I’m so grateful that we’re having a proper fall.
Recent Posts
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Frisson
When I got my new tube-based headphone amp/preamp, I got chills when listening to certain music. Apparently, this is phenomena called “frisson.”
Frisson happens when multiple parts of your brain activate at once, especially the areas responsible for processing sound and those tied to emotion and reward. Research shows that people who experience frisson more often tend to have stronger connections between these regions, allowing them to respond more intensely to music. Your body follows that signal as your nervous system activates, your skin reacts, and your heart rate can shift slightly, creating a response that feels immediate and physical while still being rooted in emotion.
→ What Is Frisson? The Science Behind Why Music Gives You Chills
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Natural Orchestra
My wife related to me that she was glad we use Qobuz for our music streaming service, since she had read it was one of the more ethical services in terms of artist payments. I’m happy to see ethics driving consumer decisions around what services to use.
I remember, in the 90s, some friends telling me not to eat at Wendy’s because Dave Thomas supported “conservative causes.” I read a biography of Dave Thomas. He was an orphan and the main cause he championed was orphanages. As Johnny Depp’s character says in John Waters’ Cry Baby, “orphans have special needs.” Somehow the plight of those without parents became coded as conservative and my friends were definitely against it. After that conversation, I finally felt like I understood the phrase “kneejerk liberal,” which was a fairly common one in those days.
Now, those same friends are on X and Spotify. Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, directs a lot of his money and investments into defense tech. Elon Musk, CEO of X, just gave over $100 million to the campaign of disgraced Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, so that corruption could remain the coin of the realm in Texas.
I wonder if this happens as a result of apathy that develops over time.
Jonas Downey writes about people returning to X.
But I’m not here to argue with people making their own personal choices. We live in the reign of oligarch capitalism, and everybody has to make whatever ethical compromises they’re willing to stomach within that system. (Some of y’all have some really questionable stomachs, but I digress.)
I am here to argue that your social media participation has value, and chickening out on this issue is just cowardice wrapped up in excuses.
Downey goes on to relate how, in the case of social media, participation is what gives the network its power and what allows it to generate ad revenue. If everyone stopped posting to X, it would die. Attention and use is currency. It’s our currency to spend however we feel is right. Sometimes, it’s literally the only thing we can do to try and make a difference.
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Turtle Bay
A few years ago, I came across the UK-based band Softer Still on a sophistipop covers compilation, just before they released their debut album, Nuances. I fell in love with their pure dream pop sound and bought Nuances on vinyl as soon as it was released. The dreamy combination of jangly guitars and bouncy bass with a sort of sophistipop sheen scratches a certain musical itch. Though honestly almost every song on their debut album is a single worthy of the video treatment, “Turtle Bay” stands out.
My only regret is that the band seems to have hung up their instruments shortly after the release of their one album. We haven’t heard from them in years.
Softer Still – Turtle Bay (YouTube)
There’s also a found footage video to accompany “Turtle Bay” and it’s quite lovely in its own way.
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Mona Lisa
I have been marveling at the new Wishy song “Mona Lisa” and the band’s ability to fit musical references to both the Velvet Underground and a Sunday School staple in a single tune. I knew that the VU reference (to the song “Femme Fatale”) was intentional, but I wasn’t totally sure about the music from “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy (Down In My Heart)” Could it have just been a coincidence?
Well, I’m kind of a dummy, and of course it wasn’t a coincidence, as Hayden Merrick points out in a review of the new Wishy album Nature’s Pill.
It’s not a coincidence that Wishy interpolate both “Femme Fatale” by the Velvet Underground and a Bible class singalong within the same track. They never sing the actual words to “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, down in my heart”—that Sunday school staple you may know from The Simpsons—but the sentiment is heavily implied when the melody tumbles over the outro of “Mona Lisa.” _Nature’s Pill, Wishy’s second album, is all about love’s dangerous intoxication (fatale_ of course meaning deadly) and how, when it goes south, you’ve got everything you need within yourself. The track’s final lyric: “Still life so incomplete now / I’m filling it out myself.” Another case in point, from the record’s closing moments: “Heaven is a state of mind.”
I feel I need to point out that I wasn’t familiar with the Bible class standard from The Simpsons. I was familiar with it from, you know, going to church. I guess that’s not the reference point most of the heathen readers would get ;).
Wishy – Mona Lisa (Bandcamp)
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Choosin’ Texas
I have seen a few references to a song called “Choosin’ Texas” by an artist named Ella Langley beating out Mariah Carey for the longest-running No. 1 song of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. The surprise in all this is I’ve never heard of Ella Langley or the song that broke the record. I haven’t been into popular music since I was a kid and married to the radio, but I had an awareness of what people were listening to.
John Herreid notes the strange period we are in with respect to popular music.
Moving radio and television to on-demand streaming means there’s no longer a common culture for stuff like this.
Like, in 2005 if you never heard of a #1 hit it was because you were an insufferable elitist hipster. In 2026 it just means you listen to Spotify or similar.
The video and song are full of the self-referential material that themes most country. Exaggerated accented twangs, territorial regionalism, bars and booze. I’ve heard stronger hooks in radio friendly chart toppers, but the song has a fairly powerful chorus and the narrative video helps to convey its emotion. Langley is attractive in the way marketable contemporary country music stars often are. In other words, one of the stronger of the typical country songs and presentations, but certainly nothing that takes your breath away and screams this deserves to reign as undisputed champion of the airwaves.
Ella Langley – Choosin’ Texas (YouTube)
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Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Autumn Day – Rainer Maria Rilke
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing. -
Mountains of the Drowning
The Atlantic lets you read their articles free through RSS. Nevertheless, I like to share articles, and so I sometimes think about getting a subscription.1 However, when I read pieces like this one from Jonathan Chait defending female Democratic politicians being abusive, it dampens my desire to pay.
Chait wonders why people make a big deal when Representative Mary Peltola physically assaults someone at work. I mean, as Chait brings up, the guy didn’t die! Do you know how much trouble you would be in (if you were still employed) if you shoved somebody where I work? As Chait goes on, it becomes apparent that he believes female Democratic politicians should have license to assault people at the office.
This is another one of the mountains of examples of where the journos at mainstream media don’t seem to understand the world the rest of us live in.
- My sister used to gift me a subscription for my birthday every year until they raised prices. ↩︎
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Feed Confusion
I’ve gotten myself in a confused state with regard to my RSS and social media feeds.
- I’m using Reeder, which allows you to follow RSS, Mastodon, Bluesky and Micro.blog feeds. I’m following all four of those in a jumble.
- I’m also using Indigo, which can follow Bluesky and Mastodon feeds.
- I like the native experience, so I’m using the Bluesky app and site. I also use the Micro.blog app and site.
All this means I see posts multiple times. Since I’m only really using one RSS reader (Reeder), disentangling from this mess will mostly mean being more deliberate about my social media following. I’ll have to unwind where I’m following what people, which could take a while.
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I just read Dario Amodei’s convincing “We Must Pace the Frontier.” Much has to go right in his plans to create measurable effect, and with our current administration against policing AI companies for fear of giving China an advantage, I’m less than optimistic.
Good thing I read this piece by Cal Newport to dampen the effect of the rhetoric and balance things out.