This is where your find short posts, like quick updates, interesting links or photos.
I’m not a big soccer guy, but I understand why the Super League is enraging the fans. Phil of All That is Solid explains why it might also be a bad move for the owners:
Winning and losing have consequences: trophies and titles are always aspirational, but the struggle to maintain one’s standing in the rankings is the meat and gravy of football. Games might always be games, but it’s the stakes invested in them that matter, which probably helps explain why friendly matches never generate as much of a buzz. The super league might have its own title, but there is no price for failure. Coming at the bottom of the league does not mean relegation, nor are there any routes into the league. It is entirely closed up, a hermetically sealed panic room insulating self-styled elite clubs from the competition. This is nothing other than an attempt at an oligopoly.
The top clubs are owned by hyper capitalists and venture funds, so the fix is likely already in. But wouldn’t it be sort of nice if everyone said “enough’s enough” and just watched some other league?
Update: Looks like I was too cynical and that the whole thing collapsed after barely 48 hours. That said, I think something like this will still happen, but they’ll ned to be more circumspect about it.
I am not a fan of Rogan’s podcast; I think it sounds like if you grafted a mouth onto a lifted Dodge Ram covered in Punisher decals.
Ouch. Nick Heer has opinions.
Typically gorgeous track from Frøkedal, taken from her upcoming album Flora.
Quite enjoying Cheater, the new album from Norway’s Pom Poko. It really hits the sweet spot for jangly noise and pretty vocals, and if, like me, your formative years were the 90s, you’ll find a lot to like here. If you like what you hear, support the band on Bandcamp.
[T]his plutocracy cannot be fought with a return to what went as normal before, because what went as normal before created the plutocracy that we are trying to escape from. Fighting for democracy requires a turn to the left (in economic terms), and that is what we are seeing in the US. The reason is quite simple – without radical economic change in a left wing direction the reasons why enough people in the US voted for Trump will re-emerge. Moving left does not guarantee that will not happen, but it gives democracy a fighting chance. Returning to the neoliberalism that created Trump is just asking for a return of Trump.
Of the Beats, Ferlinghetti is more or less the only one whose work I keep returning to; Kerouac offers diminishing returns as I grow older, Burroughs makes my head hurt, and frankly, I’m too prudish for most of Ginsberg. When I was traveling around the US before moving home, I stopped at City Lights on my last day in San Francisco; as I was rummaging around on the second floor, the door to the office opened and there he was. He smiled at me and nodded before closing the door. As a farewell to the Bay, it was almost too on-the-nose.
Crowded House has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard Weather With You back at the start of the 90s. They just released a new single, To the Island, to promote therir upcoming album. Neil Finn has always been a restless guy who has avoided taking the easy path. The later, intermittent Crowded House albums reflect that fact, though if you follow all of Finn’s projects, the overall line in his work becomes quite clear. Anyway, this is good stuff, and I hope to see the House back in Oslo one day.
So long as the Left appears more interested in finding new enemies than in seeking new friends, it will fail to advance its many important priorities.
John Stuart Mill thought that “wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument.” Experiments, however, confirm our real world experience that in fact the opposite can happen. And this isn’t simply because of our biased and dysfunctional media.
I’ve been “at work” for a week now, but because of COVID-19, I can’t physically go to the office, hence the quotation marks. I’ve had a few video meetings with my new colleagues, but never having met them in person, it almost feels as if I’m playing a game. Sim Office, or something like that. While having this technology is both amazing and futuristic, it does make it clear how much value there is in a social setting. It’s harder to ask for help, because you feel more like you’re butting in when you start that call instead of just popping into the next cubicle and asking. That said, I’m really happy to be a working stiff again.
I was optimistic for 2021. I still am, but it took less than a fortnight for the universe to set me straight. That said, another lockdown is manageable and on Monday I start working. It’ll be my first job since 2014. I’m nervous as hell, but excited too. My daughter turns 7 too, so life trudges on. I mentioned the Paul McCartney podcast Take it Away a few posts back (in 2020), and it’s been a joy to rediscover what used to be my favorite albums. One thing I wasn’t expecting was re-evaluating Give My Regards To Broad Street, Paul’s ill-advised (and -fated) movie and soundtrack. It was my first encounter with Sir Paul, and while I wrote it off years ago (except No More Lonely Nights), the garage-y rocker No Values is actually a treat.