PJ Harvey is one of my favorite musicians because she is a weirdo and an artist in the same vein as a Kate Bush, or even a Bob Dylan, who concentrates on mythology, atmosphere, artistry and sense of place. For a lot of my life, my fav album was “Rid of Me.” It was present in a lot of formative moments as a kid and still resonates for me as an adult, despite some of its flourishes not aging well. As an adult, “Let England Shake” genuinely moved me. She draws on music and poetry traditions to explore what it means for England to be an empire, sitting atop a throne of bones and bloodshed. It’s ambitious and dark and sounds incredible, in part thanks to her use of the autoharp (yes, seriously).
She’s also among the artists who made a hard left in my musical interests as a kid, when she and John Parish released “Dance Hall at Louse Point.” This album was called career suicide when it came out because it is so atonal and avant garde. As an album, listening from beginning to end, it’s delightfully sinister. It could be a sister or a cousin album to Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads.”
Created some artsy fartsy rules for myself where I have to finish something old before I start something new, just to keep some momentum going on existing projects.
I have several outstanding embroidery, quilting, knitting AND crochet projects, and a loom I refuse to assemble until I knock out one or two of these other ones. My two biggest priorities are a giant garter stitch shawl that I began pre-pandemic and really want to finish because it’s so beautiful - and so boring to knit - and a gigantic crochet mosaic blanket that is teaching me the ins and outs of crochet. After that, some half-hearted quilt pieces, a wholecloth quilt and two flimsies that need to be quilted and bound. And some lingering embroidery projects and a head full of new ideas. My friend gave me some antique glass she’d like me to engrave this winter.
Meanwhile I finished a hat for the kiddo last night and she was so pumped she wore it to school this morning. 🧶
Need a brilliant bauble for the holidays? How about a beautiful box of blooming instant miso soup bombs? www.brooklynmisomaru.com/shop/p/mi…
Someone reminded me of the story of Charlie the goat, who played Black Philip in “The Witch,” and had two modes: sleeping or asshole. Method actor or brilliant casting? www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gene…
🚨 Cat in a basket 🚨 🐱
This is a real life nightmare. Nobody deserves to live this way, nobody deserves to die this way. www.npr.org/sections/…
For the old heads, “No Alternative,” the 1993 AIDS benefit compilation album, turns 30 today. www.stereogum.com/1541231/n…
Made the mistake of telling my family I’ve had “Like a Rock” in my head all day, and now my family is streaming Bob Seger videos and old Chevy commercials.
“More than one-fifth of college students are parents, and about one-tenth are single mothers.” www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…
Here are some pictures of my cat sleeping like a weirdo. 🐱
My biggest complaint about the slow, excruciating car crash of Twitter/X is that all of my journalist friends moved to Bsky and all my geek friends moved to Mastodon.
One of the stranger parts of watching Golden Bachelor, which otherwise mimics the shiny gloss of the rest of the franchise, is how much they openly discuss death, grief and dying. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…
Hilariously (sadly? regretfully?), since I’ve been writing online for public audiences since about 1997, I’ve been thinking about the art of posting, community building, and who benefits and how, for a very long time. All of this (https://blog.ayjay.org/the-three-paths-of-micro-blog/) sounds about right, specifically:
“…it will — by design — never be a place for you to monetize your brand, troll, shitpost, or become an influencer. But hey, there are plenty of other platforms better suited for that kind of thing. Micro.blog is better suited for the more human and humane paths I have identified here.”
“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.
“Only in the mid-nineteenth century, after the growth of industrial cities and a rash of urban riots—after dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed dread of the state—did police departments emerge in the United States.”
I’m a dummy, but I can’t log into mastodon.social since connecting with micro.blog. What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to log in elsewhere?
Microblogging on the open web - and why care? book.micro.blog
My phone camera has been busted for most of the summer, but tonight I have an appointment to get it fixed. When it is, it’s all over for you suckers (I’m going to post a lot of photos).
While noodling around on other things, I ran across the omg.lol domain (https://home.omg.lol/), clicked around, found Neatnik (https://neatnik.net/), and this fun PHP project where he created a year-long calendar that automatically resizes to fit a single page.
When I realized I’ve read more about him than by him, I had to rectify that problem. So many of the geopolitical problems he discusses are still relevant, and Baldwin’s voice is as clear and urgent as ever.
