And Hell Followed With

After running a thousand errands, working hours of overtime, and being stuck in seemingly endless gridlock traffic commuting to and from their jobs, millions of Americans were disheartened to learn that it was, in fact, only Tuesday.

“Tuesday?” San Diego resident Doris Wagner said. “How in the hell is it still Tuesday?”

Tuesday’s arrival stunned a nation still recovering from the nightmarish slog that was Monday, leaving some to wonder if the week was ever going to end, and others to ask what was taking Saturday so goddamn long.

Up on Longreads today is an excerpt from Kyle Devine’s new book, Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change, published by @versobooks. As vinyl’s popularity has surged over the decades, so has scrutiny of its environmental cost, and the music industry’s efforts to address it. In this excerpt, Devine visits a record-pressing plant, taking a look at one business working to green the industry.

Billy is keenly aware of the problems of plastic pollution, and he knows what it means to make records from petroleum products. ‘People talk about vinyl and wax, and it sounds cool,’ he says, 'but there is no getting around that vinyl records are PVC and every one that I make adds to the plastic in the world.

Warning that millions of men aged 35 and older would be left utterly adrift following the traumatic loss, researchers at Columbia University published a study Monday that revealed the majority of middle-aged men in the United States lacked the support network they would need to handle singer-songwriter Neil Young’s death. “It’s deeply concerning that the average 45-year-old male does not have a single friend or relative willing to text their favorite track from Harvest Moon with the caption ‘GOAT’ typed underneath,” said lead researcher Shannon Bailey, noting that in the absence of the Godfather of Grunge, large swathes of American men would simply spiral into depression while listening to “Heart Of Gold” on loop alone in their apartments.