After seeing even a small section of these pieces in real life, I can say that pictures from my childhood (combined with the haze of age) did not do them justice. It’s a phenomenal, albeit small, set of pieces that the VMFA has on display now.

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Not that earnest is bad. No, this is earnest in way that seems to fit – with the exception of Fair Verona – very much with my personal style. Hell, the damn thing is as autobiographical as my personal site. But that’s not what gets it, gets me writing about this record. What keeps me listening. That honor belongs to Mangan’s habit of weaving fantastically clever lyrics.

“Escape can’t be the only way
to escape”
– Road Regrets

“This is good
As far as I can tell
It’s still heavy as hell
When it’s good.”
– Pines for Cedar

“I’m ambitious when giving up
Never thinking clear enough.”
– Tina’s Glorious Comeback

That last one smacked me when driving. It’s a line so good I’d wish that I’d written it. It’s a line that accurately describes how I act when I realize that things are done.

Stories are likely the cause, the root of my personal bad habit. A sense of possible victory and underdog optimism instilled through a decades of films, and television shows, and books. They keep telling us that not only can the little guy win, but all he needs to do so is to pull of an impossibly grand victory at the darkest time against the greatest odds.

Easy. One big act and then:

The boy gets the girl.
They save the orphanage.
The big client stays with the firm.
The frat gets to keep their house.

That one grand act makes everything all better.

A lifetime of seeing that work seems to have fixed it in the back of my mind and done a bangup job of mismanaging expectations. Stories end, but life has that terrible way of still going long after the narrative reached its logical conclusion.

And that’s because:

You can’t sustain a relationship on gestures. It takes actual work.
That orphanage still needs a viable business model.
The big client is back, for now. But the firm is still at risk.
And frat boys?

Even knowing that, even having a fairly functional idea of how the real world differs from the narrative one, I still find myself prone to ambition when I sense an end coming.

Too many books, movies, and pop songs, I suppose.

Woof, got quite the record backlog here.

July 2017

“Purple Rain” by Prince and the Revolution
“Hug of Thunder” by Broken Social Scene
“Carla” by Carla Thomas

August 2017

“Here are the Sonics” by The Sonics
“All Your Summer Songs” by Saturday Looks Good To Me
“My Favorite Faded Fantasy” by Damien Rice

September 2017

“Destroyers of the Soft Life” by J Roddy Walston and the Business
“Beautiful Tired Bodies” by Howard Ivans
“Sprained Ankle” by Julien Baker

October 2017

“Different Class” by Pulp
“Set Yourself On Fire” by Stars
“You Forget It In People” by Broken Social Scene

The post Ambitious Endings appeared first on Bradley Robb.

I have quickly become fond of that question, using it at parties and events, on old friends and new. As far as questions go, it checks all the right boxes. At least my boxes. It covers two things that I care about – music and stories – and provides an answer that illuminates the nature of the respondent. And it opens up to a nice branching selection of follow-ups, each one that digs closer to someone’s why.

I do.

Listen to music when I read, that is.

But you’ve known that, or at least you’ve suspected it, for some time. I prefer headphones when reading, actually. Big, bulky, over-the-ear cans. They do well to block out distractions and my current pair are balanced enough that wearing them for hours on end is still comfortable. It’s easier to get lost that way.

But not too lost. I usually grab a stack of records along with my book, carting the whole lot over to my chair. Arguments about acoustics aside, having to flip an album every twenty minutes or so prevents my mind from wandering. Keeps that part in the back of my head that’s always brutally aware of time at least sated.

It was actually a record that sparked some remembering while reading earlier today. I recently picked up Fred Thomas’ “All Are Saved” – that brutal album that hit me far too hard a few years ago.

Back then I was listening to Fred’s record on digital. Played from a phone hooked up to a bluetooth speaker. I was in a different chair, hearing a different sound, in a different apartment all the way across town.

But the songs were the same. And, oddly enough, so was the book. Or at least the series. The book I was reading today ^[1] ends the trilogy I had started reading three years ago. I certainly hadn’t planned this. Both purchases, record and book, were sparked by separate emails.

The combination, though, put me at the other end of a memory, joining today with a moment from nearly three years ago. It’s strange, that amount. Three years – in some ways they were mere blinks where I haven’t accomplished nearly enough. In others, it’s hard to conceive how so much change has fit into such a small window. The whole world feels different now.

It feels, I feel like a lot has changed. You should see my cooking now. Or my house. And my chair.

Yet, almost three years and I’m listening to a different version of the same song and reading a continuation of the same story. The song, the story, even the chair, they’re nicer versions of what once was.

I’d go back. Given the choice, I would likely return. It was a line in the book that made me realized that.

“You asked me if I wanted to forget. The answer’s no. I want to keep it. Even if it hurts.”

She, the speaker in question, is right. Holding on to our pain is important. The hurt of our pasts inform our present and guide our future. Even if we don’t really change. Even if we just end up with nicer versions of the same songs we listened to yesterday.

We are what we are, until someone changes us.

But you probably knew that already.

And since I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve got some new records.

May 2017

“Ne Me Quitte Pas” byJacque Brel
“Hunky Dory” by David Bowie
“musicforthemorningafter” by Pete Yorn

June 2017

“Bringing It All Back Home” by Bob Dylan
“Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” by Wu Tang Clan
“The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators” by The 13th Floor Elevators

The post That Branching Question appeared first on Bradley Robb.

Thomas Martin was a year ahead of me when I got to West Point. We were both “old men” – prior service soldiers far more used to smoking and drinking and girls than grey wool and academic life. As a plebe – a freshman – West Point imposes all sorts of rules on where you can talk, how to walk, where you can point your eyes. They’re supposed to teach 18 year-olds discipline, but Tommy and I were 21. So, when he could, when we’d post at the smoking pit, Tommy would suspend the rules. He’d tell me to “relax.”

Relaxing is not something plebes are supposed to do. But that one little rule break was incredibly valuable, despite putting both of us at risk for punishment.

But Tommy was doing what he thought was right, and that’s the biggest lesson I’ve taken from my time as being a soldier – do what’s right, even it puts you personally at risk.

At the end of my first year, I resigned my USMA appointment, returned to active duty service, and invaded Iraq. By the time Tommy graduated in 2005, I was already back from my war and drinking my way through PTSD.

By late 2006, Tommy and his fiancé were both Lieutenants and themselves deployed to Iraq. They planned to get married sometime after they got back. On Oct 14, 2007, Lt. Thomas Martin was killed in action. He was 26. His fiancé was working medevac that day and learned of his death via the radio.

So, today’s the day I remember Tommy. Our friendship was never the closest but he helped me a lot. Tommy was, is, a great example of a soldier – he led by example and he always tried to do the right thing.

For me, that’s what Memorial Day is all about. Today is supposed to be a sad day. We are supposed to feel the pain of those we lost. We are supposed to see the faces, to see the lost potential. Feel the weight. Get crushed a bit by the guilt. We need those feelings so that the next time we, as a nation, ask your young to go to war, we understand the gravity of what we are asking. We need to remember.

If you are interested, Tommy’s family has setup a foundation that accepts donations. If you’re interested in learning more about Tommy as a person, his old website is still online.

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After all, I…we…the fans had been waiting half a decade to jump back into a universe that has inspired an astoundingly deep fandom. That being said, it took me nearly a month to make my way through a 65 hour run of the game. And while I was playing, one question kept turning over and over again in my head – why am I not invested? I love Mass Effect, so why don’t I care?

It’s a terrible realization, that things can actually let you down. I, as you probably know, am a capitalized Pessimist. I assume everyone is broken, especially if they don’t show it. I assume things will go wrong, especially when they’re important. I set the bar low and have learned to deal with bumps and issues and fractures as they come. To put it another way, I’ve gotten very, very good at pivoting until things work out. Afterall, happiness is when outcomes exceed expectations, so setting low expectations tends to lead to more happiness. In the meantime, we carry on while broken.

“Carrying on while broken” is a thread that winds its way through the Mass Effect series. It’s actually the thing that hooked me in the first place.

Virmire.

That’s a name that Mass Effect fans will always remember. Playing as Commander Shepard, the hero that humanity is pushing onto a global stage, you’ve managed to assemble your entire diverse crew as you burn from one side of the Milky Way to the other unraveling the mystery of why a government agent has gone rogue.

As you fight your way through a tropical world, Virmire, the situation asks you to do what every tabletop gamer and horror fan knows is a bad idea – split your party. You have to choose one crew member to assist an ally force and the other to plant a bomb. One thing after another goes wrong and you find Commander Shepard literally standing at an intersection talking on the radio and trying to make a decision. Go left and you can save one person. Go right and you can save the other. You are told explicitly that you can’t save both. And since these are soldiers, people that you’ve already spent a dozen hours with, they each ask you to save the other. Each is selfless as they consign themselves to death.

But this is a videogame, and you’re a hero, so of course you save both. Right?

Well no. That’s kind of the whole point. One of your crewmembers dies. And they stay dead. Your other crewmembers react. This person is mentioned throughout the trilogy, that first big decision literally haunting you. A name, a person that you let die.

This is Mass Effect saying that heroes aren’t perfect. And this is going to be messy. Really, really messy.

Mass Effect is a series that’s usually described as having three central gameplay pillars.

1. Conversation
2. Exploration
3. Combat

In what could easily be a power fantasy, you jet about the Milky Way, meet people, building a team, commanding a starship and (yes) get it on with aliens. Mass Effect balances power with helplessness. And while other games have made use of conversation as a mechanic before, Mass Effect gave conversations weight. As Commander Shepard, you weren’t merely talking to people to discover the next way point or collect a mission or maybe uncover lore. What you said, and why you said it, mattered. Decisions built upon each other and by the end of the 120 hour video game trilogy, your playthrough was unique.

As the player, you decide Commander Shepard’s story.

That’s what was important to me. See, I don’t really fit into Bartle’s taxonomy of gamers. I play for the story. I view video games as a new way to craft narrative, one that is interactive, but also one that allows for unprecedented flexibility. That’s why heavy cinematic games – every Final Fantasy after 6, the Uncharteds, and the Call of Duties – have turned me off. They borrow too much from the language of cinema while neglecting the power of video games.

The aforementioned games don’t typically use mechanics in a way that benefits the story they’re telling. The game plays is merely a means to get the player from cutscene to cutscene.

Which is a shame, because you can tell an entire story using only mechanics and most basic story structure. Take Missile Command – an arcade shooter from 1980 where the player is operating a missile defense system and tasked with protecting a handful of cities from an unending barrage of nuclear death. As the player, you’ll be forced to choose between cities, splitting your attention as you try to save at least one city. The message, the narrative, becomes clear – nobody wins at nuclear war.

There is no “Hold X to Pay Respects”. Instead, the mechanic tells the story. A story which the player personalizes and is impacted by.

Mass Effect: Andromeda does, on the surface, stick to the three tenants of a Mass Effect game. As the Pathfinder, the Player engages in Conversation, Exploration, and Combat. However, much of the other mechanics seem to distract from the gameplay, and others seem to lack gravity. These leads to a game that (and I am borrowing this term from Polygon) feels “listless”.

The bulk of my 65 hour playthrough felt like I stuck between two games. There was the first where I was a replacement traveling around the Heleus cluster performing often menial tasks in an effort to appease everyone and accomplish enough little things to push planets into a habitable zone. And there was a second game where a race of Kett were menacing people for no seemingly apparent reason.

In fact, it wasn’t even until the final act of the game, where I even got to feel like I was engaged in a Mass Effect-style story. And that’s when the ultimate motives of both protagonist/player and the Archon were revealed to actually be in conflict, as both Pathfinder and Archon want the same thing albeit for opposite reasons.

That’s a storytelling fundamental right there. A structural imperative. And it is the ending – the resolution of this conflict – that makes the game actually worthwhile.

But unfortunately, the discovery of this conflict comes far too late in the plot. By then, all of the pieces are already in place and it’s all but confirmed that the Pathfinder will challenge Archon and that one of the other will be victorious.

To put it another way – in previous Mass Effect games, it was always clear from the beginning that Shepard and the Antagonist were in direct conflict – even if neither Shepard nor the player knew why they were opposed. The game then became an act of discovery, learning how Shepard would overcome that conflict and the sacrifices that the Player have Shepard make along the way.

Because, let’s be perfectly clear about this – while those are Shepard’s sacrifices and decisions, it is the Player that is dictating them. Some of them are agonizing. Do you sacrifice a friend to right a wrong you were never responsible for? Do you choose the difficult moral right over the choice that would lead to a distinct (albeit often slight) strategic advantage?

Shepard’s choices in Mass Effect are a reflection of who the Player is a person. And both the Player and Shepard have to deal with the consequences of those actions.

That’s the reason why, once a year, I play through the entire Shepard Trilogy. Not because I want to travel the universe in my own starship (though I really do) or because I want to romance Miranda (again, I really would) or because I consider Garrus a guy I’d really be friends with (this doesn’t even need explaining). But because I like the idea of making meaningful choices in a scenario where I get to see the results.

Which brings us, finally, to Andromeda.

My issue with Andromeda isn’t that it never asks the Player to make choices. Or even that it never asks the Player to make meaningful choices. It does both frequently. Instead, my issue with Andromeda is that it never asks the Player to live with the consequences of those choices.

Beware Andromeda spoilers from here down.

• Shoot Reyes in the back? I did. He sent me an email about it.
• Choose to free the Angaran AI? I did. It talked to SAM in SAM node.
• On the Kett ship, when asked to choose between saving the Salarian Pathfinder – the only original Pathfinder still alive – and the Krogan scouts – I chose the Scouts. Tann mentioned this.

I’ve spent something like 500 hours playing Mass Effect games. I’m fairly well versed in the design logic – where they cheat, and when things matter. And like a junkie, I’m always looking to recreate that initial high – the Virmire choice.

So, I knew why I made each of those decisions.

I never trusted Reyes. He was always a conman. And Reyes had a sniper. This was no duel, it was an execution turned into a firefight and he was making an armed retreat. That shot was justified.

Freeing the AI? It was clearly sentient. Giving it to the Angarans might have been a nice move, but probably not a useful one.

And saving the scouts versus the Salarian Pathfinder? Well, all three other Pathfinders (including the protagonist’s father) had died and been replaced with relative ease. Meanwhile, after fighting their first attempt at Korgan Exaltation, allowing the Kett to figure out how to Exalt the Krogan seemed like something I wanted to delay as long as possible.

All of these actions were given the same general lipservice as helping a colonist scan five corpses or collect enough minerals or save a relative from a work camp.

That is to say, these decisions added to the experience in going from start to finish in the game, but on the whole, they didn’t seem to have a great impact on the game itself. I never had to live with them. At least not in this game – they might ripple.

But why?

Well, as I noted before, Mass Effect: Andromeda feels like two games crammed into one. Even without any expansions it still took me 65 hours to play through, which is considerably longer than the typical 40 hours it takes to make a completionist run on any one part of the Shepard Trilogy.

I honestly feel like this was an attempt to fit too much into one game. It’s an exploration game. And a save the galaxy game. And a hero’s journey. Mass Effect: Andromeda simply tries to be too many things to too many people. This ultimately distracts from the total experience because no single element really shines. There are so many mechanics and currencies and technologies and locations that the game is never able to grab me.

And because I don’t believe in criticizing something without at least offering an alternative solution, here’s how I would have handled Andromeda. Split the game.

Take the two masters that Andromeda is serving, and turn them into two forces covering not one, but three games. This allows those forces to play out over a three act structure and gives Andromeda a grand story with room to allow actions to have consequences while simultaneously fully developing the mechanics of each game.

Game 1 – A Foothold in a new Galaxy

This is the story of Man versus Nature. Nobody said settling another galaxy would be easy, but nobody knew it was going to be this hard.

Ideally I’d start this one before the Arks leave. This gives the chance for the young Ryder to see his father – the Pathfinder – in all his glory. He gets to see the charm. The manic drive. The raw determination that people say drew them to Andromeda. It also sets the stakes for everything to go horribly wrong. Because for stakes to matter, they have to rise before the crash.

And when the player makes the jump to Andromeda, everything does crash.

This sets the first game up not unlike the first section of Andromeda. The other Arks are missing (and we know what that means). Your father sacrifices himself (and we care) and suddenly you find yourself in the role wholly unprepared.

I would have the entire first game on tough decisions involved in setting up that first outpost and first world. Make the Player agonize about which pod to open up, about things like food and oxygen balanced against people missing their families. There is danger in the drama of fear and loss and regret. Use that.

And in the backdrop, not unlike the discovery of Prothean ruins on Mars, let the Pathfinder and the Player start to discover Remnant ruins. Not figure them out. Just discover them.

By the end, the Player and the Pathfinder have both sacrificed their way to a successful first outpost. The Initiative has a foothold in the Andromeda Galaxy and there’s hope, a message from what might be another Ark.

Game 2 – The Fight for the Remnant

Here we can leap ahead a few years. The Pathfinder is more mature in his or her position. There are now several other Pathfinders each out there trying to scratch together other outposts on other worlds and the Pathfinder is stuck balancing the needs of each outpost while still looking for the missing Arks.

As the player progresses two things become clear. First the easiest (a relative term) planets to create outposts on are those that have a strong Remnant presence. And second, there is another species actively hunting these strong Remnant planets and they are not fans of the Initiative.

This creates a general race as the Pathfinder tries to uncover the meaning of the Remnant connection while outmaneuvering the numerically superior Kett. The mechanics here can put a strategy into play – which planets does the player choose to maintain outposts on? The easier to start, but likely to be attacked? The harder to start, but likely be ignored? What about supplies and movement between planets? Can the Pathfinder assemble a coalition to beat the Kett? Can they coexist?

The second act is always the dark one, so the answer to the final two questions have to be no. At best, the Pathfinder can unlock the secret of the Remnants – the location of a massive Remnant structure. But this comes at a cost – that first Initiative Settlement is destroyed at the end of the game.

Game 3 – The Race for Meridian

The end of the second game starts the third with the Pathfinder at his or her lowest point, but also with a sense of purpose. The Kett are not playing around. Their leader – the Archon – is both a better strategist and more ruthless than the Pathfinder. And now we can learn that they are both seeking the same thing. Meridian – that floating Remnant city.

But getting there won’t’ be easy. The lose of the first outpost means that each Initiative outpost is basically stranded, forced into subsistence survivability. Again we have to deal with short term versus long term decision making. Success for a few versus minor improvements for the many.

Beyond that, the very resources that are needed to ensure outpost survivability are needed by the Pathfinder in the quest to reach Meridian. This causes conflict all over the place. The Pathfinder ardently believes that Meridian is the key to pushing back the Kett, but nobody else can interface with Remnant tech, so they don’t believe it.

In the end, the Pathfinder can either build a coalition and start the race to Meridian from behind, or damn the consequences, damn the outposts, and try and get a headstart on the Archon.

Either way, the mechanics of the game, of the trilogy, match the narrative and allow the Player to tell his or her story through the Pathfinder.

Ultimately I enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda. I actually grew to like several of the crew members. I think it’s a game worth playing. But under the shadow of the Shepard trilogy, I think the game tried to be too many things and because of that fell short of its full potential. Pair that with a year full of incredibly noteworthy games, not to mention a slew of embarrassing bugs, and Andromeda ultimately doesn’t look good compared to its peers. I will, however, likely keep it in my annual playthrough.

And finally here’s my record purchases for April:

“Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green
“King of Rock by Run” D.M.C.
“I Put a Spell on You” by Nina Simone

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So far, the biggest upside to my attempts at deliberate living is the ability to invest time and energy into the exploration of ideas. And further, to divorce that exploration from the need to act – either because an idea isn’t ready or because I’m craving the approval of anyone else. The downside, of course, is that it ideas tend to turn into creatures of their own and that can take me down some odd turns.

The art of creation is, like others, an art of balancing. Of waiting too long and moving too soon. Of the perfect and the good and the just plain shit. I’ve been wrestling with that balance regarding this set of nebulous concepts that have been floating about in my head for a few months now. I’ve been turning them over and over, examining them, hoping for (a rare concept for me, I know) a sense of logic to appear that ties them all together.

So far, that list can be summed up (but not done justice) in a list of rather scary words and phrases – Determinism, entropy, Nihilism, Pessimism, the harm and benefit of expectations, and the illusion of choice.

It…it’s not really as dark as that list makes it out to be. Mind you, there is little sunshine in my head, but I’ve got this nagging sense that if I just find the right project, the right means, I can tie all of the above together. And I can tie them together in a way that reasonably approachable, and clever, and – if I’m really good – perhaps uplifting without being saccharin.

I’ve explored a few possible concepts on how to do that, on how to really say something about that list. There’s always the threat that I’ll write another book. And I’ve toyed with the idea of a rather long essay. I have even been exploring the idea of a video game. But lately, the leading concept has been a title which quickly turned into the pitch for a sitcom. And that title was the first real thing to sum up the list of dark thoughts above.

The title-as-start angle is rather apt. That’s almost always where I begin constructing concepts – especially those that get made. Even if the final title changes, I rally behind the tone of the initial name. That’s actually why Timothy ended up being a chatty task bot and not “yet another mobile app” – the name dictated the personality, and that was too big of a concept to lock away behind an icon.

The recent title, the one that’s dominating 2017, is “2000 and Kate.” I came up with that name while riffing with some friends, and the idea just seemed to very quickly gel.

You’ll need to adopt your best sitcom narrator voice for the next bit, because here’s the high concept:

Kate’s just your normal high school junior, living in 2017. Her life is school, sports, boys, and dreaming about the day she’ll leave her quiet New Jersey town for college. And then, one September morning, Kate wakes up to…an alarm clock…in the year 2000. She’s in her room, in her house, with her family, but 17 years in the past.

On the surface, it’s a rather trite fish-out-of-water sitcom premise, not unlike a teenage take on Quantum Leap (minus Al and Ziggy). The obvious stuff writes itself. Oh my god, how will Kate live in a world without smart phones, SnapChat, and selfies? And the fashion? Did people really used to dress like that?

There’s a lot of room for comedy. The year 2000 was a strange time. Boybands were, for some reason, huge.  The internet was still mostly dialup. And reality TV had yet to poison it’s way to the White House.

But once you dip just the slightest bit below the surface, once you really start to examine the situation, the biggest difference between 2017 and the year 2000 – 9/11 hasn’t happened yet. And young Kate is the one of the only people in the world who 9/11 is coming.

There it is. There’s the through line, tying everything together. Kate’s fish-out-of-time tale is a gift – she can stop 9/11.

But she can’t. She’s just a kid.

Don’t feel bad for her. You likely couldn’t either. I am fairly certain I couldn’t. If you plucked me out of my chair right now and sent me back in time, I could name three people responsible for the attack, and the government knew about all of them before the attack. And I was an adult on 9/11. I was already a soldier in uniform. I was in New Jersey. I should know how to stop it.

Kate, our protagonist, would have been an infant on the day of the attacks. She would only have known about 9/11 through the ripples, the after effects and rebroadcasts. To her, and I’m assuming other current high school students, 9/11 would be a terrible day that happened in the nebulous past. For Kate, 9/11 would be a fear she lived with her entire life, but one that she always knew she couldn’t change, and certainly one she never experienced.

Kate couldn’t stop 9/11 even if she was given the chance. There is literally no possibility-space that would allow for it.

Kate can’t tell anyone – she has no proof and likely only knows one person (Bin Laden) and the date of the attacks. And she can’t tell anyone how she knows that, because if she says she’s from the future, she’d likely get locked up. And she can’t pull a Jack Bauer and hunt the terrorists down herself – because she’s not a trained fictional government agent, she’s a high school girl.

The only option Kate has, and it’s the one that seems the most systemic, is to address that life is inevitable, a series of events, of cause-and-effect, and to carry on being a teenager. Sure, it’ll be difficult not questioning her own sanity, but as she gets into her twenties she’ll know that investing in a few choice companies will be a damn good idea. She’ll do alright. And maybe, one a sunny Tuesday in September 2001, she’ll fake being sick and stay home from school that day.

Maybe the video game is a better idea.

And as per usual, I picked up my three records for March. I’ve been sticking with my theme of only buying albums that I can listen to in their entirety from start to finish, without tiring. This month I got Pet Sounds (in mono), OK Computer (the 2-LP version) and one of my all-time-favorites, Neptune City by Nicole Atkins.

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Caught the opening show of the extremely brief Flo Morrisey and Matthew E. White tour. It was evident that the record meant a lot to Matt. Thankfully the crowd was a bit more respectful than the last time he played the Broadberry. Also, snagged the vinyl. This doesn’t count against February.

Don’t ask why.

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The downside to living on the top of a hill and facing roughly west is the near-constant wind. The biting kind. The upside is that, after the trees surrender their leaves, is the occasional view like above – the particularly orange sunset.

January was survived. I feel confident in saying that now. As a span, the month did not got at all as planned, with both work- and side-life deviating from predictions. Certain things took far longer than expected. Certain volumes hit a bit harder than we would have liked. Things swelled and ached and lumbered. But the outcome was by and large positive.

I’ve been running again. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that. 30 minute stints, three times a week – usually following the orders of my robot trainer. I can only abide her so much – I’m trying to cram a 14 week training regime into just 9 weeks and she doesn’t seem to understand the urgency. But, despite a bit of knee pain (the price of combat and fighting in my teens and twenties) the ultimate result has been beneficial, even good.

That trend of positivity is certainly one that does not seem to extend to the rest of my country, nor the ripples outwards into the greater world. That is an atmosphere of constant eruptions – still mostly metaphorical. A time of resistance and fatigue and incredulity and attrition.

One part of me hopes that we can hold on for another 21 months and see a progressive renaissance sweep both chambers of Congress. Then a quick impeachment and a lame duck replacement president. But if the election taught us anything, it’s that too many people prefer the comfortable lie to the harder reality. And my own personal luck doesn’t travel far enough.

Each day feels like a quest for rebellion. Coping in place will not be enough.

But, I’ve got some media to catch up. And I need to still draft my essay on Aronofsky’s “The Fountain.” My most recent record haul is below. Polyvinyl sent me the new Fred Thomas record a week or so before street release. And then there’s “Blue Train” and the 10th Anniversary edition of “Transatlanticism.” I can’t seem to shake that record.

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My birthday present to myself was to finally rebuild my living room sound system. One of the major motivators was to return to listening to vinyl. To prevent going full record head – and adding yet another massive selection of media to my apartment – I’ve been limiting myself to three albums per month.

So far, so good.

January 2017

December 2016

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