Circuits

Excited to see where this debate goes!🍿

I'm super late to the conversation about this, but I finally got around to watching "Horse Girl" (2020) last night. A fantastic example of a story that leads you down a dark corridor expecting one thing, and then turns suddenly on you to reveal a galaxy of even more troubling possibilities. I suspect most of you have already seen it and liked it, so this is just me tossing a recommendation on top of the pile and remarking upon how well-acted it was, and how it created such a unique sense of time and space.

https://youtu.be/ieqemSsMxek

Approaching NYC from the Jersey turnpike extension. Yesterday morning, 7AM-ish.

1/ I've had three random Ween-related conversations in the last week, none of them initiated by me. But each instance led me to recount this story about a great guy who was very much in the Ween-adjacent orbit of my youth. In hindsight, I now understand he had a bigger impact on me than I realized at the time. His name was E William Tucker and this is a story about how a brief interaction with him almost 40 years ago played an outsized influence on my life.

#ween

Yesterday’s magnificent lunch of sweet potato tacos.

Now this I did not see coming: Swell Maps reform, new album coming soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/mar/10/swell-maps-interview-jowe-head

Well well well, looky what just dropped on Bandcamp. For a great cause, too. This was never my favorite Fugazi record, so excited to hear if this version is what makes it click for me.

https://fugazi.bandcamp.com/album/albini-sessions-benefit-for-letters-charity

#fugazi #stevealbini

My teenage kid's interest in music is ratcheting up, and she recently asked if we could get a subscription to Apple Music. Neither my wife nor I use any streaming services, and I am skeptical of them for all the usual reasons. (They pay artists poorly while enriching the worst people on Earth, the algorithms encourage bland, predictable taste, they devalue art to the level of a budget car rental, etc.) All of that being said, I'm sympathetic to the needs and customs of her generation, and don't want her to be the pariah at school because of my weird values.

Music is extremely important to me. It's not aural wallpaper or background decor—I think music can change lives, inspire art, end wars, help bring down governments, and motivate people to keep going in their darkest moments. I also think streaming services suck the life out of those possibilities, and I see it on a daily basis in my work as the advisor for a college-adjacent radio station. More and more young folks (especially those who've grown up with streaming services) are making radio that sounds like an Instagram reel had a one night stand with a viral Tik-Tok video and gave birth to a well-manicured celebrity influencer playlist.

But I sat on the kid's request for a few days and came up with a counterproposal: Instead of Apple Music, I offered to buy her two new records of her choice every month for the remainder of her time in high school. (Naturally, I bundled this offer with some conditional expectations for chores around the house.)

And she went for it. Eagerly.

She also brushed away my offer to pick up her initial requests on my lunch break today, saying she'd rather we just go to the record store together this weekend. This made my heart melt a little bit, because as every parent knows, the sting of your kid pulling away from you as a mid-teen is a quiet pain that we all manage differently. I hadn't anticipated that my offer would result with the bonus of a monthly daddy/daughter date in a place we both love spending time.

And yes, it's going to cost me five times as much as any streaming service would, but I think the benefits will be incalculable.

Picked this up on my lunch break -- looks amazing, but given the failing eyesight of the target demographic, a large print edition would've been nice.

https://www.researchpubs.com/shop/p/search-destroy-the-complete-archive

#theoldness #searchanddestroy #punk

"'I've lost a lot of blood', she said. Lyin' on this bed of nails" is one of the best opening lines of any song ever recorded. ("All Sexed Up" by 100 Flowers from their self-titled 1983 album.)

https://100flowers.bandcamp.com/track/all-sexed-up

THE QUESTION ON EVERYBODY'S MIND