Michael Jackson on Fire Diorama

Combines the hypnotic analgesia of an “oddly satisfying”-style process video with a weird hallucinogenic tribal jaunt through the semiotic-drift of memory and Europe’s long palimpsestic history of animism and Patriarchal monothiem. 

Also, the pleasure of an Irishman doing his best loving tribute to MJ and sort of almost a brief folk-horror film crammed in the middle.

★★★★★ Recommended; would watch again.

The Wiggler: An Expressive Synth Using Daisy Seed and Flexure

First things first, this is a fun little synth and I love the voice. But I’m mostly sharing this video because I really like how the creator guides us through their discovery process, and how the concrete realities of these materials and methods guided their design process. Well worth ten minutes of your time.

Happy Non-Denominational Gift Giving Holiday Season!

I’m a mixed Jew who’s lived in the American Midwest for his entire life. I think these songs, more than anything else I’ve ever written, are honest about that experience.

(Incidentally, given that this year is one of the few when Xmas and Xanukah overlap, all of these songs are especially appropriate.)

  • Another Dark Xmastime (FUN FACT: I wrote this during my first year as a fundamentally unemployable stay-at-home dad; my children believe it is an accepted part of the general Xmas Music Canon.)
  • Dreidel Bells (FUN FACT: The beat here is an original GameBoy running an early German Nanoloop cartridge. Both voices are obviously me, but the filters for the robot voice badly overburdened my old iBook, causing significant lag–which is why Mr. Roboto struggles so badly to hit his marks.)
  • DreidelDreidelDreidel (FUN FACT: The beat here is a vintage analog Boss DR-55 once owned by POE, crammed through a heavy-metal distortion stompbox.)

Loretta Lynn has passed, but “Fist City” leaves on eternally ♬♫♪

Loretta Lynn, a singer and songwriter whose rise from dire poverty in Kentucky coal country to the pinnacle of country music was chronicled in the best-selling memoir and movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and whose candid songs gave voice to the daily struggles of working-class women, died Oct. 4 at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. She was 90.…

[Lynn] was a teenage bride and mother, a country star and a grandmother by her early 30s.

obituary in the Washington Post

This is, in lyrics and delivery and bear-trap smile, 100% the song of a 30-year-old grammy who is done taking shit. May she watch over all of us, and forever be our guide.