Stray Bullets, 10.11.2024
On Tattooed Middle Years ← trying to fight a losing battle with memory is exactly the wrong thing to do • Evan Ratliff, of Longform fame, on the future of (non) human conversation ← But you do have to wonder if all of these humanist bugs are post-humanist features, and I ask this as the last stubborn motherfucker who still uses terms like “ma’am” and “sir” in deep sincerity • Review essay for Rachael Kushner’s Creation Lake [2024]
Fellow critic Rob Sheffield on my beloved Robert Christgau’s consumer guides ← Christgau’s CGs, in both their published book format and their lovely old-school web incarnations, have become invaluable to me and so little gems like this are just pure catnip • Zensounds on the Cure’s deep history ← Having grown up a rabid fan of music and coming into consciousness a time when some of the most beloved underground and semi-underground bands were just popping into the mainstream (“Friday I’m in Love” being my hilariously non-representative introduction to them), it remains a source of endless fascination to dig back into the prior years in retrospect - as was the case with R.E.M. - so personal excavations like these are especially helpful • In the exact same vein, Dig Me Out has a wonderful review of the early days of Soul Asylum ← Having actively loathed their song “Misery” for some time, it was quite the discovery to find that their early Twin/Tone records were amazing • Drug Church just put out a new record and my goodness it’s delightful [godawful cover though]