Canada’s House of Commons is next scheduled to sit on Monday 27 January 2025. The opposition parties, together comprising more members than the government’s minority of 153 seats, have respectively indicated their intention to trigger an election through a confidence vote at their earliest opportunity.

As such, let us hope for two things. First, for the prime minister to beat the calendar to the inevitable conclusion and to trigger an election himself. Second, for the opposition parties to cease using the phrase “non-confidence motion”—strictly speaking, the question of confidence is a result of the motion. Maybe don’t actually sound like you’re barbarians at the gates, yeah?

The resumption of postal service has released my imported copy of Ali Smith’s latest novel, Gliff (2024), from limbo, which is not due out in North America until February. It’s a burden to be prescient. I hope there isn’t reason in the coming months to laud the novel for more than it’s literary value. This line is welcome to live in my head rent-free for as long as it pleases:

If only people paid more attention, she said, to what history tells us rather than all this endless congratulating ourselves for finding a new way to read it.

While we’re on that sensitive subject, let’s appreciate this blunt thought from a recent Economist article about the decline of scholarly writing (especially in the humanities):

Though authors may argue that their work is written for expert audiences, much of the general public suspects that some academics use gobbledygook to disguise the fact that they have nothing useful to say. The trend towards more opaque prose hardly allays this suspicion.

You tell me: is the Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait right to see this moment as the end of an era? It’s a compelling thought—but, then again, the end of the year makes its own persuasive case for punctuation.

If you find your ears free this week, may I suggest the following podcast episodes: (1) Kara Swisher’s On Best (and Most Overrated) Books of 2024 chat with critics Dwight Garner and Becca Rothfeld; (2) the end of 99% Invisible’s reading of the Power Broker by Robert Caro (including a chat with the man himself); and (3) Ed Elson’s very astute guest column, in his Prof G Market co-host’s newsletter, No Mercy / No Malice (as read by George Hahn), on brands v. people (seriously, it’s the best thing I heard all week).