Doubt” by William Finnegan, which seems sort of Serial precursory | “Eyes of a Blue Dog”, a short story by Gabriel García Márquez | Pastel Blues by Nina Simone, although Little Girl Blue will always be my first love | Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? | The films of Howard Hawks: His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby are perfect romantic comedies; To Have and Have Not has relegated Casablanca to my second-favourite Humphrey Bogart film set mostly in a bar in a Vichy-controlled French overseas territory during the second world war; Only Angels Have Wings is good but perhaps a smidgen overrated; The Big Sleep is beautiful, moody, and thoroughly incomprehensible; Ball of Fire is fun and Barbara Stanwyck terrific in it.

“Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

“Each Day Unexpected Salvation (John Cage)”, a poem by Anne Carson | “This Poem Will Blow Your Tits Clean Off”, a sonnet by @_L_M_C_

Previously: Things I Liked in 2014