Archive
Full Post List
Sep 7, 2024:
Triple Seven
I had been reading a lot of buzz around the Indianapolis band, Wishy, and their seamless blend of shoegaze and indie pop lately. Their debut album …
Aug 29, 2024: I’m eager to check out the Devo Tiny Desk Concert, which draws me in the same way the Cypress Hill one did. There is some incongruity there, and …
Aug 28, 2024: The new anti-toxicity feature on Bluesky that allows a user to detach their original post from a quote post is ingenious. I can’t believe no one …
Aug 28, 2024: I loved the “Pack Lunch, Drop Kids Off, Skate,Work” short photo essay from the NYT (gift article). The women who were either returning to …
Aug 25, 2024: While I think the journaling addition to HEY calendar looks very inviting, the idea of storing something as important as a journal in a proprietary …
Aug 25, 2024: Back To Worship I missed Divine Liturgy last week because I had to bid goodbye to my wife’s aunt, who just moved up North. Maybe it was the longing for worship …
Aug 16, 2024: Noble Oak - Eveningstar Recently, a friend on Mastodon asked followers about their first cassette purchase. I had no trouble recollecting getting Starship’s Knee Deep …
Aug 9, 2024: One Actress And A Melon The creative forces behind Ginger Root have a concept for a show featuring one actress (it’s all they had the budget for). Their Japanese …
Apr 27, 2024:
Your Analyst Was A Placekicker For The Falcons
I woke up at 4 AM a few days ago, hungry from fasting. I decided to check out what the internet had in store for me and ended up perusing through …
Apr 20, 2024:
Music Media Mayhem
I go back and forth about how I like to listen to music and on what media. I've been doing this for 30 years, so I probably won't be settled anytime …
Apr 20, 2024:
A La Sala
In Paul Simpson’s review of the new album from the Houston-based Khruangbin (sorry, no link), A La Sala, he acknowledges the fact that they’ve moved …
Apr 13, 2024:
The City We Forgot To Name
Asymmetrical news coverage at most of the mainstream media sites is something that I’ve almost just come to accept without any particular frustration. …
Apr 6, 2024:
Substack Lock-In
Probably the closest publishing platform to the one I'm using — Ghost — is Substack. Although Substack is much more popular for a few reasons, not …
Mar 29, 2024:
Borderline Savings Time
A friend recently introduced me to the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy podcast, wherein Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick explains the Orthodox Christian faith. One …
Mar 23, 2024:
Sharing Is Caring
In many ways, though not in all, it’s gotten much harder to share the music you love with others. I was reminded of this a couple of days ago. …
Mar 13, 2024: Oh Spotify, All Is Forgiven Neil Young put his catalog back on Spotify. He was moved to do so by the fact that Apple and Amazon are now serving the podcast he objected to (The …
Mar 9, 2024: We’re Big Pants People Again The NYT recently ran a piece about baggy pants coming into fashion again. The observances about the cyclical nature of fashion trends made me pause to …
Feb 24, 2024:
Community Versus The Individual
Alisa Ruddell wrote a masterful and in-depth review of the visually stunning animated film The Peasants for Christ and Pop Culture. The movie follows …
Feb 19, 2024: What We Do Now The new J. Mascis album, What We Do Now dropped recently, and has garnered a fair amount of attention. Though it’s expected that a solo album by …
Feb 17, 2024: Sophie I’ve loved the fourth track on the Small Black record, Limits of Desire ever since the album was released over a decade ago. It was a clear standout, …
Feb 15, 2024: Enswiftification I don’t always read Freddie deBoer because he can sometimes be a bit… well, mean. At the same time, I have to admit that he’s one of the most …
Feb 12, 2024: Parallel Play Lately, when my wife and I are both on our iPads, she watching Law & Order reruns and me reading blogs, I’ve been thinking about the concept of …
Feb 8, 2024: Blessings Unbound I’ve read a few conservative reactions to the pronouncement from Pope Francis that Catholic clergy can now offer blessings to those who are in …
Feb 3, 2024: The New Aggregators This seems to have been the week for feed aggregators, with The Icon Factory and Silvio Rizzi (creator of the Reeder RSS reader) both announcing new …
Feb 2, 2024: Blame Me This video for the song “Blame Me” by Bathe Alone is described as a “short film.” It’s full of symbolism depicting the recent dissolution of …
Jan 27, 2024: Messages Jane Penny, the frontwoman for TOPS is following in the footsteps of her bandmate Marta Cikojevic (aka Marci) and releasing a solo EP. The song …
Jan 22, 2024: Pitchfork Scales Back Spencer Kornhaber covers the merger of Pitchfork with GQ for The Atlantic. Yesterday, Condé Nast’s chief content officer, Anna Wintour, announced …
Jan 21, 2024: The Darkness of AI Casey Shutt considers an article on AI by Paul Kingsnorth for Mere Orthodoxy. Kingsnorth sees demonic forces at play within technological advancement …
Jan 20, 2024: Going After Spotify Jess Weatherbed writes for The Verge about members of the European Parliament targeting Spotify with regulations to make sure European music is well …
Jan 15, 2024: Sacred Time As I headed to Divine Liturgy yesterday morning, I was glad to be able to participate in sacred time. The ability to set aside time for worship and …
Jan 13, 2024: Connection Vs. Isolation I've been fascinated by the idea that the opposite of addiction is connection since I first heard about it. It seems to be a transformative paradigm …
Dec 29, 2023: Unconditional It was getting dangerously close to the end of the year, and I still hadn't picked out a favorite track from 2023, if only for my own contemplation, …
Dec 22, 2023: All Over By Xmas The first band you think of when you think of Christmas music is probably not Ladytron. Then again, they have the icy synths, vocals that are …
Dec 15, 2023: Hotline TNT - Protocol Cartwheel, the new album by Hotline TNT on Jack White's Third Man Records, has the distinction of being one of Pitchfork Media's picks for best new …
Dec 13, 2023: What Would It Take? Years ago, then presidential candidate Donald Trump famously said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. in New York and his supporters would still follow …
Dec 9, 2023: Nevermind The Mainstream Ted Gioia writes about the battle between macroculture and microculture. ChatGPT makes the distinction between the two cultures: In essence, …
Nov 17, 2023: Surburban Solutions At the beginning of this year, I went through a bit of a thought experiment. I imagined that I had the power to call forth a new album from any band …
Nov 15, 2023: The AI Poison Pill I have benefitted from the use of AI recently. When I wanted to buy a complementary DAC and speaker combination, I consulted the "Schiit Talker," …
Nov 15, 2023: Ubiquitous Therapy As someone who in college majored in psychology and family and child counseling, I’m a proponent of therapy as an intervention in the case emotional …
Oct 23, 2023: A New Listening Experience I finally reached the breaking point with Apple Music. I’ve been a loyal Apple Music subscriber ever since the demise of the beloved Rdio streaming …
Oct 19, 2023: Bury Your Credit Card We recently had a training exercise at work which took the form of a quiz on various compliance topics. The quiz was competitive, with each player …
Oct 16, 2023: Disappointment and Modernity Fr. Stephen Freeman writes about the modern condition in a way that resonates with me and what I've witnessed in my lifetime. I think we are often …
Oct 10, 2023: The Exercise of Humility The first time I went to an Orthodox Christian Church, it was with a group of confirmation students from my Presbyterian Church. Not knowing the …
Oct 7, 2023: Sonic Economics I've been writing recently about my new appreciation for physical media for my music collection. I've hit a few snags, though. As the absolute cost of …
Oct 6, 2023: Karaoke Night Karaoke Night by soccer mommy When I went to the Hopscotch music festival a few weeks ago, two of the bands that I went to see were Soccer Mommy and …
Sep 30, 2023: Matter Podcasts Integration Matter continues to add features that make a subscription to the service even more valuable. The latest is an enhancement to their recent podcast …
Sep 22, 2023: No War For Heavy Metal (Outcore) This article about the lifecycle of tricks in skateboarding really brought back memories for me. It heavily references the early nineties, the period …
Sep 18, 2023: Time To Make The Donuts Last week, I spent some time serving at a soup kitchen. This soup kitchen no longer serves soup, but I guess no one can decide on something more …
Sep 14, 2023: May They Persevere The moment when I became a catechumen in the Orthodox Church is captured on Instagram. There are a few comments about our group of catechumens. One …
Sep 4, 2023: Natural Ones If the soundtrack to the movie Kids isn't my favorite film score, it's certainly close to it. I listened to the cassette I had over and over on long …
Sep 4, 2023: Link Rot Jason Morehead laments the way content is disappearing from the internet. He brings up the way technology news site CNet deleted a whole swath of …
Aug 30, 2023: No Country for Rich Men North of Richmond Recently, a musician with the adopted name of Oliver Anthony became famous overnight for a song he performed entitled "Rich Men North of Richmond." …
Jun 24, 2023: Site-Specific Browsers At the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple previewed their new OS for the Mac, macOS Sonoma. I have to admit, at first, I didn't pay …
Jun 23, 2023: 🎵 Keep It To Yourself If all goes as planned, I will be going to see the bands TOPS and Men I Trust at the Ritz in the fall. While I mentally prepare to see those bands …
Jun 17, 2023: Issue No. 59 It has been an eventful week in the news, with the former president and his cadre of criminals coming under indictment. NYT columnist Ross Douthat has …
Jun 16, 2023: 🎵 Tides Turn We haven't yet made it through the first half of the year, but I think I have a contender for my favorite song of 2023. "Tides Turn" has a sound that …
Jun 11, 2023: Issue No. 58 I realize that Wordle probably isn't as popular as it used to be. However, the game is still fun and I'm looking at it as better than social media for …
Jun 9, 2023: The Heavenly Option Bandcamp just featured a primer on indie pop deep cuts in Bandcamp Daily, and I was surprised to find quite a few buried gems, some of which I …
Jun 4, 2023: Unravel Two I started playing Unravel Two on the Xbox at the insistence of my 11-yr.-old. Playing cooperative video games is one of the best ways I've found that …
Jun 3, 2023: 🎵 Romantic Piano Gia Margaret caught my ear a few years ago, after she contracted a vocal illness that forced her to create instrumental music for her second album. I …
Jun 2, 2023: 🎵 New Beginning In this retro-futuristic video, the members of Automatic live through the final days on Earth and are transported to locations that look like they …
May 24, 2023: Road To Knowhere Road to Knowhere by Tommy GuerreroI bought Tommy Guerrero's album, A Little Bit Of Somethin', when it came out in 2000, based on the strength of the …
May 18, 2023: Doctrine of the Mean A few months ago, in my Orthodoxy 101 class, we discussed Aristotle's "doctrine of the mean." I immediately felt attached to the framework, as I tend …
May 17, 2023: The Prescience of Seinfeld Maya Salam writes for The New York Times (gift article) about how close Seinfeld was to capturing many of the sociocultural aspects of our present …
May 16, 2023: That's So Meta John Herrman writes about the failure of the metaverse concept. He's clearly disillusioned with legless avatars and unearned hype. The premise for the …
May 15, 2023: Tongues of the Future Malcolm Harris writes for Wired magazine about Doug Rushkoff, a techno optimist who had his predictions and assumptions about the future challenged. …
May 14, 2023: Privacy Policy Last updated 05/14/2023 What Information is Collected and HowCanned Dragons is a personal blog. When you opt-in to join the site, you are asked for …
May 13, 2023: Issue No. 55 The Legend of Zelda Gets An UpdateThe latest The Legend of Zelda installation, Tears of the Kingdom, came out yesterday. Although this piece by …
May 12, 2023: Windsurf I don't typically use fan-made videos for Friday Night Videos, but this one is just so perfect. The found footage of rollerskating archives, most of …
May 5, 2023: I'm Still Uncomfortable With Amazon A couple of years ago, I wrote about Amazon and my discomfort with a number of the practices that the company employed. After writing the post, I was …
Apr 16, 2023: Rise Above “The discovery that dead people stayed dead was not first made by the philosophers of the Enlightenment.” ~ N.T Wright In this piece (NYT gift …
Apr 2, 2023: Here's To Shutting Up I recently listened to an episode of the Art of Manliness podcast about the ability to shut up in a world that won't stop talking. The guest on the …
Mar 24, 2023: Flux Observer Adam Wood hosts a show called Flux Observer that features one of my favorite podcast concepts: Wood reviews a cultural artifact from years ago to …
Mar 24, 2023: Tumbling Down Jonathan Haidt and his colleague, Greg Lukianoff, believe that the enormous increase in mental health issues for young women who are identified as …
Feb 21, 2023: The Candy Culture Wars John Paul Brammer wades into the candy culture wars (which are adjacent to the chicken sandwich culture wars and seem to provoke no less depth of …
Feb 4, 2023: American Shoegaze The recent piece on the new wave of American shoegaze in Stereogum was nothing if not exhaustive. Spanning obscure sub-genres and scenes, it shone a …
Jan 25, 2023: Last Known Good I've been working on my blog design lately. Occasionally, a situation will arise in which I do something that totally messes things up, and I wish for …
Jan 24, 2023: Home Canned Dragons is a weblog about faith, noise and technology, written by Robert Rackley. "For the memory can both provoke the dragon and the memory …
Jan 22, 2023: Rock and Roll As Youth Culture I used to have a well-worn VHS cassette of Sonic Youth's tour video, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. It featured a just-experiencing-stardom phase of …
Dec 30, 2022: No Roof, No Floor I generally don't do year-end lists, but I like to share a couple of my favorites things from the past year. In this interstitial time between …
Dec 14, 2022: Is Mastodon Really Is The Spiritual Successor To Twitter? Mastodon was created in 2016, and the site still harkens back to its origins, a time when Gamergate and the atrocious harassment of women in tech on …
Dec 8, 2022: Rooted In Place In a worship service recently, our pastor explored the genealogy of Jesus as presented in the book of Matthew. It was a thought-provoking homily about …
Dec 4, 2022: Junca De Sol Andromeda I was already a fan of the angular and noisy Truman's Water, Glen Galloway's former band, when he launched Soul-Junk. The new group was conceived …
Nov 24, 2022: When You Sleep Live at The Murmrr Theatre by DIIV Perhaps the definitive cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep,” from their seminal …
Nov 23, 2022: This Time, I'm Out After 14 years and over 10,000 tweets, I've deactivated my Twitter account. I've been critical of Twitter for a long time now without actually leaving …
Nov 18, 2022: Predicted Collapse My degree is in psychology, and though I focused on family and child counseling, industrial/organizational psychology was a close second in my …
Nov 15, 2022: Ignoring The Big Fish In The Room For a few years now, I’ve followed a “read the Bible in a year” program. Last year, I used the plan from Bible Class Material, which presents the …
Nov 12, 2022: The Ghost of Jehovah This week I got the latest issue of Presbyterians Today, the periodical from the Presbyterian Church USA. The magazine, like the denomination itself, …
Oct 28, 2022: Your Musk, My Tusks So, the deal has finally gone through, and Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter. The first thing I wanted to do when I heard this was check on those …
Oct 19, 2022: Many People Are Saying… Several times a week, I get an email from my son's high school with a link to a newsletter-type of page that details events at the school. To be …
Oct 15, 2022: The Spawn of The Daily Show If you are as interested in media trends and their implications as I am, an article in The New Atlantis about how Jon Stewart laid the foundations for …
Oct 14, 2022: 🎵 Matthew 7:7 This week's Friday Night Video is a bit of a departure from other recent entries in the series. There's no electroclash or spunky cover reworkings. …
Oct 7, 2022: 🎵 I Would Die 4 You I feel blessed to have come across a clean recording of Chvrches' version of Prince's messianic "I Would Die 4 You." I was blown away the first time I …
Oct 2, 2022: Sophists and Frost Giants I never stop wanting to love the New York Times and they never stop stopping me by publishing dopes like Ross Douthat, David Brooks and Maureen Dowd. …
Sep 30, 2022: 🎵 Billie Toppy Men I Trust return with a new single to accompany their tour of the states. This one surprised me by beginning with a Factory Records sound and …
Sep 29, 2022: Blogging As Self-Care I have been on a sort of crusade to get more people to blog recently. If I come across a person who is interesting and has something worthwhile to …
Sep 25, 2022: Andor Depicts War Amongst The Stars I will start by showing my cards here and admitting that I can’t wait to see Andor, the latest of the Star Wars shows to premiere on Disney+. The only …
Sep 23, 2022: 🎵 True Mathematics Frank Yang commemorates the 20th anniversary of Ladytron's Light & Magic LP in a post on Space Echo. Completely unaware of the significance of the …
Sep 17, 2022: Freestyle Fever A fellow microblogger has been posting videos of himself freestyle skateboarding and it has reminded me of how artistic the form can be. One of my …
Sep 11, 2022: Culture Wars Come To Middle Earth In Your Favorite Pop Culture Has Just Gone “Woke.” Now What? by Jason Morehead, the author examines some perceived changes brought to Middle Earth …
Sep 5, 2022: Institutions Absorb Anxiety I'm not sure what to think of this piece from Mere Orthodoxy on panic over the direction of Western civilization and its implications for Christians. …
Sep 5, 2022: Typing As Music In a piece for the New Yorker, David Owen writes about the world of mechanical keyboard enthusiasts in the context of his own history and love of …
Sep 2, 2022: 🎵 Cannonball If you look back at the music I've shared on this blog, you wouldn't doubt my devotion to nostalgic 80s retro-inspired sounds. Bring on the sports …
Aug 31, 2022: Skateboard Hooligans I was reading my friend Adam's newsletter, Tendrils, and I came upon some quick thoughts about the movie mid90s in a collection of mini-reviews of A24 …
Aug 27, 2022: Issue No. 32 Moving Past DisruptionPaul Ford writes for Wired Magazine as the co-founder of a software company that is tired of the ubiquitous pursuit of …
Aug 24, 2022: Minimal Mac I was texting with an old friend the other day, and he was documenting his progress in getting three monitors set up. Since he has an M1 Mac Mini, …
Aug 20, 2022: The Radiant Citadel One of the co-creators of the latest official D&D adventure, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, Ajit George, compares the setting of the book …
Aug 17, 2022: An Argument for Blog Portability Last week, I published a micro post about my thoughts after reading Matt Birchler admonish his readers against switching blogging platforms. …
Aug 7, 2022: The Friend Of My Enemy The biggest irony of the last couple of weeks has to be Rep. Peter Meijer’s loss in the Western Michigan Republican primary. As recently as the end of …
Aug 6, 2022: Issue No. 29 Relative Sci-fiI've heard some grumblings about the new Star Wars TV series online. The Book of Boba Fett, which I quite enjoyed, was particularly …
Jul 30, 2022: Airshow I consider myself fortunate to have procured a subscription to the feed reader platform Feedbin, when it first launched, after the untimely demise of …
Jul 27, 2022: Arc Welder When I first heard about Arc, from the Browser Company, I thought, who would want to get in the browser game? It seems like there are enough …
Jul 26, 2022: 🎵 Always There The first thing that hits you from Swiss outfit The Churchhill Garden's "Always There" are the reverb(y) guitars. Before too long, though, you find …
Jul 13, 2022: Sch-Sch-Sch-Schism A few years ago, when I was teaching confirmation at the PC(USA) Presbyterian Church of which I am a member, I was showing a video about church polity …
Jul 5, 2022: 🎵 Finest Hour - The Radio Dept. The concept of the Finest Hour playlist is to distill a favorite band's discography into an hour of music (or as close to an hour as reasonably …
Jul 5, 2022: To The Holy The church that I have been attending, All Saints Orthodox Church has a new website design and a video to go along with it. The video is a meditation …
Jul 2, 2022: Issue No. 24 The U.S. has been shaken by the repeal of the judicial precedent set by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. If you spend any amount of time online, you …
Jun 25, 2022: 🎵 Finest Hour – Polvo In a recent newsletter, Adam Wood proposed something called "Finest Hour." The project was to create an hour-long playlist from a favorite artist. He …
Jun 25, 2022: Issue No. 23 The heat is on. While we have successive heat waves sweeping across the U.S., I'm thinking about a conversation with a colleague who is from India. …
Jun 22, 2022: Ironsworn: Starforged I wrote about the sci-fi successor to the fantasy tabletop RPG Ironsworn in the Week on the Web newsletter a few months ago. Starforged has now been …
Jun 17, 2022: Issue No. 22 I sent out a note last Sunday about switching my blogging to a self-hosted solution. It was a lot of work getting things setup, but once I did, I felt …
Jun 17, 2022: 🎵Decades and Dreams I posted a video from Atlanta's Bailey Crone, AKA Bathe Alone, just a few months ago. I had to share the video from one of her more recent singles, …
Jun 11, 2022: Work In Progress I wanted to let everyone know that there have been some changes to the blog. Frosted Echoes has gone back to being self-hosted in order to get the …
Jun 10, 2022: 🎵 Terminal Ever since she showed up in the band TOPS, I've thought Marta Cikojevic looked like a 70's icon. Had she been alive at the time, she could have played …
Jun 9, 2022: Rotten Apple I have been growing increasingly frustrated with Apple lately. Apple is a giant company now, as compared to the scrappy upstart they were when I …
Jun 7, 2022: Breaking News A colleague was just telling me about how he hasn't watched the news in approximately three years. He found himself getting so agitated by both sides …
Jun 3, 2022: 🎵 I’m A Sensory Explosion Lumenette is a new musical project from Christine Byrd (Hammock contributor and wife of musician Mark Byrd). “I’m a Sensory Explosion” is the first …
Jun 1, 2022: Reading It Later I have a Kobo Libra 2 ereader, and it’s one of my favorite devices. Of course, it is used for reading books, but I spend just as much time reading …
May 28, 2022: Now Inspired by Derek Sivers, this page includes a sample of what I’m thinking about and working on right now. Last updated November 6, 2023.I’ve always …
May 27, 2022: 🎵 Perfectly Out Of Time Stray Fossa is a band that Apple Music kept pushing on me until I realized that I really liked them. Combining hushed tones and gentle atmospherics …
May 22, 2022: Come To The Dark Side (We Have Cookies) A lot of times, when I watch movies that pit good vs. evil in easily distinguishable sides, I wonder about someone actually choosing a path that is …
May 21, 2022: 🎵 Mint Julep - Covers Covers by Mint Julep The 1980s was a decade that started with an album called The Age of Plastic. The band that released the album, the Buggles, …
May 15, 2022: Why, As A Christian, I Can Sympathize With Some Prayer Shaming This post was originally published on Medium — December 13, 2015. Unfortunately, due to the incapacity of US politicians to tackle the issue of gun …
May 14, 2022: Orthodox Christianity, The Far Right and the Green-Eyed Christ A new book entitled Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia examines how more conservative and even …
May 13, 2022: 🎵 Full Moon Baby I love how Hollie Cook is able to blend reggae and dream pop vibes on her new single, “Full Moon Baby.” I enjoyed Cook's first album, Vessel of Love …
May 11, 2022: Less Is More I have decided I need to introduce some changes to how I post online. I typically write a lot of link posts because I read quite a bit online and want …
May 5, 2022: Smashing Political Binaries Lois M. Collins has a profile of Elizabeth Bruenig, whom I’ve long admired, for Deseret News. The basis for the piece is Bruenig’s unusual (for these …
Apr 29, 2022: 🎵 Come On Let's Go Captured Tracks recording artist Scout Gillett covers the standout Broadcast track "Come On Let's Go" on her newest covers EP, One To Ten. I liked the …
Apr 26, 2022: Cashing In My Chips My first thought when read (at the end of a long day of work) that Elon Musk had purchased Twitter, was some measure of disbelief. I'm almost …
Apr 23, 2022: Dance Music For Introverts Sometimes Apple Music inspires me by algorithmically playing fitting sequential songs after a self-made playlist. This happened recently when I had …
Apr 17, 2022: Eastertide I look at Easter not just as a day, but as a kickoff, if you will, for Eastertide. I see it as somewhat analogous to New Year's Day. Resolutions start …
Apr 16, 2022: Issue No. 16 Other than writing, I have been trying to avoid too much screen time. This week, I turned to paper craft and made my favorite Transformer, Galvatron. …
Apr 7, 2022: Populations In The Lurch Derek Thompson wrote a newsletter edition for the Altantic about population growth collapsing in the US. The statistics he cites are alarming. U.S. …
Apr 4, 2022: Buzzing Towards Babylon With no formal announcement (whoops), Wordpress.com changed their pricing significantly, removing the paid tiers for personal blogging and leaving …
Mar 30, 2022: Writing For An Online Audience At Micro Camp 2021, Patrick Rhone did a talk on writing a book and he delved into the topic of blogging, which he framed as writing essays for an …
Mar 29, 2022: Hyper-capitalism vs. The World Rebecca Riddell has an opinion piece for the Washington Post (🔗 Via Lisa Sieverts) on the US trying to export privatized healthcare to nations that in …
Mar 27, 2022: Work For Love Ministry mastermind Al Jourgenson, or "Uncle Al" as he is affectionately known (probably as much for his crazy, constantly revised stories about his …
Mar 17, 2022: Horror Head Frank Yang, of the late Chromewaves.net, has a new blog called Space Echo, where he does what he couldn't really do on his previous music blog: …
Mar 13, 2022: The Twitter Corps In a piece entitled It's Not Your Fault You're a Jerk on Twitter, Katherine Cross writes for Wired Magazine about the psychological dynamics that …
Mar 8, 2022: Keeping It In The Box When I was a kid, I spent a good amount of time with a cousin of the same age. Throughout our elementary school years, he and I shared a deep and …
Mar 5, 2022: Issue No. 12 I’ve been experimenting with different blogging tools for the last few months. My favorite blog is my hosted Micro.blog site, because I can throw …
Mar 1, 2022: Imprecatory Prayer I had never come across the phrase "imprecatory prayer" until recently, even if I knew well what it meant. In fact, I have struggled with the concept. …
Feb 26, 2022: Issue No. 11 As I mentioned this week, my great-great-grandfather moved his family from the Ukraine to Minnesota in the 1870s to escape Russian persecution. He was …
Feb 23, 2022: Beating Monsters With The Cross The day before President’s Day, I went to church for the first time since last summer. I’ve been watching online, well, religiously, since then, but …
Feb 22, 2022: Brothertiger “Torn Open” Torn Open (feat. Yvette Young) by Brothertiger I know, I know, I just wrote about Brothertiger covers of 80s tunes last week in the newsletter. I …
Feb 19, 2022: Issue No. 10 I did watch some of the Super Bowl, despite my aversion to sports where people regularly get brain injuries. How about those crypto commercials? I had …
Feb 17, 2022: Pop Psychology and the Decline of Marriage It turns out that not everything I learned in college en route to getting my psychology degree has held up under the weight of time and scrutiny. …
Feb 12, 2022: Issue No. 9 Spin magazine posted some rants from musicians and industry insiders who think we need to talk about Spotify. One of the most striking essays came …
Feb 9, 2022: Elevator Pitch Beliefs The clip of Stephen Colbert expressing some basics about his faith is making the rounds (especially on Twitter). Tim Keller is an evangelical pastor …
Feb 6, 2022: Worth the Wait FEEL GOOD ABOUT FEELING BAD by J U L I A • K W A M Y A I met Julia Kwamya at a Radio Dept. show a few years ago. At the time, she went by the band …
Feb 5, 2022: Issue No. 8 Welcome to the eighth issue of Week on the Web. I hope your week has gone well. After just under a year of not being able to work, I went back to my …
Feb 1, 2022: Spotify Canceled If you aren't up-to-date on why artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are upset with Spotify's bankrolling of Joe Rogan and the potentially …
Jan 29, 2022: Tatooine Under New Management ⚠️Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Book Of Boba Fett. Matt Poppe typically reviews the new Star Wars and Marvel shows for Christ and …
Jan 29, 2022: Issue No. 7 The big news in the world of American Christianity this week seems to be the Vanity Fair profile of Jerry Falwell Jr. in which he admits to not being …
Jan 20, 2022: Repairing the Cracks (kintsugi style) Sometimes, I feel like I need to stop ruminating on the "deep cleavages in American society," as this piece from the Bush Institute refers to them. I …
Jan 15, 2022: Issue No. 5 This week, I gave in to the hype and started playing Wordle and quickly became addicted to my daily fix of puzzling through scrambled letters. Matt …
Jan 14, 2022: Barrie "Darjeeling" Barrie is another band that was recommended to me by the Apple Music algorithm. I immediately checked out their back catalog and noticed that they had …
Jan 11, 2022: Exchanging the Truth For Lies Professor at a Christian college, Chad Ragsdale, has a blog post in which he embeds an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that featured Dr. Robert Malone. …
Jan 8, 2022: Anger Unmasked In our county, mask mandates in schools continue to be a hot button issue. There are parents who blame the enforcement of mask rules for deteriorating …
Jan 8, 2022: Issue No. 4 Andy Nicolaides over at the Dent urges us to take it easy on ourselves when it comes to social media. Look around the interwebs and you will find no …
Jan 7, 2022: 🎵 Geowulf "Saltwater" Last week, I wrote about some musical favorites from 2021. This week, I'm posting the video from one of my favorite songs that isn't from last year, …
Jan 1, 2022: Issue No. 3 Image source: Artturi Jalli/UnsplashMy favorite Christmas piece this season was How Christmas Changed Everything by Anglican priest Tish Harrison …
Dec 31, 2021: 🎵 Spectres “Northern Towns” For this Friday Night Video, Spectres comes your way with some powerful, muscular post-punk. At first, I thought this was a fan-made video with the …
Dec 25, 2021: Issue No. 2 Matt Birchler writes in Photography Needs to be Fun about how the new Glass photography network feels a bit too stilted and more like Unsplash than …
Dec 24, 2021: Hazel English "Nine Stories" This is definitely the most playful music video I've seen in some time. You have Hazel English, mostly dressed like a school girl from a private prep …
Dec 23, 2021: Pissed or Blissed? Austin Kleon quotes Bill O’Hanlon when he talks about the four energies for writing. The first two (the upper quadrants) being positive, the second …
Dec 18, 2021: Issue No. 1 Amazon employees yet again have reason to complain about their treatment from the company as it proposes reinstating a ban on worker’s cell phones in …
Dec 17, 2021: Hoops "Cars and Girls" Last week I featured an important song in the Japanese city pop genre and made the comparison to sophisti-pop, which came from the UK. This week I …
Dec 12, 2021: America Defeated Itself In America, those that lived during the time of World War II are often referred to as "The Greatest Generation." Their level of self-sacrifice and …
Dec 10, 2021: Mariya Takeuchi "Plastic Love" The song for this video is from 1984, but the video was shot just recently. Originally not a huge seller, "Plastic Love" by Mariya Takeuchi has been …
Dec 9, 2021: Endless Talk About Culture War Alex Nowrasteh writes for Arc Digital on why there is so much culture war commentary ("from encoded presidential insults to drag queen story hour, …
Dec 7, 2021: Punishing Facebook Facebook has been outed in the US for its dishonorable practices, but what it’s done in this country is nothing compared to the damage it has caused …
Dec 5, 2021: Asymmetric Possibilities The other night, I was reading through the cover story for this month's issue of The Atlantic, The Bad Guys Are Winning by Anne Applebaum. I got to …
Dec 3, 2021: Spotify Envy Around this time of year, people are always buzzing about their Spotify Wrapped playlists. They post screenshots of what songs are in them and discuss …
Dec 3, 2021: Work Drugs "Nervous Night" Work Drugs bring their smooth yacht rock to this video of a girl wandering around a city. There are trips to the zoo, rides on public transport and …
Nov 27, 2021: eBay Has Become The Pirate Bay Over the years, I've had three eBay ID's. eBay used to allow logins from a single-sign on provider at some point (though I can't remember which) and I …
Nov 26, 2021: Bathe Alone "Limbo" Bathe Alone recently recorded a series of videos at The Standard Electric Recorders Company. These kind of high fidelity, live studio performances …
Nov 24, 2021: Inoculation Station Paul Kingsnorth kind of lost me on his anti-vaxxer rant this week. He is particularly worried about the increasingly stringent measures in Austria and …
Nov 20, 2021: Kessler Syndrome I remember a time, not long ago, when we laughed at the introduction of Space Force from then-president Donald Trump. It was easy to jest, with the …
Nov 19, 2021: Weezer “Take On Me” On the Weezer appreciation scale, I’m at the end next to Leslie Jones’ character in the infamous SNL dinner time fight skit. I appreciated the first …
Nov 18, 2021: Learning Prayer From Cartoon Bears When my oldest was younger, we used to read a Berenstain Bears book about prayer. While the books about these anthropomorphic bears are designed to be …
Nov 18, 2021: Paying For The Product Over the years, Cory Doctorow has made himself an expert on digital privacy. This essay is mainly about surveillance capitalism and Doctorow uses …
Nov 14, 2021: About Canned Dragons is a personal web log by a prolific notetaker named Robert. This blog pulls in thoughts from other independent blogs as well as social …
Nov 13, 2021: Everyday Radicalism B.D McClay points out how everything we do is being reframed as political. Rest is a radical act. Cooking is a revolutionary act. Joy is an act of …
Nov 12, 2021: Munya “Voyage” A few weeks ago, I blogged about Quebec artist MUNYA and her upcoming album, Voyage to Mars. MUNYA just released a new track off the album, the …
Nov 5, 2021: Colatura “At The Met” I realize that I posted a video from Colatura not long ago, but the second single off of their debut is as winsome as the first and it seemed like an …
Nov 2, 2021: Likes and Easy Feedback There has been a fair amount of debate recently about the utility of being able to “like” posts on social sites. Specifically, this has come up in the …
Oct 28, 2021: Common Sense Violence ⚠️Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Apple TV+ series Foundation, as well as some graphic depictions of violence, both real and fictional.My …
Oct 27, 2021: TCD (Total Cost of Dishonesty) Years ago, I had a bad experience post-surgery when my wisdom teeth taken out. A couple of days after the procedure, I ruptured a blood vessel in my …
Oct 23, 2021: You Are Not Your Own The radio started when I turned on the ignition. NPR had been playing from when my wife drove the car before me. A guy was shrilly complaining about …
Oct 13, 2021: The Great Pitchfork Apology Pitchfork recently revised ratings on 20 albums from the past, mostly raising scores, but also lowering some, as well. It was a kind of a strange …
Oct 9, 2021: The Night the Darkness Revolted Revenge bedtime procrastination came up as a topic of discussion on Micro.blog a little while ago (I believe it was brought up by @omrrc and @jean). …
Sep 29, 2021: The Resemblance is Uncanny A couple of years ago, I compared contemporary Christians who expressed their desire for an authoritarian ruler to the ancient Islrealites who wished …
Sep 11, 2021: Gimmie Indie Rock Garrett Martin writes for Paste Magazine about the seminal year for indie rock that was 1995 and the top 20 albums in the loosely knit genre from that …
Sep 8, 2021: Duett - Leisure Leisure by DuettDuett has been around for a while, but just came to my attention via Bandcamp's Instagram account last week. I was drawn in by the …
Sep 6, 2021: Tough Love I recently started listening to the much-acclaimed podcast on the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, produced by Mike Cosper. Mars Hill is the Seattle-based …
Sep 6, 2021: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Apps The new photo sharing app, Glass, has been getting a lot of attention. One particular corner of the internet where it has received significant buzz is …
Sep 4, 2021: Personal Knowledge Management My name is Robert, and I have a knowledge management problem. As I mention in my bio, I'm a prolific notetaker. I would consider myself a digital pack …
Aug 18, 2021: Work Drugs "Drive" WORK DRUGS/PICTURED RESORT EP by Work DrugsLast week, I chose a live recording of Pictured Resort covering Craft Spells "After the Moment" for the …
Aug 15, 2021: Film School "Isla" Film School just dropped a single for "Isla," from their upcoming album We Weren't Here (9/24). Their Bandcamp page describes the song as …
Aug 9, 2021: Ethical Consumerism and the Amazon Dilemma Last Christmas, my sister had one prohibition on her wishlist for her Secret Santa: Nothing should be purchased for her on Amazon.com. Other than …
Jun 27, 2021: Music As Teenage Cultural Capital When I lived out my teen years, in the early nineties, the musical landscape was much different than it is today. I don’t mean in terms of genres or …
Jun 20, 2021: China Literally Moved Mountains for Apple Jack Nicas reports for the New York Times. In 2004, Apple decided to expand in China with a factory making the iPod, which was becoming a hit product. …
Jun 1, 2021: The Sound of the Fury When Medium decided to stop funding many of the publications on their platform, most editors of those publications wrote nice notes thanking Medium …
Apr 2, 2021: Cassandra Jenkins “Hard Drive” Have you ever thought about how hypnosis so closely resembles guided meditation? Especially the beginning of hypnosis, called induction, which is …
Mar 8, 2021: WandaVision Collateral Damage Over at Opuszine, Jason Morehead has a detailed examination of what the WandaVision experiment put the citizens of Westview through and what they are …
Feb 11, 2021: Fear and Loathing In These United States By most accounts, evangelical Christians are concerned about the path this country is taking and encroaching restrictions on religious liberty. This …
Jan 10, 2021: Inside the Gallery I have to admit, I have been somewhat surprised at people arguing against tech companies being able to enforce their terms of service. Working at a …
Dec 5, 2020: Vinyl Church Jonas Ellison writes about wanting to attend a vinyl church, and I’m here for it. What does he mean by a vinyl church? He is using vinyl as a …
Nov 30, 2020: The Digital News Stand When I think of new media coming to us in the form of a la carte, individual packages, I can’t help but think of the advice to “be careful what you …
Sep 20, 2020: You’re Not The CEO Mio works at a record store in Gothenburg, Sweden (also home to one of the finest contemporary psych rock bands, Hollow Ship). Mio has been posting …
Aug 28, 2020: Star Wars Is About Faith Earlier this year, on Star Wars day, I looked forward to seeing The Rise of Skywalker again and I indicated that I was giving up on Star Wars think …
Jun 20, 2020: The Cult of Seeking to Serve Matt Taibbi has a thought-provoking edition of his newsletter where he ponders whether journalism is destroying itself with its changing mission of …
Mar 3, 2020: The Social Media Morass A few months ago, Consequence of Sound reported on Disney passing on the chance to buy Twitter because, in the words of Disney chief Bob Iger, “the …
Oct 19, 2019: Chipping Away At Democracy There has never been a better time to quit Facebook, after the company recently revealed a policy that formalized the ability of politicians to lie in …
Feb 24, 2018: A Continuing Odyssey This past week, Alto’s Odyssey, the sequel to the much lauded iOS game Alto’s Adventure, was released to positive reviews. Alto’s Adventure offers a …