“The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.” —William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890) Philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) was interested in the epistemological question… Read More
100. Nickel Creek – Why Should the Fire Die? [Sugar Hill] Why Should the Fire Die? is both the title of Nickel Creek’s best 2000’s record and very likely the question many fans asked themselves when, following the release of the album,… Read More
Schneider, the Composer Schneider’s status as a highly acclaimed jazz composer has few true parallels in creative music. Unlike the huge majority of jazz composers—Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Wayne Shorter, say—her acclaim wasn’t preceded or accompanied by her success… Read More
Sometime between the home recording of “Crawling Back to You” on Wildflowers & All the Rest and the version that ended up on Wildflowers itself, Tom Petty figures it out. There’s a lyric deep in the song about the kind… Read More
If anything, horror is about transgressing boundaries and norms. If you think about it, monsters are creatures that challenge biological, physical, social, and even moral rules. And truth be told, it is such an attitude of contravening rules that ultimately… Read More
You can find million-and-one words in the music press about “supergroups”—the thrills and spills that occur when hotshots from different bands get together to create a new group mixing players who are otherwise leaders of acclaim. Not unlike basketball teams… Read More
15. Placebo – Without You I’m Nothing [1998] Placebo have never really been taken as a serious band. Probably because of lead singer Brian Molko’s ridiculously nasal delivery and the group’s propensity to sing about the recreational drug use. Underlying Placebo’s… Read More
The word “artlessly” has several meanings. It’s usually used as an adverb suggesting something authentic and direct. The implication is that there is no attempt to deceive or exaggerate. In terms of art and literature, the term signifies a work… Read More
Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, frustrated that there was no antonym for the word “catastrophe”, invented the term “eucatastrophe”, something that would describe an explosion of good. Still, I think there is another term: The Pogues. The late… Read More
When the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro caught coronavirus in July 2020, it seemed like a matter of time until Donald Trump followed. Sure enough, three months later, the American president had tested positive. Neither took the pandemic seriously, and this… Read More