For the last 3 years, I have been curating monthly playlists that attempt to convey what I'm listening to at that time, what I'm feeling, acting as a sort of interactive journal, where I can go to (for instance) March 2019, listen to a song from that playlist, and just mentally travel to that headspace once again.
The problem with these that I've always found is that I was publishing them on Spotify, and I always felt that I was essentially doing as much marketing for Spotify as I was doing for any of the artists within the playlists. Who, of course, get paid almost nothing.
Spotify has been under fire lately for making explicit the thing we've all known for years, that they will always support wankers like Joe Rogan over actual respectable musicians who add something of value to the world like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Such is the media hellscape we're living in right now.
Let it be known that I had made the decision not to use Spotify before all of that happened. I made the decision long ago to decentralize my playlists and present them as its own webpage, but haven't had the motivation to do it until now.
This also gives me the chance to put whatever I like on there, maybe eventually put some of my Writing in here. I haven't done it this time because I'm busy and the very nature of the thing means it's time-bound. (I'm doing the bare minimum so I have a baseline of I can put into these on a monthly basis.)
For the time being, I'm not gonna help you out with these. I could add Bandcamp links where I can, but that would deprive you the pleasure of finding out how to listen to these yourself.
Rhucle - Flutter
Burial - Antidawn
John Wall - v02 [ II ]
Soichi Terada - Dosukoi Wrestler Pumpin'
Joy Orbison feat. James Massiah & Bathe - Swag w/ Kav
Tanya Tagaq - Teeth Agape
Koji Endo - 2F BGM1
Guys Next Door - Behind the Wall
COBRAH - GOOD PUSS
Lala Lala - Color of the Pool
Mondo Grosso - Intermezzo Earth
William Fields - Sejati
Laurie Spiegel - Drums
ML Buch - MW
Henry Cow - Amygdala
Nathan McCree - Venice (Synth Mix)
Billy Strings - Secrets
Erik Satie (Daniel Varsano, piano) - Emryons desséchés: I D'holothurie
Pauline Oliveros & Miya Masaoka - Afternoon (Hirusugi)
Thich Nhat Hanh & Gary Malkin - The End of Suffering
Nawang Khechog - The Great Prince of Peace and Universal Compassion
Roy Rogers - Rock Me to Sleep in My Saddle
- - - - - - - - - - Bonus Tracks - - - - - - - - - -
d'Eon - "What's My Age Again" Variation III
emamouse - OuiOui's First Crime
Dan Gibson's Solitudes - Ocean Surf in a Hidden Cove (Moderate Surf With Gulls)
Jaimeson feat. Angel Blu - True (Radio Edit)
N.O.D. - No Fear '96
umru & Petal Supply feat. Rebecca Black - heart2
In this section, I will not be listing everything that I interacted with, just as the playlist is not a list of every song I liked in the past month.
I will be listing stuff, however, that I think is interesting in some way, has some sort of spark to it. The lucky thing is most media has that spark if you're willing to look for it.
If I have a strong Top 3 for any particular month, I will be marking them in ascending order as
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Discolored (2019, PC)
Dread X Collection: The Hunt (2021, PC)
Free Running (2007, PC)
King's Field (1994, PS1)
Pupperazzi (2022, PC)
Tiny Echo (2017, PC)
Venineth (2020, PC)
Vignettes (2018, PC)
Wordle (2021, Browser)
- - - - - Replays - - - - -
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (2005, PS2)
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Saga (2006, PS2)
Tomb Raider II Randomizer (2020, PC)
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If you're like me, and like films but never enough to make them a consistent part of your life, get yourself a loyalty pass or whatever for your local cinema. You will find yourself falling into a habit where, every other evening, you spend a few hours not looking at your phone.
Genuinely! I no longer understand complaints about films being too long, because the longer time spent away from that social media site you complain about all the time, the better. (Especially when, as it often is these days, the complaint is applied to films with a respectable, brisk-paced 150 minute runtime?)
That's the tone I'm going with this month because nothing particularly stands out to me, here. I'm not even particularly sure how many of them I like as a whole. Some of them, I just like one character. lmao
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Belfast (2021, pictures)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021, pictures)
The House (2022, Netflix)
Licorice Pizza (2021, pictures)
The Lost Daughter (2021, Netflix)
Nightmare Alley (2021, pictures)
Parallel Mothers (2021, pictures)
Reggae in a Babylon (1978, Netflix)
Sing 2 (2021, pictures)
Steamboy (2004, other)
This Filthy World (2006, Mubi)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021, other)
Wheel of Time (2003, Mubi)
- - - - - Rewatches - - - - -
The Iron Giant (1999, Netflix)
Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007, Netflix)
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I've been reading The Invisible Orientation, by Julie Sondra Decker. This covers asexuality from a few different, comprehensive angles, in a way that's respectful and not clumsy like a lot of the Ace Discourse you would read at the time. What I got out of it, though, was an argument for how identity is constantly in flux, and perhaps shouldn't be held onto too tightly.
Perhaps to complement that above thought, I've also been reading a few introductory books on Buddhism. They're good but fairly interchangable. I won't list them.
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Eventually, I want to move the primary way I interact with the world away from Media and into, idk, experiences & relationships. I'm opening this category to keep that pin on the board. Let's give it a go.
I am thankful to the air for keepin' me breathin'. I am thankful to my beloved family and friends, and to Bartholomew & Lyra. The food I ate this month was really good. lmao
My memory of HTML-era websites is having these little footers at the bottom, telling you stuff like how to navigate to the homepage, which is pretty barren rn. Thanks for looking at this nonsense. Genuinely I really really appreciate it, and I would love for all of my friends to do a similar thing if they fancy it.