tricksters and villains apply within

I think you have to have been living under a rock not to know what the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts art. So you don't need me to explain how good they can be to find new music or to see good indie musicians do what they do in an intimate setting. And the setlist isn't tight or too defined, the musicians can talk or riff or whatever makes them feel the music or connected to the small audience in the office at the time. I'm not an NPR fan and I don't watch every new Tiny Desk video when it goes up, but every now and again something will catch my eye. Last year's winner of the Tiny Desk Contest was a band called Tank and the Bangas. The video went up pretty much a year ago yesterday and it's 20+ minutes of good fun. Their music is hip hop soul with a big voice and really hefty lyrics. I fell in love pretty much immediately, listened to all the songs I could find and then sent the video out to all of my friends. They were in town for a Tedx youth conference rece...

I'm very much not the demographic for Dodie Clark's YouTube career, or even probably her music. But I find her honest and charming and her music utterly delightful. I appreciate her communication about her struggles with mental illness and her ability to put them on camera. I love the lyrics to her songs because they feel like they come from a real place and were I a younger adult, I'd likely find them highly applicable to my own feelings. Instead of sort of wistfully nostalgic. Actually I find myself somewhere between the two on most days and dodie's sweet, soft voice is a good remedy for when you find yourself more wistfully nostalgic than tragically and seemingly unceasingly young. (For me, anyway.)

As big of a fan as I am of music, I'm not the sort of person that hates on covers. Obviously I've recommended at least one here before. But lest that not accurately portray my love of covers, let me make it clear here and now. I LOVE covers, even bad ones, even cheesy ones. I love hearing someone else's take on music I know really, really well. Sometimes they bring a sound to the music that I find interesting, sometimes they change the music in a way that brings out lyrics I hadn't noticed before, sometimes it's just a new way for me to fall in love with the song all over again. Sure, not ever cover is great and I might just listen to it once and pass by. But sometimes I might decide that I like the cover better than original. It's all good in the cover game. So then let me tell you how much I love Scary Pockets. They're a funk band doing what Scott Bradlee did with Postmodern Jukebox (if you ask who? um... go figure that out and come back to me). They...

I'm happy to see new music from Pentatonix that isn't Christmas, or personal projects. Not that they're not all extremely talented on their own, but after Ari left, I wondered what new music from them might look like. Their cover for Havana is good, but this new song is a little bit of a return to some of their older sounds - new music mixed with an old beat. It also helps that I really, really dig New Rules from Dua Lipa right now. Putting the beat from Aaliyah's Are You That Somebody? just hits me where my teen-self lived, knee-deep in R&B. This is real good.

If you've never watched Hot Ones before, you're missing out on a great interview show. In it the host, Sean Evans, interviews a celebrity while they both take down ten chicken wings made with hot sauces of increasing intensity on the Scoville scale. Between each wing, Sean asks questions of his guests that are usually a little unique (like the format) and always entertaining. It also doesn't rely on 10-15 minutes of a guest plugging their latest project like on so many night time talk shows. Even at the end when Sean offers his guests a moment to plug whatever it is they want to -- rarely do the guests actually do so in a way that feels played out. The video below is the most recent episode where Charlize Theron takes the heat (like a champ) and is as charming and personable as I'd hoped she'd be. If you've never watched an episode, start with this one. Then, you've got more than a 100 episodes to watch back if you like the style.  

With the release of Dessa's new album, Chime, stories and videos of her process in writing the songs on it have been making the rounds. As a bit of a science nerd, she investigated the impact of love on the brain. Comparing her brain's reactions to images of an ex she couldn't quite shake feelings for and another person, she was able to see exactly where in the brain her feelings for this person lived. She talks about it more in the video below. I love Dessa's music, the lyrics in her songs deal not just with love but life. I've been listening to Chime for the past week or so and while I've not as in love with it as I have been with previous albums, I am thoroughly enjoying it. 

I know I posted about this on tumblr yesterday, but I had to write a little more about it as a way to express my awe over this whole project. I've been following the updates on this project since the idea was first floated to the community. Tumblr fans had been mashing up Hamilton and Critical Role in art and gifs and photosets since Hamilton came out. But a project of this scope is just beyond everything else, and it could've worked out so differently. The work that it took to write these songs and make them fit both the story of Season 1 in addition to hitting the plot themes of Hamilton is mind boggling. Somehow they made it work and they made it work so incredibly well. I cried multiple times today listening to this whole thing. Seriously, if you're a fan of both Hamilton and Critical Role and you haven't listened to this yet, get on it. It's amazing. The Critter community is pretty fantastic as far as fandoms go. I feel like it's worth mentioning how ...

"Alternate Universe" is a strong poem. It speaks to the nature of emotional investments not just in relationships but in ourselves and the effects of misogyny on both. It's simple, it's funny, and Olivia's performance of it is awesome. I think my favorite line is this: "I have so much beautiful time." I found Olivia's poetry through this TedxABQ talk she did about finding each other in the details. Personally, I'm a big believer in small moments. Small moments where we give thanks, or love, or support or just memory to someone or something. She speaks there about a simple interaction between her and her best friend that she turned into a poem, and uses it to show the audience how she teaches others to write poems too. In this, she tells us it's about the details. We can tell stories about small things that are also about big things too. How a story or a poem about a bikini can also become a story about fat-shaming or body positivi...

Yesterday was Judy Blume's 80th birthday. Judy Blume's stories were the sort of human stories that we needed as kids, the stories that told us we weren't alone with our weird thoughts... or we were but maybe we weren't as weird as we thought we were. For those of us who grew up with the works of Judy Blume, I think we each have a book that hit us harder than others, one story that really spoke to us. For me, that was It's Not the End of the World . My parents were already divorced by the time I was old enough to read It's Not the End of the World , but that didn't make it any less profound to read for me. The way Karen thinks about being at her parents houses when they're separated, the way she deals with thoughts about her own future relationships, and what you feel like your house must look like to other people. For Judy's birthday, Amanda Palmer has written this really lovely tribute to the way stories change us, how reading books like the...

If you're not super into YouTube or music, you might not know about this great channel called Mahogany. Since 2010 the Mahogany channel has been putting together these great studio sessions for indie music creators. Their videos are beautifully shot, with amazing sound and they've introduced me to some really fantastic creators. Today they launched a new series: Covers. And it started with this really soft and amazing cover of the popular Lou Reed song, Walk on the Wild Side by Jordan Mackampa. This first video is shot in a really fantastic profile, half-silhouette and based on their teaser it looks like that might be the standard for these sessions, which is cool. It also looks like you'll be able to keep up with the Covers sessions on Spotify here , if that's your kind of thing. If you like Jordan's voice, check out a session he did with his original song, Open Arms, which has been one of my favorite finds from Mahogany for a long while. 

My friend Summer runs a poultry sanctuary, A Flock Between Pastures , where she's been caring for roosters, hens and peacocks for the last three years. She's also an artist, creating wonderful drawings and unique handcrafted pottery. Recently, she's collected her works from Inktober (last October) into a handcrafted a book full of awesome ink drawings and a collection of rituals, spells and practices to go along with them. From her shop description :  Completely handmade booklet of my Inktober 2017 project, Libro de Pequeñas Manchas de Tinta has 31 illustrations, plus background information on each. Also included in the booklet is a brief explanation of my thought process in making this booklet and putting the theme for Inktober 2017 together. Cover is card stock with embossed logo Interior pages of the booklet are all handmade Lokta paper from Nepal  Binding is waxed linen thread, hand bound Each copy is handmade, signed, and numbered . This book is for sale no...

I woke up this morning and for some reason was really, really missing a comedy pop culture video series that sadly ended pretty abruptly last December. Until recently, the Cracked website also had an active YouTube channel where every month for the last few years (since around 2011) they've produced a series called, After Hours . After several active years on YouTube the staff and producers for the Cracked website were fired, effectively ending the run of all their YouTube series in order to focus more fully on the website. Now I don't know what must've gone on behind closed doors over at Cracked, but I think cutting all their YouTube shows was a pretty fucking stupid idea. But, I'm probably biased. What I can say is that I really miss their brand of humor, their political statements and the stabs they took at analyzing and making light of pop culture. Specifically, After Hours. The After Hours series showed four friends sitting around a diner table debating pop c...

I don't have anything much to say about this video except that it's super cool. It's a dubstep medley of The Force Awakens, Duel of Fates and Imperial March done on a bagpipe, accompanied by a violin and a DJ on a launchpad. Also, this badass piper has the coolest horned dragon skull on her bagpipe and I love it.

I've already written about how much I love the new Fall Out Boy album and specifically the song, "Champion". I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking about all the songs on the album that I am loving, especially since every time I listen to it all the way through I'm finding something new I like. Some of the songs didn't strike me at first but have definitely become more interesting and enjoyable upon repeated listening. However, more than any other songs on the album, even more than "Champion", I love the songs "Church" and "Heaven's Gate". I have a strong affinity for media that works with Christian mythologies and symbolism. Both songs heavily rely on Christian or church themes to talk about love. Plus, they're just pretty enjoyable pop songs, with catchy lyrics and melodies. I have a hard time getting either of them out of my head once I've started listening. But instead of going in-depth about the songs t...

I mentioned the other day when I was talking about the new Fall Out Boy album and the song, "Champion", a poet, Andrea Gibson. Specifically I wrote about a line from their poem "I Sing the Body Electric (Especially When My Power's Out)". I can't even remember the first time I heard this poem but it was many years ago now, and the video of it I'm pasting below came out after I'd seen a live recording of them reciting the poem at some school. So I'm guessing eight-ish years ago or so. I included a picture in that other post of the tattoo I have of a line from this specific poem. I'm not the only one to have had that line tattooed on themself either, but I think it speaks differently to different people. A few years back I was finally able to see Andrea live at a bar about 45 minutes from my house. To say the experience was meaningful to me would be a severe understatement. See, what I didn't know when I fell in love with this poem w...

There are several new songs off the new Fall Out Boy album that I'm in love with, namely "Church" and "Heaven's Gate" which have themes I tend to really like it songs. They're also catchy as hell. However, those aren't the ones I want to share. Instead let me share with you a song for all the bad days that if you're like me, get a little bit better with a good song. Champion is a song about making it through. About coming out stronger on the other side of something. About knowing you can live through something tough. It reminds me a lot of my tattoo, which is a line from an Andrea Gibson poem, "I Sing the Dream Electric, but Only When My Power's Out". I have on my arm a portion of this line:  " I said to the sun, tell me about the Big Bang The sun said, ' It hurts to become . '" I like that line because it reminds me that we all go through tough times, but it's the moments we experienc...

I'm kind of a huge music nerd. Not a snob, because I like just about anything you put in front of my ears. I pride myself a little on having an ear for what's good or bad. In fact, when I was much younger and was buying tapes and later cds as they were released, I used to challenge myself to figure out which would be the next song released from the album for the radio. I feel like I did pretty well. Although my access to new music was more and more restricted as I grew up and my family got more and more into the church. By high school, I only kept up with as much new music as I could pack into every other weekend at my dad's, since my parents were separated. In recent years, I've really enjoyed having access to streaming services and YouTube. I signed up for a Google Music account pretty much as soon as it was possible. And I became a subscriber when that became an option. My Google Music subscription gives me YouTube Red access and whatever mess YouTube has going o...