Since I refuse to use Canvas I just created Slack channels for my classes and I am feeling both inordinately proud and quite sleepy

Song of the day!!! youtu.be/0Y_qpkLd-8E?...

Ed Is Dead

YouTube video by Pixies - Topic

youtu.be

Thanks to my brilliant daughter, I already had the shirt

Just called my guy in Vegas to ask him what the line was on Ed Sheeran’s tour cancellation (“nervous exhaustion” or vocal polyps?).

I’ve been listening to it blissfully for over 40 years now and still not sure how Marshall Crenshaw pulled off the magic of “Cynical Girl.” The way he turned the girl group ode to the bad boy (“he’s Good bad, but he’s not evil”) inside out and made it chime! A little miracle.

This Ed Sheeran fella making me update my “Own Goal” list of beloved cultural figures who have recklessly squandered the cultural capital they have accrued. JK Rowling certainly safe for now, but heads up!

I generally do not find Paul Simon’s lyrics cryptic, but I am at a loss about what he means in “Duncan” when he sings “sweet New England”

I sure hope Abdul El-Sayed has denounced Macklemore by now

The Jewish analogue of Blackface is Blackface. There was a brief vaudeville moment of Jewface (largely purveyed by Jews) that got virtually no historical traction.

JoeA64@joea64.bsky.social · yesterday

Well, how about he dressed up in what I can only characterize as the Jewish analogue of blackface at a performance, complete with every bigoted stereotype of Jewish facial physiognomy?

Just walked by the only dorm on campus, which was having a fire drill, apparently, and all these students just look like such sleepy babies!!!

If you are using this moment to say “hahaha Macklemore makes bad music” maybe you should rethink your priors

Didn’t necessarily see that nasty little toad Robert Kraft becoming Macklemore’s greatest hype man but I like a good surprise as much as the next guy

Lifted weights from 7 to 8 this morning and then was sitting on my front porch around 3 and it was the nicest day of the year so I called an audible and went for a run for 35 minutes or so, and now I must insist that I am officially "training." Just not sure for what.

My sister and I were mods, ready to ride our scooters to escape from our rocker brothers.

Jeff Melnick@melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · 3d ago

In the Guggenheim, circa 1969

Just learned that a distant cousin I always thought of as “Karen” actually spelled her name “Kaaren” after she legally added the second “a” and I honestly feel like my basic life foundations have been shaken.

Talking with an old friend about the impact REM’s “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” made on us in 1984, not least because of how it revealed that Michael Stipe could, in fact, sing in human.

“Mama, we made it to the internet!”

In the Guggenheim, circa 1969

I feel like it was spiritually good for me to sleep in a room with a theremin

TFW you are at a family wedding and Alfredo sits in with the band

Colin Sheridan remains one of the few mainstream journalists I can think of whose moral compass remains robust. Unlike so many of his colleagues, he has kept his eyes on Gaza www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/colu...

Colin Sheridan: We watched 9/11 happen. Then we forgot what the pictures were telling us

From Afghanistan and Iraq to Gaza, Colin Sheridan argues that 9/11 exposed a failure to recognise every victim’s humanity

irishexaminer.com

Recited the Shehecheyanu tonight, probably for the first time this century. Nailed it. Take that, haters.

Happy New Year from the greatest Jewish artist ever to live in my hometown of West Orange NJ youtu.be/dj4A62pJ1Vs

Carole King - Beautiful (Official Audio)

YouTube video by CaroleKingVEVO

youtu.be

Ecclesiastes 9:11

I am no kind of political scientist, but five years ago I tried to reckon with how 9/11 conspiracy theories energized a culture "marbled with toxic misinformation." You can read it here. archive.ph/GYPxG

I’m not sure you all realize how hard I’ve been working—literally for more than half a century—to resist forging unhealthy parasocial relationships with musicians I admire.

Whatever else is dysfunctional about higher education—and the list is longer than my arm—every time I walk on campus at UMB and soak up the good energy, I feel like: whew, ok, we are still doing this.

I say this in the spirit of "what an interesting challenge" and not "Kids Today" but I was briefly flummoxed in class doing my little 9/11 bit and discovering that not a single student had ever heard of Wyclef Jean. I believe I situated him for them efficiently/sufficiently.

Was just listening to "Going Down to Liverpool" on the way to class earlier (Bangles' version of the great Katrina and the Waves' song) and after all these years finally noticed that the lyrics quote Blake's "Jerusalem." Love that.

A top 5 of 9/11 culture, deal with it: 1. M.I.A.’s video for “Paper Planes” 2. Rescue Me 3. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Writing on the Wall 4. Paris, “What Would You Do?” 5. Team America: World Police