It’s the longest night of the year, and I went for my first Las Vegan run. Ordering cheeseburgers through a small metal box for two thousand miles has taken its toll. I looked like an abomination as I hauled myself along an empty avenue, screeching and swearing. The mountains peered down at me, laughing in the dark. It was too late at night to run, I decided, and I turned back after two miles.

It was 4:38pm.

I love the night, but there’s too much of it here. Due to some 19th-century railroad logic, Nevada is the only non-coastal state in the Pacific Time Zone, and Vegas is tucked into the far eastern corner, only thirty miles away from Mountain Time. In December, the sun technically sets a little after four o’clock in the afternoon, but it sinks behind the Spring Mountains an hour before that. For the first time I can remember, I’m grateful we’re going to start making more daylight tomorrow.

Until then, here’s some sludgy cold-running new wave from Japan circa 1980: