changes

I’m trying to actually do this “Homegrown National Park” thing in my yard, so I have a lot of notes, but I’m not ready to share them. (Today I’m just trying to get my 2024 reading log filled out and updated.)

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Standalone post link: Reading Log: Nature's Best Hope (Young Readers' Edition)

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Very generous in its number of pages and prompts (40+), language concepts shared, writing techniques and tricks, and activities. These would of course be good teacher or librarian-led activities, but I feel like the book is written in a way that a kid could totally pick it up and try these things on their own if they are interested. It gives plenty of information and examples, and doesn’t get too technical about how the poems need to be. In fact, there is a refreshing refrain throughout of “do it however you want, this is for fun.”

There are a lot of typos and missing words in the text.

None of the prompts address rhythm or meter other than syllabic count for haiku, etc.

Feels weird that it gets to the 41st prompt and just ends. There is no conclusion, glossary, “Further Reading and Resources,” boring small print note for teachers, or anything like that. Not even “Visit my website,” “Follow us on Instagram,” “share your poems with the hashtag,” etc. I guess the intended audience is legally too young for all of that, so they are being responsible.

This one is on that poetry longlist so I need to rate it there. 4 or 5, I’m not sure. I will know better once I’ve read more of the books, maybe…

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Standalone post link: Reading Log: Poetry Prompts

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Meh. The idea is cool. Some of the illustrations were cool, some of the ten-word tales were cool. Would be good for a classroom writing activity. This reminds of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick but doesn’t quite add up to that. When they are this brief and this few, every single one needs to be phenomenal. Or maybe I want it weirder. Or maybe I’m just jealous.

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Standalone post link: Reading Log: Ten-Word Tiny Tales

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“Narrative, you say, is just one way of navigating time.

And those perceptions culled
by the restraints of narrative
become available to other trajectories.

Meanwhile, the future blows toward us without handholds.
It is a gaping. An already. A maw.

What happens when the mind is no longer a place of duration?

If you want to resuscitate your destiny, you joked
early in our relationship, start with the present…”

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Standalone post link: Reading Log: Mojave Ghost

Finished reading The Magician’s Nephew with Will tonight.

Not sure if I ever noted down that we started reading this. After we finished Moonbound it was Thanksgiving break and normal bedtime routines were abandoned for many days. When we got back to bedtime reading I had no great, burning suggestions, so he picked this because it felt comfortable and nostalgic but it had been awhile since we’d read it so it was a change.

We were maybe just going to read all the Narnia books from this omnibus edition but we might instead try first some new middle grade books I have borrowed on Sora, either Impossible Creatures or Lola.

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Standalone post link: Reading Log: The Magician's Nephew

I went on a really random new year’s day afternoon-evening drive out to the middle of nowhere to maybe take pictures or just whatever and got caught in a snowstorm and I listened to this album twice in a row on my drive.

I’ve been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine and shoegaze and dream pop and English 80s-90s indie and not-so-indie generally, as you’ll see if you click elsewhere on my recent listening log on this site.

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Standalone post link: Listening Log: Loveless

Even exploring all these kind-of obscure shoegaze and dream pop bands I knew it was always going to end up with me listening to Smashing Pumpkins. A lot.

Past Log Updates

DATE : 2025-01-04

Apple Music’s hype blurb is making me feel better about liking this album so much, apparently as much as a 44-year-old as I did as a 14-year-old. I suspect it is working along the lines of those narratives printed on the back of potato chip bags, though. This isn’t just junk food, it is part of a rich, generations old artisanal tradition. The taste is utterly unique and each crunchy bite is so satisfying and what life is really about. So don’t hold back; enjoy every morsel; feel no shame for eating this whole bag of corn puffs or Famous Amos cookies or whatever…feel no shame for listening to these ridiculous guitar solos over and over again.

“Twenty-five seconds. That’s precisely how long it took for the members of The Smashing Pumpkins to transform themselves from promising alt-rock underdogs into certified Gen-X icons—a metamorphosis that can be plotted in the amount of time it takes Siamese Dream’s atomic lead track, “Cherub Rock,” to achieve liftoff. From its opening militaristic drumroll, the song builds and intensifies like an army being mobilized, one member at a time. Then comes a fireball of a guitar riff that doubles as a declaration of war: Against the cynical scenesters who doubted the Pumpkins’ indie credentials; against the underground’s rigid aesthetic orthodoxies; against anyone who dared to write off their generation as navel-gazing nihilists.

“On first listen, 1993’s Siamese Dream feels like a quintessential Clinton-era alt-rock artifact: Billy Corgan and James Iha’s smeared, swirling guitar noises on tracks like “Cherub Rock” and “Rocket” hit the sweet spot between Nirvana’s gritty riffage and My Bloody Valentine’s sensory-overloading splendor. And the ready-made anthem “Today” dresses up prevailing themes of self-loathing in an ironically sunny sing-along wrapped in a candy-coated fuzz; it’s a song that makes bitter sentiments like “I’ll burn my eyes out!” seem almost sweet. But Siamese Dream’s heart truly belongs to the gatefold-album epics of the mid-1970s, when groups like Led Zeppelin, Queen, and Pink Floyd were elevating rock ’n’ roll into the realm of transcendental, quasi-religious experiences (and bitchin’ planetarium laser shows). As the mosh pits of America raged, the Pumpkins were taking a stage-dive into the stratosphere.

“None of the band’s Lollapalooza-era peers were attempting the sort of multi-tracked guitar-architecture that thrusts the grunge-gaze groover “Hummer” through its heady peaks and immaculate comedown. And even in the age of peak MTV Unplugged, no other alt-rock outfit was crafting acoustic ballads as cinematic and dramatic as the string-swept “Disarm.” True to its title, Siamese Dream brokers a harmonious coexistence between the Pumpkins’ muscular and melodic extremes, as best exemplified by the totemic mid-album double shot of “Geek U.S.A.” and “Mayonnaise”: The former is a furious blast of pure psych-metal savagery, the latter a slow-motion, hazy-headed lullaby that’s become one of the most beloved album cuts in the Pumpkins’ canon. At a time when fellow alterna-nation deities like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were exhibiting allergic reactions to their newfound celebrity, Corgan gamely stepped up to fill the void—as both an unapologetic rock star with stadium-sized ambitions, and as an open-hearted empath eager to cultivate a profound emotional connection with his fans.”
– Apple Music Blurb Writer

DATE : 2025-01-02

Listening to Siamese Dream (old scratched CD from the 90s) - I’m so happy it is actually playing though without really skipping in my newer car’s CD player. I will probably listen to it a bunch of times. It’s been playing over in my head for weeks now if I’m honest. Sad to say, or at least uncool and unrighteous to admit to, but true.

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Standalone post link: Listening Log: Siamese Dream

I don’t have much of note to say about this. It was a side quest from my Still in a Dream shoegaze/dreampop/4AD listening project and I’ve been stuck on it since, listening to it in various iterations. I know, I know, this isn’t remotely shoegaze or dream pop but it is from the same time period and was mentioned throughout the liner notes and I just wanted to listen to it again, and I get to do what I want with this project.

I guess I do need to say that the best version I found is the 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition - 40-track version (song.link doesn’t seem to work well for this edition so here are direct Apple Music and Spotify links), which has the original British tracklist on “Disc 1” (not with “Elephant Stone” or a shortened “Fool’s Gold” like the US edition), then moves to “Disc 2,” which, yes, has the full versions of “Elephant Stone,” “Fool’s Gold,” and all the other singles and b-sides from the era, and finally, “Disc 3,” which has a bunch of demos of the songs that are fun.

Made a brief attempt at finding a physical copy of this edition to buy, but instead I just downloaded it from some classic blogger-era file-sharing music blog that miraculously still exists with live download links in 2025. I’ve missed those; want to write a whole post about them, find ones that I loved again in case they are still active. Maybe even want to start one myself.

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Standalone post link: Listening Log: The Stone Roses

No complaints, but I am trying to parse out why these 15 new tracks are considered a deluxe release of an old album instead of just a new album of their own. Is it just part of the streaming game, to get people to listen to the old album along with the new stuff? (If so, it worked for me.) Is it because they didn’t feel like it had the singles to match SOS? (But the new tracks are all uniformly solid, just like SOS, there just aren’t as many features, maybe, and no gimmicky crossover pop moves like that crass countrypoppunk track on SOS which I generally skip.)

And supposedly there’s an expanded deluxe with 8 more tracks beyond this coming on Monday supposedly? 46 tracks? (Edit - as of 2025-01-26 that hasn’t happened.) And its not the 20th anniversary or anything, she’s not dead yet, this is how it is done now, and it seems to be working. It’s similar to what Taylor did with Tortured Poets and Midnights, all the versions of Brat, releasing double-sized deluxe versions sometimes almost simultaneously with the first release. I guess it is a way to have it all - the tighter brevity of a single album along with the sprawl of a double (not that the original SOS or Tortured Poets Society were tight or brief by any means), plus peoples' listening tendency to just keep streaming through all the tracks. It works, I guess. And I shouldn’t complain. I wish more artists would release more of their music, actually. I’d be absolutely thrilled if Fousheé released a deluxe edition of Pointy Heights with 10 more tracks, for example.

I love the music and production work, her voice and delivery are phenomenal, the lyrics are so clever, but, if I’m honest, all the explicit sex talk and yucky relationship drama in this and in lot of pop music still just makes me feel gross sometimes. Even after rejecting the church pressure and God guilt about this type of thing that I grew up with, perhaps after all I’m still maybe just a prude…It is useful when I get to this place to remind myself that I don’t know how much of that content is fantasy and hyperbole and fictional repetition/variation for dramatic and storytelling effect, versus actual confessional/autobiography, and that is not really my business. Thinking of my kids listening to this, though, and I’m just not sure about it…Will they take it as just how things are or should be with sex and relationships? Something to aspire to? Cautionary tales? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to guide them in these things in a healthy way myself, without the rigid “safety” of the church dictates that I used to believe in to point to…

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Standalone post link: Listening Log: LANA SOS DELUXE

After not being able to resist repeat listens of their self-titled debut and all the related singles from the time, this was indeed a letdown.

Songwriting is corny, the guitars are great, the grooves are alright but kind of corny, too…honestly kind of makes me wish I was listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Actung Baby, or The Rolling Stones, or, as referenced above, their own first album and singles.

“Your Star Will Shine” is pretty good, though.

Okay, “Begging You” is solid and interesting.

Does this album bare any resemblance to Guns n’ Roses? Anything beyond the same time period, the presence of guitar solos, and that both band names have ‘Roses’ in them? I’ve never actually listened to Guns n' Roses knowingly…but maybe I should?

Past Log Updates

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Standalone post link: Listening Log: Second Coming