blessingx

If anyone wants a little more info (NYT gift article)

Early Valentine's evening out at the theater. Local production of Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning. I had low expectations and was very wrong. "On the edge of the Wyoming wilderness, the last guests linger late into the night at a celebration for the new President of their conservative Catholic college. Reunited after seven years, the friends toss back whiskey and name-check Thomas Aquinas, Hannah Arendt, Steve Bannon, even Bojack Horseman, tracking their distance from each other and the people they thought they’d be by now. Will Arbery’s portrait of white conservatives trying to make sense of where they, and their country, stand is an incisive yet personal look at the intelligence and despair of the Catholic right."

More Laufey / More Tiny Desk

ex.

Laufey | Bewitched ex.

Why Is Music Journalism Collapsing? This is a bigger problem that you can fix with a Pitchfork https://www.honest-broker.com/p/why-is-music-journalism-collapsing

Came across this over the weekend. Sumo wrestlers in 1885. Slight dietary change.

In the Shadow of Silicon Valley: Losing San Francisco https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/rebecca-solnit/in-the-shadow-of-silicon-valley

There’s zero chance we’re going to collectively stop AI before it gets dangerous, right?

Hold my beer… https://www.threads.net/@shorty_ocelot/post/C259_RkNj7k/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Best review I’ve seen…

How the decisions that led to the founding of Israel left the region in a state of eternal conflict. (NYT gift article)

^ Thanks for posting. I don't want to mention names to spoil, but we all got a kick out of seeing the two get to the finale. Gave it a try over dinner, then watched and watched.

I used a Seitz above.

The now poor man’s 50MP version still looks cool, right?

Anyone have $10K for a good cause? Bueller?

Kim Gordon - Bye Bye

Hi. I'm Ric Blessing, from the edge of civilization, still fighting every other human on the planet that season two was better than season one. 🫣

Still whipping it good, Devo looks back on 50 years via a new Sundance documentary https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/still-whipping-it-good-devo-looks-back-on-50-years-via-a-new-sundance-documentary/ar-BB1h1mTM

Max has a new Jason Momoa limited series, On The Roam, which is pretty eye-rolly, but drop into the second episode to wonder with photographer Todd Hido to have a great time.

Was invited by Christian to the California Historical Radio Society open house yesterday. Related: discovered there was a California Historical Radio Society yesterday. It’s housed in a hidden old non-Bell/independent telephone and telegraph wireless exchange building in Alameda. All volunteers and donations at this point, but will be fun to watch this grow into a museum.

Happy birthday!

Hope it’s a great birthday

A pretty fun read… “Every now and then, safari goers make the fatal mistake of forgetting that they're surrounded by wild animals-that no matter how well managed the environment may be, it is filled with wild things, dangerous to their core. The Bible is like that too. When we read these ancient texts —no matter how carefully managed they've been —we're visiting wild and dangerous terrain, and who knows what we'll find there. The biblical world is full of monsters. Uncanny creatures lurk in every direction, from the hybrid monsters surrounding God in heaven to the stunning array of peculiar beings touching down on earth, and from giants in the land of milk and honey to Leviathan swimming beneath the seas. Most have been tamed by time and tradition. The cherubim -menacing, winged animal guardians-have become heavenly babies, marketed for feel-good cuteness on greeting cards and framed prints to be hung on a bathroom wall. The seraphim, multi-winged creatures with serpentine bodies and humanoid hands, have become conflated with angels. Angels, meanwhile, have acquired the soft-edged glow of a Hallmark card, even as they are some of the deadliest shapeshifters in a universe teeming with bizarre figures. Other monsters are hidden altogether, masked in translation as natural phenomena, like the demons Pestilence, Plague, and the Chill, who'd be prime comic book villains - except that they work for The Good Guy.”