A few months ago, Vice published a massive survey of 50 of the most memorable “landfill indie” tracks, that short-lived genre that rose in the wake of bands like the Arctic Monkeys to dominate charts at home and abroad for a few years. Because I’m old, it had me thinking about a similar wave of equally maligned bands from the early to mid-90s. Even as Seattle became the “birthplace of grunge,” indie artists primarily inspired by R.E.M. and the Replacements were getting signed, putting out one hit if they were lucky and then disappearing forever.
By early 1996 Oasis had…
The first check I cashed from the Internet came in 1997.
I’d just moved to New York City. One of my friends from high school was at Columbia, and every summer she’d come back to Seattle and upbraid me for staying, so I stopped staying.
She was working at what was then called an “Internet magazine,” word.com. Now you’d probably just call it a website, but in 1997 nobody knew what to call anything. I did some research assistance for a project they were working on and pitched them a piece, Love and Afferications: The George Kotolaris Story. …
I haven’t slept more than three hours a night for the past six days. My wife’s been out of town on business, my son got hand, foot & mouth disease and his blood sugar has been crazy, I’m juggling a ton of work and stressing out about the summer, I’m frayed down to my last thread.
My wife gets home and she’s exhausted too. We get the kids to bed but we’re obviously both on edge, sniping at each other over little things.
I go outside, start angrily bagging up recycling. Things keep escalating through the window. I’m starting to…
I love just about everything about having kids except for listening to the radio. But my kids are in their tween years, when they want to keep up with the trends and fads that all their friends do, so when we drive to school the dial is usually turned to 103.7 out of Victoria, BC, non-stop pop interspersed with charmingly weird Canadian furniture store commercials.
Taking in 20–30 minutes of top 40 radio every day for months gives you an interesting perception about how tweens get music: through constant repetition. And when they get the aux cord, that’s how they…
“It’s a movie about the greatest human achievement in the history of mankind, so why did it take them 50 years to make it?”
That’s the question posed to me by Bart Sibrel, the Nashville-born filmmaker and writer who is probably most famous for being punched in the face by astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a Beverly Hills hotel. Sibrel’s bete noir is disproving that the moon landing ever happened, and while there’s overwhelming evidence that mankind made the leap in 1969, he’s not alone — moon landing conspiracy theories having been percolating since the mid-1970s. So how is this dedicated…
Context: at the Ignatz Awards ceremony at this year’s Small Press Expo, the name of pioneering underground cartoonist Robert Crumb was met with boos from the audience not once but twice, and Comics Culture is having a tough time dealing with it.
I was originally going to write this on Twitter but soon realized that would be a bad idea, as it’s an issue with a bunch of nuance and even more words. Let’s go:
There’s a strong tendency among humans to center their present in the context of human history — to think that the things that are Important…
There’s a popular phrase in the right-wing corners of the Web that spend their time railing against “social justice warriors” and other boogeymen of diversity: “virtue signaling.”
In short, it means the display of an opinion that’s designed to enhance your standing within a social group. So to the_donald centipedes and other fellow travelers, expressing opinions like “the depiction of women in media can be sexist” or “police violence is disproportionately directed towards Black people” doesn’t demonstrate actual concern, but rather a desire to ingratiate one’s self into a social group.
Obviously this argument is fallacious — plenty of people…
This makes SO much sense.
Sleep might be the most important eight hours of the day. Your muscles relax, your brain calms down and starts processing new memories. Your subconscious releases anxieties and desires into your dreams.
Study after study has shown that a good night’s sleep is essential to health and happiness.
But if you have someone sleeping next to you, odds are good that when they shut their eyes, things get a little noisy. Up to 45% of men and 25% of women report habitual snoring. …
Stamping kids’ arms stigmatizes them. Here’s a better idea.
Growing up the child of a single parent, we struggled to make ends meet. I remember serving a detention in the lunchroom of my high school and passing out from hunger in front of my horrified classmates. The lunch ladies were kind enough to feed me some leftovers to get me back on my feet, but I will carry the shame and humiliation of that moment with me forever.
There’s a tremendous amount of science supporting the connection between good nutrition and a child’s ability to reach their top learning potential. A balanced diet of healthy fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins…
The stereotypes aren’t entirely unfounded.
My son Henry was born by C-section, his massive skull too much for traditional methods to push through. As the doctor lifted him out of my wife’s open midsection, my eyes were drawn like a magnet to the vibrant, absurd shock of red hair that circled his head.
My wife is blonde. I’m a brunette. So Henry’s fiery coif came as a surprise to both of us. We thought it would fade over time, but ten years later, it’s still as flame-bright as ever.
Red hair has an unusual attraction. Only two percent of the population has it, typically caused…
K. Thor Jensen
Buy my new book “Cloud Stories” on Amazon if you enjoyed this article. https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Stories-K-Thor-Jensen/dp/0692642323/
