Back in 2001 when I was writing music criticism for the Local Planet, my editor gave me a copy of Spiritualized’s Let It Come Down. He didn’t necessarily want me to review it; he just wanted to know what I thought. If I remember right, I ended up including the album in my year-end best-of list. (Trying to be clever, I wrote something about how it sounded like a cross between 1970s-era Pink Floyd and the Hezekiah Walker Love Fellowship Choir. It really doesn’t.)

I still have that CD—and a whole lot more from Spiritualized that I’ve picked up in the years since. And while I wholeheartedly recommend Let It Come Down, I’d rather you started with the band’s 1997 masterpiece: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Pitchfork does a nice job explaining why:

Bolder than the term Britpop might suggest, more focused than the term psychedelic might imply, Ladies and Gentlemen is one of the great triumphs of the 70-plus-minute CD era. Alternately chaotic and meticulous, thundering and quivering, Ladies and Gentlemen finds power in conflict—between restraint and excess, addiction and isolation, and ultimately, love and hate.

For some reason I dusted the album off yesterday (figuratively, of course, since it’s in my iTunes) and gave it a listen. Then I listened to it again. And then a third time after that. Maybe it was the timing, maybe it’s this crazy mixed-up world in which we live, maybe it was just the mood I was in. Who knows? Either way, damn. It really is that good.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

“Fears are growing in Sweden over packs of radioactive wild boar moving north, ravaging forests and farmland.”

We should probably just go ahead and ban pumpkin spice.

The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press is “something like a top-of-the-line Canon camera: it’s wonderful, but most people will still just use their phone.”

“People in their 20s and 30s…are ‘constantly striving for individualism’, which is reflected in what they spend their money on.” Naturally, then, we now have “hackable furniture.”

Here are the 70 best horror movies on Netflix right now, according to Paste. Since number 68 is Zombeavers—which is about “toxic waste-spawned zombie beavers”—I have no doubt whatsoever that the list is totally legit.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962) was the first female police captain in the U.S. She’s considered the mother of forensic science. She helped to found the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University.

As if that weren’t enough, Lee also crafted a series of 19 “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death”: dollhouse-sized dioramas of “exquisitely detailed miniature crime scenes” that are still used in forensic training.

These things are badass. And they’re about to go on their first public display.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

The function of music, says Wadada Leo Smith, is “to transform that [observer’s] life in just an instant, so that when they go back to the routine part of living, they carry with them a little but of something else.”

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

So much has been written about the wisdom of Theodor Geisel’s words, crafted for the delight of kids but, at times, disquieting to adults. While the same is true for many children’s book authors who use stories to push against social norms, today, I’m honoring Dr. Seuss in light of his “Midnight Paintings”—another side of his artistic expression.

Oh, the power of Seuss. To this day, I’m still frightened of the pale green pants in “What Was I Scared Of?”—one of four stories from The Sneetches and Other Stories.

“I do not fear those pants with nobody inside them.” I said, and said, and said those words. I said them, but I lied them.

And, in the end:

I was just as strange to them as they were strange to me.

Are Geisel’s words relevant today? I think so.

And for a glimpse into even more unexpected Theodor Geisel work, you’ll want to explore Boners by Those Who Pulled Them. Oh, Teddy, I suspect that I shall never see / A wonder, a marvel / As gigglicious as thee.

posted by: Linda Anderson  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Lord Byron to Lady Melbourne, September 25, 1812:

As to Annabella [Milbanke, his future wife] she requires time and all the cardinal virtues, and in the interim I am a little verging towards one who demands neither, and saves me besides the trouble of marrying by being married already…I only wish she did not swallow so much supper, chicken wings—sweetbreads—custards—peaches and port wine—a woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.

From The Folio Book of Days (The Folio Society, 2002).

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(2)

The other day I said some disparaging things about The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird—something about them being overrated, if I remember correctly. The baby boomer in the room responded with something to the effect that, when I get something published, I can weigh in on the literary merits of the two books in question.

A couple of observations.

First, I should have known better. Boomers—like any generation, really—are protective of their cultural totems. I also happen to think that the Beatles are overrated. And that Jimi Hendrix is not, in fact, the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Both statements are easily defensible, yet anathema to just about anyone who grew up in the 1960s.

Second, is it really necessary to publish a novel to be critical of another? If so, then it surely must be true that that experience is also necessary if one is to praise a novel. And if that’s the case, then don’t bother arguing with me about the merits of Jimi Hendrix unless you’ve released an album. You can see how this approach quickly falls apart.

I don’t bring up any of this to disparage the boomer. He’s one of the sharpest people I know, not to mention a witty raconteur. Rather, it’s to point out that we seem to have lost our ability—or, at the very least, our willingness—to criticize.

Is this unwillingness due to a lack of knowledge? Maybe. Is it because we’re afraid we might cause offense? Probably. Is it because it’s just easier to use sales figures as the primary barometer of artistic merit? Almost certainly. (On this, however, I think Schoenberg got it right when he said, “If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”)

These are things worth fighting for. Or fighting over, at the very least. Otherwise, what’s the point? When we challenge each other to defend deeply held positions, we grow stronger and more confident in our own convictions—not to mention a whole lot smarter. And the art itself? It keeps getting better.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

“I miss the English,” says Martin Amis from his home in Manhattan. “I miss Londoners. I miss the wit.” So what’s wrong with Americans?

[T]hey’re very, well, de Tocqueville saw this coming in about 1850 – he said, it’s a marvellous thing, American democracy, but don’t they know how it’s going to end up? It’s going to be so mushy that no one will dare say anything for fear of offending someone else. That’s why Americans aren’t as witty as Brits, because humour is about giving a little bit of offence. It’s an assertion of intellectual superiority. Americans are just as friendly and tolerant as Londoners, but they flinch from mocking someone’s background or education.

It’s too bad, really, if only because humility—a characteristic that’s in rather short supply these days—is bred out of mockery.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment