THE ATTIC YEAR IN REVIEW

The novelist Henry James, despite living his adult life in Europe, knew the problem we all faced this year.  “It is a complex fate to be an American,” James said.  So was it just me, or was 2025 more complex than quantum theory?

The daily drone of doom.  The shock and awe of headlines.  The division, the disgust, the determination to “Do Something!”  If there was a “kinder, cooler America” out there, it seemed harder than ever to find.  But once again here in the Attic, “kinder, cooler” informed the entire year, not just in one Attic but two.

Last January 20, as the Attic started its ninth year, Attic Planet opened for inspiration.  How to introduce an entire planet?  From on high, of course.  Attic Planet’s debut article “Overview” examined the ethereal, altruistic wonder that overcame the few lucky enough to view earth from space.

For the rest of 2025, the Attic and Attic Planet traded off weeks.  As Attic Planet stretched its legs, stories came from around the globe.  Griots in West Africa.  The Iron Curtain becoming a bike trail.  Pablo Neruda’s epic flight and epic poem.  Strolling Paris with the Flâneur.  How Greenpeace was Born and How Rwanda banned plastic.  The list went on, the most popular being “How Rumi Spread His Joy.”

Meanwhile, back in The Attic, it was another year tending the garden of American culture.  BOOK-ISH brought you authors ranging from Isaac Asimov (“The Man Who Knew It All”) to a Cherokee linguist (“Sequoyah and the Talking Leaves”) and wordplay from literary contests (“Celebrating Schlocky Sentences”) to a book review of un-a-bridged, a paean to dictionaries.

Interesting characters, those Attic dwellers.  This year we met architect Mary Jane Colter (“The Woman Who Built the Grand Canyon”) and magician Ricky Jay (“Cards as Wonders”).  We learned the dangers of innumeracy from John Allen Paulos (“Million, Billion — What’s the Difference?”) and examined faux myths and legends with “Mr. Urban Legend” himself.

When The Attic got claustrophbic, we hit the road, riding “The Amazing Super Chief” and lurking in a Baltimore graveyard to witness another midnight visit of the mysterious Poe Toaster.

There were plenty of heroes, including many who seemed to have answers to our current woes.  Listen to Judge Learned Hand: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. . .”

With race ever on our minds, we met Thurgood Marshall (“The Man Who Broke Jim Crow”) and danced with “The International Sweethearts of Rhythm.”

And as America again stirred the ashes of diplomacy, we recalled “The Americans Who Said ‘No!’ To Empire.”  1898:  Mark Twain, Jane Addams, William James and others form the American Anti-Imperialist League. On our takeover of the Philippines, William James writes: “The stars and stripes are now a lying rag, pure and simple.”

But as usual, The Attic sought comic relief.  Of the dozen categories open for rummaging, WITS gathered the most articles this year (five).  Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca returned (“A (Comic) Revolution — Televised”) and America’s favorite dog lover posed his pooches (“Wit, Weimaraners, and Wegman”).

But the year’s most visited article was neither amusing nor angry.  In “The Grad Speech With Capital-T Truth,” we honored David Foster Wallace’s wonderfully wise speech “This is Water.”

Despite aspirations of “kinder, cooler,” much was lost in the chaos that was 2025.  Visits to the Attic were down again this year.  Now it can be told.  Now you can spread the word to others.  For America’s sake, for your own sake, turn OFF the doomscrolling.  At least for the five minutes it takes to read an Attic article.  Because although you will never learn this from the rest of the media, America is more than the machinations and madness of one man.

If The Attic struggled a little, Attic Planet simply deflated.  The site never got more than a few hundred visitors a week (compared to The Attic’s 1,500).  Which is why, in 2026, you can still go to atticplanet.space, but no new articles will be added there.  All of this year’s articles, plus occasional new planetary stories, now have their own corner of The Attic.

Speaking of 2026, it kicks off next week with a theme to make you tremble — and think.  The Future, anyone?  The mere word summons more doom and gloom but throughout January, the Attic will examine what the future used to mean and how we can make it mean as much again.  There’s nothing riding on our view of the world to come — other than the future itself.

So thanks again to loyal rummagers.  Onwards into The Attic’s tenth year.