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 and adjacent topics. This site follows the POSSE "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere" model, which is described as “a content publishing model that starts with posting content on your own domain first, then syndicating out copies to 3rd party services with permashortlinks back to the original on your site.
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 it — a radical act. Reading is a radical act. Ted Lasso is not, itself, a radical act, but it does provide “radical optimism,” which is almost as good.
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 picture of what is being built. It’s almost as if she’s creating something that can never be completed.
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 written, but it carries with it some truth that all of us have felt.
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 social media sites, the idea to exclude them is not new. As I mentioned in this post, it’s one of the design principles that Glass follows that already existed on Micro.
⚠️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 intriguing plot. The review from the site Common Sense Media was mostly very positive. The write-up on the show focused quite a bit on the show's diverse cast and little on the violence.
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 soon as the morning came, I phoned my oral surgeon and told him in some graphic detail of my plight.
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 interviewer was gamely playing along, perhaps even as convinced as vasectomy man that his autonomy had indeed been violated.
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 post series where I only write about albums that have stood the test of time. There’s a different kind of love that you have for music with longevity that carries you through different seasons of your life.
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 to bed is the only time that feels like your own. You mindlessly scroll through Twitter or vapid news headlines.
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 king was requested of the prophet, a request which he initially rebuked. Eventually, after Samuel spoke with God, on the Lord's command, he relented and found the people a king in the form of a man named Saul.
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 became clear again. Indie labels gave both musicians and fans a legitimate alternative to the bland, cookie-cutter rock music that had taken over MTV programming and alternative radio station playlists by the start of 1995.
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 from looking at the cover. Over-the-top synths bathe the listener in the color palette of the 1980's. The aesthetic is so completely intact, that the opening track, "
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 Christian theology. In many clips I see or hear of him, he's yelling "who do you think you are???!!!" or "how dare you!
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 literate and have a great curiosity for new apps and platforms, such as social networks, email tools, blogging services or note taking apps.
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 undocumented. I collect, I share.
It wasn't until recently that my patterns of behaviors became a problem. It's not an issue to hoard digitally, you can do it at very little expense and keep things nice and tidy.
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 playlist of new songs. I couldn't find the track to share. However, when I went to Bandcamp to search for more tracks by Pictured Resort, I came across the split EP with Work Drugs and the lead track just happened to be "
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 sound, and brings to mind Wild Nothing, and even some of their influences, such as Fleetwood Mac and Roxy Music.
"Superperfection" starts awash in feedback and guitar noise.
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 so because it seemed obvious that there were a number of reasons a person would not want to support Amazon.
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 then. It’s the same music, but encountered in a much different way. The easy access that he enjoys to jump to anything in the sonic universe enables him to quickly make musical connections that it took me years to understand.