Canned Dragons

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 crushing on someone and following them around like a puppy dog. I love the urgency in the guitar solo that closes out the song.

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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 to be expressing myself from the “pissed” category today. Much has been written about how the call to get vaccinated against Covid-19, the urge (or mandate) to wear masks, etc.

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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 ripping apart an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, something that they don’t trust Amazon to do. The concerns about phone access highlight the deep distrust between executives who make rules focused on productivity and efficiency to gain a competitive advantage, and hourly front-line workers who often fear their safety is secondary to moving packages.

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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 the more influential bands in sophisti-pop) staple "Cars and Girls." From The Beach Boys “I Get Around” to American Graffiti to Sixteen Candles or even Ferris Bueller's Day Off, cars and girls were central to the post-adolescent male imagination in the sixties through the eighties.

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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 coming together. By contrast, I wonder sometimes if I'll be telling my grandkids about the selfishness of this moment in American history.

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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 music. Jason Morehead describes city pop as "a slick blend of jazz, pop, and funk that emerged during Japan’s economic boom in the ’80s and celebrated an upscale, cosmopolitan lifestyle.

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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 rush and you don't have to be an expert in anything, such as science or politics. You don't even have to do research or risk getting called out for being wrong.

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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 Rohingya is the country of Myanmar. The platform spread information and hate speech that cost the lives of a targeted group of people.

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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 country. I got this feeling in my core that I was at my limit of bad news for the day.

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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 are really well done and make you feel like this year-end ritual is something special. Chaim Gartenberg writes about Spotify's yearly celebration of your personal year in music for the Verge.

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