why eat beef?

Read a poem I did not like

(to the tune of Beach Boys' Kokomo)

Risotto, paella

Beagle with a smirk on his face

Smirk

I've been getting calls like this for a while now. I don't understand the grift.

That's the call I got!

Someone just left me a voicemail saying they'd like to talk to me about my royalties for The Life of the Party....

You get spam book publishing emails. I get spam book publishing phone calls.

Recession indicator?

New ACOUSTIC Beck?!?

New Beck?!?

One culprit Marx identifies is the rise of poptimism, which morphed from an argument against perceived critical elitism into equating quality/import with sales/success. This, plus chasing virality on social push artists to make middling art built for sales/clicks, defeating innovation.

The biggest surprise was how prevalent Terry Richardson was even after he seemed to fade from prominence (and also a reminder of how gross his sphere of influence was)

It doesn't necessarily go as deep with analysis as I'd like (it's not a theory book), but that's what reading Mark Fisher, Naomi Klein and Simon Reynolds, Jonathan Crary is for.

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century by W. David Marx

I devoured this. It identifies and tracks several trends and figures in the 2000s, and the ways their ascent got us the culture of today (omnivorous but artistically stagnant, reactionary and chasing clout).

Receiving an acceptance from a lit mag is embarrassing. Acceptance is what disappointed parents offer after you reveal something about yourself that they have no power to change.

Coachella is trying to wipe all of the footage of The Strokes protest set so I’m gonna post it here. The last images on the screen made me cry.

"selfie for the algo" is an attempt to seem cool, in the know, and above it, but if you were all those things, you'd be fine with your posts not being seen.

Admitting in your IG carousel post that you've included a selfie to game the algorithm is funny. You don't want people to think you're so conceited that you'd post a selfie, but you're okay with people knowing you're conceited enough to be desperately craving engagement.

Absolutely incredible.

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone.

Watch with sound on.

Horror games are stressful!

I mean, I knew they sucked, but I hadn't ever engaged with them in any way so seeing the source was witnessing new levels of suck

Watched the Louis Theroux Manosphere documentary and wow these guys suck.

Children's book entitled Darla the Elephant has Bipolar Disorder.

Antique store children's book find.

*Cake's The Distance voice*

But no, we should reject calls for lowering our expectations. Certainly, digital tools offer new canvases for artistic exploration, but Dee's particular examples aren't enough to fill the blank space. What's missing is an artistic mindset—the imagination to reject kitsch and pursue artworks that expand the possibilities of human perception. This requires complexity, ambiguity, and formal experimentation. These attributes are not elitist; they power the masterpieces that draw millions of people every year to museums. Why exactly should we feel bad about encouraging more of these beloved artworks? How did advocating for timeless artistry at the expense of shallow commerciality become an "elitist" position?

Artists now need "the imagination to reject kitsch and pursue artworks that expand the possibilities of human perception. This requires complexity, ambiguity, and formal experimentation...How did advocating for timeless artistry at the expense of shallow commerciality become an "elitist" position?"

Spotify playlists don't challenge you because they only want to feed you what most closely resembles your music tastes, which keeps you using the platform longer, generating more profit for them.

By contrast, algorithms served up the most broadly appealing con-tent, reinforcing the most common part of users' existing tastes rather than challenging them. For all the early promises of "personalization," algorithmic sites pushed most users into a homogenized experience, contributing to the growing sense of a stagnant monoculture

We often talk about algorithms pushing polarization but another problem is this: algorithms only show content with broad appeal, so unique, odd, culturally-challenging work gets pushed down in favor of stuff that's middling, safe and contains little artistic innovation.

Sure thing