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How I Look at a Taylor Swift Album Announcement

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Toby Fox is 34 years old.

Toby Fox created the Earthbound Halloween Hack when he was 16. This was 2008, when the tools for creating video games as an individual were extremely scant, not to mention the culture of indie development just wasn't there like it is now. When he released Undertale, a game that is by no means perfect but was still beautiful enough to captivate a generation, he was 23 years old, turning 24 in a month.

When I was 16 years old, I learned to code for the very first time. When I was 17, I learned to create video games. I feel like I'm pretty decent at it now, but I am currently 23 years old. My Undertale does not exist. I'd be lucky to even be able to finish my Earthbound Halloween Hack. Seeing this, I am left to wonder: what am I doing wrong? Does this mean something bad about me? Video game creation is probably the main discipline in which I aspire to success, and I look at Toby or anyone else whose work has captivated me and can only see the shadow of what could have been. What have I done... wrong? Have I done something wrong?

I have been trying to create the same game since I was 17, building on skills I had been learning since I was 16. I tried in high school, when I had no idea how to do anything, really, especially how to manage a project's scope / scale. I tried during the Coronavirus pandemic, when my ultimate silver lining to the whole thing was the opportunity to work on this thing, and when I agonizingly slowly became too depressed and helpless to contribute meaningfully to anything, much less something self-motivated. I worked on it in college, where I did a lot of negative work and some positive work. And I've continued to work on it past college, where I feel like it's started to come together. Started??? I'm 23 and just starting????

What's to blame for this? When could I have done better? I have been trying for a long, long time! Am I to blame my 13-14 year old self for not having productive enough interests as a small child? Am to blame my 18 year old self for choosing to attend a University that gave me so much else to do, even if it opened the doors to countless other opportunities? Am I to blame my 22 year old self for caring so much about those other things? Am I to blame every part of me that cares about something other than game development, just for distracting me? My opportunities, the present beauty of my life - how much of it was I supposed to sacrifice?

Is any of this supposed to matter? I know, as an adult human, that we are not supposed to aspire to greatness. But I also know it only comes to those who are too stupid to believe that. Am I wasting my time even thinking that I, regardless of life decisions, could have created anything near the level of the games I admire? In Magic the Gathering, we talk about playing to our outs: that regardless of win or lose, you should evaluate yourself on if you took the path that gave you the most opportunities to win. Sometimes, though, there are no outs. Did I have outs? Do I have outs? How many people have an out? Why? Why, any of this? A why desperate in its pointlessness and pointless in its desperation.

I know in my brain that I will never be anything like Toby Fox. And yet, that doesn't stop me from having the most primal, visceral, soul-crushing urge to make something as beautiful as the things he has made. This urge is so strong that I can't believe in a world where I'm not supposed to follow it.

Billy Basso worked across various creative and uncreative disciplines and even went back to school for film (I think? It's been a bit more than a year since I asked him.) before creating Animal Well. He told my friend that he draws his inspiration from the game from walks with his dog.

The player of a game doesn't know or care whether you are 16 or 17 or 18 or 22 or 23 or 24 or 34. They do you this favor, one so great the universe itself does cannot grant it for you. We are very lucky in this way; the clock ticks, but it is a blurry clock with few hour marks. Maybe it's not too late for me yet. Toby Fox, or any other good role model, will at all times walk the line between envy and inspiration. From that voice comes many messages, and so far there is only one whose importance I am utterly convinced of:

"Let me see you grit those teeth!"

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Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film (Review)

Let me get a couple of things out of the way first: 1. I liked this album. I think it is good (★★★☆☆) 2. This is the first Stereolab album I have ever heard, I have no reverence for this group.

That being said, this album has brought one question to the front of my mind in a way I have not been able to articulate before: why would I ever listen to this? Let me explain.

Often, I feel like my reactions to and reviews of music, especially that of the critically acclaimed / "nerdy" variety, has been a struggle to draw the line between music as art and music as feeling. Music, more than any other form of art, is experienced extremely subjectively. To read a book, watch a movie or a tv show, or play a game, you are pretty much always sitting down and taking something in. Music is not like that, it is much more fluid and active. We were making music before we had any sense of meaning or even any sense of story. You cannot create a tv show accidentally, but you rattle a spoon on a pan in a certain way and suddenly you feel the urge to dance or hum the rest of the melody, no matter how momentary. People around the world who are illiterate or have no access to technology or theater sing and dance. It's in our bones.

Today, however, most people experience meaning as a cornerstone of the musical experience, at least when it comes to listening to songs and albums. If you ask the average person their favorite song, more often than not you are going to get something with personal significance to them. The most generic and universal music has the most generic and universal meaning, and music with no meaning / subtle meaning rarely finds mass appeal. Most people want to hear music about something, and if they don't, or if what's being said doesn't appeal to them, they will bore.

Meaning is usually confined mostly to lyrics, even if the sound of a song or album will harmonize with that meaning through evoking a certain aesthetic. This is not always the case, though. 공중도둑 [Mid-Air Thief], 青葉市子 [Ichiko Aoba] , and Mdou Moctar, for example, make music in other languages that is sometimes purely instrumental and at all other times in a language that the west does not speak, and yet they have all managed to find significant western followings. The meaning of their music is represented so well sonically that it can transcend the language barrier. Similarly, there are a lot of instrumental songs I love that evoke very specific feelings (Weyes Blood's Titanic Risen, Porter Robinson's Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do, and Current Joys' Days of Heaven are just a few that come to mind). Meaning is often, and by most people, found through lyrics, but this rule can be broken if the vibes are strong enough.

StereoLab, even just after reading the band's name, would presumably fall into that second category. The name of this band, combined with their nerdy cult classic status and the one or two songs I had heard from them, tell me that this is music made to sound interesting and unique, a band who conveys meaning through sound and structure. I found this to be partially true: Stereolab's lyrics appear to be mostly accessories and sometimes absent entirely, The meaning, though, is where this album loses me. I don't care necessarily that I don't know what these songs mean, but I do take some issue with the fact that I have no idea what feeling these songs are supposed to create in me. Stereolab's music is too subtle to be energizing or exciting but too busy to be relaxing. It's too blippy to be enveloping and too smooth to feel active. It was pleasant to listen to, but not bone-satisfying like an Aphex Twin album. It's fun, but nowhere near as fun as your average good pop, rap, or dance album. It's a very unique vibe. Here's how I would attempt to describe the feeling of listening to Stereolab: - Like being a hamster in a maze - Like being an electron on a circuit board - Like being the only person in a spinning teacup ride not going quite fast enough to make you dizzy - Like playing a retro puzzle video game - Like watching a 15 second GIF - Like being a bug trying to eat a plastic popsicle

At most one of these is a situation you would ever be in, and I barely play any puzzle video games. So when am I supposed to listen to Instant Holograms on Metal Film? A band I have seen compared a little bit to Stereolab is LAKE. I definitely see the sonic similarities, especially in LAKE's newer work. One of the reasons I like LAKE, though, is that I listen to their music all the time when I am out in nature or on a walk. Their lyrics, lofi production, and natural-feeling rhythms both enhance the experience of the walk and the experience of listening to music. The same goes for listening to Nectar on an airplane or listening to Favourite Worst Nightmare on a run, or even listening to Titanic Rising when I am feeling emotionally fragile. Whether it be an activity or a feeling, I find that I bond to music when I can associate it with a mode of being. I think this is a pretty common experience for people these days: when music resonates with you, you will become attached to it.

This is why I'm confused at how Stereolab's fans can love them so much. In order for anyone to really begin to love a piece of music, they have to return to it frequently. When are you throwing this on? It's too distracting to be background music. It's AWKWARD. I feel like it's kind of designed to be awkward, to be staticky, to be ambling. It's clearly very well made. The lab that engineered the music coming from this stereo is clearly top of line. But for why? How the hell do you feel when you listen to this? How am I supposed to feel? This is a question that I have only been able to articulate now, but is relevant pretty much every time I listen to an album that is critically acclaimed by nerds but virtually unknown outside of that. Floating Points is another good example, though I like Stereolab a bit more because they tend to eir a bit closer to a typical song structure. Even non-nerdy artists can catch this criticism from me from time to time. The Crane Wives are a good example.

I think that when I can understand music that is kind of meaningless to me, or when I can learn to find meaning in new types of sounds and structures, I will be able to appreciate this music on a deeper level. I'd appreciate it if fans weighed in on this or shared some perspective. But for now, I had a good time with it, and don't know when or why I would listen to it again. Anyway, my favorite song was the one called 'Electrified Teenybop.' You gotta give em credit for that.

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Once I have 5-7 years of professional software experience it's so over for the opps

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Shout out to corrupt politicians !!!!

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Japanese tourists must go cray for hot topic

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Whole Foods is honestly probably my favorite Indian-Italian fusion takeout place

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Very kind of nyc to let you know when you are in a PVP enabled area

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Haven't been to a Zumiez in a few years, and after my most recent trip to the Union Square Zumiez today I am convinced it is like a wildlife sanctuary for alternative skater types that is simply funded and kept in business to give them a safe place to hang out. There were like 8 employees and zero other customers in a store small enough to keep an eye on the entire thing without moving. And hell, all 4 employees who approached me were extremely nice and chill and helpful. So whoever it is funding Zumiez, please continue to do so, I think it's extremely enriching and healthy for the skaters to have a little zone to be chill have fun.

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The Grocery fandom really came after me for this one

When are we getting bigger peas

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When are we getting bigger peas

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If you think Your Name is better than A Silent Voice not only are you an unsaveable gooner, not only is the song blues by Geordie Greep about you, but you are a terrible person, nobody you meet will ever truly like you, and you will spend the eternity of your life on earth walking through life wondering why you have never truly felt love or passion, blaming the world for your own self inflicted pathetic shortcomings that anyone else could have easily vanquished. And when you go straight to hell, all you will ever think about for the rest of time is how you ever managed to squander god's irreplaceable gift to all of us in such a spectacular and tragic fashion.

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Review

Pantheon aka Death Note with hackers that goes the EOE route was OK. (★★☆☆☆)

If there's one compliment you have to give Pantheon, it's that it is an extremely brave show. It tackles just about every subject matter. It is almost trying to be the best show of all time, or even like the answer to existence. The problem with doing this is that you bite off more than you can chew. Additionally, the subjects at the core of this show are really, really hard to get right. "Hackers" / cyber warfare and the meaning of life are two of the most at-risk subjects for cringing at trying too hard and winding up looking silly, not to mention that the whole like global geopolitical conflict thing is incredibly hard to write due to the number of political climates you need to include without coming off as ignorant and Eurocentric (why are there no Africans or South Americans among the "geniuses" in this show?) and I wouldn't argue that it really pulls it off. Hell, it literally goes full "peace in the middle east." The thing is, the show does do a lot of things well: probably the most "real" feeling part of Pantheon (shoring up some of the character weaknesses that I will talk about later) is how the government response to UIs was written and how it writes an inescapable digital threat to humanity as feeling extremely authentically real and inevitable, even if it often gets so insane it starts to go a little Death Note season 2 (There's definitely more DN s2 than DN s1 in here, part of the reason I don't love it). When the show's entire format and subject matter, however, are built in a way that highlights flaws, it starts to deteriorate. There is something to be commended in how much of a risk this is, but that doesn't mean you make excuses for the show suffering the exact pitfalls that risk entails. It's to be expected.

Not to mention that the show basically ends in the third to last episode and the last two eps are like if EOE became sentient, went back in time and killed itself, turned its corpse into psychoactive powder, snorted it, and went to Times Square to give a speech for good measure. That sounds cool, and it kind of is, but without giving away too much, it kind of reaches such an insane level of abstraction from human existence and consciousness that it fails to mean anything at all. It's like... impressive. I can't imagine how anyone managed to write it. But it makes me feel nothing, which brings me to some more basic problems with the show.

I straight up did not care about anything, at least not that much. When so much of your show is philosophical banter on the nature of living and governments weaving around each others' increasingly complex policies and security protocols, your characters will suffer a bit as a result. Maddie is cool enough, I really like her design in the second season and I like her character a bit for maybe the first couple episodes - but you can tell this show was written by people who are really good and writing sci fi, governments, and systems, but could use some work when it comes to their characters. I like Maddie because of her half up ponytail, of course MIST is cute as hell but she's more of a philosophy question than a character, I rooted for Caspian who was purposefully written to be flat as a board... but truly I identified with none of these characters, nor did I really care what happened to them. No one has any form of emotional stakes or personality that you couldn't find in a writing prompt. The beginning of the show, when characters should have been getting developed, felt reaaaalllyyyy slow, probably because the way these characters are written there's just not much to latch on to. Hell, by the last 4 episodes I just put the show on 1.5x speed cause I wanted to know what would happen but didn't care to lock in on it. All the character writing troubles coupled with relatively stiff animation and voice acting that was just ok (esp on secondary characters. The Steve Jobs guy's voice was bizarre), the show feels flat and lacks hooks. It lacks... humanity.

The world and ever-evolving conflict of Pantheon does not resolve itself, instead opting to implode in an event horizon of fire and what-ifs. The central question at the core of the show of why or why not to leave your mortal shell for an existence free of turmoil is never given a concrete answer - granted, that's a nearly impossible task, but in that case I say don't write that into the core conceit of your television series. And though any answer will have holes, a lack of an answer is a hole, and the only answers to this question have to be emotionally driven, big, and vulnerable. Maybe the answer to Pantheon's questions are not in the show itself but what we can learn from its flaws and omissions, proving once again that any attempt to understand a higher level of consciousness will only collapse into a humbling reminder of what makes this one so important.

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Funny how most people who make music these days are attracted to women, since the guys are guys and all the artful ladies / in betweeners are gay. To boot, the last remaining male-attracted musicians are making songs talking about the guys they are attracted to being like "can you guys believe this. what is wrong with these people."

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Review

Rating: Bad

Only saved from Terrible by amazing actors, sound, lights, etc since this was on broadway. The production was great, broadway actors, orchies, techies, etc are amazing. This ain't about them.

&Juliet is an actually bafflingly stupid musical that feels like it was legitimately written at gunpoint. Cloyingly and toothlessly second wave. Probably the worst theater experience I've had.

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#Whitepeoplewinter

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The objective truth