I hate to feel like I’m just getting old and only able to appreciate music from my youth. I’m still open to new music and find much to enjoy in the output of the current generation of music. However, I suppose like anyone, I do have a soft spot for the soundtracks of my younger days.
Unrest - Perfect Teeth (Bandcamp)
W. David Marx writes on his blog Culture about 10,000 Maniacs and the earnest progressivism of the early alternative music culture.
Certainly 10,000 Maniacs were a bit over-the-top, but they fit seamlessly in the general aesthetic of “alternative” culture. Progressivism was cool in the 1980s. Merchant worked at a health food store, and before joining the band, considered a career in special-needs education. She was the one who pushed REM’s Michael Stipe to lurch towards more political content. These were the Reagan-Bush years, and artists resisted by drawing attention to the social ills that conservatives didn’t care about.
He contrasts that sort of authentic hope for change with today’s music, which has a very cynical live for the moment ethos. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
I’m having a good deal of trouble bringing myself to throw out a perfectly good Fujitsu ScanSnap just because they not longer make drivers for it.
I love this set of photos from Emilio Herve of the Japanese Breakfast show at El Museo del Barrio. I’ve seen Japanese Breakfast live but wasn’t treated to this kind of spectacle.
It’s amazing how many different facial expressions Michelle Zauner brings to the proceedings.
Great. My son’s Echo Dot just notified him about the arrival of his birthday present. So much for surprises.
I tend to place a great deal of emphasis on harmony between the different parts of my life. When there is some sort of discontinuity, it vexes me. This can play out in pretty serious cognitive dissonance.1 It can also filter down to less consequential choices. One struggle I’ve always had is around media formats for music.
I spent 45 minutes to an hour last night in conversation with Copilot, banging my head against a CSS issue. No resolution. It only took one query to Claude to completely fix.
On the latest episode of the Symbolic World podcast, Jonathan Pageau explains why Disney trying to map contemporary cultural values onto an older story results in a jumbled mess.
My wife and I are generally aware of the same cultural touchstones. I would say I was a bit more deeply engaged in certain subcultures, though, which can lead to some interesting reactions when I bust out singing a song like Stryper’s “To Hell With The Devil.”
