Monthly Round-up May 26
I’ve been on a bit of a blogging break as I mentioned in my last post. But back now and resuming the monthly round-ups, whether you like it or not.
Maren and I visited Canada for a two week trip this month. We completed (very slowly) the Vancouver Half Marathon, and then spent some time on Vancouver Island. I loved the big country feel of Vancouver Island. You will believe a Sasquatch (or at least a bear) could be in the forest. While we were there we met up with a lot of old ed-tech friends, including Rajiv Jhangiani, Anne-Marie Scott, Tom Farrelly, Brian Lamb, Marryann Kempthorne, Clint Lalonde, Amanda Coolidge, Scott Leslie and Valerie Irvine. It was like getting the old gang back together. That is pretty much my social interactions for a year used up.
What this made clear though was something we used to comment on a lot back in the halcyon social media/blogging days, that you made genuine connections. We didn’t even talk about ed tech much, it was just good to meet up with friends. I’m not so sure it’s easy to make those kind of connections amongst all the AI slop and nazi-soup that constitutes much of social media now. We got lucky with our timing.
Books
I resisted saying “the golden age of social media” in my previous paragraph because I recently read Ada Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age. She doesn’t set out to trash the Renaissance, but rather illustrates that it is a myth, a narrative that is used by people for different reasons. Depending on your view, the actual renaissance has different messages and occurred over different times. One very powerful argument she makes is regarding Florence, where she highlights how the self-reinforcing nature of its claim to be the centre of the renaissance has helped strengthen that claim. In WW2, both the Germans and Allies treated it with deference, compared with other sites which held equally important art works, for example. This a good example of how establishing a solid narrative about yourself (institution, profession, country, interest) makes it become true. I think there is potentially a lesson here for higher education. The more they don’t bend to every little political bully and establish their solid principles, then the more people view them as the holders of those truths. Even if it isn’t always true. But they too often accept every new priority and direction flung at them.
A fun read was qntm’s There Is No Antimemetics Division. In this different beings have the power to mess with our memories. The author has some fun with this (for instance an ancient deity who makes humanity forget how to ride bikes). The Antimemetics Division controls this but there is one existential threat that as soon as a person learns of it, they seek to destroy themselves or others. Knowing about it means that you can’t defeat it. This is fun in and of itself, but maybe it was just timing, but I read it when I had spent an hour or two doomscrolling. I was experiencing the loss of reality that the book captures. What was real anymore. Did this celebrity really give someone on set CPR and save their life? Is that a real video of a car slipping into a canal? Did that politician really say that? It’s not that you can’t determine the truth of any one of these (no, no, yes, in the case of these examples), but rather one’s whole relationship with truth becomes worn down. We need the Antimemetics Division now.
Vinyl
Welsh artist Art School Girlfriend (Polly Louise Mackey) released her third, and best album so far, Lean In, which I’ve been playing a lot. She mixes shoegaze and electronica to produce a kind of ethereal dance music. Speaking of third albums by solo female artists who go under monikers, Snail Mail (Lindsey Jordan) released Ricochet. It’s had some middling reviews, but I’m a big fan. The pure vocals over 90s indie rock sounds like it could soundtrack a cool film you still talk about years later. It also sounds like an America you can still believe in.
Raye’s second album, This Music May Contain Hope, successfully combines RnB, pop, musical theatre and jazz. There’s two things I particularly admire it beyond the (excellent) music:
1) it’s a proper vinyl album, designed for the format structurally and aesthetically, with 4 distinct sides and theatre like programme. Raye respects the vinyl!
2) When an artist gets the kind of success she had with her last album, it can sometimes ruin them. They either shy away from it or try to repeat it and end up second guessing themselves. Raye has embraced it with both hands to do the things she’s always wanted to.
My album of the last month or two though is Snocaps, self titled debut (one-off?). They’re sort of a supergroup combining Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) & her sister Alison along MJ Lenderman (solo artist, and member of Wednesday), with Brad Cook on drums. It’s indie rock just how you like it. If The Plains was Crutchfield exploring the country side of her sound this is her leaning into the indie side. This is a “does exactly what it says on the tin” album, and brilliantly so.
