Ministry mastermind Al Jourgenson, or "Uncle Al" as he is affectionately known (probably as much for his crazy, constantly revised stories about his past as for his status as elder statesman and progenitor of the industrial genre of music) tried to erase the synthpop era of the band. Their first album, 1983’s With Sympathy was recorded for Arista Records who, according to Uncle Al, was constantly forcing him to compromise his artistic vision.
Frank Yang, of the late Chromewaves.net, has a new blog called Space Echo, where he does what he couldn't really do on his previous music blog: feature older music. With Chromewaves, he was writing about new music coming out. He hustled to stay on top of the latest noises, but eventually burned out and shut the blog in 2013.
This gave Yang the freedom to check out what he had been missing in the decades before he started really taking in music and then writing about it.
In a piece entitled It's Not Your Fault You're a Jerk on Twitter, Katherine Cross writes for Wired Magazine about the psychological dynamics that drive antisocial behavior patterns on social networks. Her analysis on how the platforms accelerate what is already dissociative behavior from the human beings behind the keyboard draws parallels from unlikely places, such as urban planning.
Road design in countries like the Netherlands promotes what is known as "
When I was a kid, I spent a good amount of time with a cousin of the same age. Throughout our elementary school years, he and I shared a deep and abiding love for all things G.I. Joe. We hunted down the elusive Snake Eyes figure together. We turned our grandparent's spare room into a miniature theater of play warfare. I remember meeting him one time and he had setup a whole battle scene in my grandfather's caddy while on the way to pick me up.
I’ve been experimenting with different blogging tools for the last few months. My favorite blog is my hosted Micro.blog site, because I can throw anything at it. A single picture, a quick link post or a think piece that I’ve labored over. I can post from many different apps, including my favorite text editors. However, Micro.blog is the least reliable service that I use. The premium features like bookmarking and, most importantly for me, newsletters, are not well-supported.
I had never come across the phrase "imprecatory prayer" until recently, even if I knew well what it meant. In fact, I have struggled with the concept. The Got Questions site begins to answer the question of what imprecatory prayer is by defining imprecatory.
To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon or curse” one’s enemies.It goes on to inform the reader that, in the Bible, David is the author of the most imprecatory psalms.
As I mentioned this week, my great-great-grandfather moved his family from the Ukraine to Minnesota in the 1870s to escape Russian persecution. He was part of the first wave of Mennonites to leave. It got worse for the ones who stayed when the Bolsheviks and Anarchists came through with their assaults on a peaceful people who refused to fight back (though some of them finally did—you can only push people so far).
The day before President’s Day, I went to church for the first time since last summer. I’ve been watching online, well, religiously, since then, but it was a rare treat to go in and see friends and hear music being played live. Vivaldi on violin with our new sound system (which was desperately needed) alone was worth the trip. We had a congregational meeting afterward, so my stomach was starting to get into growling mode by the time I got home.
Torn Open (feat. Yvette Young) by Brothertiger
I know, I know, I just wrote about Brothertiger covers of 80s tunes last week in the newsletter. I have to tell you, though, that when I saw Brothertiger had covered brother/sister duo Sophie and Peter Johnston’s “Torn Open,” one of my favorite songs, I was more than pleasantly surprised. While going through my New Music playlist from Apple Music on Friday, like I usually do, I spotted the familiar song title.
I did watch some of the Super Bowl, despite my aversion to sports where people regularly get brain injuries. How about those crypto commercials? I had literally just pulled out my phone to click on the QR code bouncing around the screen when that one commercial ended in some crypto plea. It feels like a lot of people own too much crypto and want to sell it to the easily manipulated.
