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Juno – “The Great Salt Lake”
This Is the Way It Goes & Goes & Goes

I missed out on Juno when they were a Seattle band, though I had their split with Dismemberment Plan and later taught Travis’s daughter at preschool for a couple years. It seems they helped lay the foundation for later indie rock bands, and present a sort of middle ground between earlier alternative bands and post-punk stuff, like The Wrens mixed with Built To Spill, if that makes any sense. This track is not representative of the album at all, but is too good not to share with anyone who likes atmospheric rock and hasn’t already encountered Juno. (insound)

The pattern of life, therefore, appears to have made the world weak and to have handed it over as a prey to the wicked, who run it successfully and securely since they are well aware that the generality of men, with paradise for their goal, consider how best to bear, rather than how best to avenge, their injuries.

Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy

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The Wind-Up Bird – “Violin & Trumpet”
Conduction, Convection, Radiation

This excellent (but rather somber) split between 1 Mile North, Colophon, and The Wind-Up Bird has a number of great, near-ambient tracks. 1 Mile North’s “Ashes & Dust,” with its spare piano and texture, is a departure from their usual guitar noodlings, and Colophon’s contributions acquire perhaps too much poignancy once you know their context (probably better not to learn). But it’s The Wind-Up Bird’s tracks, shimmery and otherworldly, that stand out most to me — this one in particular. (insound)

Wonderfully filmic frame from Chariots of Fire

June 8th [1660]. Out early, took horses at Deale. I troubled much with the King’s gittar, and Fairbrother, the rogue that I intrusted with the carrying of it on foot, whom I thought I had lost. Come to Gravesend. A good handsome wench I kissed, the first that I have seen a great while.

Samuel Pepys’ Diary

Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan, 2012)

It’s easy enough to recommend the light, literate Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore without diving too far into the story (the book is still new and people will be wanting to avoid spoilers for some time, unlike, say, Les Miserables), though it will be read with more interest by savvy folks for whom the references need not be explained in footnotes (or marginalia).

The premise is simple but rich in potential: A young out-of-work tech guy in San Francisco takes a job working at a strange old bookstore and tumbles into a mystery of sorts. It’s a breezy trip with a few nods to history and more than a few nods to present tech culture. While that makes it a fun read for the tech-savvy of 2012, I think it might end up causing the book to age poorly, achieving anachronism status for the tech-savvy of 2022. At any rate, the trade-off works for now.

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Sir Anthony Absolute: Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an ever-green tree of diabolical knowledge! It blossoms throughout the year! —and depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals

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Fredrik – “Black Fur”
Na Na Ni

A rhythmic and harmonic little anthem. I keep thinking I remember how it sounds, but then it surprises me with little flourishes or jangles. (insound)

Situationists. Art, politics, urbanism (book cover)

Les Misérables (Victor Hugo, 1862)

“To write the poem of the human conscience, were it only of a single man, were it only of the most infamous of men, would be to swallow up all epics in a superior and final epic,” writes Hugo. And, although he perhaps did not aim to eclipse all previous literature with Les Misérables, the book is nevertheless a novel of the human conscience (if not the poem). But between the reader and this final epic is Hugo himself, and the book is equally an odyssey within the author as within humanity.

Hugo was called in his time L’Homme Ocean, and it is easy to see why. His depths are unsounded, and his volume immense. Les Misérables is, roughly speaking, equally divided between narrative proper, internal narrative, history, and digressive essay. Every action, every topic, every piece of dialogue in the book is potentially a platform off of which Hugo may launch into rarefied airs, extemporizing on the nature of chastity, or the implications of criminal jargon, or the failings of society as regards orphans, women, civic duty, fashion, honor, or whatever strikes him.

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Vocabulary: Mired Myriapod Edition

machicolation: a parapet or gallery with openings through which to send projectiles, oil, etc
uncomatible: literally (and incredibly) “un-come-at-able,” in use as early as the 17th century
zouave: one of a French-Algerian infantry unit known for their vigor and colorful uniforms
enlizement: to become stuck in quicksand, mud, or figuratively in a situation or argument
stercorary: a place for securing waste or manure from the elements (sewer or storage)
barathrum: a pit in Athens into which criminals were thrown; synonymous with hell
praemunire: the offense of unnecessarily seeking an alternative to royal jurisdiction
scolopendra: “a genus of venomous myriapod” – also a mythical fish, per Spenser
tergiversate: to rapidly change attitudes or loyalties, or to be evasive in general
morion: a common Renaissance-period crested helmet (also a type of quartz)
epithalamium: an ode, poem, or song written to commemorate a wedding
excrescence: an outgrowth, animal or vegetable, normal or abnormal
firk: to hasten, rouse, drive, or strike
ochlocracy: mob rule

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Wye Oak – “Talking About Money”
The Knot

It’s uncommon that I’m exposed to an artist through their latest album, but then find I prefer their earlier work — especially when the latest album is as good as Wye Oak’s Civilian. But The Knot does everything Civilian does, with more variety, grandeur, and power in general. From the setup and punchline of the first two tracks to the unbelievably confident “Talking About Money” to the shoegazer “Mary Is Mary” and triumphant “Tattoo,” there is hardly a misstep on the album and a surfeit of just plain excellent music. (insound)