The template for how to respond to Trump’s illegal bombing
Jun. 22nd, 2025 05:41 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
lawyersgunsmoneyblog_feedThis is perfect:
That’s how you do it. Brief, direct, clear on both the substance and the procedure. Much better than the statements the Dem leadership put out. This is the model to follow.
The post The template for how to respond to Trump’s illegal bombing appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.
(no subject)
Jun. 22nd, 2025 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thawreckaMovies: I just watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) this week, which was creepy fun, if a little slow for me. (I felt that it had a cracking pace in the beginning, then really slowed down; the people in my horror club mostly felt the opposite.) Creepy from the beginning, especially with that doll, showing off a particular horror of the child star. Bette Davis is like a haunted doll come to life in this, but Joan Crawford keeps pace with her. They are so good at their characters' particular varieties of co-dependent dysfunction, and the twist at the end (which you can see coming, tbh) just intensifies the horror of what they've done to each other. And I know Joan Crawford was an odious person but, my gosh, she was so beautiful.
TBH, though, some of the other camp, like the voice acting on a couple of side characters, was a little too much for me, and I did think it dragged at some points, so it wasn't unqualified enjoyment for me.
Bleach: I have continued my watch and I've now finished 212. I enjoyed the flashback arc. Urahara is so terrible 💔 sometimes I love his terribleness and sometimes he's just the worst. ( Read more... )
Random, but I do always laugh at the backstory that reveals why Hisagi has 69 tattooed on his face.
I thought maybe if I'm getting back into Bleach I should also get back into Naruto, but when I reread the first few chapters of that I mostly felt too old for it 🤣 Last time I read Naruto I think I dropped it one arc after the timeskip. I got to see some cool Gaara stuff and then was like, okay, I'm done. I feel like Bleach I can reread because it's slightly more mature, even if not actually particularly mature. Like, at least he's 15 when it starts and half the characters are 100+ years old.
Weirdly on this reread & watch I've gotten really hyped by Kenpachi's moments of mature adult-ness?! Like obviously mostly he's there for a bit of biffo, but I love the flashback where he tells Ikkaku to knock it off with the death wish and grow tf up, and the bit in Hueco Mundo where he tells Ichigo it's not his job to save everyone and everything because the captains are there to do that.
TBH, though, some of the other camp, like the voice acting on a couple of side characters, was a little too much for me, and I did think it dragged at some points, so it wasn't unqualified enjoyment for me.
Bleach: I have continued my watch and I've now finished 212. I enjoyed the flashback arc. Urahara is so terrible 💔 sometimes I love his terribleness and sometimes he's just the worst. ( Read more... )
Random, but I do always laugh at the backstory that reveals why Hisagi has 69 tattooed on his face.
I thought maybe if I'm getting back into Bleach I should also get back into Naruto, but when I reread the first few chapters of that I mostly felt too old for it 🤣 Last time I read Naruto I think I dropped it one arc after the timeskip. I got to see some cool Gaara stuff and then was like, okay, I'm done. I feel like Bleach I can reread because it's slightly more mature, even if not actually particularly mature. Like, at least he's 15 when it starts and half the characters are 100+ years old.
Weirdly on this reread & watch I've gotten really hyped by Kenpachi's moments of mature adult-ness?! Like obviously mostly he's there for a bit of biffo, but I love the flashback where he tells Ikkaku to knock it off with the death wish and grow tf up, and the bit in Hueco Mundo where he tells Ichigo it's not his job to save everyone and everything because the captains are there to do that.
[Music] Midnight Shine - Heart of Gold
Jun. 21st, 2025 10:53 pmyuuagoMidnight Shine - "Heart of Gold" (Youtube link)
Heard this cover of Neil Young's song on the radio today; loved it and had to share. The final verse is translated into Cree and it sounds really good!
I haven't heard of this band before. Will have to look them up more later, 'cause I really like what I hear.
Heard this cover of Neil Young's song on the radio today; loved it and had to share. The final verse is translated into Cree and it sounds really good!
I haven't heard of this band before. Will have to look them up more later, 'cause I really like what I hear.
Write Every Day Day 21
Jun. 22nd, 2025 12:48 amcornerofmadness
Still struggling to finish the last Yahtzee story. 969 more words on it
Let me know what day you’re reporting in for. If I've missed you on the tally let me know. Feel free to jump in at any time.
Day twenty -one
china_shop, badly_knitted, goddess47, sylvanwitch, cornerofmadness, nafs, trobadora, cmk418( other days )
Halfway Home
Jun. 21st, 2025 11:19 pmbillroperI got through another three songs today, adding new guitar tracks and sometimes new scratch vocals. This gets me halfway through the album.
I also found *another* song that I have shifted to a different key since I recorded the scratch tracks, so that's been rebuilt now. I'm looking at the lyric sheet which clearly indicates that the song is in E and then I start the playback and hear my cheerful announcement that the song is in the key of A.
No, no, it is not. Not any more...
I also found *another* song that I have shifted to a different key since I recorded the scratch tracks, so that's been rebuilt now. I'm looking at the lyric sheet which clearly indicates that the song is in E and then I start the playback and hear my cheerful announcement that the song is in the key of A.
No, no, it is not. Not any more...
Updates
Jun. 21st, 2025 08:19 pmcahnIn case you're wondering what happened with all the stuff from my last RL post :)
- I registered A. for another school (the close-by Catholic school) in case the Head doesn't end up finding them teachers, but it sounds like he probably will, he's got two out of the three teacher slots filled already and is seriously talking to a candidate for the third. Although uh we have some inside info that one of them might not be the best, but we'll see. Anyway I think the most likely outcome is that we will stay at current!school for the next year and seriously think about changing schools (probably either the aforementioned Catholic school or the local homeschool charter that everyone loves) for sixth grade. It sounds like most of his class at current!school is staying for the next year, and it's a nice class -- the thing I was most worried about was all the other kids leaving. Thank goodness school is over now and everyone has better things to do than to perpetuate drama.
- Though one thing: I told AwesomeTeacher (who has no plans to leave) that I expected that DramaParent (the one who has orchestrated the whole school coup) would try to recruit her too, and lo, this happened at the 8th grade graduation. (AT, who is extremely angry about this whole thing, not least because she did not expect to have to worry about whether the school was going to collapse and whether she was therefore going to have a job next year, was like, uh... now I will ignore what you just said and talk to these other nice parents over here!)
- E pulled her grade from a B to a B to a B+/A- to a (low) A on her English paper on her three rewrites (and rightly so: I did agree that her first rewrite was cosmetic, her second rewrite was fundamentally better, and her last rewrite improved it nontrivially as well). I suspect to get a high A or A+ you'd need to think in a rather more sophisticated fashion than E actually does. Anyway, she got an A for the class, so she was very relieved. (In fact due to the wonders of grade inflation she realized she would probably have been able to pull out an A+ for the class if she'd got a better grade on her kid tessellation story, but we both agreed it was not worth it to rewrite that one -- it doesn't actually impact her GPA computation, and also it's useful for her to improve her skills in writing analysis-type papers but not so useful to improve her skills in writing children's booksunless she plans to do Yuletide in the future, which she doesn't)
- I am so close to finishing that silly blanket, I have finally put the squares together and I just have one round of the border left and it is like zeno's blanket
- I registered A. for another school (the close-by Catholic school) in case the Head doesn't end up finding them teachers, but it sounds like he probably will, he's got two out of the three teacher slots filled already and is seriously talking to a candidate for the third. Although uh we have some inside info that one of them might not be the best, but we'll see. Anyway I think the most likely outcome is that we will stay at current!school for the next year and seriously think about changing schools (probably either the aforementioned Catholic school or the local homeschool charter that everyone loves) for sixth grade. It sounds like most of his class at current!school is staying for the next year, and it's a nice class -- the thing I was most worried about was all the other kids leaving. Thank goodness school is over now and everyone has better things to do than to perpetuate drama.
- Though one thing: I told AwesomeTeacher (who has no plans to leave) that I expected that DramaParent (the one who has orchestrated the whole school coup) would try to recruit her too, and lo, this happened at the 8th grade graduation. (AT, who is extremely angry about this whole thing, not least because she did not expect to have to worry about whether the school was going to collapse and whether she was therefore going to have a job next year, was like, uh... now I will ignore what you just said and talk to these other nice parents over here!)
- E pulled her grade from a B to a B to a B+/A- to a (low) A on her English paper on her three rewrites (and rightly so: I did agree that her first rewrite was cosmetic, her second rewrite was fundamentally better, and her last rewrite improved it nontrivially as well). I suspect to get a high A or A+ you'd need to think in a rather more sophisticated fashion than E actually does. Anyway, she got an A for the class, so she was very relieved. (In fact due to the wonders of grade inflation she realized she would probably have been able to pull out an A+ for the class if she'd got a better grade on her kid tessellation story, but we both agreed it was not worth it to rewrite that one -- it doesn't actually impact her GPA computation, and also it's useful for her to improve her skills in writing analysis-type papers but not so useful to improve her skills in writing children's books
- I am so close to finishing that silly blanket, I have finally put the squares together and I just have one round of the border left and it is like zeno's blanket
(no subject)
Jun. 21st, 2025 11:00 pmsorcyressToday was my third pride! I am realizing I never got around to posting all the bits from my second pride, last weekend, so let's do that first:
( here are the notes from Boston pride a week ago, written in a series of texts )
***
Today was Providence Pride! It was a very different experience from Boston Pride, but still really wonderful and valuable! The biggest differences were a) the weather was the _polar opposite_ and I had to worry about heatstroke instead of my fingers going numb and b) I was attending with people instead of alone.
The latter made it much less of a quasi-spiritual experience. I only cried once, and only a very little bit, not proper sobbing --it was when I found the Mama Dragons group, who had a big sign at their booth that read "Fight like a MOTHER for trans rights". They are such a good group! Fuck yeah!
I think the real thing is that when I am with other people I am a somewhat different person than when I'm alone. I'm compelled to be more stable, which is mostly a good thing, but also just...I dunno. I have to be around only people I feel very safe around in order to be my proper weirdest, or I have to be around total strangers who I will never meet again.
But the people I were with were so good! Tuesday and I went to pride together, and it was very fun to go to A Queer Event as a unit. SamSam was passing through on their own adventures, so we found them soon after we arrived and the three of us spent about fifteen minutes sitting in some cozy shade behind a bush, which was almost pleasant weather-wise. After they went off on their next bit of biking, Tuesday and I met up with a friend of kers called Chris who ke knows through Tech House and Puzzling.
Tuesday and Chris and I spent most of the afternoon together --probably from like 3 until they had to catch a train at nearly 8. We toured some booths, ate from some food trucks, sat in the shade, and toured more booths. I think by the end of it we had probably seen all the booths at the little pride fair, although it was laid out a little roundabout in a way that might've caused us to miss a few. I got some nice bits of swag, including a very explicitly queer patch from GSSNE (Girl Scouts Southeastern New England) and an even better rainbow fan than the one I got last week (this one has PoC and trans stripes, the other just has the core six).
Chris turned out to be very fun to talk to, and we definitely had a few moments of "oof, are you me?!" as we chatted about various forms of sluttery and other fun. It was also neat to get to *chinhands* as they shared various forms of college drama with Tuesday, and I could learn some secret scandals from my partner's life before me. I am a simple man with simple pleasures!
Attending the fair was lovely, but as mentioned it was _brutal_ hot and bright out. I realized eventually that part of the problem was that my Very Cute Sunglasses are just slightly off prescription-wise from my regular sunglasses --not enough to be an immediate problem, but if I am wearing them for five hours straight, it starts to make my body unhappy. I went in the mist tent for a bit to cool down, and then we sat somewhere shaded enough that I could swap out for my regular glasses and take an ibuprofen, all of which helped. On the plus side, neither Tuesday nor I appear to have any sunburn! We brought our own sunscreen, but I did heartily approve of the multiple (mostly mom-like) people at the event who had bottles of their own that they were offering to everyone.
Chris had to catch a train, so they couldn't join me and Tuesday for the parade, which happens after the fair in PVD. We missed the very beginning, but caught most of it, and did lots of cheering and whooping and the like. I had happy screams for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence again (although apparently I have a much less strong reaction to them when they are in short cute sun-dresses as opposed to their full nun robes). We ogled some pole dancers doing good work, and very much enjoyed a local horror group who were strutting around kinkily while wearing very little clothing.
I also howled real good for the puppy players, and when they stopped for a little bit just in front of us, I wound up giving one of them a bunch of scritches and making sure he'd been drinking water and telling him he was a good boy. I have known for a long time that I really enjoy interacting with pups, and I wish I had more excuses to hang with them. Maybe I should try and go back to Frolicon some year?
The city was chockablock full of hot queers, and it was delightful. That's my favourite part of any pride, just heaps of little positive interactions with My Community. Smiles and compliments and blown kisses and lusty stares and all having a very wonderful time!
Happy Pride, y'all!
~Sor
MOOP!
( here are the notes from Boston pride a week ago, written in a series of texts )
***
Today was Providence Pride! It was a very different experience from Boston Pride, but still really wonderful and valuable! The biggest differences were a) the weather was the _polar opposite_ and I had to worry about heatstroke instead of my fingers going numb and b) I was attending with people instead of alone.
The latter made it much less of a quasi-spiritual experience. I only cried once, and only a very little bit, not proper sobbing --it was when I found the Mama Dragons group, who had a big sign at their booth that read "Fight like a MOTHER for trans rights". They are such a good group! Fuck yeah!
I think the real thing is that when I am with other people I am a somewhat different person than when I'm alone. I'm compelled to be more stable, which is mostly a good thing, but also just...I dunno. I have to be around only people I feel very safe around in order to be my proper weirdest, or I have to be around total strangers who I will never meet again.
But the people I were with were so good! Tuesday and I went to pride together, and it was very fun to go to A Queer Event as a unit. SamSam was passing through on their own adventures, so we found them soon after we arrived and the three of us spent about fifteen minutes sitting in some cozy shade behind a bush, which was almost pleasant weather-wise. After they went off on their next bit of biking, Tuesday and I met up with a friend of kers called Chris who ke knows through Tech House and Puzzling.
Tuesday and Chris and I spent most of the afternoon together --probably from like 3 until they had to catch a train at nearly 8. We toured some booths, ate from some food trucks, sat in the shade, and toured more booths. I think by the end of it we had probably seen all the booths at the little pride fair, although it was laid out a little roundabout in a way that might've caused us to miss a few. I got some nice bits of swag, including a very explicitly queer patch from GSSNE (Girl Scouts Southeastern New England) and an even better rainbow fan than the one I got last week (this one has PoC and trans stripes, the other just has the core six).
Chris turned out to be very fun to talk to, and we definitely had a few moments of "oof, are you me?!" as we chatted about various forms of sluttery and other fun. It was also neat to get to *chinhands* as they shared various forms of college drama with Tuesday, and I could learn some secret scandals from my partner's life before me. I am a simple man with simple pleasures!
Attending the fair was lovely, but as mentioned it was _brutal_ hot and bright out. I realized eventually that part of the problem was that my Very Cute Sunglasses are just slightly off prescription-wise from my regular sunglasses --not enough to be an immediate problem, but if I am wearing them for five hours straight, it starts to make my body unhappy. I went in the mist tent for a bit to cool down, and then we sat somewhere shaded enough that I could swap out for my regular glasses and take an ibuprofen, all of which helped. On the plus side, neither Tuesday nor I appear to have any sunburn! We brought our own sunscreen, but I did heartily approve of the multiple (mostly mom-like) people at the event who had bottles of their own that they were offering to everyone.
Chris had to catch a train, so they couldn't join me and Tuesday for the parade, which happens after the fair in PVD. We missed the very beginning, but caught most of it, and did lots of cheering and whooping and the like. I had happy screams for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence again (although apparently I have a much less strong reaction to them when they are in short cute sun-dresses as opposed to their full nun robes). We ogled some pole dancers doing good work, and very much enjoyed a local horror group who were strutting around kinkily while wearing very little clothing.
I also howled real good for the puppy players, and when they stopped for a little bit just in front of us, I wound up giving one of them a bunch of scritches and making sure he'd been drinking water and telling him he was a good boy. I have known for a long time that I really enjoy interacting with pups, and I wish I had more excuses to hang with them. Maybe I should try and go back to Frolicon some year?
The city was chockablock full of hot queers, and it was delightful. That's my favourite part of any pride, just heaps of little positive interactions with My Community. Smiles and compliments and blown kisses and lusty stares and all having a very wonderful time!
Happy Pride, y'all!
~Sor
MOOP!
(no subject)
Jun. 21st, 2025 08:57 pmshadowkat1. Finished watching Nonnas on Netflix. It's the true story of a man who decides to open a restaurant in Staten Island featuring the cooking of grandmothers, after his mother dies. Stars Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Braco, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, and Brenda Vaccaro, along with Linda Cappelina (who was in ER and Freaks & Geeks).
I looked it up? It's actually in Staten Island. Open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and features Nonnas of the World - basically grandmothers from around the world come and cook there. It's located on Hyatt Street in the historic district, not far from the Staten Island Ferry - which is free now.
Oh, this is tempting. You need to get reservations in advance, and have a two hour seating. Also, cash only or Vemo. (They don't appear to want to pay the credit card fees.)
Also, they have gluten-free items (clearly a real Italian establishment, you can always tell by the gluten free items on the menu).
It's called Enoteca Maria.
2. The Senate Parliamentarian Cuts Out Chunks of the BigBeautiful Ugly Bill because they violate the Byrd Rule.
( Bill had chunks cut out of it due to the fact they violate the Byrd Rule of Law )
3. Apparently Pope Leo has been sending folks to help stop ICE raids.
Bishop Michael Pham - the first U.S. appointment by Pope Leo - showed up at immigration court along with other religious leaders, in solidarity with immigrants going through the legal process, but where ICE has been arresting people. No ICE arrests were made. San Diego, California.
Go HERE
I looked it up? It's actually in Staten Island. Open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and features Nonnas of the World - basically grandmothers from around the world come and cook there. It's located on Hyatt Street in the historic district, not far from the Staten Island Ferry - which is free now.
Oh, this is tempting. You need to get reservations in advance, and have a two hour seating. Also, cash only or Vemo. (They don't appear to want to pay the credit card fees.)
Also, they have gluten-free items (clearly a real Italian establishment, you can always tell by the gluten free items on the menu).
It's called Enoteca Maria.
2. The Senate Parliamentarian Cuts Out Chunks of the Big
( Bill had chunks cut out of it due to the fact they violate the Byrd Rule of Law )
3. Apparently Pope Leo has been sending folks to help stop ICE raids.
Bishop Michael Pham - the first U.S. appointment by Pope Leo - showed up at immigration court along with other religious leaders, in solidarity with immigrants going through the legal process, but where ICE has been arresting people. No ICE arrests were made. San Diego, California.
Go HERE
Donald the Dove’s bombing of Iran lacks any legal authority
Jun. 22nd, 2025 01:32 amlawyersgunsmoneyblog_feedIf I may once again be forgiven to invoke such quaint anachronisms, Bush’s Bush’s logical successor’s bombing of Iran is not, how you say, legal:
The problem here is that if Congress won’t assert its authority, which it certainly won’t in this case, the legal questions become immaterial on the ground. The combination of an immense standing army and completely supine legislative majorities render any constitutional checks and balances moot.
I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.
But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that “The tools belong to the man who can use them.” We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers…
–Robert Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer
The post Donald the Dove’s bombing of Iran lacks any legal authority appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.
First weekend since March it hadn't rained
Jun. 21st, 2025 09:25 pmcornerofmadnessAnd it hit the 90s so I hit the pool with my brother and SiL so it was a total do nothing day.
And my neighbor here is blowing off fireworks like he's not soft and squishy and full of blood...
I need more hours in a day. Or maybe not waste the hours I have. or maybe write my deadlines down right.
Since I have little to say today let me share another author for Pride If you like SF/F and LGBT works check out my friend, J. Scott Coatsworth He's been very nice about my stuff as Jana and he writes in my genres so he deserves a shout out.
And my neighbor here is blowing off fireworks like he's not soft and squishy and full of blood...
I need more hours in a day. Or maybe not waste the hours I have. or maybe write my deadlines down right.
Since I have little to say today let me share another author for Pride If you like SF/F and LGBT works check out my friend, J. Scott Coatsworth He's been very nice about my stuff as Jana and he writes in my genres so he deserves a shout out.
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
Jun. 21st, 2025 09:02 pmsovayFor whatever it is worth to history, I wish to register that I do not like finding out that we are suddenly at war with Iran. I do not need any more specters of annihilation, nuclear or otherwise. I get enough stress from my regular life.
(These Crusader fantasists. My entire lifetime. Their Armageddon wet dreams. Why will the sand not eat them alone.)
(These Crusader fantasists. My entire lifetime. Their Armageddon wet dreams. Why will the sand not eat them alone.)
Guardian Readalong: Vol. 3, Chapters 13 & 14
Jun. 22nd, 2025 01:09 pmchina_shop posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sid_guardian
Hi, and welcome to this week's installment of the Guardian novel readalong!
Here are last week's chapters, and you can find all previous discussions in the schedule posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), or via the !readalong tag.
This week's chapters:
Chapter 13: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan untangle the truth about the past. Zhao Yunlan recaps the whole saga back to Shen Wei to verify his understanding. Shen Wei recounts his promise to guard the Seal and stay away from Kunlun, and he confesses that he orchestrated all the visions and other events (including Zhao Yunlan seeing him drawing his heart blood) so that Zhao Yunlan would stay with him and they could die (ie, cease to exist) together. Back at the flat, they start making out, then stop to talk about the blood-drinking. They decide to live together like mortals for the next few decades.
Chapter 14: Guo Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi stake out a motorway off-ramp in the freezing cold and search a number of buses to look for a ghost's missing daughter. Chu Shuzhi calls Daqing to ask about Guo Changcheng's flame-coloured merits. Chu Shuzhi slaps a talisman on Changcheng to check he's human. Changcheng finds the missing girl, and Chu Shuzhi arrests the kidnapper.
The corresponding chapters in the Chinese version on JJWXC and the fan translation are chapters [tbc].
Excerpts:
( 1) Primordial Wei looked for Kunlun before they met )
( 2) Wei's deal with Shennong )
( 3) Negotiating the blood drinking )
( 4) Chu Shuzhi and Daqing on the phone )
( 5) Changcheng takes being 'killed' surprisingly calmly )
Questions:
Do you understand the primordial past backstory now? Who comes off worst in this real version of events? How do you feel about Shen Wei going to these lengths to deceive Zhao Yunlan and guilt-trip him into staying with him? What does it mean that Zhao Yunlan called Shen Wei his husband, rather than wife? Would you prefer to be on a stakeout with Guo Changcheng or Chu Shuzhi? Do you have any thoughts about how moments in these chapters affected or were remixed in the drama adaptation?
(As usual, these are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the readalong!)
Our schedule for this round -- please sign up to host a post if you can!
Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter
Jun. 21st, 2025 11:59 pmlawyersgunsmoneyblog_feedThose B-2s headed west from the US? Yeah.
Fordow is the underground site with the more advanced centrifuges. Natanz, another centrifuge site, had already been hit by Israel, but the extent of damage was not known. Esfahan is where the enriched uranium, as UF6 in metal cylinders, was believed to be stored deep underground.
This is all the information we’ve got right now.
The post Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.
Music Notes
Jun. 21st, 2025 11:00 pmlawyersgunsmoneyblog_feed
It’s been a few weeks for one of these, not for any particular reason other than time to listen to the new albums I require before doing one. Usually when there’s a break, it’s because I got overwhelmed by the actual writing, but that’s not the case here. In any case, we’re back!
Two shows to report. First, I saw Steve Earle at the Spire Center in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I had never seen a show here. It’s a converted church and is a nice place to see a small show and seeing Steve Earle in such a space is a good thing. Usually this venue has somewhat smaller acts that also cater to old people, which means a lot of B-level 60s folkies and blues guitarists who wish it was the 60s. Not really my thing. But Asleep at the Wheel is playing there near the end of summer and there’s a chance I would see that. In any case, Earle has been playing for 50 years now and so he is doing songs in the order he wrote them. That’s not the same as recorded, so he starts with “Tom Ames’ Prayer” and “Ben McCulloch,” both songs that didn’t get released until his post-drug album Train a’ Comin‘, which happens to be my favorite of his albums. Then he goes into some of the big songs off Guitar Town, “Copperhead Road,” a bunch of the songs off albums such as I Feel Alright and Transcendental Blues (both of which I find to be just OK albums) and then a couple of his mining songs. Finally, he does “Galway Girl” as a great encore. He’s also telling a lot of stories and these go on for awhile, sometimes possibly too long, though I love the stories about trying to make it in Nashville in the 80s. He’s definitely getting older and his voice is a little more ragged than he used to be, but he’s still quite the character. Very much worth seeing if you can.
Then I saw the Dan Weiss Quartet at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, the last of the spring series that I try to attend a few shows from. This included Weiss on drums, Peter Evans on trumpet, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Miles Okazaki on guitar. This was my 5th time seeing Brennan play, though always in someone else’s band and my 3rd time for Okazaki, also only with others. Had not seen Evans or Weiss before, or even heard of them. It’s a good show though. I got a perfect view of Brennan’s vibraphone and she is just so amazing. In the set I saw, she had a good 5 minute solo, which you don’t see a lot these days in these modern jazz bands, but they really let her go to town and it was pretty great. Weiss also had some lengthy time for himself. Evans mostly played within the band and Okazaki was somewhere in between all that. Not sure that it was the most transcendent show I’ve seen there, but it was certainly beyond worthy, with some pretty super moments. It also never hurts that everyone in this band clearly likes each other and as Weiss said when introducing people, that really matters in the making of semi-improvised music.
I recently read Kelefa Sanneh’s Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. Sanneh, the pop writer for The New Yorker wrote this history of rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance, and pop since 1970 as a way to revisit his own history, to discuss changing tastes, and to consider a world in which critics now like everything and thus mostly say nothing. I mostly liked the book, especially the second half. I appreciated him basically starting in 1970ish, as a way to avoid the tired old histories of Elvis and Dylan and the Stones. I did find his discussions of rock, country, and R&B to be perfectly fine, but less revelatory than the last four. One reason for this is that I know more about the first three’s history. A better reason is that Sanneh was a punk who became a rap fanatic and then someone who has thought harder about dance music than I ever have and who later became famous for his defense of pop against “rockism” back when he wrote for the New York Times. Rockism is the idea that rock bands like Springsteen and U2 are simply better and more authentic than pop music, which is of course complete Boomer bullshit. The default Rock is God world remains strong though. Sanneh is a bit more of a populist than I am. I really do think the lack of outright negative reviews in the music world is a problem, even though at the same time I appreciate how we have stopped letting music divide us into tribes. Everyone likes everything, the absolute opposite of what has happened in our politics. He’s a bit too forgiving of the racism of country music fans too. But a bit too much populism when it comes to art is not actually a bad thing. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot. Can’t ask too much more than that.
In case you didn’t see it, Pitchfork published another essay by our colleague Elizabeth Nelson, this time a retrospective discussion of The Pretenders’ 1984 album Learning to Crawl.
We lost Alf Clausen, the legendary composer for the first seasons of The Simpsons. He was 84.
I’m not particularly convinced that there is a “roots music” moment happening right now, but there are a lot of good artists who have made solid careers for themselves and this article profiles a bunch of them. I’m mixed on the chosen artists–glad to see Charley Crockett here. Billy Strings certainly has gotten rich, but I hate what has happened to bluegrass, which is now just virtuoso jam band bullshit. Anyway, check it out.
I never cared about Katy Perry one way or the other but the former huge pop star has become a punching bag and this is actually an interesting piece about why.
It’s so exciting to know that up until Trump budget slashing, Denver used to sweep Red Rocks for dirty nuclear bombs before every show. I understand that Dave Matthews fans are really high profile targets for nuclear terrorists.
Why Ernest Tubb wrote “Walking the Floor Over You”
Very excited for the new James McMurtry album and he’s been doing interviews and one thing he notes is that he won’t play “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” because he fears it could be coopted by Trumpists.
Playlist for the last few weeks:
- Tom Russell, Road to Bayamon
- PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
- Drive By Truckers, Welcome to Club XIII
- Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 1
- Tammy Wynette, Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad
- Patterson Hood, Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance
- Hank Thompson, Seven Decades
- Thumbscrew, Multicolored Midnight
- Bill Frisell, East/West, disc 2
- Bonnie Prince Billy, Best Troubador
- Kacey Chambers, Backbone
- Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel
- Mitski, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We
- Feeble Little Horse, Girl with Fish
- Miguel, Wildheart
- Jamila Woods, Water Made Us
- LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening
- Bill Miller, The Red Road
- Eric Revis, Slipknots Through the Looking Glass
- Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie
- Matthew Shipp, New Orbit
- Torres, self-titled
- La Santa Cecilia, Amar y Vivir
- Loretta Lynn, The Definitive Collection
- The Freight Hoppers, Where’d You Come From, Where’d You Go
- Justin Townes Earle, Kids in the Street
- Neil Young, On the Beach
- Ryley Walker, Deafman Glance
- Mabe Fratti, Sentir Que No Sabes
- Billy Bang Sextet, Live at Carlos
- Wadada Leo Smith, America’s National Parks, disc 2
- Dwight Yoakam, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room
- The Hold Steady, Almost Killed Me
- Waylon Jennings, Waylon Live, disc 2
- Wussy, Ghosts (x2)
- Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
- Wussy, Left for Dead
- Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
- Ray Price, Another Bridge to Burn
- Butch Hancock, West Texas Waltzes
- William Parker, Long Hidden: The Olmec Series
- Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter
- Mount Moriah, How to Dance
- Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man
- New Grass Revival, On the Boulevard
- Matt Sweeney & Bonnie Prince Billy, Superwovles
- Torres, self-titled
- Yo La Tengo, Stuff Like That There
- Drive By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, disc 2
- David S. Ware, Surrendered
- Adam O’Farrill, For These Streets
- Purple Mountains, self-titled
- Neil Young, Harvest
- Del McCoury Band & Steve Earle, The Mountain
- The Hacienda Brothers, What’s Wrong with Right
- Los Lobos, Just Another Band from East L.A., disc 1
- The War on Drugs, Slave Ambient
- Lone Justice, The Western Tapes
- Janelle Monae, Dirty Computer
- La Santa Cecilia, self-titled
- The Band, Northern Lights Southern Cross
- Darius Jones, The Legend of e-Boi
- Townes Van Zandt, Our Mother the Mountain
- Lisa O’Neill, All of This is Chance
- St. Vincent, All Born Screaming
- John Coltrane, Blue Train
- Bill Holman Band, Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk
- Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
- Dave Alvin, Romeo’s Escape
- Palace Music, Lost Blues and Other Songs
- Childbirth, Women’s Rights
- Bill Frisell, Music for the Films of Buster Keaton: The High Sign/One Week
- James McMurtry, The Horses and the Hounds
- Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking
- Agalisiga, Nasgino Inage Nidayulenvi
- Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man
- Buddy Tabor, Abandoned Cars and Broken Hearts
- Norman Blake, Fields of November
- Norman Blake, Old and New
- Joanna Newsom, Ys
- Miles Davis, Dark Magus, disc 1
- The John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy
- Ana Tijoux, 1977
- Chris Corsano/Bill Orcutt, Made Out of Sound
- Mikal Cronin, MCII
- The Mountain Goats, Beat the Champ
- Orquesta Akokan, 16 Rayos
- Chvrches, Every Open Eye
- Beyoncé, Renaissance
- Jason Isbell, Southeastern
- Marc Ribot, Rootless Cosmopolitans
- Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
- Raul Malo, Pat Flynn, Rob Ickes, Nashville Acoustic Sessions
- Junior Brown, 12 Shades of Brown
- Bill Monroe, Live Recordings 1956-1969: Off the Record, Vol. 1
- John Hartford, Aereo Plain
- Sun Ra, In Some Far Place: Roma 1977
- Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit
- Joe McPhee, Nation Time
- Don Edwards, Live at the White Elephant
- Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge
- Sunny Sweeney, Heartbreakers Hall of Fame
- The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital Of The West 1940-1974, disc 5
- Laura Veirs, The Lookout
- Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas Ewart/Mike Reed, Sunbeams of Shimmering Light
- Delta 5, Singles and Sessions, 1979-81
- Bodega, Endless Scroll
- Bonnie Prince Billy, Hear the Children/Sing the Evidence
- The Tallest Man on Earth, Dark Bird is Home
- Millie Jackson, On the Soul Country Side
- Dave Liebman/Tyshawn Sorey/Adam Rudolph, New Now
Album Reviews:
Sniffany & The Nits, The Unscratchable Itch
Classic female fronted angry English punk. Of course they aren’t inventing the wheel here, but then this is part of the larger group of musicians that have created such other outstanding bands such as Joanna Gruesome and The Tubs that reach into the English rock past and create something different. This is very much Sniffany’s baby though and she totally rocks. How does she describe what she does? “All my favourite films are about women doing evil things over and over again. I wouldn’t say I’m a bad person, but I’ve always been drawn to those things because there’s more truth in it. All my lyrics tend to mix the sort of repulsion nobody ever associates with hyper-femininity. There’s nothing else I find as interesting.” And hey, it’s pretty interesting too and you can even understand some of the lyrics, which are pretty fucked up. She’s committed to the bit, no question about that.
A-
James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Abstraction is Deliverance
A superstar quartet around this rising and still pretty young saxophonist, one of the best artists working in jazz today. That quartet includes Aruan Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums. This has a very strong Coltrane in 65 vibe to it, mostly originals but with Mal Waldron and Billie Holiday’s “Left Alone” as a fun cover. Lewis is such a master of his instrument, just astounding control and compositional genius. Ortiz plays the Alice Coltrane-esque parts amazingly too and the rhythm section does more than what is necessary to make this one of the top jazz albums of the year. If you like modern jazz that has some roots in the tradition but also is not trying to replicate the early 60s or before, this is a great album for you. It’s frankly just so much more interesting than anything the Marsalis boys have done. Maybe that’s not a fair comparison on either side here, but given that remains something of a definitional flashpoint in debates about jazz (among the 50 people who care) that it becomes almost inevitable to bring it up. The other person who is the clear influence on Lewis here is David S. Ware, whose 90s and 00s work took the tenor to new places; Lewis isn’t quite as outre as Ware, but the tone has some strong similarities. Just a really good release.
A
Mary Ocher, Your Guide to Revolution
Not quite sure if this is my guide to revolution, but it’s a fun title. She’s serious too, you can even visit her personal guide to radical living at her website. It’s very much “consumerism is bad.” She bemoans the decline of such politics since the 90s; I am more ambivalent as I always thought those politics were really half-baked to begin with. But perhaps it did seem easier to just opt out of the bullshit of society then than now. As for the supposed musical guide to revolution, it’s basically DIY electronics stuff with a psych edge. As such, it’s somewhat ironic that computerized sounds is the guide to an anti-consumerist revolution. The music is alright for electronic instrumental tracks. The vocals are whatever.
C+
Sugaray Rayford, In Too Deep
Old school soul blues with a strong social edge, starting with the lead song “Invisible Soldier,” about PTSD in veterans. This is the kind of album that I have hard time figuring out why someone would dislike. You’d have to hate soul and blues and horn sections and grooves and while I suppose that describes someone, I wouldn’t want to know them. That’s different than thinking Rayford is breaking a ton of new ground or this being your favorite album or something like that. But it’s a classically enjoyable album and that’s a comfort zone we should all be able to embrace. At the very least, if you don’t like “Gonna Fill You Up,” which the Staples Singers could have done, then I just have nothing for you.
B
The Whitmore Sisters, Ghost Stories
The history of sibling groups in country music is long and great and the Whitmore Sisters, both singers and veterans of the country and Americana scenes but who have not recorded together before this, is an excellent addition. Siblings simply are really good at singing together if they’ve done it since they were kids. This is a solid set of songs, wonderfully delivered. Check out “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter” as a great intro. This album came out of them live together during Covid and they decided it was time to do the album together. And the ghosts? Well, a lot of them are people they knew who have died, something with a lot of meaning during Covid. The album came out in 22 and I wish I had heard it before this.
A-
Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves, Hurricane Clarice
I should have heard this duo awhile ago since they appear at a lot of festivals I go to and I’m like, I should check this out but then I never do. So now I will check out the album at least. And this is really cool. They are old-time banjo and fiddle musicians except not really old-time at all. They take those old ways and adapt them to new and even avant-garde styles, including drone music. This is really rethinking the traditions of North American folk music in an entirely new way and it’s so refreshing in an age when bluegrass has become hippies engaging in technical masturbation rather than playing real songs with meaning or remembering that music is about soul more than it is around proficiency. In other words, on guitar give me Norman Blake or, say, Robbie Robertson over Steve Vai any day and in the modern bluegrass world give me de Groot and Hargreaves over Billy Strings any day. They could jam for 20 minutes too. They just know that it’s better music to not do that. Oh, and the title? It’s a dedication to Clarice Lispector, the Ukrainian-born novelist of mid-20th century Brazil. She had her own unique grammar to her art too. And the opening track is about Rachel Carson. Now that’s a folk tradition I can get behind!
And yeah, dang, I should have taken those chances to see them before this.
A-
Roy Campbell, Visitations of Spirits
This is a 2023 release of a live show from 1985 that the legendary trumpeter did at Brandeis with William Parker on bass and Zen Matsuura on drums. Four decades later, Parker is one of the all time jazz legends and Matssura never really quite became as huge as the other two, dying in 2015, but was a really respected free jazz drummer. Campbell himself passed away in 2014, though I was lucky enough to see him in one of the first really awesome jazz shows I ever saw, when he was in the Other Dimensions in Music band. Now, I’ve never felt that the 80s was a great decade for jazz. The 60s guys were struggling to be relevant, a lot of the fusion dudes had gone into pure cheese, and the next generation of legends were still pretty young. Over time, I’ve moderated this stance though, as I mistook some of no one paying attention with not much happening. Very much not the same thing. Anyway, I wrote this before listening to the album, just for context. Now to listen….
This is a pretty enjoyable recording. My first thought is that Parker is already such a complete badass on bass, in a way that very few bassists have really been noticed for. Of course there’s Mingus and there’s Carter and there’s been other great bassists, but few have so dominated the proceedings on their recordings while also not getting in the way of the other players as Parker. My second thought is that this is really pretty subdued for these guys. There’s a lot of space for everyone and counter to so many stereotypes, this music has never been all about noise made really loud. Now, I don’t think this is an all time album for anyone involved here, but it is a really good moment in time and well worth a listen.
Nothing from this on YouTube, but here’s another Campbell piece for your ears.
B+
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.
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