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I love music critics when we agree on good music. Glad to see this album is getting some positive attention after the lame Pitchfork review. I want to hear more from these guys!
sonlux:Amazing to hear this come through the NPR app on my iPhone just now without warning… A really nice review of s / s / s on All Things Considered. Thanks, Robert Christgau!
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Awesome!
mutemath:FLAVA-FLAV!!!! ….is at the wrong terminal. Hope he makes his flight. (Taken with instagram)
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Me and Metronomy. Get their new record “The English Riviera”. You will love it. #metronomy (Taken with instagram)
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http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/28573-is-kony-2012-good-or-bad →
Caitlin, you probably already posted this, but I am not going to search through one of your absurdly long link lists. This article is spot on! Problem is that the thoughtful, graceful response is never seen by the general public.
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Having a singular musical vision and a unique sound is so much better than being virtuosic. The latter just requires lots of practice, the former requires the painful process of discovering who you are, and what you have to offer the world. Although, If you have something to say that is uniquely you, virtuosity can’t hurt.
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The Jeremy Lin Problem →
I figured this was just some more hate for religious/Christian athletes in public spotlight, but the title is a misnomer. Good article that grapples with some of the big complications of being human.
”Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.” -
It is a blessing and having a curse having a brain that tends to overanalyze. For example, I was at Starbucks today and a I was greeted by a barista that I have talked with a few times. We had a class in community college a few years back, and I have seen her at this particular Starbucks a few times so she knows me by name. While I sat down with my coffee, I thought to myself how I should probably casually say “goodbye [her name]” as I leave. Unfortunately, her name just would not come to me.
It really bothered me that I couldn’t recall the name. It was not that the girl was of particular importance to me— it just irritated me that a name I have said several times would not come to mind. In fact, it bothered me so much that I started considering an algorithm that would help me remember peoples’ names, perhaps through an interactive website.
I figured I could guess the age of a person, and look up popular names close enough to the year in which the individual was born. I went down the list of names for a particular year, and found several similar sounding names, and eventually the correct name for the barista jumped out at me: “Alice!” All the similar sounding names I found during my search were categorically alike in that they had an “A” sound (open mouth, contracted throat— that sound) sound and/or a “sss” sound— so I had the start of a potential algorithm. I went on to do this with several acquaintances I couldn’t quite remember the names of at the moment, and I figured their names out, so I knew I must be brilliant (this was the coffee talking).I told my roommates about this when I got home, and they both seemed intrigued enough by the idea (a little bit at least). So I talked about all the tricks I had learned, and discussed the potential popularity of a name-finding website. Before we were talking to long, one roommate stopped me and said, “Why didn’t you just look at her name tag?” This incredibly simple option had never even occurred to me while I was at Starbucks— I was just dumbfounded when I realized I had avoided the simplest option for finding the name of just about any employee anywhere.
So there you go, it is possibly a blessing that I have the ability to think of things in an intense, analytical way. It is a curse that I am able to ignore some of the most obvious, easiest options for the simple motions of life. One of the biggest difficulties of life is this: being comfortable as the unique person that God created you to be. Normal is extremely alluring at times, but it is never achievable.
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One person’s sure is not always as sure as another persons sure
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Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.
– C.S. Lewis, as quoted in “The Meaning of Marriage” by Timothy Keller. -
I just came to a big realization today— I can’t be all my musical idols. It has been increasingly frustrating making music, because I can never sound quite like [insert name here]. I expect myself to make music just like all my favorite artists, but it is just not a realistic expectation at all. How could I possibly be just like all my favorite artists?
Mutemath is a band of three seasoned musicians from New Orleans (well except for Darren). James Blake is a crooner/keyboardist/producer from England. My favorite Afro-pop artists like Kanda Bongo Man and Fela are from AFRICA and grew up listening to completely different music. Phoenix are self-taught musicians from France. The list goes on and on. The point is— my musical background is way different than the artists I love, and I shouldn’t expect myself to sound just like them.
