#java album

[dosartistas]

(vía Lithographs from Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn’s *Java-Album* (1854) – The Public Domain Review).

Mount Merapi.

[java-the-owl]

the prince of Egypt soundtrack goes HARD for no reason like these songs are BANGERS??

we're collectively athiest and "through heaven's eyes" is one of the song ever

truly

[vanishingmoments]

i'm listening to the first soul coughing album and in every song mike doughty says the names of like 10 different places

[aioleis]

David Bowie Answers the Famous Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Reading.

What is your most marked characteristic? Getting a word in edgewise.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Discovering morning.

What is your greatest fear? Converting kilometers to miles.

In the 1880s, long before he claimed his status as one of the greatest authors of all time, teenage Marcel Proust (July 10, 1871–November 18, 1922) filled out an English-language questionnaire given to him by his friend Antoinette, the daughter of France’s then-president, as part of her “confession album” — a Victorian version of today’s popular personality tests, designed to reveal the answerer’s tastes, aspirations, and sensibility in a series of simple questions. Proust’s original manuscript, titled “by Marcel Proust himself,” wasn’t discovered until 1924, two years after his death. Decades later, the French television host Bernard Pivot, whose work inspired James Lipton’s Inside the Actor’s Studio, saw in the questionnaire an excellent lubricant for his interviews and began administering it to his guests in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1993, Vanity Fair resurrected the tradition and started publishing various public figures’ answers to the Proust Questionnaire on the last page of each issue.

In 2009, the magazine released Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire: 101 Luminaries Ponder Love, Death, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life (public library) — a charming compendium featuring answers by such cultural icons as Jane Goodall, Allen Ginsberg, Hedy Lamarr, Gore Vidal, Julia Child, and Joan Didion. Among the most wonderful answers, equal parts playful and profound, are those by David Bowie — himself a vocal lover of literature — published in the magazine in August of 1998.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Reading. What is your most marked characteristic? Getting a word in edgewise. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Discovering morning. What is your greatest fear? Converting kilometers to miles. What historical figure do you most identify with? Santa Claus. Which living person do you most admire? Elvis. Who are your heroes in real life? The consumer. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? While in New York, tolerance. Outside New York, intolerance. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Talent. What is your favorite journey? The road of artistic excess. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Sympathy and originality. Which word or phrases do you most overuse? “Chthonic,” “miasma.” What is your greatest regret? That I never wore bellbottoms. What is your current state of mind? Pregnant. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? My fear of them (wife and son excluded). What is your most treasured possession? A photograph held together by cellophane tape of Little Richard that I bought in 1958, and a pressed and dried chrysanthemum picked on my honeymoon in Kyoto. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Living in fear. Where would you like to live? Northeast Bali or south Java. What is your favorite occupation? Squishing paint on a senseless canvas. What is the quality you most like in a man? The ability to return books. What is the quality you most like in a woman? The ability to burp on command. What are your favorite names? Sears & Roebuck. What is your motto? “What” is my motto.

Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire is a treat in its colorful totality. For a similar compendium of wisdom from cultural icons, see LIFE Magazine’s 1991 volume The Meaning of Life, then revisit��Bowie’s 75 must-read books.

Article, https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/07/10/david-bowie-proust-questionnaire-vanity-fair/

[saturnaous]

go to hollywood by lemon demon from hit 2004 album HIP TO THE JAVA BEAN !!!!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kitchensink callithump linkdump

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

With just days to go before my summer vacation, I find myself once again with a backlog of links that I didn't squeeze into the blog, and no hope of clearing them before I disappear into a hammock for two weeks, so it's time for my 21st linkdump – here's the other 20:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I'm going to start off this week's 'dump with a little bragging, because it's my newsletter, after all. First up: a book! Yes, I write a lot of books, but what I'm talking about here is a physical book, a limited edition of ten, that I commissioned from three brilliant craftspeople.

Back in March 2023, I launched a Kickstarter to pre-sell the audiobook of Red Team Blues, the first novel in my new Martin Hench series, about a forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding tech bros' finance frauds:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

One of the rewards for that campaign was a very special hardcover: a handmade, leather-bound edition of Red Team Blues, typeset by the typography legend John D. Berry:

https://johndberry.com/

Bound by the legendary book-artist John DeMerritt:

https://www.demerrittstudios.com/

And printed by the master printer JaVae Berry:

https://www.jgraphicssf.com/

But this wasn't a merely beautiful, well made book – it had a gimmick. You see, I had already completed the first draft of The Bezzle, the second Hench novel, by the time I launched the Kickstarter for Red Team Blues. I had John Berry lay out a tiny edition of that early draft as a quarter-sized book, and then John DeMerritt hand-bound it in card.

The reason that edition of The Bezzle had to be so small was that it was designed to slip into a hollow cavity in the hardcover, a cavity that John Berry had designed the type around, so that both books could be read and enjoyed.

I offered three of these for sale through the Kickstarter, and the three backers were very patient as the team went back and forth on the book, getting everything perfect. Last month, I took delivery of the books: three for my backers, one each for John DeMerritt and John Berry's personal archives, one for me, and a few more that I'm going to surprise some very special people with this Christmas.

Look, I had high hopes for this book. I dote on beautiful books, my house is busting with them, and I used to work at a new/used science fiction store where we had a small but heartstoppingly great rare book selection. But these books are fucking astounding. Every time I handle mine, my heart races. These are beautiful things, and I just want to show them to everyone:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720318331731/

As it happens, the next thing I'm going to do (after I finish this newsletter) is turn in the copyedited manuscript for the third Hench novel, Picks and Shovels, which comes out in Feb 2025 (luckily, I had enough time to review the edits myself, then turn it over to my mom, who has proofed every book I've written and always catches typos that everyone else misses, including some real howlers – thanks Mom!):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Of course, the majority of people who enjoy my books do not end up with one of these beautiful hardcovers – indeed, many of you consume my work exclusively as electronic media: ebooks and (of course) audiobooks. I love audiobooks and the audio editions of my books are very good, with narrators like Amber Benson, Wil Wheaton, and Neil Gaiman.

But here's the thing: Audible refuses to carry my books, because they are DRM-free (which means that they aren't locked to Audible's approved players – you can play my audiobooks with any audiobook player). Audible has a no-exceptions, iron-clad rule that every book they sell must be permanently locked into their platform, which means that Audible customers can't ditch their Audible software without losing their libraries – all the books they purchased:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Being excluded from Audible takes a huge bite out of my income – after all, they're a monopolist with a 90% market share. That's why I'm so grateful for indie audiobook stores that carry my books on equitable terms that Audible denies – stores like Libro.fm, Downpour and even Google Books.

This week, I discovered a new, amazing indie audiobook store called Storyfair, where the books are DRM-free and the authors get a 75% royalty on every sale:

https://storyfair.net/helpstoryfairgrow/

Storyfair is a labor of love created by a married couple who were sickened and furious by the way that Audible screws authors and listeners and decided to do something about it. Naturally, I uploaded my whole catalog to the site so they could sell it:

https://storyfair.net/search-for-audiobooks/?keyword=cory+doctorow&filter=any

These books are DRM-free, which means that no matter who you buy them from, you can play them in the same player as your other DRM-free audiobooks. You know how you can read all your books under the same lamp, sitting in the same chair, and then put them in the same bookcase when you're done with them? It's weird – outrageous even! – that tech companies think that buying a book from them means that they should have the legal right to force you to read or listen to it using their technology exclusively.

If you let your Storyfair audiobooks touch your Libro.fm audiobooks, they won't get cooties! Audible is like a toddler that won't let their broccoli touch their peas – only that toddler is also a rapacious monopolist that keeps 75% of every sale.

The fight for fair audiobooks is one of those places where the different parts of my professional life cross over: activism, digital media, art, writing the web, and breaking down complex technical subjects for a mass audience. I've just signed up to a six-year project to combine all those facets in a structured way, in collaboration with Cornell University.

Cornell just named me as their latest AD White Professor-at-Large. This is a six-year appointment that involves a series of week-long visits to Ithaca to lecture, run seminars, meet with colleagues, collaborate on research, and do community performances:

https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/

We've tentatively scheduled my first visit for early September 2025, to coincide with the Ithaca Book Festival, and we've got big plans, roping in multiple departments at Cornell, the local alternative school and local colleges, doing talks at the fair as well as at the university, and (we hope!) squeezing in a stop in NYC on the way home for a day at Cornell Tech. I'm so excited (and honored) to be working with Cornell (and getting a chance to visit Moosewood Restaurant, whose cookbooks taught me how to cook!). Watch this space.

Authorship has always been a political act, but never moreso than today, with waves of book-bans sweeping the country. One of the heroes of those bans is Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who made headlines when she publicly excoriated Scholastic for demanding that she remove references to racism from her kids' books in order to make them more palatable to reactionaries:

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1169848627/scholastic-childrens-book-racism

Tokuda-Hall has stepped up the fight, co-founding Authors Against Book Bans, an org that provides training and support for author/activists so they can fight back against book bans at library board and city council meetings:

https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/

Authors Against Book bans is looking for members! I signed up last week, within seconds of having Tokuda-Hall give me the pitch when we ran into each other in Oakland at the Locus Awards. Are you an author? Sign up too! They're especially interested in branching out beyond YA and kids' authors (though they want those kinds of writers, too!).

Book bans affect us all. Even if you personally are never stymied when you visit your library and discover the book that you want to read has been removed by a swivel-eyed loon with terminal groomer-panic. The bans sweeping our country mean that our neighbors and loved ones are being denied literature by these cranks. There are people in your life who are losing out on the possibility of a life-changing literary adventure (which is why the far right hates these books – they want to be sure no one encounters the ideas between their covers).

The realization that you have to live in a society with people who are harmed by injustice, even if you personally escape that justice? It's the whole basis for solidarity.

Americans are living through a multigenerational project of stamping out solidarity and insisting that we only ever view ourselves as individuals, with no stake in the plights of our neighbors. That's how the US got the most expensive, least effective health care system in the world. And even if you are in the vanishingly tiny minority of Americans who are happy with their health care, you live amongst people who are being killed by the system around you.

The health system is a perfect example of how monopolization drives more monopolization, and how that comes to harm the public and workers. Health consolidation began with pharma mergers, that led to pharma companies gouging hospitals. Hospitals, in turn, engaged in a nonstop orgy of mergers, which created regional monopolies that could resist the pricing power of monopoly pharma – and screw insurers. That kicked off consolidation in insurance, which is why most Americans have a "choice" of between one and three private insurers – and why health workers' monopoly employers have eroded their wages and working conditions.

A new study in American Economic Review: Insights puts some quantitative spine in this tale, tracking the relationship between hospital mergers and skyrocketed health-care prices:

https://harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/consolidation-hospital-sector-leading-higher-health-care-costs-study-finds?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

The researchers investigated 1,164 acute-care hospital mergers, finding that while the FTC only challenged 1% of these, they could – and should – have challenged 20% of them, based on the agency's own criteria for merger scrutiny. The researchers blame the rising costs of hospital care directly on these mergers, and point out that Congress has historically starved the FTC of the budget it needed to investigate these mergers. The annual additional costs to the American people from these mergers exceed the entire annual budget of the FTC.

It's not just hospitals: the entire investor class is hell-bent on spending their way to monopoly. Nowhere is that more true than in AI, where hundreds of billions are being poured into bids to attain permanent dominance through scale. Writing for their excellent AI Snake Oil newsletter, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor inject some realism into the AI scale hype:

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-scaling-myths

Narayanan and Kapoor challenge the idea that throwing more data at large language models will make the better: "With LLMs, we may have a couple of orders of magnitude of scaling left, or we may already be done." They are skeptical that this can be fixed with synthetic data (whose use is limited to "fixing specific gaps and making domain-specific improvements"). They also point out that if returns from data slow, then returns from adding more compute or making bigger models might also be throttled.

They reserve their most skeptical take for "AGI" – the idea that LLMs are going to achieve consciousness. This is a fundamentally unserious idea, one that they unpack in detail in their forthcoming book:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai-snake-oil

One thing I'm hoping for from the book is some analysis of the material usefulness of AI hype – what purpose does the hype serve? I mean, obviously, hype is useful if you're looking to suck up investor capital, or flip an investment to a greater fool. But there's a specific character to AI hype: namely, the claim that AI will displace labor, which is really a claim that a bet on AI is a bet on the increasing wealth of capital at labor's expense.

In other words, AI is a bet on oligarchy. In America, that's a pretty safe bet, and the odds just got even better, thanks to a string of brutal Supreme Court decisions that legalized bribery, banned most regulatory enforcement, and made being alive and unhoused into a crime (Poor Laws 2.0):

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-06-29-whos-gonna-check-supreme-court-chevron-separation-powers/

But amidst all those gimmes to the rich and powerful, there was one notable exception: the SCOTUS ruling on the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. Purdue was the family business of the Sacklers, a multigenerational dope-peddling dynasty that went from super-rich to stratospherically rich by kickstarting the opioid epidemic with their blockbuster drug Oxycontin.

The Sacklers sold mountains of Oxy the old fashioned way: by lying. The lied about its efficacy and they lied about its safety, and they helped kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Eventually, this caught up with them, and Purdue lost a bunch of court cases and was forced into bankruptcy.

That's where things get gnarly: the Sacklers took the already-sleazy world of elite bankruptcy to a whole new level, with a set of breathtakingly sleazy maneuvers that ensured that their case would be heard by the one judge in America who would let them off the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

That judge was Robert Drain and the Sacklers were the blow-off to a long and shameful career in public "service." The Sacklers incorporated a subsidiary in White Plains, NY (in Drain's turf) precisely 181 days before filing for bankruptcy, then claimed that this empty small-town office had been the company HQ for more than six months. Then they hid machine-readable metadata in their filing that tricked the court's database into assigning the case to Drain:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

The reason the Sacklers were so horny for Drain? He was a notoriously generous source of "nonconsensual third-party releases." These would allow the Sacklers to permanently end every lawsuit against them without having to declare bankruptcy. Instead, they could take their (ruined, hollow) company through bankruptcy, throw a small fraction of their personal fortunes into the pot, representing fractional pennies on the dollar of what they owed to their victims, and walk away with tens of billions and eternal protection from any future suits.

In other words, they could stiff their creditors and keep the loot. Which is exactly what Robert Drain gave them – before retiring from the bench to get a two-orders-of-magnitude pay raise at a white-shoe firm that specializes in representing corporate mass-murderers like the Sacklers.

That's where it would have ended, but for a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court, which threw out the nonconsensual third-party release deal and put the Sacklers back on the hook to pay the victims of their many, many crimes.

As ever, the best source of analysis and explanation for elite bankruptcy shenanigans is Adam Levitin of the Credit Slips blog:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2024/06/purdue-pharma-decision-a-big-win-for-mass-tort-victims.html

Levitin has a prediction for what's going to happen next. He rejects the predictions of Sackler apologists, who say that this is going to add years or decades to the already too-long wait for compensation that the Sacklers' victims have endured. Instead, Levitin says that the Sacklers will almost certainly transfer billions more from their personal fortunes to the settlement pot and beg for consensual releases from their victims. In other words, they'll go from dictating terms to asking for them.

So the settlement will stand, but it will be larger, and victims who don't want to take it won't have to – they'll be able to sue. In other words, this ruling "does not prevent deals in bankruptcy. It just changes the terms of what those deals."

This has implications for other mass-murderers and corporate criminals, like Johnson and Johnson (who tricked women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

And the Boy Scouts of America, who let pedophiles abuse children for decades:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/05/third-party-nonconsensual-releases/#au-recherche-du-pedos-perdue

Both J&J and BSA carved out nonconsensual third-party releases in the mold of the Sacklers' deal, and both briefed the Supreme Court, warning that if the Sacklers were forced to pay what they owed, J&J and BSA's victims would also be entitled to far larger sums. Go ahead and threaten us with a good time, why doncha?

The Sackler decision is a real bright spot at a dark time for corporate impunity. It's always nice to see big corporate bullies getting a bit of a comeuppance. Another one of those comeuppances was just delivered thanks to a classic fatfinger error.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally released the sourcecode to Playready, the company's flagship DRM product:

https://borncity.com/win/2024/06/26/microsoft-employee-accidentally-publishes-playready-code/

Microsoft's DRM doesn't do anything to protect the interests of creative workers or even the companies that employ them. As a Microsoft rep admitted on stage at a presentation in 2006, the purpose of Microsoft DRM is to prevent small startups from entering the market, ensuring that Microsoft and its "rivals" can safely divide up the world without worrying about disruptive competitors:

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/30/msft-our-drm-licensing-is-there-to-eliminate-hobbyists-and-little-guys/

I was there that day and reported on the remarks, prompting both Microsoft and its rep to furiously deny that they'd ever said this, despite multiple witnesses who heard it. This was just a couple years after I gave a viral talk at Microsoft about why the company shouldn't use DRM:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

By 2006, it was clear that the company was all in on DRM, and today, DRM is the centerpiece of Microsoft's anticompetitive strategy, and Playready is the centerpiece of Microsoft's DRM. The source-code leak is doubtless going to give rise to lots of grey-market tools for stripping DRM from all kinds of media:

https://security-explorations.com/microsoft-playready.html

You love to see it! Now I'm doubly looking forward to this summer's security conferences, including Defcon, where, for the first time, I'll be emceeing the charity poker tournament to benefit EFF:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/betting-your-digital-rights-eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con-32

This should be very fun – and funny – especially given how little I know about poker (I have been specifically selected on that basis, for the comedy value). Every player gets a custom EFF poker-deck, and the winner gets a treasure chest filled by EFF board member Tarah Wheeler, including "emeralds, black pearls, amethysts, diamonds, and more."

I like to close these linkdumps with something fun and uplifting, and I'd planned to end things with the poker-tournament, but then my pal Raph Koster announced that his game studio Playable Worlds had dropped its first announcement of Stars Reach, an open-world MMO like no other:

https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/06/28/announcing-stars-reach/

Raph is a legend in MMO design circles, whose credits include Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. He wrote the definitive text on how games work, A Theory of Fun, that's does for games what Understanding Comics did for comics:

https://www.theoryoffun.com/

Stars Reach is stupidly ambitious. It consists of truly open worlds, modeled to an absurd degree of fidelity:

We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

The game is fundamentally a climate story, whose lore has humanity seeded around the galaxy by a powerful alien race called the Old Ones, only to have humans bust through the planetary limits of every world they were given. Now the Old Ones are giving humans another chance to try smarter ways of sustaining ourselves on new worlds, with the aid of powerful robots call "Servitors."

Because this is a Raph Koster game, it's got a bunch of extremely satisfying play dynamics:

A classless skill tree advancement system, where peaceful play matters just as much as combat

An intricate player-driven economy where players can craft their way to fame and fortune

An accessible yet deep combat system, where you can choose whether to play using action aiming or more forgiving homing shots or lock-on targeting

In-world player housing that lets you build and customize your home and form towns… and enough room for everyone to have a house

A single shardless galaxy, with both space and ground gameplay… in fact, you can build that house on an asteroid, if you want

The ability for a group to govern a planet, and define its laws, whether you want a peaceful home or a PvP free for all

Stars Reach is not playable yet, but the company's looking for gamers to give them feedback and steer the development:

https://starsreach.com/

OK, that wraps up the week's links. I'm gonna get one more edition out on Monday, god willin' and the crick don't rise, and then I'll be off for a couple weeks. Enjoy your summer!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/29/pasticcio/#professor-at-large

Image: James St John https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/40894047123

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[lboogie1906]

Christopher Edward Martin (March 21, 1966) known professionally as DJ Premier (known as Preemo), is a record producer and DJ. He is considered one of the greatest hip-hop producers of all time. He was half of the hip hop duo Gang Starr—alongside the rapper Guru—and presently forms half of the hip hop duo PRhyme, together with Royce da 5’9”.

He was born in the Fifth Ward of Houston. He was raised in Prairie View, before moving to Brooklyn, during his teenage years. He attended Prairie View A&M University, where he honed his musical skills as the campus DJ, and he occasionally performed with the Marching Storm band.

He is known for producing all of Gang Starr’s songs as well as many of those composed by the Gang Starr Foundation. Notable artists he has worked with include Anderson. Paak, AZ, Big Daddy Kane, Big L, Blaq Poet, Bun B, Canibus, Christina Aguilera, Common, Cormega, D’Angelo, Dilated Peoples, D.I.T.C., Dr. Dre, Fat Joe, The Game, Ill Bill, J. Cole, Janet Jackson, Jay-Z, Joey Bada$$, Kanye West, KRS-One, The Lady of Rage, Limp Bizkit, Lord Finesse, The LOX, Ludacris, Mac Miller, Mobb Deep, M.O.P., Mos Def, Eminem, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., O.C., Papoose, Rakim, Royce da 5’9”, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and more.

He collaborated with MC Jeru the Damaja on the album The Sun Rises in the East, released in 1994, as well as the 1996 follow-up, Wrath of the Math. He produced and supervised Livin’ Proof by Group Home, from the Gang Starr Foundation; although overlooked at the time of its 1995 release, the album received acclaim.

As a businessman, he has a record company named Year Round Records. Among its artists are New York group NYGz, New Jersey rapper Nick Javas, and Houston rapper Khaleel. The Blaqprint by Blaq Poet, which features 13 Premier productions, was released by Year Round Records through Fat Beats Records in June 2009. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[thelittlestspider]

okay, here are some of the names from the name generators

the pie provisions

lone opal cucina

vivid sails bistro

purple spoon cookery

twisted heron

lilah's peacock café

polka dot harvest

swirling pineapple bar and grill

tin horse trattoria

dancing dove

cocoa pig bakery

glamour alchemy

moonlight lounge

pulse

java junction

cuppa charm

bean barn

wraith's delight

the poltergeist (drink that fucks you up)

munchies

sipster café and bakery

the purple lantern

the screaming holes

the misty ponies

bottle & hen

the stumbling fauns

white dog tavern

grinning cat café

the laughing goose tavern

these are older, but still fun

strip club names

Vixen

Passion Pit

Stars and Garters

Delirium

Rapture

Euphoria

The Peach Pit

gay club names

Heat Wave

The Glory Hole

The Cockpit

lesbian club names

The Pussycat

Wet

Good Vibrations

general night club names

The Velvet Rope

Glamorama

Club Diva

Hysteria

Cat's Eye

Barbarian

Electric Groove

Funky Beats

Sphinx

band names

Starlight Boogie Crew

The Glamor Droids

Stereo Garbage

The Toxic Blossoms

book store names

If Books Could Kill

album names

Mirrorball Dreams

[autopsiedsage]

fiona apple’s tidal is an incredibly horny album when you’re riding the high of one java monster and a packet of lays

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Monday, 11-11-24, 8am Pacific

G'mornin', folks...a groggy Mr. Baggins with you. I don't know about y'all, but I need at least two hours of coffee sipping and cogitation before I'm ready to face the world, so we're gonna start our mornings off with Morning Coffee Music: selections to entertain and energize. One of ths best radio DJs I ever listened to back in Austin, was John Aelli, on KUT in the mornings for literally decades. It's in his "anything goes" free-form spirit I start this first edition of Coffee Music.

In 1964, I was a five year old kid boppin' to this on the big old Zenith booming in the corner. Here's trumpeter Al Hirt and his 1964 hit, called appropriately enough, "Java".

Here's a little bit of Beatlefluff from 1966 guaranteed to have you humming along. From Revolver, here's Paul's "Good Day Sunshine".

Here's one of the two hits by the band "Vanity Fair"; from 1970 it's "Early In The Morning".

Rossini wrote six String Sonatas at the age of twelve. Here's our old friend Neville Marriner and the ASMF to play numbers 1 and 6, on an Argo recording. A friend once said that the first sonata could have easily been the soundtrack to a Leave It To Beaver episode, saying it sounds like "Breakfast with The Cleavers".

Glenn Gould's Bach is essential to any good morning! Here is his 1960 recording of Bach's "Italian Concerto", a more charmingly refreshing twelve minutes you won't find anywhere.

Moving from the modern piano to the harpsichord now, this is music by Franz Joseph Haydn, his Concerto in D Major. I've chosen the recording by the person responsible for the harpsichord's rebirth as a viable instrument in the early 20th Century, Wanda Landowska. This was recorded in 1937, Mme. Landowska is accompanied by conductor Eugène Bigot, with an unnamed orchestra.

Moving from Papa Haydn to his young protege, Ludwig Beethoven, we hear a very early work of Beethoven's, written when he was sixteen. It is counted among the works he wrote before his official Opus 1 was published, the "Works Without Opus" Number 37, Trio for bassoon, flute, and piano. This delightful little piece is performed by pianist Daniel Barnboim, flutist Michel Debost and bassoonist André Sennedat, from a 1980 recording on DG. It was this very recording that served as my introduction to the piece. I've had a copy of the original album since it was issued. Enjoy.

Next are some pieces played by oboist John Dee and The Tantallon Ensemble, from their album entitled "Under a Near Sky", which is, sadly not on YouTube in its entirety, so here are a couple of selections. First is Gabriel Pierne's "Piece an sol"

This is Franz Krommer's Quartet in C major

And this morning's final selection, one of my absolute favorite pieces of all time, and this version of it specifically. Here is Igor Stravinsky conducting his big bad 1945 revision of his brilliant "Firebird Suite". Recorded in 1946 on a Columbia Masterworks recording. Enjoy, and I will be back with you later this afternoon.

Until then, be kind, babies, be kind.

Baggins out.

[bermudianabroad]

Everything I Read in 2024

*reread* didn't enjoy would recommend short stories, novella or multi-author anthology (with editor credited) listened to audiobook version

Favourites of the Year: The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff; James by Percival Everett; Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh (Fiction) / Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (Non-Fiction)

And, without further ado and in no particular order, the rest under the cut. Links to goodreads pages.

Thoughtful thoughts to follow.

Graphic Novels/Non-Fiction

1. Heimat: A German Family Album by Nora Krug (trans. from German) 2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, artist Renee Nault 3. Squire by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh 4. Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac 5. Palestine by Joe Sacco

Fiction

1. West by Carys Davies 2. *The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy* 3. *The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster* 4. Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq 5. Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart 6. All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby 7. The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff 8. Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au 9. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan 10. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee 11. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford 12. Glitterland by Alexis Hall 13. These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever 14. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 15. Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang 16. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Mosfegh 17. Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh 18. Greek Lessons by Han Kang (trans. from Korean) 19. *The Complete Short Stories by Muriel Spark* 20. Idol, Burning by Rin Usami (trans. from Japanese) 21. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh 22. The Mercies by Kiran Milwood Hargrave 23. The Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura (trans. from Japanese) 24. James by Percival Everett 25. American Dirt by Jeanie Cummins 26. Open Secrets by Alice Munro 27. Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell 28. The Question Mark by Muriel Jaeger 29. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 30. Olive Ketteridge by Elizabeth Strout 31. Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (trans. from Palestinian Arabic) 32. There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak 33. Dark Constellations by Pola Oloixarac (trans. from Spanish) 34. Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Anthology of Dark Fiction ed. Shane Hawk 35. Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid 36. On Java Road by Lawrence Osborne 37. Recitatif by Toni Morrison 38. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson 39. How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang 40. The Darkest of Nights by Charles Eric Maine 41. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

Non-Fiction

1. Midnight in Chernobyl: The True Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham 2. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up A Generation For Failure (!!!!) by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff [emphatic exclamation points blogger's own] 3. Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin 4. The Fall of Yugoslavia by Misha Glenny 5. Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster at the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham 6. The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, TREACHERY, and the HUNT for the PERFECT BIRD by Joshua Hammer [emphatic CAPITALISATION blogger's own] 7. What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? by Raja Shehadeh 8. The Anxious Generation: How the Great 'Rewiring' of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt 9. The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance by Robin Wall Kimmerer 10. Don't Let's Go to the Dog's Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller

[fetznerdeathrecords]

Santet - Cruelty in the Sorcerer's Land

Melodic Black Metal from Purwokerto, Indonesia

SANTET, the legendary Javanese black metal band from Purwokerto, is releasing their highly anticipated 12th album, “Cruelty in the Sorcerer's Land.” The album contains 10 tracks of hellish anthems inspired by the dark folklore of the mystical lands of Java. The album is being released by BLACK ANCHOR PROD (Malaysia) for Asia and MASTER OF KAOS RECORDS (Colombia) for Europe and Latin America.

1. Into the Witch's Cave (Intro) 02:18 2. The Skull Path 07:06 3. Anthem of the Dead 06:17 4. Summoning the Spirits from the Dead Village 05:51 5. Bridge of Death 06:09 6. Seven Steps from the Tombstone 06:40 7. The Mystery of the Devil Market on the Mountain 05:16 8. Satan Inside the Religionist 04:18 9. The Magic Cult 03:53 10. Susuk 09:35

Release date: June 21st, 2025 via @mastersofkaosrecords

@santet_official

[un-disco-por-dia]

76 / 365

"/\/\ /\ Y /\" (Maya) / M.I.A

Year: 2010

Country: 🇬🇧 / 🇱🇰 (UK / Sri Lanka)

Genre: Electronic / Industrial / Hip Hop / Alternative Rock

Whenever I come across an essay (written or on video) about the emergence and expansion of the Internet into the domestic space of homes, with its beige computers and Windows 95, the learning of HTML and Java, and the creation of personal web pages full of sparkly gifs and cute little dogs, there is always a comment about how all that was lost a decade later. Google became the hegemonic search engine and social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter replaced personal web pages. Nowadays we constantly denounce what this means in terms of truthful information sharing, security and privacy and how Foucault's panopticon moved into the digital space, yet in 2010 M.I.A. was already talking about this. "Maya" not only talks about digital chaos from the lyrics but also from the music itself. Mixing electronic, industrial, glitch sounds, rock, and some punk and reggae, the goal is to make us uncomfortable: "That's what my album's about. Making it so uncomfortably weird and wrong that people begin to exercise their critical-thinking muscles." If you like surprises then I recommend this album, which, more than just listened to, deserves to be experienced.

Fave song ⭐: "Space"

[subukunojess]

Dreamwidth Lyrical Titles Challenge: May 2025 Album Challenge

Hello! Regarding my latest poll, I'm happy to announce that I'm going to try a personal low-key fanfiction challenge found on Dreamwidth.

I did a poll asking which album should I use for inspiration and by popular vote (and in honor of the Kickstarter Reprise coming up), I'm going to use: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals!

Here are the Official Rules of the Challenge: Take an album of your choice and for each song, write a fic using a lyric from the song as the title. Stories should be a minimum of 100 words.

I decided to add a fun twist to challenge myself, so I added a few rules specifically for me. Oddly enough, when I gave myself these rules, I got the feeling of Deja vu, like I did this before or at least thought about it. But now I'm actively plotting it and using new characters.

Bonus Fun Challenge Rules, Pokotho Edition: ⦁ One fic must be in the "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals" fandom. ⦁ Stories must be from different fandoms. ⦁ One fic can be Original Work. ⦁ Pokey must be Present in the fic. How do you define that is up to you. But for my stories: ⦁ One character of your choice must be "possessed by Pokey" in any way that seems fit or his presence is felt in the fic. Music in general blended in the fic or Song Fic. Blue goo optional ⦁ Optional: Stories can be inspired by the Song.

So there are 14 songs in this album, I picked out the lyric titles I want, and I chose 7 fandoms to write about so far. To get ideas, I'm opening up suggestions and requests. I'll give you what I have so far. If you would like a request, either send me an Ask, a Reply, or Reblog telling me which song, which fandom, which character gets possessed, and any bonus ideas you can think of!

Without further ado, here is the list of stories I'm planning under the cut: (Note: The ones that do not have a fandom are open for request)

Track List (Song, Lyric Title, Fandom): 1) The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - "The Apotheosis Is Upon Us" - The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals 2) La Dee Dah Dah Day - "This Song Takes All The Pain Away" - Original Work 3) What Do You Want Paul - "Cause I Want You To Want" - 4) Cup of Roasted Coffee - "Hey Mr. Business How Do You Do" - 5) Cup of Poisoned Coffee - "We'll Make A Twisted Cup of Java" - Twisted Wonderland 6) Show Me Your Hands - "Check Your Mirror You'll Find Hell Has Arrived" - 7) You Tied Up My Heart - "Let Go of This Grip On Me" - Beetlejuice The Musical 8) Join Us (And Die) - "But Now We'll Kill You With More Than Harmony" - Cult of the Lamb 9) Not Your Seed - "Why Does It Hurt To Love" - 10) Show Stoppin Number - "A Show Stoppin Number is Something You Die For" - 11) America Is Great Again - "The Loudest Become Strong" - Poppy Playtime 12) Let Him Come - "The Star of The Show" - Disney Mirrorverse 13) Let It Out - "But What Will I Let In If I Let It Out" - 14) Inevitable - "What If I Told You I Made It" -

[sleezycake]

lmon dmon hi you've probably already posted this but uh favourite lemon demon songs tell me all of them hi yes tell me I need to know I like neil cicierega

omgg!!! An excuse to talke about my favorite thing yes!!

There is so much songs I like so I'm just going to say one from the first couple of albums and if you would like to hear the rest I will happly continue!!

1. Clown circus (2003)

-Hyakugojyuuichi

I love the fast paced it is and it's just shahvdjsksksks🙏🙏🙏 (I can proudly say I have the whole thing memorized 😎)

2. live at the haunted candle shop (2004)

- Switzerland

It's a fun silly song and it tickles my brain the right way :33

3. Hip to the Java Bean (2004)

- Behold the future (bonus track)

The lyric "In the year 2012 We were sadly forced to delveInto a leather-bound compendium or two" HITS SO HARD LIKE AHHHSHAH

4. Damn skippy (2005) (also my favorite album :33)

- what will happen will happen

I LIVE for that part of the song where it just goes wild :DD

And yeah!!!! Thanks for the ask :3