september is not cromulent
modern art is good actually
it is september so i am struggling a lot. i am also struggling to write or talk about it. i hate september every year i hate september.
here’s a rough list of the things i am struggling with right now:
my job
my reading
money
focusing
diminishing my ambient level of frustration
also diminishing my peak levels of frustration
keeping track of my responsibilities
practicing things
doing things that i enjoy doing
doing things that i don’t enjoy doing
drinking water
finishing projects
starting projects
i have been watching a lot of tiktok lately and tiktok shows me a lot of stuff that i don’t care about but now i have developed opinions on them so here you go. also some rapid fire music, books, and movies opinions:
sports betting has ruined modern sports. the official espn tiktok page often implies that athletes are literally changing the outcomes of games to control the outcomes of bets. espn has its own sportsbook. every ad for sports is a gambling ad. every athlete is sponsored by a sportsbook. there’s so much goddamn money in it that it’s touching everything. my prediction is that sportsbetting will hit this generation of athletes like steroids hit late 90s early 2000s baseball.
brooklyn99 is copaganda. no i don’t wanna hear it it’s copaganda. much of the storylines are literal cop procedural propaganda storylines told with comedic effect but the underlying truth of it is there: the show puts you on the side of the cops and then leverages your connection with the characters to gain your support for them violating the rights of the other characters on the show. peralta is probably the most consistent example of this. but also the copaganda is deeper than that because they make it seem like other cops would oppose a cop breaking the law, when we know for a fact that doesn’t happen. funny show with funny writers and great actors but it’s unwatchable copaganda bullshit. should’ve chosen a better environment.
porter robinson is a fucking hack his music is god awful and he’s so fucking annoying
chappell roan’s pretty good actually. sounds like if lucy dacus was made for people that are into drag (laudatory).
vince mcmahon is unfathomably evil
joey valence & brae are actually pretty good. they’re like if beastie boys were chasers
2666 by bolano is nothing short of a masterpiece. absolutely unbelievable book that i’ll be thinking about for the rest of my life. incredible. phenomenal. 2666 felt like a work of impossible depth, impeccable insight and characterization, and an almost overblown narrative style. certainly one of the best books I've ever read and definitely worthy of revisiting, analyzing, and contemplating. I am planning on reading everything else Bolaño has written. I can't stop thinking about it or talking about it. i feel so moved and effected by it. the writing style is intense and often crude. many of the characters feel, on the surface, poorly developed, but on second thought are nuanced. it reminded me heavily of reading large Russian novels due to the vast variance in subject and focus, and the willingness of bolaño to delve into a side characters history in order to fully develop a piece of the book. truly excellent. top tier.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is pretty good. slow start but then it becomes compelling. i don't think it deserves much of the praise it has received (#1 book of the 21st century is atrocious) but it is certainly a standout work. it felt as though Ferrante was doing for mid-20th century Italy what Virginia Woolf did for turn of the century england: powerful characterization, sociocultural psychological investigations, mundane settings, and a distinct writing style. for me, nothing can touch Woolf, but i have enjoyed this book. I probably won't read the sequels.
but did you die by precious okoyomon is another great work by precious. precious is one of my favorite artists and also a good friend of mine and this book exceeded all of my (high) expectations. precious is phenomenal at playing with grammar, diction, style, and theme, but i find their creativity in presentation to bring it all together. great book of poetry, and it’s velvet! very cool.
dream scenario sucked. not good. felt like the movie couldn't decide on a tone. really boring, didn't hold my attention, not a single likable character.
dune 2 was fine. probably a good movie but the dune world just doesn't do anything for me. and im sick of timothy chalamet. watching it felt like watching star wars: boring, too much politics
a quiet place: day 1 - terrible. first "a quiet place" movie i've seen and conceptually it's just fucking dumb. the evil creatures attack anything that makes noise, and are afraid of water, but when it rains the characters just sit inside and scream under the cover of the storm??? no one thinks to go to a waterfall or the beach or anywhere? the whole tension of the movie is based on the premise of "what would happen if someone accidentally made noise when in a high stress situation" which means that every single moment of stress in the movie is caused by one of the characters being fucking stupid. either chasing a cat or kicking a can when running or any other number of dumb stuff. really really dumb concept and bad execution. lupita is incredible though honestly worth it for her
one thing i liked about living in denver was the fall. the leaves changed colors at the right time and i could see it happening from our balcony every morning. i liked that we lived walking distance from a bunch of coffee shops and they’d all start selling their seasonal drinks at the same time and i could go pick up a horchata latte and walk down 7th to cheesman and all of the leaves would be changing. i’d listen to whitney houston or joanna newsom or joni mitchell and smoke a joint under a tree and read rilke or someone. it was one of the better things about denver.
some music i’ve been enjoying lately:
Housey Doingz - A Sillybration
Basilaris - Hieratic Style
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing In The Hands (2004)
Screama - Bassline Classics
Bashy - Being Poor is Expensive
Logic1000 - Mother
Hannah Frances - Keeper of the Shepherd
DJ Airwalk - Run With It
Angie Pastor - I Hope You Know
Nilüfer Yanya - My Method Actor
che - Sayso Says
Dillom - Por cesárea
Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal
Dorothy Carter - Troubadour
Fake Fruit - Mucho Mistrust
Fink - Beauty In Your Wake
Fontaines D.C. - Romance
Fred again.. - ten days
girl in red & Sabrina Carpenter - I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!
Heems - VEENA
Joey Valence & Brae - NO HANDS
Ka - The Thief Next To Jesus
Liniker - CAJU
Los Bitchos - Talkie Talkie
Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk
MAVI - shadowbox
Nala Sinephro - Endlessness
Neekeetone - proDUCKtion
Parannoul - Sky Hundred
SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING
Tigran Hamasyan - The Bird Of A Thousand Voices
Vijay Iyer - Compassion
Floating Points - Cascade
Radical Son - Bilambiyal
Denzel Curry & Armani White - King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2
Nilüfer Yanya - My Method Actor
Angie Pastor - I Hope You Know
Makhfirat Khamrakulova - Synthesizing the Silk Roads: Uzbek Disco, Tajik Folktronica, Uyghur Rock & Tatar Jazz from 1980s Soviet Central Asia
Couch Slut - You Could Do It Tonight
Bugzy Malone - The Great British Dream
Pina Palau - Get A Dog
Gremlinz & Jesta - The Lee Garden Historical Preservation Society
got a lot of new stuff to listen to. i’m excited about these albums but i haven’t heard them yet:
Kid Sundance - Meer Seconden
Michael Mayer - The Floor Is Lava
Aizo Clutch - Frznghöst
Elodie - Bohemian
Knxwledge. - WT.22
Rapha Mundi - 31521 EP
Hidden Sequence, Milly James - Legends / All I Need
Phiik, LUNGS, Lord Jah Monte Ogbon, Elric - Carrot Season
Allegra Krieger - Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine
Chow Lee - SEX DRIVE
Nubya Garcia - Odyssey
Future - MIXTAPE PLUTO
Jamie xx - In Waves
Sophie, Kim Petras, BC Kingdom - SOPHIE
Quadeca - SCRAPYARD
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Bell That Never Stops Ringing
Lemoncello - Lemoncello
Stefan Vincent - Post Melancholy (LP)
Laila! - GAP YEAR!
Khruangbin - A LA SALA
and here’s a playlist for your trouble:
Gremlinz & Jesta - Into Void
Water From Your Eyes - Someone Like You
Nala Sinephro - Continuum 5
Marv Won - Measuring Stick (feat. Fatt Father & Elzhi)
DJ Lucky - Lost Without U
Julian Cannonball Adderley - Autumn Leaves
Colin Stetson - The Augur
Magdalena Bay - Image
Nilüfer Yanya - Binding
Bashy - Sweet Boys Turned Sour
Denzel Curry - HOT ONE
Floating Points - Key103
Neekeetone - No Brakes
MAVI - tether
Shay Hazan - Vibe Jadid
Ka - Cross You Bear
namesbliss - Iniesta Flow
Pina Palau - Get A Dog
Sonic Boom, Panda Bear & Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Perez - Viviendo en las sequelas (Livin’ in the After) (Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Perez Version)
Astral Underground - Middleweight
Logic1000 - Heartbeat
SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - SORRY PORE INJECTOR
mega:
https://mega.nz/folder/bY8nnJqR#CCi3_93C_1yr_im4z9KtBw
youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4bUgvWbrZGKQXM1Z7x0kxsxnDkXrgv5S