MD Listening Club Rebooted!
It’s been a while; work and life have conspired to keep me away. But it’s time to revive the Listening Parties, and I think you will find they are better than ever.
Author: Glyph
Glyph is worse than some and better than others. He believes that life is just one damned thing after another, that only pop music can save us now, and that mercy is the mark of a great man (but he's just all right).
Nothing he writes here should be taken as an indication that he knows anything about anything.
R.I.P. Ross Shapiro, of Athens rock band The Glands
The giants like Bowie and Shandling will get all the year-end press; but here at Mindless Diversions, we keep a flame for the underdogs too.
What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?
David Bowie died on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of Blackstar, his 25th album. The news came meteorically; we were dazed and flattened, looking at the world through debris and glitter that suddenly it seemed we’d borrowed from him. Lady Gaga paid extended, exhaustive tribute to him at the Grammys on Monday night; in the week following his death, there was a second line for him in New Orleans, a shrine outside his apartment in Tribeca, a series of farewells from his musical echelon, a million Instagrams, a segment on SNL. Bowie was that rare thing, a revolutionary who was also near-universally beloved. He gave off an uncanny combination of generosity and brilliance, in which he seemed to give everything to and ask nothing of the people who idolized him—except for, I guess, the bodies of the young teenage girls he fucked.
Word choice is hard here. Should we say “raped” automatically if a grown man has sex with a teenager? Does it matter at all if the 15-year-old, now much older, describes their encounter as one of the best nights of her life? What is our word for a “yes” given on a plane that’s almost vertically unequal? Does contemporary morality dictate that we trust a young woman when she says she consented freely, or believe that she couldn’t have, no matter what she says?
BOC Changed Their Minds
Lemmy and Bowie got all the press, but they were just the tip of the iceberg.
Inspiration!
Fascinating short doc on Chuck Jones, with insights on humor, discipline, psychology, and inspiration.
No Place Like Home (Anywhere But Here) – Pavement
A few of Pavement’s prettiest, saddest songs, all keying on “home” – wanting to find it, and/or wanting to be anywhere else.
