Bob Moses, presente! I had the real honor to meet Moses in 1994 at the 30th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
“… and I think about living in a place that’s chock full of History and devoid of memory. I think about how it’s impossible for a nation to have a conscience if it doesn’t have a memory.”
— Rayshauna Gray, “Chiasmus: A Narrative of Ascent” in Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology
Still the greatest zine title ever, that I’m reminded of in just about every good political discussion, was Rob’s: My Views Change Over Time.
There was a time — pre-parenthood, etc — that I loved making relational database systems. I can think of 3-4 really good ones I built with my fairly limited knowledge base.
Watching some Python demos earlier today made me curious if I could learn and apply that to web stuff. We shall see.
Listening to Lucero’s Nobody’s Darlings on the ride into work today and had forgotten how much I enjoy it. I think their latter work has taken some of the sheen off this stretch of theirs.
This is wholly unscientific but it strikes me that this album is part of a small group of stretches of 3-full-length-albums I’d call great or nearly flawless. Many bands have great records, and lots of make two in a row, but a three-peat of great records seems rare. The ones I could think of off the top of my head:
- Hot Water Music – Fuel for the Hate Game / Forever & Counting / No Division / A Flight and A Crash / Caution
- Lucero – Tennesse / That Much Further West / Nobody’s Darlings
- Nirvana – Bleach / Nevermind / In Uetero
- Songs: Ohia – The Lioness / Mi Sei Apparso Come un Fantasma / Didn’t It Rain
Lots of reasons I can think of for not more 3-album stretches: Great records or a pair are preceded or followed by just really good ones (e.g. Neutral Milk Hotel, Public Enemy); a band breaks up after one or two great ones (e.g. Slang, Bridge and Tunnel); I’m not as familiar with a whole catalog enough to identify a 3-peat but there probably is one (Sonic Youth, Unwound, Fugazi); puts out 3 great albums in 4 record stretch (Dikembe).
After quickly scrolling through my collection some obvious ones I missed (though still not comprehensive:
- Constantines – Constatines / Shine a Light / Tournament of Hearts
- Jawbreaker – Bivouac / 24 Hour Revenge Therapy / Dear You
- Richard Buckner – Bloomed / Devotion + Doubt / Since
There’s also probably a stretch of Kiss, Phil Ochs, PJ Harvey, R.E.M (though the song “Stand” alone might knock them out) and the aforementioned Fugazi, Sonic Youth and Unwound, but the point still stands.
Someone is always in search of new ways to stretch out bedtime. So as I waited for him to finish another snack, I fooled around with making a blackout poem. I hadn’t seen him that intrigued in a non-computer thing in a while, so I let him work one out. I tried one about our idiot governor — and might try to make some political ones at work once my current project is done.
It’s insane — and in my opinion criminal — that Jack Dorsey (or any other billionaire) making a $15,000,000 donation is roughly equivalent to a college professor making a monthly $250 donation.
