Pithy Title Here

I haven't tweeted in 2023. That makes me part of a majority of Americans (as of last year , only about a quarter of Americans were on Twitter in any capacity, whereas about double were on Instagram and far more on Facebook). But, as one who at least observed a lot of Extremely Online behavior -- if not being Extremely Online myself -- to think I would go from 60-to-zero basically over the month of December 2022 is pretty remarkable. That one dude buying the channel and basically maximizing all the stuff people didn't like about the site was the key driver, but it's been an interesting shift. Truth be told, disengaging on there has had a lot of upsides.

What a weird year. On almost every front, really. I started commuting to work again a few days a week in May and, barring something unforeseen (which, let's face it, unforeseen events are very on-brand for 2021), I'll have been on about 30 flights this year (even left the country once!!)  What I'm saying is, in addition to music on while working from home, my traditional music sanctuaries of bus rides and flights were somewhat back this year. Speaking of... folks, can we talk about live music? I went to the Day In Day Out festival over Labor Day and barely knew how to handle myself. I saw Modest Mouse at Marymoor Park and even saw Coldplay indoors . Absolutely joyful. A friend and I were talking this year about how we're also still glad that albums are a thing. Despite music mainly moving to streaming options, a lot of artists are still putting together 40-or-so minutes of music that is meant to go together as one piece of work. Sure, the singles stand out, but all tho

 A year ago, it was setting in for me that the pandemic was going to be a long haul. When Washington's stay-home-stay-healthy order was first announced, it was set up in way that seemed to offer the hope that, after hunkering down for six weeks, we'd be able to have a cautious-but-not-locked-down Memorial Day. Instead... we all know what happened. Now? I'm fully vaccinated. About a month from now, Washington will reopen fully. Seattle and King County are well on the way to >70% fully vaccinated, case rates are dropping... all the metrics are good. While I did take one trip during the pandemic (a barren flight to LAX to kick off a backpacking trip), next weekend, I'll take my first trip since my shots. I expect the plane will be full. And really, looking at the research and the counsel, I feel good about living this summer with my immune system now featuring a spike protein fighting machine. I know the pandemic isn't over. I know a lot of folks can't get vacci

Wow. I did this post every year for a long time. Then, I don't know, things got busy and things got dark and things got crazy. I remember it mainly being too busy in 2018, but both years were pretty weak on the album front. There were bright spots, sure. But we want to do a top 10 here and if I can only list six albums that I think were well put together, then... eek. More than a handful answered the call in 2020, though. In fact, i previous versions of this blog, I did a whole "honorable mention" thing, but we're going to skip that and say a nice thing about a bunch of albums that didn't make my top 10: The Weeknd was solid with After Hours and "Blinding Lights" is a legit thing . Fleet Foxes put out Shore and helped us all agree that The Crack Up never happened. Phantogram kept just being workmanlike dependable on Ceremony . The Death Stranding soundtrack was an easy listen and included Chvrches' title track that is immediately one of that ba

Speed It's the speed that really shocks you, when you think about it. We think of fire as hot. We may love the smell of a cozy fire on a cool night. But our relationship with fire tends to involve measures to keep fire stationary. It's called a fire place , after all, not a fire-go-round. But when Seattle turned from a gloriously sunny Labor Day to a smoke-choked dusk in a matter of minutes, it was the speed everyone was talking about. Winds in excess of 50 MPH whipped in from the east, bringing with them all the smoke from Eastern WA wildfires and, as always when the east winds come down the Cascades, heat (we are farther north than Montreal here, but it will be 90 degrees the next two days.) Since July 1, Seattle has managed to record a big 0.17" of rainfall. While summer is hardly the rainy season in the Pacific Northwest, that total is still less than a tenth of average. And this is the "wet" side of the mountains.  This time of year, the state, like its West