After listening to Nothing Feels Good a couple of times, I was ready to do a deep dive back into midwest emo. Frame and Canvas is my other favorite album from this era, but I’d seen this playlist a while ago and thought I should branch out. It’s pretty great, and has some nice surprises

like an ATCQ track from that period, and the realization that Third Eye Blind actually kind of fits in with this music. I’ve now added a bunch of albums from this era to my library to listen to; a lot of them I had read about or seen in catalogs back in the day, but didn’t have the money to buy them, library didn’t have them, couldn’t find them on file sharing, had no friends into this kind of music, etc. Had no friends, basically, hence this kind of music?

Standalone post link: Listening Log: Braid 1998 Van Mixtape

For some reason my annual springtime Jay Som listen made me think of this album and 90s midwest emo in general, and I’m so glad I dug it out and listened to it. Somehow in the late 90s a track from this album got airplay on X-96 one evening in between “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Loser” or whatever they were usually playing and still I think play 25 years later, and I happened to hear it. It stuck with me; I remembered the band name and that I liked it through two years of Mormon mission, but didn’t find or hear the album until college, when I was in the Graywhale by the University of Utah and found a section I’d never paid attention to with the strange-to-me label of “indie”, and there in that section was this album, with it’s ironic retro colorfulness and white CD case backing. This album was my conscious entry point to the world of “indie rock”, emo, Pitchfork, etc.

Standalone post link: Listening Log: Nothing Feels Good

Test:

1. If this note appears, I’ve figured out how to post a note to my website (static website run through Hugo/Github/Netlify) just by creating a note in my Obsidian vault. Cool.

2. If this note also appears, I’ve further figured out how to edit the Obsidian note to have it push an update to the website post.

3. If this third note appears, I’ve successfully done an update via Obsidian on my phone, and I now finally have an easy way to post quick notes to my static website from my phone. Neato burrito.

I guess I’ll have to put together documentation and credits for all of this now.

Not sure why the “last updated” timestamp says tomorrow, though. Have to figure that out.

Thanks for reading!

Standalone post link: Posting to my website from an Obsidian note?

Listening to a lot of Jay Som is a springtime tradition for me.

Standalone post link: Listening Log: Everybody Works / Turn Into / Anak Ko / various singles

I can
do
whatever
I
want
here

Last December I opened a fresh notebook and started with this entry. It is kind of my current thesis statement for having a website, being on the internet, trying to make stuff, etc. I haven’t followed through with these ideas so far, but I feel like putting it up on the website is a start.

(A text transcription follows the notebook scan images.)

I can
do
whatever
I
want
here

[sketch¹ - self-portrait of sorts, though no beard]

I should probably remember or remind myself that I met Gin² because I wrote a blog about random stuff I was interested in

I’ve been so jaded but creating and sharing stuff on the internet is maybe probably still a worthwhile endeavor

notice I didn’t say “social media”
but I kind of mean social media but also not
media that can be social?
media that can build connection, understanding, community?
isn’t that all good media? digital or analog? art? do I mean art?

I think maybe what I really mean
by all of this
is
art?

Going to let that sit here and see how it feels in the coming days

creating things and sharing things

to

express myself
have fun / play around with
words
ink
pixels
code
images
video
sounds
connect with other people
make and do interesting things
learn stuff
make the world better somehow? (too much to ask)
“generalist”

art basically
or being human
in a good way
“the humanities”

[it is well]
[the evening and the morning
were the first day]
[light] [salt]
[life] [death]
[growth] [decay]
[seeds] [trees]
[air] [breath] [vacuum]
[nebula] [supernova]
[creation through destruction]³⁴

2023-12-17 after 11:30pm

Notes

Standalone post link: I Can Do Whatever I Want Here

Standalone post link: Listening Log: Anak Ko

Standalone post link: Listening Log: OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017

Standalone post link: Listening Log: Helado Negro Full Discography

First album I’ve just flat-out loved this year. I could listen to this endlessly, and did for a week or two there, and then listened again through his entire back catalog.

Standalone post link: Listening Log: PHASOR

So obsessed with her music, she’s a mad genius. I can listen again and again. I wake up with fragments of these songs in my head many mornings.

Standalone post link: Listening Log: ANNIE, PICK A FLOWER.. (MY HOUSE) / QWERTY / 19 Masters / SHALLOW (PPL SWIM IN SHALLOW WATER)