Too much has been made of origins. All origins are arbitrary. This is not to say that they are not also nurturing, but they are essentially coercive and indifferent.
—Dionne Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return
"The vast amount of financial resources it would take to incarcerate more people would be more effectively, more justly and more compassionately spent on programs of social support instead of incarceration” -Molly Housh Gordon, Columbia No New Jail Coalition
www.kbia.org/kbia-news/20...
TODAY
After a week off, Its Her Factory is back this SUNDAY from 5-7p Eastern on Inhailer.com. We've got: the Ides of March, musical conspiracy theories, and some of the new NIN Tron Ares remixes, along with new and classic indie music.
NOW, starting off with the Infravision remix of PSB’s “It’s A Sin”
thebeemagazine.com/terminus/
new blog post: The future of public game arts festivals and non-commercial games culture, with notes on @free-play.bsky.social / indie games events around the world www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2026/02/the-...
Today! Who cares about football, support indie media!
The FT got is architecture critic Edwin Heathcote to write about data centres and it's wonderful. www.ft.com/content/7692...
sheriffs out too?
Inside the detention center, Gibson said officers put him in a bare, metal holding cell about the size of a small conference room with around 40 other detainees. Their legs were shackled. Gibson said one person in the cell appeared to have scabies.
so while the alt-right uses performances of bad taste to reject anything like shared norms or preferences, affect theory & new materialism's anti-representationalism is another, neolib, form of privatization & the rejection of sensus communis
TODAY 5-7p Eastern, see you on Inhailer.com
Bauman never misses
TODAY I’m on Inhailer.com with two hours of indie tunes and some musical thoughts about 1996 and a book about indie music in the UK that year
These scenarios all feel like everyday luxury to me. Along with the presence of cheap or free food, the setting is important. It's not just food, it's food and a place to eat it while you're out in public. It's true that you can usually get some kind of cheap bite while you're out, but it's probably something like a Kind bar from the corner store or a bag of smoke-flavor almonds from Walgreens, and in any case you're stuck eating on the sidewalk or furtively in the back of the meeting. This is inadequate. And while some tiring internet communists love to remind us there will be no restaurants after the revolution, there certainly will be central places to come and eat - ways to get your nourishment and meet your needs for social reproduction without exclusive reliance on the atomized household unit. So, a restaurant-ish thing of some kind. Call it a dining hall if you like, or a collective cafeteria. For now, we have restaurants. And hell, they can be pretty nice, even in their current non-socialized form. It really is a pleasure to be served. I want a nice place to sit. Candles, maybe. The feeling of plenty. The feeling of time. The luxury of eating together, or alone, in public, without too much economic strain or discomfort, without interacting with a QR code. We deserve to eat in public even if we're not wealthy. This is a long way of getting to my point, which is: Stewtopia now. Let us all sit at the chef's table. Let me come get a bowl of beans while others are on the fourth course of a tasting menu. Let me enjoy some hearty slop and let us all eat the same slop.
“The luxury of eating together, or alone, in public, without too much economic strain or discomfort, without interacting with a QR code.
We deserve to eat in public even if we're not wealthy.”
Kelly Pendergrast, “Stewtopia”
Print Object Year 7: 2025
Big appreciation to @davidnaimon.bsky.social for introducing me to the poem, Heaven as Olympic Spa by Ama Codjoe.
Codjoe's line, "I was ordinary and motherless," has been coursing through my body — a comfort, a beacon, bobbing on the rushing river of adrenaline my mom's death undammed.
arstechnica.com/science/2025...
“There are pretty strong societal expectations around what Santa looks like, but we found that most anybody can be Santa if their heart desires it,” said co-author Borbala Csillag of Oregon State University. “When we looked at the people behind the suit, we found that the folks playing Santa are really more diverse than would be expected. The expectations for playing the role may seem exclusive, but they are surmountable. Think about your attributes in a comprehensive way so you can identify the dimensions of the role that are well-fitting. You will likely find attributes that map to that calling, even if they are not obvious at first.” Not just a seasonal gig Frankly, what’s most interesting about the paper isn’t those three fundamental categories, but the personalized glimpses it gives of the people who choose to become professional Santas. While a few Santas might make six figures, most do not, and may even lose money being Santa—they do it anyway for the sheer love of it. Professional Santas usually don’t see the role as seasonal; many build their identities around it, whether they fit the stereotypical Kris Kringle image or not. “My feeling is, if you’re Santa all the time, you have to live as Santa and give up whoever you are,” said one subject. “I’m just striving to be a better person.”
[Mojo Nixon voice] Santa is everyBODY
1996 in the US saw the passage of the Telecom Act (deregulation, section 230), the Personal Responsibility & Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, & the Illegal Immigrant & Immigrant Responsibility Act. Those three things set up what we're living today.
TODAY!
What are your music predictions for 2026?
Here's a good bit of Christmas reading.
From the wind blown dusts of drained lakes to the fall-out from atom bomb tests, @jayowens.bsky.social 's story telling explores particles in our air, how humanity causes them and their impacts.
Found it in my city library - thanks @brighton-hove.gov.uk
it's as if there's contempt for people who experienced the past, a sense that it isn't fair—generative AI works to abolish the possibility of idiosyncratic experiences. No one has to be jealous of people who "were really there" because "really there"-ness will have been eliminated from all media
than gin-&-limes you are cooler, darling, o come back to me (john berryman)
Now!
Starting off with the new Avalon Emerson and some Stone Roses
*raises hand*
youtube.com/watch?v=yWuz...
