I still have a lot of post ideas about what music has gotten me through the past few months. Here are some of those.
(General theme seems to be: my exposure to music as a child was at least partially “whitewashed” and I’ve been making up for lost time ever since.)
My first true taste of Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free” was from a FACT mix by Laraaji (an artist I first heard of through his Ambient #3 album via Brian Eno, and so on down the rabbit hole) and it’s… transcendent. Search for it and give it a listen. Hathaway’s voice is just fantastic and the wash of Rhodes arpeggios at the beginning locks you in.
This is a cover - single take, no rehearsal - by Corinne Bailey Rae and Jon Batiste. It’s a magic spell.
I heard a lot of Luther Vandross as a kid but he was mostly relegated to easy listening/the dentist office. I mean… “Here and Now” is a great ballad, and his collaboration with Mariah Carey on “Endless Love” was just everywhere in the early 90s, but… why did it take until I was an adult to hear this? (“Never Too Much”).
Now: Al Jarreau. “We’re In This Love Together” was a dentist-office staple growing up (and that song deserves so much more than whiny drills for accompaniment). It was much later that I was introduced to his other work (the gorgeous “touch the face of God” bridge on “Mornin’”, etc). This live performance of “Trouble In Paradise” from 1983 is a time capsule that deserves more eyes and ears:
Locally the current wisdom is to wait a few more weeks before planting anything, as we’re still expecting at least one more (mild) freeze. All the same, it’s a good time to start planning what I’d like to plant both physically and mentally.
On the mental side, it’s all about planting seeds of perspective, understanding, and above all hope.
Here are some links for that, and to remind myself: keep your eye on the ball.
“No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. (…) Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.”
bookshop link
“Hello, currently I am the leader of my local boy scout troop and we want to focus on citizenship and community and the first thing that came to my mind was solarpunk. What are some cheap activities or things to discuss that relate to community that I could run at our next meeting?”
“…not all traumatic circumstances allow us to act with agency. Sometimes, harm happens to us, and taking control of our bodies or actions simply isn’t possible. But in other cases, it only feels that way.
The more often we have experienced true helplessness, the more likely we are to feel powerless in situations where action is possible. And the more we freeze or flail in response to threats, the more deeply ingrained those responses become.”
“And yet, as Le Guin reminds us, uncertainty is also the only thing that makes life possible. Without it, we would move like automatons through predetermined paths, unspirited, unaware, unliving.”
I have a few blog ideas in the queue about art (mainly music, who is surprised?) that has been sustaining me lately. Those take a lot more effort than a links post, though, so it may be just a bit longer before you see them. Until then, thanks for reading.
Several years ago, spurred on by a friend’s posting of the LiveJournal-spawned1 “50 Books Challenge”, I started keeping track of my own reading habits for the year. While she (and others) still post their yearly lists on social media, I figured the best place for my list would be here. So… enjoy?
Red Team Blues - Cory Doctorow
Be Useful - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Radicalized - Cory Doctorow
The Soul of America - Jon Meacham
The Lost Cause - Cory Doctorow
Fuzzy Nation - John Scalzi
Hands of the Morri - Heather K. O’Malley
The World We Make - N. K. Jemisin
Rise of the Gomeral - Jeff Pages
Prince: The Man And His Music - Matt Thorne
Chokepoint Capitalism - Rebecca S. Gilpin and Cory Doctorow
The Bezzle - Cory Doctorow
How Infrastructure Works - Deb Chachra
Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson [audiobook]
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland [audiobook]
Starter Villain - John Scalzi
The Death of Stalin - Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
The Fund - Rob Copeland
Getting Things Done (Tenth Anniversary Edition) - David Allen
You can look at the date for this entry and see what the current events are. These links may only be tangential to the impending new-old administration, but I still thought they were worth posting.
This was written in the aftermath of the CrowdStrike bug this past summer. The lessons learned are relevant in so many areas, and the article name-checks Deb Chachra and her book How Infrastructure Works, an amazing read.
I may not be a software engineer, but my job title these days is 100% glue, so this resonated with me. It’s a good article for anyone who feels like the above-and-beyond bits are creeping into their actual work, especially those of you who are a different gender from me.
Yes, I’m linking to the NSA’s website. Grace Hopper was a glorious force of nature and a role model for so many. This lecture from 1982, that was finally declassified earlier this year, is a must-watch for anyone that’s been paying attention to the tech world. She predicted some of the missteps we’ve made, but much of her advice can still be applied. Best time to plant a tree and all that.
An exhaustive list of resources for learning about all kinds of stuff. It’s definitely a site to bookmark. Let’s keep our minds sharp and diversify our skills.
“what worked for me coming out of school does not necessarily work for someone in school right now. The first line in my notes says, not giving advice, just telling what happened.”
“One thing I’m always struck by when it comes to performance review time is a feeling of ‘wait, what did I do in the last 6 months?’. This is a kind of demoralizing feeling and it’s usually not based in reality, more in ‘I forgot what cool stuff I actually did’.”
“…I think a lot of the destruction we see in the media community right now is no one built an audience. They try to get traffic and then they try to sell that traffic, and they assumed that traffic would last forever.”
I wanted to link three music videos together to show their connections. This is the first time I’m doing this but probably won’t be the last.
First up, these clowns:
Then, we reveal the mystery that isn’t really a mystery (it’s Louis Cole and Sam Gendel! shhhhh):
Louis Cole has a band with Genevieve Artadi, one of the people holding a camera in that last video. They call it KNOWER. Here’s something recent from said band, with Sam Gendel among the personnel.
(Such a group of talented musicians provides opportunities for more musical connections. The bass player, MonoNeon, for instance, could start us off on quite the long journey indeed. Perhaps another time.)
“Every four years, we have a worldwide holiday to celebrate this sort of leap. The leap of choice. Not to suddenly get from here to there, but to choose to go on the journey.”
“We are all trying our best to try to feel our way towards a more whole world: One that honors all of our inherent dignity. One that has enough for everyone, is safe for everyone, gives care to everyone. We are all doing our best.”
– Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, from October 13 of last year.
Yeah. I may hide behind other people’s words every once in a while, but it’s easily a step above staying silent. It’s all I’ve got for the moment.