Embers of Rain Tamp Down the Shitty Darkness That Issues From Nowhere
Monologue, even more than usual, in the grid, though a Duh Thought Experiment:
Consider the media response had a Democratic president spent $45 million on an laughably lame and ludicrously unattended vanity tank circle jerk for his birthday while millions of magachoads protested against him in countless towns and cities across the country, including the bluest of blue states, consider the media response had the two state senators and their spouses been shot not by a crackerchrister but a person in a Free Palestine Tshirt and antifa hat, I said to my polisci professor friend (this is true - I had thought of him earlier in the day when I posted a link to an article on bowling - it's in the grid below - and thought of the professor because the lasting memory of the class 30 years ago besides still being friends with the guy is he assigned Lasch's *Bowling Alone* (Lasch was right about our atomization, yo) when I ran into him on campus yesterday, blessed be Serendipity)
The above song related to the second blessed Serendipity of yesterday, believe me, you don't want to read about it even more than I don't want to type it, exactly two of us would get it plus a third if he read this blog which he doesn't know exists. I don't think it's a coincidence, I said, Trump asked Netanyahu to attack Iran before Trump's vanity parade because Trump knows the power of optics and had to know by two days before the parade the parade would be a flop and humiliation. Shit, said prof, I wonder when Trump contacted the Minnesota shooter via telepathy when exactly to go on his spree viz the parade. Vital reminder: Jefferson Airplane is criminally underrated, especially *After Bathing at Baxters*
Imagine the media response if a guy in a Free Palestine tshirt wearing an antifa hat drove his car into a crowd of crackerchristers
Gonna be the most viciously angry and savagely hot summer of our lives, yo, I said, and prof laughed, said, I thought you (everyone in the class did) were batshit crazy thirty years ago but you weren't wrong then and you are not wrong now, much as I wish you were
"it’s truly funny that a mayoral candidate is calling for less rent gouging & some free buses and these simple ideas have prompted the city’s entire media, political & financial elite to say that a communist revolution is ending democracy & collapsing the global financial capital"
"Ghouls like Andrew Cuomo and his supporters seem to think political talent is making social media clips rather than the oratorical and forensic skills Mamdani has and that we traditionally associate with democratic leadership. I’ve been delighted to see Mamdani explain his positions and platform in language that is clear and complex. I’ve been delighted to see what a happy warrior he is, in the style of FDR, taking genuine pleasure in the give and take of adult argument and debate, speaking like a grownup, giving thoughtful answers rather than being caught like a deer in the headlights by idiot gotcha questions. I see him very much as the path to a future we can be hopeful about and excited by. That’s why I support him"
I guarantee you, guarantee you, bet you infinity digital beers, the day Israel bombed Iran to distract from losing the narrative on their Gazan genocide and the night before (as I type this sentence) Kim Jong Trump's masturbatory parade and magacirclejerk to himself top Democrats huddling to solve their gravest existential crisis since Sanders 2020. Mamdani, that's M-A-M-D-A-N-I
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"The reason that the NYT editorial board, the Atlantic writing staff, etc hate Zohran is because he’s one of the only living progressive politicians with genuine intent of leveraging power"
Here is every US politician in Congress who currently holds stock positions in aerospace and defense companies that benefit from a war in the Middle East:
"Very shocked and outraged by Iran's upcoming completely unprovoked antisemitic attack on Israel"
"It's refreshing to see an American Zionist acknowledge that even their local political decisions are not based on concerns for the community in which they live, but on the wellbeing of a foreign apartheid state engaged in genocide"
"Any mass media platform where center-right, pro-business politics isn't the dominant paradigm is inevitably going to be maligned in this way by wealthy and powerful people trying to dictate the contours of acceptable discourse"
"Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis — ie, all the living Democratic presidential candidates — have all been completely silent about Israel's attack on Iran. They haven't said a word"
"People have really accepted the idea that you are only waging war if you are doing the offensive strikes. Defense and logistics are part of war also, just as if not more important. The US, Britain, and Germany are at war"
"when hillary tried this in 08 against obama it was a sign of desperation and she eventually lost the primary by double digits. this is actually a good omen"
recently i was chatting with one of my LLM cyberloquitors and brought up einstein's question "is the universe a friendly place or not" - the reply - on the human scale, universe is indifferent - people starve or freeze or boil, the universe doesn't change what it is doing - on the cosmic scale the universe is generative - producing phenomena like typing apes, which persist for a while, and then don't
Re: The Lack of a Beach Boys Gene: I have two low key assaults, to offer, against poor Brian Wilson's sainted remains (I was right there with my future White friends when it came to The Beatles in '64-'74, right there with my future White friends when it came to Eno and Roxy in the '70s, Talking Heads in the late '70s, John Cale and The Residents, Bauhaus and Suburban Lawns, et al, but when it came to Lou Reed (except Transformer), Sinatra, Elvis and The Beach Boys... mutualism broke down. Here's a snarky passage from a short story called "Lake Zurich":
“Luis, we got any possibility of some music up there?”
Milton said, “Got an AM radio.”
Dom said, “I won’t say no to that. How do you feel about oldies?”
Milton said, “I’m gonna say a word, okay, and you respond with the first thing that comes into your consciousness and that’s the process by which we will determine whether or not we think the same type of thing by which we mean ‘oldies’.”
Milton was grinning at Dom in the rearview yet beside him Luis Reyes had grown enigmatically stiff-necked; stiff-necked and coiled as he sat there in front of Dom on the passenger side, reading Dom’s mind with the back of his head. The thing of significance was between the girl and this janitor called Luis.
“Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
Dom liked taking tests. Milton put his eyes back on the road and allowed the intervening silence to develop. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Beach Boys.”
“Bullshit.”
Everyone laughed except Luis and the girl and Milton saluted without looking and announced, “You passed it, guy.”
********
And here's some casual detective work:
1. “The Doctor Who theme music is a piece of music written by Australian composer Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Created in 1963, it was one of the first electronic music signature tunes for television.”
2. “Good Vibrations” is a song by the American rock band The Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love . Released as a single on October 10, 1966, it was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the US and UK. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the costliest single ever recorded at the time of its release. “Good Vibrations” later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.”
3. insert: photo of Beach Boys during their 1964 trip to London
Re: "I don't think it's a coincidence, I said," : I've learned stealthier methods by which to inaugurate such conversations *before* the intellectual-lifestyle-sphincter slams shut into a Vonneguting asterisk. "Well isn't that something," I'll say, with winning insouciance, folding the NYT to display the miracle-headline I mean to demolish with the *Reductio Ad Absurdum* trick I frame as sincere awe...
To MC: re: "brought up einstein's question "is the universe a friendly place or not"... the answer will vary wildly depending on which interface-terminal (of the universe) to which the inquiry is addressed.I usually prefer inputting the inquiry via the sunny-teen-sapiens terminals on the beach. Raging fires, rocky cliff faces and neutron stars are invariably debbie downers (though their responses be open to interpretation) and ought to be approached with caution.
1/this morning while meandering among the internets i came across:
Paolo Ragusa April 25, 2025 | 10:22am ET Fiona Apple has contributed a cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” for Heart Of Gold: The Songs Of Neil Young Volume I, a new tribute album out today.
Apple provides a faithful, sturdy rendition of the Young classic, not altering the arrangement much and focusing on replicating the song’s mode of reflection and yearning. Apple’s vocals never stray away from her warm alto range, contrasting with Young’s original songbird-like croon on the original. And as always with Fiona Apple, her emotive command of language brings weight to every word on “Heart of Gold."
2/in the context of "living with war every day" which was the stimulus for using neil young as a search term this morning, SA's "on the beach" phrase reminded me of Neville Shute's novel by that name, which I recall reading a serialized version of in the Washington Post - grok doesn't find info about that as a venue of publication, but back in those long ago days - 1957 - such things were not unheard of
3/nor can I find info about my one published letter to the editor of rolling stone - about a successor album to after bathing at baxters - the first album attributed to 'jefferson starship' - I wrote the letter under the pseudonym "Al Zarex" while living in Somerville MA
recently i was chatting with one of my LLM cyberloquitors and brought up einstein's question "is the universe a friendly place or not" - the reply - on the human scale, universe is indifferent - people starve or freeze or boil, the universe doesn't change what it is doing - on the cosmic scale the universe is generative - producing phenomena like typing apes, which persist for a while, and then don't
ReplyDeleteRe: The Lack of a Beach Boys Gene: I have two low key assaults, to offer, against poor Brian Wilson's sainted remains (I was right there with my future White friends when it came to The Beatles in '64-'74, right there with my future White friends when it came to Eno and Roxy in the '70s, Talking Heads in the late '70s, John Cale and The Residents, Bauhaus and Suburban Lawns, et al, but when it came to Lou Reed (except Transformer), Sinatra, Elvis and The Beach Boys... mutualism broke down. Here's a snarky passage from a short story called "Lake Zurich":
ReplyDelete“Luis, we got any possibility of some music up there?”
Milton said, “Got an AM radio.”
Dom said, “I won’t say no to that. How do you feel about oldies?”
Milton said, “I’m gonna say a word, okay, and you respond with the first thing that comes into your consciousness and that’s the process by which we will determine whether or not we think the same type of thing by which we mean ‘oldies’.”
Milton was grinning at Dom in the rearview yet beside him Luis Reyes had grown enigmatically stiff-necked; stiff-necked and coiled as he sat there in front of Dom on the passenger side, reading Dom’s mind with the back of his head. The thing of significance was between the girl and this janitor called Luis.
“Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
Dom liked taking tests. Milton put his eyes back on the road and allowed the intervening silence to develop. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Beach Boys.”
“Bullshit.”
Everyone laughed except Luis and the girl and Milton saluted without looking and announced, “You passed it, guy.”
********
And here's some casual detective work:
1.
“The Doctor Who theme music is a piece of music written by Australian composer Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Created in 1963, it was one of the first electronic music signature tunes for television.”
2.
“Good Vibrations” is a song by the American rock band The Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love . Released as a single on October 10, 1966, it was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the US and UK. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the costliest single ever recorded at the time of its release. “Good Vibrations” later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.”
3. insert: photo of Beach Boys during their 1964 trip to London
Re: "I don't think it's a coincidence, I said," : I've learned stealthier methods by which to inaugurate such conversations *before* the intellectual-lifestyle-sphincter slams shut into a Vonneguting asterisk. "Well isn't that something," I'll say, with winning insouciance, folding the NYT to display the miracle-headline I mean to demolish with the *Reductio Ad Absurdum* trick I frame as sincere awe...
ReplyDeleteTo MC: re: "brought up einstein's question "is the universe a friendly place or not"... the answer will vary wildly depending on which interface-terminal (of the universe) to which the inquiry is addressed.I usually prefer inputting the inquiry via the sunny-teen-sapiens terminals on the beach. Raging fires, rocky cliff faces and neutron stars are invariably debbie downers (though their responses be open to interpretation) and ought to be approached with caution.
1/this morning while meandering among the internets i came across:
ReplyDeletePaolo Ragusa
April 25, 2025 | 10:22am ET
Fiona Apple has contributed a cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” for Heart Of Gold: The Songs Of Neil Young Volume I, a new tribute album out today.
Apple provides a faithful, sturdy rendition of the Young classic, not altering the arrangement much and focusing on replicating the song’s mode of reflection and yearning. Apple’s vocals never stray away from her warm alto range, contrasting with Young’s original songbird-like croon on the original. And as always with Fiona Apple, her emotive command of language brings weight to every word on “Heart of Gold."
2/in the context of "living with war every day" which was the stimulus for using neil young as a search term this morning, SA's "on the beach" phrase reminded me of Neville Shute's novel by that name, which I recall reading a serialized version of in the Washington Post - grok doesn't find info about that as a venue of publication, but back in those long ago days - 1957 - such things were not unheard of
3/nor can I find info about my one published letter to the editor of rolling stone - about a successor album to after bathing at baxters - the first album attributed to 'jefferson starship' - I wrote the letter under the pseudonym "Al Zarex" while living in Somerville MA
3.5/https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-return-of-zarex/