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 behind the Noble Oak moniker and wrote, recorded, produced and mixed the track. "I found my voice, but it sounds different now than ever before,"
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 to keep things interesting. How to Amplify Your Wordle GameIntroducing Wordle Golf, a new competitive way to play the daily guessing game.
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 girlfriend had the CD, and it went through many spins in her dorm room.
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 adventure game seen from a unique perspective, or two. Play as a pair of Yarnys – small beings made of yarn and connected by a single thread – in local co-op or as a single player.
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 pattern of going light on the vocals. When it appears, her voice is treated almost like one of the other instruments.
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 protective bubbles. Meanwhile, they are making time to rock and sing about the traveling far away "in the service of desire.
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 isn't shy about steering the song. It sets the scene for the rest of the record, a California production that takes on the psyche of the location.
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 doctrine of the mean is the virtue of courage, which is seen as being balanced between the feelings of fear and confidence.
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 responsibilities like steady jobs, covenantal relationships and children. Today — as cracks in the facade of hustle culture continue to spread; as a growing library of books and articles promote the value of rest and fun; as more people delay or forgo marriage or children — real life seems to be catching up with “Seinfeld.
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 writing his obituary for the meta verse, tends to blame one particular CEO. He lays a great deal of responsibility for the hype at the feet — or in the space below the floating torso — of one man.