Sam Tornow writes about Thurston Moore and The Smell of Vinyl for Discogs. Moore is a famous vinyl aficionado who stuffs his apartment with records. “I kind of have to draw some limitations with my responsibility toward my own budget. I can’t just be living, building furniture out of records. I …

Just finished reading Shogun - Part 1 by James Clavell 📚. I don’t want to sound like a snob and say the book was better than the show. Especially because the show was amazing. The novel did have some differences, though, and a bit more of the political machinations.

The only social networking site my brother has ever been on is Miitomo.

David Saavadra writes for El País about the rise and fall of the Stone Roses, a band many had pegged as the saviors of britpop at the end of the 80s. Why did U.K. music critics place so much hope in them in the late 1980s? “Everything was exaggerated, because it was a time when the media was …

Austin Kleon has a post on Dave “Big Dutch” Nally, whose deceptively amateurish art looks like a cross between something that would have been created by Daniel Johnston and the liner notes of a Pavement record. I especially love the reference to Ezra Jack Keats' exquisite …

A little quiet storm feels perfect for this Saturday morning after a busy week.

I disclosed my most fondest Christmas wish list item to my lady friend last night — a FiiO DM13 portable CD player. She laughed at me. You want a discman for Christmas? How can I explain my love of single-purpose devices and high-fidelity to someone who lives on their iPad and sees no problem with …

Non-standard Sunflower: The election is, whether mercifully or unmercifully, in the rearview mirror. Like some others, I want to turn my attention away from the day’s news, so closely coupled as it is with political events. Before I read about Kid Rock being appointed ambassador to the U.N., I mean to spend some time with …

Save, help, and protect us, O Virgin Theotokos.

My mom asked my brother where he gets his news. He listed WRAL (a local news channel/site), IGN, Kotaku and Nintendo Direct Mini. In the past, I may have scoffed at this. Now, I think he may be onto something.

On Dark Horses: 

Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague about music. I had gone to see one of my direct reports' bands, and they were really genre-hopping. I told her about the experience and mentioned that they blended such far-flung musical styles as punk, hip-hop, and shoegaze. She said she loved …

Luke T. Harrington, echoing the end of Voltaire’s Candide, when writing about our current political equations. That we can’t save the world until we all learn to tend our gardens? I think my garden has grown a few weeds and I hope that I can tend to it.

Yvette Young - Always: 

Upon discovering the new single from Yvette Young (via Instagram of all places), I was immediately reminded of Sophie And Peter Johnson. The breezy sophistipop certainly merits easy comparisons. Then I realized that Young did vocals for Brothertiger’s mesmerizing cover of Sophie and Peter …

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 Triple Seven was stashed in my queue for later listening. Thursday morning, I browsed through the bands playing in clubs downtown for the free Day …

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 though it’s difficult to picture, it could turn out to be interesting (like Cypress Hill).

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 has shipped anything like this until now. In hindsight, it seems obvious.

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 skateboarding or picking it up afresh in their 40s were inspiring. Having a mini ramp in my my house was always a secret dream of mine (and one that …

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 format that will be inaccessible if you cancel your account, the company drops the feature or goes out of business, seems like a very bad idea.

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 I had missed that made this piece by Zac Settle about discovering Orthodoxy so appealing to me, but there was a lot that resonated. The chanters …

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 In The Hoopla when I was in the fourth grade as my introduction to the world of music on tape. I wore that tape out playing the all-too radio friendly …

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 protagonist changes looks and activities often to keep people of the world glued to their sets. In the end, it seems, what suits her best is rockin' out. …

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 videos on YouTube. My early morning restlessness led me to a very strange video from singer Caroline Polachek and I followed that rabbit trail to an …

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 soon. Wes Davis writes for The Verge about vinyl outselling CDs for the second year in a row.

But it’s not hard to see why record sales are trouncing …

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 past their influences into a sound all their own.

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. However, there are times when a particular topic comes up, and it’s so obvious that the coverage has been unfair and skewed, that it creates a sense …

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 the least of which is the low barrier-to-entry (it's free if you are not charging for your publication), it has come under quite a bit of scrutiny …

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 thing I took away from it, and really appreciated, is the exploration of the Orthodox view of competing brands of Christianity. Fr. Andrew describes …

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. For my wife’s birthday, my sister made her a playlist on Apple Music. This was thoughtful and kind, but unfortunately, we don’t have Apple …

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 Joe Rogan Experience) and that led him to remove his music from the streaming service. He reasons that he can't remove his music from all of those …

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 reminisce a bit. My dad drove me the four hours across mostly rural NC that it took to get to my college orientation back in 1994. He didn’t seem in …

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 a woman named Jagna, whose promiscuity threatens the social fabric of her community in rural Poland around the turn of the last century. The use of …

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 Mascis will be a lower-key affair than a Dinosaur Jr. album, this isn’t the case with his latest effort under his own name. The songs have a bit more rock …

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, a highly stylized, dreamy ode to a woman who could probably be described as a “free spirit.” The song is based on a real person. As is revealed in the …

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 interesting and insightful cultural critics we’ve got. If you have the stomach to read one more think piece on the bizarre national divide over Taylor Swift, …

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 parallel play. Parallel play is something kids do during a certain stage of development. Parallel play is a form of play in which children play adjacent …

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 same-sex relationships. What I was more interested in, though, is hearing from those who are most directly affected by the change. Namely, those who are in …

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 apps in the space. Both are well-regarded developers with history behind them and the announcements have generated considerable interest. The Icon …

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 singer/instrumentalist Bailey Crone’s marriage, with the gleeful destruction of wedding props including the recognizable and iconic white dress. The lyrics to …

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 features the satiny smooth vocals we’ve come to expect from Ms. Penny. I can’t confirm, but I would assume the music was composed by long-time collaborator …

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 plans to merge Pitchfork into the men’s magazine GQ. “This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance and what we believe is …

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 in general and AI in specific. Shutt expands upon the concerns expressed by Kingsnorth in his own piece. He hones in on the sense of real foreboding …

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 represented and that artists are compensated more fairly. The proposition was made to ensure European musical works are accessible and avoid being …

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 repentant reflection has clear benefits for the soul. Elizabeth Oldfield writes about Keeping Sacred Time for Comment Magazine. Rowan Williams says …

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 shift in terms of how we think about addiction and treatment. This piece by Robert Weiss details some of the research that has gone into formulating …

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, even if not for publication. This week, though, I finally listened to Daydreamer by Molly Burch, which came out in September. It sat in my album …

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 enveloped by frosted echoes and wintertime themes. So maybe, while they are most definitely not Christmas music, their sound is appropriate this time of year. …

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 music. While I'm not always in sync with the writers of that particular publication on what's fresh, I have to back up their decision in this case. …

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 him. With each new indictment and poll number, his hyperbolic hypothetical proves itself to be more and more plausible. He's broken the boundaries of …

Nevermind The Mainstream: Ted Gioia writes about the battle between macroculture and microculture. ChatGPT makes the distinction between the two cultures: In essence, macroculture represents the dominant cultural framework of a society, while microcultures are the distinct subgroups with their own customs and values existing …

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 of my choice. What band would I choose? The two names that came foremost to mind were Wild Nothing and Ice Choir, both essentially pseudonyms for …

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," Schiit Audio's chatbot. It helpfully steered me away from some speakers that were less compatible with the DAC (but cheaper) I was looking at and towards …

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 difficulties. However, I am starting to question the potential overuse of therapy. Olga Khazan writes for The Atlantic about a study in which …

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 music service. I just can’t deal with the bugs across the application and service anymore. Recently, I set my downloads to lossless quality, but I had …

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 picking their favorite musician/band as their username, and answering questions for a chance at getting on the five player deep leaderboard (I came in …

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 disappointed that God refuses to behave as the god of modernity. The extremes of the “prosperity” preachers are only the most egregious examples of …

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 tradition, we just happened to end up at "Forgiveness Vespers," the service that kicks off the Orthodox Season of Lent. At this service, parishioners line …

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 obtaining music goes down in that you can get almost anything included as part of your all-you-can-eat streaming music plan, the cost of physical …

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 Pavement. Pavement played the first day, Soccer Mommy the third. After Sophia Regina Allison, the woman behind the stage name Soccer Mommy, took the …

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 support. Matter will not intelligently (some might say artificially) break podcasts down into chapters. This is something that used to be done organically …

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 I was most active in skateboarding. As noted in the piece, it was a time of big pants and small wheels. Lucas Wiesenthal, who wrote the piece, focuses …

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 appropriate to describe the establishment. I ended up serving donuts, which were the dessert du jour, the last thing on the line before drinks. Previously, …

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 reads, "may they persevere to the end." I believe I've heard this before in the same, or similar contexts, so I think it is a pretty common saying under …

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 drives to and from college my sophomore year after my recovery from lymphoma. I had incredibly mixed feelings about the movie itself, owing to the …

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 older pieces. In the grand scheme of things, deleting old tech articles may not seem like a big deal. But what frustrates me is that there’s no real good …

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." The song, which reveals the frustrations that many feel at those with money and political influence, resonated with a lot of people, catapulting Anthony …

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 too much attention to the announcements. I used to believe OS updates could be life-changing, but that was before these operating systems reached the …

🎵 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 live, there is a new track from TOPS spinoff Marci, the "solo" effort of Marta Cikojevic (with plenty of help from David Carriere). The video has a tight …

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 taken the opportunity to answer some questions about the expected Republican presidential nominee. What matters most about him as a presidential …

🎵 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 blends R&B, dream pop and trip-hop. It is another standout track in a collection of soulful tunes from Patrick Fiore. Fiore is the mastermind …

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 a way to stave off that interstitial boredom that creeps up in between real activities. The New York Times is promoting playing Wordle Golf as a way …

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 probably never would have dug up on my own. The piece starts off with Heavenly's Le Jardin De Heavenly album, a touchstone of my early college experience. My …

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 we can bond and enjoy our time together. In this game, you each play as an adorable creature called a "yarny" made from, yep, yarn. It’s a platforming …

🎵 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 was mesmerized by the ambient track "Body" and the accompanying video. Margaret just dropped a new album entitled Romantic Piano. It still follows a …

🎵 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 came from the original Star Trek TV series. In their new home, they make do with gardening, liquid food and excursions in outer space ensconced in …

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 first track, "Blue Masses." The track has a haunting groove, a guitar part with enough negative space to drive a truck through, and a bass line that …

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 towards moderation. In Aristotle's conception, the golden mean is avoiding the extremes of any given characteristic. A common example given to explain …

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 age. She particularly hones in on the adults in the show living their lives in a sort of perpetual state of childhood, eschewing typical adult …

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 piece is that there is no "there" there. The metaverse as a concept is simply lacking a reason for existence. Herrman references Ed Zitron, who in …

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. As a consequence, Rushkoff had to overhaul his outlook on technology. Rushkoff is a prolific author and Harris writes about his various books, …

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 your email and name. You can provide your full name or only your first name or an alias. You are asked if would like to also subscribe to the Treasure …

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 Zachary Small in the New York Times gets a little too ambitious with typography and integrating videos into the text, it's still a great read. The article …

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 which looks like it was filmed at California beaches, fits so perfectly with the breezy, upbeat track by The Ice Choir. The lyrics about sun and spray …

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 on a kick in which I was shunning Amazon and avoiding being a consumer of their services. That lasted for about a year, and then my convictions …

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 article), Tish Harrison Warren interviews New Testament scholar N.T. Wright about Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus. The scholar makes the point, as …

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 show was Dan Lyons, who recently wrote the book STFU: The Power Of Keeping Your Mouth Shut In An Endlessly Noisy World. Unfortunately, at least a few …

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 determine how his relationship to it has changed over the years. I've always wanted to do something like this, though I never considered doing it via a …

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 "liberal" has to do with going through a sort of reverse CBT process. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is one of the most effective tools for combating …

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 feeling, if not many true casualties) on his Substack. No one really asked for the M&Ms to be more relatable or for Velma to call out toxic …

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 light on some of the mostly heavier U.S. based bands carrying on the tradition of outfits like Catherine Wheel and Ringo Deathstarr. The piece demanded …

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 the option to roll back to a "last known good" configuration. I used to love this option on Windows. If you (or a process or driver) did something …

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 can also subdue him." ~ St. John Chrysostom

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 Nirvana, but that wasn't the reason I watched it over and over. I was more interested in the Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. performances that were recorded …

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 Christmas and New Year's, I get a chance to reflect back on what I've enjoyed, while having very few demands on my time. I first wrote about Scout Gillett …

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 Twitter was still very fresh in our minds. The platform was in a way a reaction to that and the rising toxic atmosphere on social media. At the time, …

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 family ties. Alastair Roberts writes for Plough magazine about how we fit our own lives into the continuum of people that have come before us. …

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 after Galloway had a tour van conversion to Christianity. My friend, who was not a believer, but was a fan of Shrimper Records, made me a mix tape with …

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 album, Loveless, is Memoryhouse’s version from their 2010 Yours Truly live session. The song was breathlessly passed around the internet and gained …

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 the platform. Obviously, things have changed rapidly for the worse. When, on Saturday, Elon Musk let DT back on the platform, while including a …

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 affections. I loved taking a case study from a disaster at NASA — like the Challenger shuttle explosion — and looking at what went wrong organizationally to …

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 readings in a more-or-less chronological order that I’ve found extremely helpful for following the Old Testament material. Every year that I have read the …

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, has a pretty progressive slant. It's not filled with numerous biblical references, or spiritual content, but with social justice activism. I'm not …

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 who swore to get rid of Twitter if Musk ran it. Would they have fidelity to their promises? My lady friend pulled down all of her data and said she …

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 honest, I don't often read it. I assume that if there's anything important going on, my son will tell me. One thing I'm not concerned about is the …

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 the type of show we see from Tucker Carlson may be the most fascinating thing you read all year. Its author, Jon Askonas, an assistant professor of …

🎵 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. It's a new track from Welcome Wagon. Welcome Wagon are label mates of Sufjan Stevens and purveyors of a similar religiously-tinged folky aesthetic. With …

🎵 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 heard this cover years ago on Soundcloud. It's such a perfect rendition of a groundbreaking song. There is no video of the actual in-studio …

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. Rogers Cadenhead https://rcade.micro.blog/2022/09/05/i-never-stop.html We typically don't want to hear from those with whom we disagree. I use the …

🎵 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 progressing into a chugging, propulsive post-punk ripper. A new wave guitar line comes up about a minute and a half into the track. Keyboard flourishes show …

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 share, I urge them to start a blog. I have a friend at work who, in the early days of the Ukraine war, was sending updates about the conflict to a large …

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 reason I haven’t already dipped back into the Star Wars universe is that my imagination is currently in Middle Earth, where the harfoots are …

🎵 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 date, I was listening to the album the other day. My favorite song remains the track in the pole position, "True Mathematics." I'm excited to see a …

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 favorite freestylers is the Rodney Mullen-influenced Japanese skater Isamu Yamamoto. Yamamoto is sponsored by Powell Peralta (yep, that Powell Peralta). …

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 mythology by the new Amazon Prime series Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. If you've come across any of the common objections to the show, this is a …

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. For one thing, it sides mostly with Rod Dreher, someone with whom I am not usually in agreement. Dreher tends toward the Chicken Little end of the …

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 keyboards. Typing is rhythmic, complicated, and soothing, and, when I’m doing it well, my conscious brain doesn’t seem to be involved. It’s as close as …

🎵 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 cars, sunglasses, synthesizers, and neon signs. Lately, though, I've been wishing for a 90s resurgence. Let's have some flannel and baby doll dresses. In …

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 movies. While Adam enjoyed the movie because it brought back some skateboarding nostalgia, I hated it for much the same reason. It seems like every …

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 disruption within the tech industry. He argues that disruption serves the bored and that boredom is a luxury we no longer have, even in the U.S. — particularly …

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, like I do, he could only easily support two monitors. He turned to Universal Control with a MacBook Air to get three displays going. He was trying …

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 to solarpunk. I wrote about solarpunk in issue no. 8 of the newsletter. Wikipedia defines it this way: Solarpunk is a genre and art movement that …

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. Birchler's main point was that switching platforms made it harder on readers and, therefore, more difficult to retain consistent readership. It's a solid point …

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 last year, The Atlantic did an in-depth profile on Meijer and how he was at odds with his own party of the impeachment of Donald Trump and other …

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 stung by criticism. Even though Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed to be a success story, it had its share of detractors as well. While it may not make writing about …

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 Google Reader. Getting in early allowed me to lock into the service at $2 a month. Feedbin has been improving over the years, adding features that …

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 Chrome-based browsers on the market to suit any internet lifestyle. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to their private beta, though, after mentioning …

🎵 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 yourself entranced by the saccharine sweetness of American lead singer Krissy Vanderwoude's vocals, which bring to mind Velocity Girl's Sarah Shannon. …

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 and governance from a reform theology curriculum. The video was done in an intentionally kitschy old-school style of animation with the voice over …

🎵 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 possible). It's a bit of a challenge trying to do a "greatest hits" style playlist within the time constraints and with the right sequencing. The idea was …

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 on what worship is like for an Orthodox Christian, focusing on the five senses. I appreciate the fact that it brings up the conditioning of the …

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 can't escape opinions on the subject. It's remarkable how many people quickly become subject-matter experts about the topic of the latest topic du …

🎵 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 placed special emphasis on the process of track selection and sequencing. I was intrigued by the idea. This exercise might have been more fun in the …

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. People there used to keep doors and windows open a lot of the time, but now they can't because it's just too hot. Remembering that conversation brings …

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 officially releases in digital form, with pre-orders for the hard copy being taken as well. The worldbuilding for this game looks fantastic, and its …

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 like I was good to go. Then, as soon as I sent out a newsletter about the change, I started having numerous issues with reliability, availability, …

🎵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, though, because it's one of my favorite songs this year. The song, which was written after Crone practically kidnapped her best friend and took her to a …

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 capability to expand the vision of the site a bit. I was bouncing back and forth between Ghost Pro and Micro.blog and both were a bit limiting in their …

🎵 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 Kristen Shepard of "Who Shot J.R.?" fame on Dallas. If that didn't work out, she might have been one of Charley's Angels. So it was no surprise when …

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 started using their computers in 2005 upon my return to college. A lot has changed. Their workforce and market cap are massive. They are always plowing …

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 of the political spectrum and the way the news was presented, that he just quit cold turkey. He feels like he's much happier for the change, and his …

🎵 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 Hammock single to credit Lumenette as a cowriter. The song is a beautiful, elegiac exploration of opening your senses to the sometimes overwhelming …

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 articles saved from the internet. I find I have a much greater capacity for reading long materials passed from the internet on an e-ink device. I’m using …

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 wanted to experience a tiny house, which, to be clear, is different than wanting to live in a tiny house. I read somewhere recently that over half of …

🎵 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 with chillwave sensibilities, they appeal perfectly to mid-life me. At this period in my existence, I'm looking backward and forward in equal measure. …

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 clearly evil. Take Star Wars, for example. Why would someone choose to be on the dark side, with all the available evidence that it's just evil? There …

🎵 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, captured the spirit of the age by announcing “Video Killed The Radio Star” in a nod to the rise of MTV (Music Television). They had their fingers on the …

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 violence, it remains an evergreen post.A couple of weeks ago, the NY Daily News, after yet another mass shooting in the US, posted a provocative cover …

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 far-right Christians are flocking to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The phenomenon is detailed by Odette Yousef in the NPR piece …

🎵 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 when it came out in 2018, but there's something unique about this track. This is how you do crossover. It feels like the way forward when even …

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 to share things that I think are interesting. This comes from a desire to add my thoughts to what is put out there by others, and — let’s face it — …

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 days, anyway) blend of faith and politics. She doesn’t fit neatly into the proscribed categories that we have packaged up for easy consumption and …

🎵 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 original version of this song, despite the fact that I am always feeling like I'm going to get Broadcast mixed up with Stereolab (it's the same …

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 embarrassed to admit the second thought that popped into my head after reading the news. Yep, it is definitely with some shame that I tell you my disbelief …

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 been listening to some tracks I had stuck together and it followed them up with a Chromeo and then a Cut Copy song. I never would have thought to put …

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 then, and don't end when the day is over. Eastertide is a time to look at renewal in your life. If that renewal is simply a present fact, as is my …

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. We are rapidly approaching the end of Holy Week for Christians. Happy Easter to everyone celebrating! To my Tamil friends, Puthaandu Nalvalthukkal! …

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. growth didn’t slowly fade away: It slipped, and slipped, and then fell off a cliff. The 2010s were already demographically stagnant; every year from …

Buzzing Towards Babylon: With no formal announcement (whoops), Wordpress.com changed their pricing significantly, removing the paid tiers for personal blogging and leaving nothing in between the free plan and the $180 Business plan. I've often thought that Wordpress doesn't want to be in the business of personal blogging. …

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 online audience. His point was that if you are a blogger, you are a writer. A writer for those who read your content online. It was an inspirational talk …

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 some cases, at least, have pretty robust public healthcare systems in place. The example that she hones in on is Kenya, where the U.S. Agency for …

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 past as for his status as elder statesman and progenitor of the industrial genre of music) tried to erase the synthpop era of the band. Their first …

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: feature older music. With Chromewaves, he was writing about new music coming out. He hustled to stay on top of the latest noises, but eventually burned out …

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 drive antisocial behavior patterns on social networks. Her analysis on how the platforms accelerate what is already dissociative behavior from the human …

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 abiding love for all things G.I. Joe. We hunted down the elusive Snake Eyes figure together. We turned our grandparent's spare room into a miniature …

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 anything at it. A single picture, a quick link post or a think piece that I’ve labored over. I can post from many different apps, including my favorite …

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. The Got Questions site begins to answer the question of what imprecatory prayer is by defining imprecatory. To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon …

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 part of the first wave of Mennonites to leave. It got worse for the ones who stayed when the Bolsheviks and Anarchists came through with their …

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 it was a rare treat to go in and see friends and hear music being played live. Vivaldi on violin with our new sound system (which was desperately …

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 have to tell you, though, that when I saw Brothertiger had covered brother/sister duo Sophie and Peter Johnston’s “Torn Open,” one of my favorite songs, …

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 literally just pulled out my phone to click on the QR code bouncing around the screen when that one commercial ended in some crypto plea. It feels …

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. Take, for instance, Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs," which was featured prominently in my education and still holds a large percentage of mind share …

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 from Kay Hanley, Letters to Cleo songwriter and co-executive director of Songwriters Of North America. She has some bones to pick with Spotify CEO Daniel …

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 who saw in the clip a potent witness on a popular talk show. This is a brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square. Notice the …

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 name Germans. She had only released a few songs. I was already a fan because I had heard about her through Kurt Feldman, who produced some of her …

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 job this week, albeit at a fraction of the hours I was working previously. While I started off with a lot of energy, as the week went on, that began to …

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 harmful content on his podcast, Robert Wright has a balanced take that's worth reading. Wright goes into the episode with Dr. Robert Malone, and the claims …

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 Pop Culture. He's now onto The Book of Boba Fett, though not reviewing every episode, as he has done with previous shows. So far, he hasn't been …

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 religious. What I found most interesting about this revelation is that it's not really one at all. I remember an interview with him on NPR in 2016 …

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 wonder if it would be helpful to remember the turbulence of the sixties, just to have some frame of reference for comparison, but it doesn't seem to …

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 Birchler has a list of the things that make Wordle great. This is a play on some very old word game, I'm sure, but that doesn't diminish it. Wordle is …

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 a video for the song that I had discovered, "Darjeeling." I was particularly drawn to the video because it is set mostly at The Crane Estate. The …

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. He writes about the episode in the first paragraph of his post. This morning I finished listening to what is undoubtedly one of the most listened to …

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 mental health amongst students. These parents are frustrated and seeing their kids struggling encourages them to want to do something. “The …

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 shortage of people berating themselves up for their time spent on social media or trying to concoct ways to curb their use of those platforms. A big …

🎵 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, but that I discovered last year. I think this one surfaced due to the Apple Music recommendation algorithm, which has gotten really good. I ask Siri to …

Issue No. 3: Image source: Artturi Jalli/UnsplashMy favorite Christmas piece this season was How Christmas Changed Everything by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren in the NYT. She goes back to the early days of Christianity to observe how the life and death of Christ impacted believers in such a profound way …

🎵 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 traditional fuzzy retro found footage. It wasn’t until the band was shown in the same style that I realized it was a legit official video for the song. …

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 Instagram. Meanwhile, Twitter and instagram are teeming with pros, amateurs, and everyone else, and they’re just more rich photography experiences for …

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 school, goofing around in fountains, reading in the grass, and well, attending school. The song exudes a twee charm with a suitable theme about …

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 two (the lower quadrants) are the negative energies. BlissedBlessedPissedDissedI’d rather be writing from the upper two quadrants, but I have to admit …

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 its warehouses. The employee perspective is that their phones can alert them to dangerous conditions, such as the tornado activity that ended up …

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 wanted to feature some sophisti-pop for comparison, but didn't want to go straight at it. So what we have here is Hoops covering Prefab Sprout (one of …

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 dedication to their country and to freedom around the world will long be remembered by history. They can tell their grandchildren stories of courage and …

Mariya Takeuchi : 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 growing in popularity over the last 40 years. It fits in with the 80's Japanese genre, city pop, and has come to be a defining piece of that style of …

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, Netflix comedy specials to baby books"). In short, because it's easy and cheap and pays big dividends. People love to read it for that confirmation bias …

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 in other parts of the world. One the places where it has helped to create a perfect storm of violence by radicalizing users against the minority …

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 the part about Russia helping to provide the autocratic guidebook to Belarus' dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, in order to crush the protests in the …

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 their year in music. I have to admit, as an Apple Music user, I get a bit jealous. The cool designs that go along with the Spotify Wrapped playlists …

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 shopping excursions. The full city tour culminates in a pleasant snow as the subject walks around with headphones on. She's in her own world with so …

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 used that. Then they removed that feature and I had to change my ID. I made several transactions under the new ID. Now, a few years later, eBay will …

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 make for some of my favorite music videos. There is an intimacy that feels like it's almost pulling you into a room with the performers. "Limbo" is one …

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 Germany to get everyone vaccinated. Historical events in these countries give him particular cause for concern. Kingsnorth's rant does make me think …

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 name that itself sounded like a parody, coming from a president that never could quite get anything real done. Of course, some of us remember "Star …

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 two albums, went to see them on those tours and then they lost me after their return from hiatus. However, I do consider them to be an amazing cover …

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 simple lessons for kids, the particular angles in this book struck me deeply. The take on prayer was nuanced and mature. In the book The Berenstain …

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 Vizio as a negative example. When he takes on the now old adage, "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product," his insight really resonates. …

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 media accounts and major publishers. This project is an effort to celebrate the earlier days of blogging. The site focuses on faith, noise, technology …

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 resistance. Savoring a pleasant moment is a radical act. Excellence is an act of resistance, but so is procrastination. Being thankful is — you guessed …

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 disco-inflected “Voyage” and filmed a video to go with it. In the video, lots of construction is going on, but the viewer is never really given a total …

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 opportunity wasted not to share it. "Some days, crowded spaces feel lonely, some days they feel okay." It may not be the most profound lyric ever …

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 form of discussion around the photo sharing site, Glass, and their decision to eschew ways to “like” a post. Although likes are standard throughout …

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 wife and I started watching the new Apple TV+ sci-fi series Foundation last weekend. The trailer for the show promised exciting visuals and an …

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 gum. I spent all night spitting out blood into a bucket. I stuffed tea bags into my mouth, hoping the tannin would stop the bleeding. It didn't. As …

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 filling out paperwork for getting a vasectomy and being told that his wife also had to sign. He was livid and kept yelling, “this is my fertility!” The …

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 move, but to be fair, some albums are sleepers and you can’t always tell which ones will stick with you. I’ve long wanted to do a classics review blog …

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). It’s easy to fall into this practice, which is one in which you stay up late doing all manner of meaningless things just because the time before you go …

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 for a king. In both instances, the groups had lost faith in God to protect them and wanted to rely on a strong man. In the biblical book of Samuel, a …

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 year. After a brief period where the distinction between major labels and indie labels blurred, the value and significance of independent music …

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 stylized artwork and colorful pastels on the album cover of their newest offering, Leisure. The contents of the album sound exactly like you would expect …

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 church that was founded by hyper-masculine pastor Mark Driscoll. I always found Mark Driscoll to be deeply suspect and wondered where he fit into …

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 the Micro.blog community. The attention is both surprising and not surprising. It's not surprising because that community tends to be very tech …

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 rat, if not hoarder. Very few articles make it through my reading cycle without some highlighting and marginalia. Not a whole lot of meetings go …

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 Friday Night Video. I had also searched last week for a Bandcamp link for Work Drugs "Drive" as my lady friend and I had picked that as a standout on my …

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 "is perfect, washed out, glimmering pool side hazy ease." In other words, just right for summer. The track is a departure from their typical …

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 that, there were some helpful suggestions about things she wanted. I never asked her directly why the caveat about where items were purchased. I didn’t do …

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 styles (although that is certainly true, as well). I’m now going through the experience of my teenage son exploring the music that was popular back …

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. On a trip to scope out the location for the factory, the head of Apple’s manufacturing partner pointed to a small mountain and told two Apple …

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 for their patronage. A few detailed new plans for publishing their content elsewhere. Sarah Cords, from P.S. I Love You, however, would not go gently …

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 designed to put you into a state of relaxation in which you are more susceptible to suggestion. The watching of the breath, the attention on sensations in …

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 owed in the narrative. He believes that an extra episode that deals with their trauma would be appropriate. In the piece, he discusses the …

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 is usually cited as their main reason for supporting the former president, despite the fact that he possessed almost every character trait they had …

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 software company, I have been involved with our legal representatives in crafting terms of service, and never have I heard a question come up about our …

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 reference for older traditions that are slower and more thought out. Vinyl church’s don’t try so hard to be accessible to the younger generation. But the …

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 wish for.” For years we decried the bundles that were offered to us by cable providers. “Who needs all of those channels,” we rightly asked ourselves. …

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 artistic photos of albums for a few years, most recently focusing on body art to complement the album covers. Perusing through her astonishingly well …

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 pieces for a while. That lasted a few months, and then I came across this post from Hannah Long on Arc Digital. I love to see the variety of posts on …

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 asking hard questions to one of trying not to offend. He makes some good points, although some of his examples of cancel culture might not be entirely …

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 nastiness is extraordinary.” Once upon a time, way back in 2017, there was a little website called Twitter that caught the eyes of the monolith Disney. …

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 ads on the platform. Techcrunch writer Josh Costine called the move a disgorgement of responsibility. The web publication has another piece by …

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 take on the “endless runner” game that gives a snowboarder a vast natural playground for collecting coins and doing simple tricks. Odyssey isn’t a …