diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus (Extended).mp3 b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus (Extended).mp3 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2b2bf3 Binary files /dev/null and b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus (Extended).mp3 differ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus.mp3 b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus.mp3 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5fca94 Binary files /dev/null and b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/Radiatus.mp3 differ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/bcrf-result.pdf b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/bcrf-result.pdf new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6d3bc0 Binary files /dev/null and b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/bcrf-result.pdf differ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d72891c --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,145 @@ +--- +title: "Dispatch #9 (November 2023)" +date: 2023-11-01T00:00:00-04:00 +draft: false +tags: +- dispatch +references: +- title: "EDM Song Structure: Arrange Your Loop into a Full Song" + url: https://edmtips.com/edm-song-structure/ + date: 2023-11-02T03:01:04Z + file: edmtips-com-05su6g.txt +- title: "The Tascam Portastudio 414 Let Me Fall In Love With Music Again" + url: https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/audio/a45461959/tascam-portastudio-414-mkii/ + date: 2023-11-02T03:06:19Z + file: www-gearpatrol-com-6mp4nk.txt +- title: "The internet is already over - by Sam Kriss" + url: https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over + date: 2023-11-02T03:10:20Z + file: samkriss-substack-com-5indyq.txt +- title: "Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill - The New York Times" + url: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + date: 2023-11-02T03:15:31Z + file: www-nytimes-com-yrjrte.txt +- title: "The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike - The Atlantic" + url: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/10/reasons-to-get-e-bike-emissions-climate-change-benefits/675716/ + date: 2023-10-29T18:17:07Z + file: www-theatlantic-com-biphm9.txt +- title: "The beauty of finished software | Jose M." + url: https://josem.co/the-beauty-of-finished-software/ + date: 2023-11-02T03:13:08Z + file: josem-co-8ssbyq.txt +--- + +It was nice to have a quieter month after so much travel this summer. We got a few extra weeks of warm weather, which meant a few more weeks of biking with Nev, and plenty of time at the [museum][1] and all the local playgrounds. I decided to run the [Bull City Race Fest][2] half-marathon despite having to rest my ankle for the last week of training ([result][3], [certificate][4]). I faded pretty hard down the stretch, but still managed to finish in under two hours -- not bad for an old. + +[1]: https://www.lifeandscience.org/ +[2]: https://capstoneraces.com/bull-city-race-fest/ +[3]: /journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/bcrf-result.pdf +[4]: /journal/dispatch-9-november-2023/bcrf-cert.png + + + +
+ {{}} + {{}} +
+ +## Tech + +At my job, I did a cool project working with data from a [Freematics][5] car telematics device. I built a data exploration API using [Gin][6] and learned [`jq`][7] to truncate enormous JSON objects[^1]. I also got to, just like, drive my car around to test things out. + +I also made some updates to my [`golong`][8] tool to prep for a fantasy NBA draft. Now it can munge multiple CSVs of data and supports multiple position eligibility (an NBA player is often eligible as both a forward and a center, for example) and average stat projections (NFL projections are typically season-based, NBA are per-game). It worked great, and my team's looking solid so far. I'll open source it one of these days. + +[5]: https://freematics.com/products/freematics-one/ +[6]: https://gin-gonic.com/ +[7]: https://github.com/jqlang/jq +[8]: /journal/dispatch-7-september-2023/ + +## Music + +I'm still having a blast with the Novation Circuit Tracks I got last month. I came up with a track I actually really like, which I'm calling "Radiatus" (which is a [type of cloud][9]): + + + +[9]: https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/clouds-varieties-radiatus.html + +Here's an extended mix: + + + +It's really fun once you've got all the parts set up just to _play_ the Novation, bringing drums and leads in and out -- that's how I recorded these tracks. I imagine it'll only get more fun as I learn how to better twiddle the knobs to change the sounds. We'll see -- maybe I'll come up with 2-3 more cloud-themed tracks and release an album! + +My phone (and yours probably) sends me these photo slideshows periodically, and I'm an absolute sucker for them. One recently featured a track by [Lack of Afro][10], and I've been listening to his stuff ever since. Check out "For You" (or really any of it -- it's all good). + +[10]: https://lackofafro.com/ + +## Website + +I made a few updates to the website this month: + +* Created a [music][11] page that aggregates all the MP3s I've uploaded. +* Imported all the posts I've written on my [company blog][12] into an "[elsewhere][13]" section -- I'm pretty proud of some of this stuff and wanted to make sure I have a copy of it I control. I was able to automate a lot of the process with [Nokogiri][14] and [Pandoc][15], but I still had to manually review every post, which was a fun trip down memory lane, though some of my old ideas are BAD. +* Polished my [Markdown link renumbering script][25] (keeps my links in numerical order). This might be useful to other folks & might be worth rewriting in Go and releasing. + +[11]: /music +[12]: https://www.viget.com/articles +[13]: /elsewhere +[14]: https://nokogiri.org/ +[15]: /elsewhere/pandoc-a-tool-i-use-and-like/ +[25]: https://github.com/dce/davideisinger.com/blob/main/bin/renumber + +I'm really happy with Hugo -- it's simple but flexible enough to handle every challenge I've thrown at it. Building and maintaining this site has brought me a lot of joy this year. + +This month: + +* Adventure: head to upstate New York for Thanksgiving, run [Troy Turkey Trot][16] +* Project: make another track as good as that one 👆 and finally build that music workstation +* Skill: get better at playing along with a click track; [write songs, not just grooves][17] + +[16]: https://troyturkeytrot.com/ +[17]: https://edmtips.com/edm-song-structure/ + +Reading: + +* Fiction: + * [_The Secret_][18], Lee Child & Andrew Child + * [_Red War_][19], Kyle Mills +* Non-fiction: [_Step by Step Mixing_][20], [Bjorgvin Benediktsson][21] + +[18]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635346/the-secret-by-lee-child-and-andrew-child/ +[19]: https://www.vinceflynn.com/mitch-rapp-17 +[20]: https://bookshop.org/p/books/step-by-step-mixing-how-to-create-great-mixes-using-only-5-plug-ins-bjorgvin-benediktsson/9946155?ean=9781733688802 +[21]: https://www.stepbystepmixing.com/ + +Links: + +* [The Tascam Portastudio 414 Let Me Fall In Love With Music Again][22] + + > For the past ten years or so I've been a musical rut, playing the same half-dozen, half-written songs on guitar once every other blue moon and listening to the same handful of punk bands I listened to in high school. I’ve been a musician for most of my life. Between church choirs, garage bands, and a cappella groups, I’ve been involved in organized (but never professional) music-making for the better part of several decades. But, after so long uninspired, I thought that maybe the musical part of my life was mostly behind me. Until the Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII brought it all flooding back. + +* [The internet is already over][23] + + > Where you go, what you buy; a perfect snapshot of millions of ordinary lives. They were betting that this would be the currency of the future, as fundamental as oil: the stuff that rules the world. + > + > They were wrong, but in the process of being wrong, they created a monster. + +* [Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill][26] + + > If there is one cultural work that epitomizes this shift, where you can see our new epoch coming into view, I want to say it’s “Back to Black,” by Amy Winehouse. The album dates to October 2006 — seven months after Twitter was founded, three months before the iPhone debuted — and it seems, listening again now, to be closing the door on the cultural system that Manet and Baudelaire established a century and a half previously. + +* [The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike][24] + + > Today’s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice for living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. Don’t forget to save for retirement. They’re not wrong, but few of these experts will tell you one of the best ways to improve your life: Ditch your car. + +* [The beauty of finished software][25] + + > It does everything I want a word processing program to do and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type up a lowercase letter and it becomes a capital. I don't want a capital, if I'd wanted a capital, I would have typed the capital. + +[22]: https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/audio/a45461959/tascam-portastudio-414-mkii/ +[23]: https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over +[26]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html +[24]: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/10/reasons-to-get-e-bike-emissions-climate-change-benefits/675716/ +[25]: https://josem.co/the-beauty-of-finished-software/ + +[^1]: I was getting back complex nested JSON structures containing arrays with thousands of elements. To truncate all arrays in a JSON response to two elements, you can do `curl [url] | jq 'walk(if type == "array" then .[0:2] else . end)'`. diff --git a/static/archive/edmtips-com-05su6g.txt b/static/archive/edmtips-com-05su6g.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c573e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/edmtips-com-05su6g.txt @@ -0,0 +1,623 @@ + [tr?id=1356908847688416&ev=PageView&noscript=1] + [tr?id=279433711742018&ev=PageView&noscript=1] #[1]EDM Tips » EDM Song + Structure: Arrange Your Loop into a Full Song Comments Feed + [2]alternate [3]alternate [4]alternate + + IFRAME: [5]https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-N5SBWB6 + + [6]EDM Tips +  + + * [7]FREE + * [8]COURSES + * [9]ABOUT + * [10]BLOG + * [11]LOGIN + * Search + ____________________ ____________________ Submit + More results... + + [ ] + [X] + [X] + [X] + [ ] + + Filter by Custom Post Type + + [X] + +EDM Song Structure: Arrange Your Loop into a Full Song + + [12]6 Comments + + [13]Share33 + [14]Tweet + 33 Shares + + So you’ve created a killer 8-bar loop and want to take your great idea + to a full song, but don’t know where to go from here? We’ve all been + there before! + + The good news is that you don’t need to feel disheartened: this is a + super common problem that happens to all music producers, and + thankfully there are some very straightforward steps you can take to + get out of the loop and to a finished arrangement
. + + We get stuck because it can be very difficult to imagine each + individual section of a track before it exists. So, how do we fix + this? + Start 2022 the right way! Download your FREE “New Producer Starter + Pack” here. + + Let’s look into EDM song structure, and use that knowledge as a + template for our own tracks almost like one of those Paint-by-Numbers + books. If you use the techniques outlined below, you’ll be writing full + tracks and streamlining your workflow in no time! + + IFRAME: + [15]https://www.youtube.com/embed/EXx9At3iUOw?feature=oembed&iv_load_po + licy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=0&autoplay=0 + +EDM Song Structure + + So what exactly are the benefits of learning EDM song structure? Well, + for one, by learning the common ways in which other artists create and + sculpt their songs, we can use that as a template for when we get stuck + in creating our own music. + + Additionally, using known song structures helps increase relatability + and appeal to a wider audience. The practice of purposely arranging + your music in a carefully crafted way is called arrangement, and is + used in all types of music – not just Electronic Dance Music. + + In most Electronic Dance Music genres, your track will be in 4/4 time. + This means that in every bar (also known as a measure), there will be 4 + beats, and that the quarter note (the kick on every beat), will carry + the song. + + In this format, a bar is 4 beats, and a musical phrase is usually a + multiple of 2 or 4 bars. In music theory, a phrase is generally just a + grouping of bars whose energy flows nicely. For example, your build + might contain two separate phrases; one that first hints at the melody + followed by a second that introduces a snare or clap build up. + + Phrases build up, take down, or play around with the energy of a + section of your track to build interest, and create and release + tension. + + However, let’s take a step back and see what the main overall sections + of an EDM song structure are. + + They are as follows: + * Intro + * Verse + * Build up + * Drop + + Each of these distinct sections contains elements of your loop + simplified, modified, or generally expanded upon. Knowing what makes up + these sections and how they’re crafted is at the heart of how you + transform your loop into a full-fledged song. + + Now, let’s see a rundown of which elements each section usually + contains. + +Intro + + The intro is usually the simplest part of your entire track. It will + usually contain a stripped down beat to allow DJ’s to more easily + transition into your track, or – if you’re making a radio or Spotify + edit – will have a very short 2 to 4 bar phrase introducing the main + theme of your track. The intro also sets the pace and expectations for + what the track will deliver. (Will it be a break-neck speed drum-n-bass + track? Will it be a more chilled-out deep house track?) + +Verse + + The verse is more complex than the intro, but often less complex than + the drop (or at least, conveying less energy). In vocal driven music, + this is where the majority of the storytelling of songwriting occurs, + but in a lot of EDM, this is where you establish your melodic motifs. + These motifs – or small musical ideas – should hint at your main drop + melody without giving away your big, exciting, energetic drop. + +Build up + + The build up typically contains risers, repetitive melodic motifs, and + is generally rather short (a notable exception to this rule might be an + 8-minute trance track). When creating build ups, you can also consider + stripping down your percussion and drums to the bare essentials, in + order to juxtapose to the heavy drop. + +Drop + + The drop is the hardest hitting part of your track. This is where the + main hook of your song lies, and where the energy in your track should + be the highest. You want people to get up and dance when they hear your + drop! The drop can be very simple, or very complex; this heavily relies + on genre, so make sure to listen to your favorite songs and use them as + reference. + +Structures + + Many songs you hear on the radio or in the club utilize similar song + structures, with some key variation to keep it interesting. When + deciding how to structure your own track, listening and referencing + your favorite track in the same genre can be immensely valuable, as + that track is likely commercially successful and has a structure that + is proven and works. + + As a high level overview, structuring your song is a bit like designing + a roller-coaster. We want to bring the listener on a journey with the + emotion and energy from the track. This will help keep your listeners + engaged, prevent them from becoming bored, and hopefully keep playing + your track for days, months, and years to come. + + You can even analyse the structure of existing songs and draw in an + “energy map” using an automation line, as shown here. + + There are a few ways of representing song structure, but by far the + most common is to use letters to represent each part of a track. For + example, a common song structure in pop music goes as follows: + + A B D B D E D A + + In this instance, the letter A stands for an intro or outtro, B stands + for a verse, D stands for a chorus or drop, and E stands for the bridge + of the song, adding variety. Using this notation, we can quickly and + easily create and plan our song’s structure without getting too deep + into the details and slowing us down. + + If we wanted to use a similar structure for EDM, we could use A B D B D + A or A B D E D A, both of which are fairly basic but common structures. + In this instance, however, the E section is an extended breakdown, + bridge, or a new section or extended verse. + + Now we understand how song structure notation works, let’s look at a + common example of a more complex EDM song structure. + + A B C D B C D A + + This structure breaks down like so: + * A: These are the intro and outtro of the track. They are typically + 8 or 16 bars in length. In some genres, you may have 4 bar intro + and outtros; it’s important to reference the genre you’re producing + to ensure your song fits in well with the genre. + * B: This is the verse in your track. The first verse is typically 16 + bars, and the second verse is 16 or 32 bars. + * C: This is the build of the track. Both builds are typically 8 bars + in length, although in some genres can be 4 or even 10 or 12 bars + long. + * D: This is the drop of your track. A drop can vary in length but + are usually 8 to 16 bars. The second drop is typically either the + same length as the first, or slightly longer to develop a little + bit of additional energy. + + EDM Song Structure - Track Breakdown + + This is only one example of how you can structure your song, feel free + to deviate as much or as little as you want. During the music + production process, there’s tons of room for experimentation, + innovation, and self-expression; however, the vast majority of the + time, you do not want to experiment with EDM song structure. By doing + so you make your track more difficult to understand. No need to + reinvent the wheel! + +Song Structure and Genre + + Now for a quick note on genre. Genre itself dictates a lot of how your + track should be structured. A tech house track is going to have a + different song structure than a future bass track, which will be + different than an EDM trap track. Additionally, the length of the track + also fairly tightly correlates to the genre, with pop-y tracks being + shorter and club and house tracks being on the longer side. + + For example, future bass typically follow a more pop-like structure, + with longer fleshed out melodic verses and short 4 bar intros and + outtros. Most house music, however, has a significantly longer intro + and outtro; 8 to 16 bars, sometimes even 32. House music also typically + has fewer purely melodic elements focused in the verses and breakdowns, + and instead focuses on the vibe, atmosphere, and groove, building up to + an epic drop. + + Let’s take a look at [16]“Chained For Love – B2A & Anklebreaker Remix”. + This is a hardstyle track and has a song structure of: + + A B C D B C D A + + Where A stands for your intro and outtro, B is your verse, C is the + build, and D is the drop. This is an extremely common structure in + hardstyle tracks; the verse is also typically split into a more vocal + or lower energy first half, and the second half is where your + saw-driven leads come in to introduce components of the drop melody. + + Now let’s examine a future bass track, [17]“Lifeline – LODIS, Josh + Rubin”. This particular track has a structure like so: + + A B E C D B E C D A + + Note that this genre has a significantly longer intro than the previous + hardstyle track, yet the overarching structure itself is remarkably + similar. The key difference is the addition of E; which is a breakdown + or pre-build. This component lowers the energy right before the build, + allowing the producer to create a bigger feeling build. + + Finally, let’s take a look at a big room / EDM track. We’ll use + [18]“Cold – Timmy Trumpet” as an example here. He utilizes the + following structure for his track: + + B C D B C D A + + “Cold” also shares a similar structure to the other tracks. In fact, + it’s virtually identical to “Chained For Love”, save for the lack of + any sort of intro, even though the sounds and overall general vibe of + the genre are strikingly different. + +EDM Song Structure and Arrangement + + Now we understand how songs are structured and how to structure our own + track, we need to decide on the genre we want our loop to fit, or what + genre the loop already fits. Then, identify which section of a track + your loop fits into. Is it a heavy and energetic drop, or is it more a + verse or breakdown? + + Once you’ve figured out these overarching details, we can start to + think about how we want to structure our track. You can use your DAW or + even just a piece of paper to map out each section of our song, and + what should go where. Now it’s as simple as filling in the gaps with + elements from your loop, and you’re well on your way to finishing your + track! + + Let’s go over some of the common scenarios you’ll find yourself in. + +Starting with the Drop + + Your loop is energetic and pumping; this is your drop. Let’s use an A B + C D B C D A structure for our track, just like the “Chained For Love – + B2A & Anklebreaker Remix” prior example. + + EDM Song Structure - Straring with a Drop + + Now you’ve identified that you have a drop, let’s expand it to two + sections with a little bit of melodic or rhythmic variation on the + second iteration. + + Now we’ve gotten a full drop, let’s take a look at the build up. We can + use more filtered leads and pads, and switch up the snare or clap to a + contrasting rhythm to build tension. We’ll open up the filters and + speed up the percussion as the drop builds to further build up that + tension before the drop. + + Let’s take a look at the intro and outtro. Take the melody, simplify it + and the instrumentation, and use a stripped down drum pattern. You can + also experiment with some low and simple bass or some rhythmically + simple chord patterns. The outtro can be as simple as the intro, but + instead of bringing in elements, we take them out. + + The verses should be a contrasting force to the drop, while still + maintaining a similar vibe. To quickly get down a verse idea, you can + take the drop melody, take it down to a lower register with some more + interesting rhythmic chord structures that build nicely into the build + up. We can also add our second verse, build, and drops. + + EDM Song Structure - Starging with a Drop 5 + +Starting with a Breakdown, Verse or Intro + + So your loop isn’t super energetic, maybe it fits well as a verse or + intro. To generate your placeholder verses, take the idea and evolve it + with moving drum patterns and chord patterns. The build up will then + come more naturally, and you can introduce a switch-up in drum patterns + to help contrast this section from the verses and drop. Work up the + energy in the build up, adding faster drums and risers and other + effects. After this build is complete, usually you’ll have a solid idea + for the drop itself; if not, don’t worry! Take your verse idea, take + apart a one or two bar section, and build upon it to make it as high + energy as possible. + +Referencing Existing Material + + If you’re still struggling to build out your loop into a full track + scaffold, try using your favorite song as reference. In this example, + we’ll use HOLIDAY by Lil Nas X, a pop and rap song. + + Import the track into your DAW, and set the tempo equal to that of the + track. Sometimes your DAW will do this for you, but if not, you can + usually find it easily on Beatport or other sites. + + EDM Song Structure - Referencing Existing Material + + Take a listen to the song in full. As you listen, mark down where each + change occurs in the song, and what the upcoming section is.Take a + listen to the song in full. As you listen, mark down where each change + occurs in the song, and what the upcoming section is. + + EDM Song Structure- Referencing Existing Material 2 + + After going through the entire track, you’ll have an accurate map of + the full track, and can use the markers as guidelines on how you can + structure your own track. + Start 2022 the right way! Download your FREE “New Producer Starter + Pack” here. + +Conclusion + + One of the hardest parts of music production is actually finishing your + own tracks, and not ending up with a hard drive full of unfinished + loops. However, using song structuring techniques, we can use them as + scaffolding for us to write better music, faster. When you create each + section, make sure that each section captures and holds the user’s + interest in its own right; the best songs are interesting throughout, + (even in the intros and outtros!), not just during the drops. + + What do you struggle with most when it comes to EDM song structure? + Let us know in the comments! + [19]Share33 + [20]Tweet + 33 Shares + + * [21]Music Theory & Arrangement + +Related Posts + + How to Write Catchy Melodies from Scratch (The Ultimate Guide) + + Everything an Electronic Music Producer Needs to Know About Drum + Programming + +About the Author + + My name's Will Darling. I've been making and playing dance music for + over 25 years, and share what I've learnt on EDM Tips. 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https://edmtips.com/how-to-use-keys-make-edm/ + 37. https://edmtips.com/ultimate-edm-production-glossary/ + 38. https://edmtips.com/2023/04/ + 39. https://edmtips.com/2023/03/ + 40. https://edmtips.com/2023/02/ + 41. https://edmtips.com/2023/01/ + 42. https://edmtips.com/2022/11/ + 43. https://edmtips.com/2022/10/ + 44. https://edmtips.com/2022/09/ + 45. https://edmtips.com/2022/07/ + 46. https://edmtips.com/2022/05/ + 47. https://edmtips.com/2022/03/ + 48. https://edmtips.com/2022/02/ + 49. https://edmtips.com/2022/01/ + 50. https://edmtips.com/2021/10/ + 51. https://edmtips.com/2021/09/ + 52. https://edmtips.com/2021/08/ + 53. https://edmtips.com/2021/06/ + 54. https://edmtips.com/2021/05/ + 55. https://edmtips.com/2021/04/ + 56. https://edmtips.com/2021/03/ + 57. https://edmtips.com/2021/02/ + 58. https://edmtips.com/2021/01/ + 59. https://edmtips.com/2020/12/ + 60. https://edmtips.com/2020/11/ + 61. https://edmtips.com/2020/10/ + 62. https://edmtips.com/2020/09/ + 63. 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b/static/archive/josem-co-8ssbyq.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f351ed --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/josem-co-8ssbyq.txt @@ -0,0 +1,128 @@ + #[1]alternate + + * [2]Home + * [3]Articles + * [4]Work + * [5]About + * (BUTTON) + + The beauty of finished software + + October 31, 2023 + + Let me introduce you to [6]WordStar 4.0, a popular word processor from + the early 80s. + + Wordstar 4.0 WordStar 4.0 + + As old as it seems, George R.R. Martin used it to write “A Song of Ice + and Fire”. + + Why would someone use such an old piece of software to write over 5,000 + pages? I love how he puts it: + + It does everything I want a word processing program to do and it + doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of + these modern systems where you type up a lowercase letter and it + becomes a capital. I don't want a capital, if I'd wanted a capital, + I would have typed the capital.[7]George R.R. Martin + + This program embodies the concept of finished software — a software you + can use forever with no unneeded changes. + + Finished software is software that’s not expected to change, and that’s + a feature! You can rely on it to do some real work. + + Once you get used to the software, once the software works for you, you + don’t need to learn anything new; the interface will exactly be the + same, and all your files will stay relevant. No migrations, no new + payments, no new changes. + + This kind of software can be created intentionally, with a compromise + from the creators that they won’t bother you with things you don’t + need, and only the absolutely necessary will change, like minor updates + to make it compatible with new operating systems. + + Sometimes, finished software happens accidentally; maybe the company + behind it has disappeared, or the product has been abandoned. + + There are also some great examples in the UNIX world of finished + software: commands like cd(to change the current directory) or ls(to + list what’s there) won’t ever change in a significant way. You can rely + on them until the end of your career. + +The seduction of constant updates + + Our expectations for software are different from other products we use + in our daily lives. + + When we buy a physical product, we accept that it won’t change in its + lifetime. We’ll use it until it wears off, and we replace it. We can + rely on that product not evolving; the gas pedal in my car will always + be in the same place. + + However, when it comes to software, we usually have the ingrained + expectations of perpetual updates. We believe that if software doesn’t + evolve it’ll be boring, old and unusable. If we see an app with no + updates in the last year, we think the creator might be dead. + + We also expect new versions of any software will be better than the + previous ones. Once it’s released, most of our problems will be solved! + What a deceiving lie. + + Sometimes, a software upgrade is a step backward: less usable, less + stable, with new bugs. Even if it’s genuinely better, there’s the + learning curve. You were efficient with the old version, but now your + most used button is on the other side of the screen under a hidden + menu. + +Finished software is a good reminder + + In a world where constant change is the norm, finished software + provides a breath of fresh air. It’s a reminder that reliability, + consistency, and user satisfaction can coexist in the realm of software + development. + + So the next time you find yourself yearning for the latest update, + remember that sometimes, the best software is the one that doesn’t + change at all. + __________________________________________________________________ + +References + + [1] George R.R. Martin in Conan show (2014). + [8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg. + + Subscribe below to get future posts in your inbox (no spam) + ____________________ + ____________________ + Subscribe + + Or use the [9]RSS feed link. + __________________________________________________________________ + + This site is ads-free and done in my free time. [10]Buy Me A Coffee to + help me keep working on it. + + © 2023 [11]Home | [12]RSS feed | [13]Buy Me A Coffee + +References + + Visible links: + 1. https://josem.co//articles/index.xml + 2. https://josem.co/ + 3. https://josem.co/articles/ + 4. https://josem.co/work/ + 5. https://josem.co/about/ + 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar + 7. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L75711-7804TMP.html#rf1 + 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg + 9. https://josem.co/articles/index.xml + 10. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/josem.co + 11. https://josem.co/ + 12. https://josem.co/articles/index.xml + 13. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/josem.co + + Hidden links: + 15. https://josem.co/ + 16. file://localhost/var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L75711-7804TMP.html#top diff --git a/static/archive/samkriss-substack-com-5indyq.txt b/static/archive/samkriss-substack-com-5indyq.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efd1ab8 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/samkriss-substack-com-5indyq.txt @@ -0,0 +1,755 @@ + #[1]Numb at the Lodge + + [2][https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.ama + zonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F75fb5a16-c295-4898-b7e3-9ab295cd3530_378 + x378.png] + +[3]Numb at the Lodge + + (BUTTON) (BUTTON) + Subscribe + (BUTTON) Sign in + + (BUTTON) + Share this post + +The internet is already over + + samkriss.substack.com + (BUTTON) + Copy link + (BUTTON) + Facebook + (BUTTON) + Email + (BUTTON) + Note + (BUTTON) + Other + +Discover more from Numb at the Lodge + + These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here + Over 11,000 subscribers + ____________________ + (BUTTON) Subscribe + Continue reading + Sign in + +The internet is already over + +Our God is a devourer, who makes things only for the swallowing. + + [4]Sam Kriss + Sep 18, 2022 + Share + +A sort of preface + + There’s a phrase that’s been living inside my head lately, a brain + parasite, some burrowing larva covered in thorns and barbs of words. + When it moves around in there it churns at the soft tissues like + someone’s stuck a very small hand blender in my skull. It repeats + itself inside the wormy cave system that used to be my thoughts. It + says you will not survive. You will not survive. You will not survive. + + Earlier this year, an article in the Cut reported that the cool thing + now is to have messy hair and smoke cigarettes again. You might + remember it; the piece was widely mocked for a day or two, and then it + vanished without a trace, which is how these things tend to go. But the + headline was incredible, and it stuck with me. [5]A Vibe Shift Is + Coming. Will Any Of Us Survive It? Everyone else seemed to focus on the + ‘vibe shift’ stuff, but the second part was much more interesting. To + talk about survival—what extraordinary stakes, for a piece that was, in + essence, about how young people are wearing different types of shoes + from the shoes that you, as a slightly older person who still wants to + think of themselves as young, wear. Everything is stripped back to the + rawest truth: that you are a fragile creature perishing in time. And + all you need to do is apply Betteridge’s Law for the real content to + shine through. No. None of you will survive. + + There was an ancient thought: that Zeus feeds on the world. ‘The + universe is cyclically consumed by the fire that engendered it.’ Our + God is a devourer, who makes things only for the swallowing. As it + happens, this was the first thought, the first ever written down in a + book of philosophy, the first to survive: that nothing survives, and + the blankness that birthed you will be the same hole you crawl into + again. Anaximander: ‘Whence things have their origin, thence also their + destruction lies
’ In the Polynesian version, Maui tried to achieve + immortality by taking the form of a worm and slithering into the vagina + of Hine-nui-te-po, goddess of night and death.[6]1 He failed. + Hine-nui-te-po’s pussy is full of obsidian teeth; when she stirred in + the night those teeth sliced clean through his body. He dribbled out + again, a loose mulch of the hero who conquered the Sun. + + You will not survive is not only a frightening idea. The things I hope + for are doomed, and everything I try to create will be a failure, but + so will everything I despise.[7]2 These days, it repeats itself + whenever I see something that’s trying its hardest to make me angry and + upset. There’s a whole class of these objects: they’re never + particularly interesting or important; they just exist to jab you into + thinking that the world is going in a particular direction, away from + wherever you are. One-Third Of Newborn Infants Now Describe Themselves + As Polyamorous—Here’s Why That’s A Good Thing. Should I get upset about + this? Should I be concerned? Why bother? It will not survive.[8]3 Meet + The Edgy Influencers Making Holocaust Denial Hip Again. Are we in + trouble? Maybe, but even trouble is ending. Everyone That Matters Has + Started Wearing Jeans Over Their Heads With Their Arms Down The Leg + Holes And Their Faces All Cramped Up In The Sweaty Groin Region, And + They Walk Down The Street Like This, Bumping Into Things, And When They + Sit Down To Eat They Just Pour Their Subscription-Service + Meal-Replacement Slurry Over The Crotch Of Their Jeans And Lick At The + Dribblings From The Inside, And They’re Covered In Flies And Smell Bad + And Also They’re Naked From The Waist Down Because Their Trousers Are + On Their Heads, That’s Part Of It Too—We Show You How To Get The Look! + How proud they are of their new thing. ‘The strong iron-hearted + man-slaying Achilles, who would not live long.’ + + In fact, one of the things that will not survive is novelty itself: + trends, fads, fashions, scenes, vibes. We are thrown back into cyclical + time; what’s growing old is the cruel demand to make things new. It’s + already trite to notice that all our films are franchises now, all our + bestselling novelists have the same mass-produced non-style, and all + our pop music sounds like a tribute act.[9]4 But consider that the + cultural shift that had all those thirtysomething Cut writers so + worried about their survival is simply the return of a vague Y2K + sensibility, which was itself just an echo of the early 1980s. Angular + guitar music again, flash photography, plaid. We’re on a twenty-year + loop: the time it takes for a new generation to be born, kick around + for a while, and then settle into the rhythm of the spheres. + + Every time this happens, it coincides with a synodic conjunction of + Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter, the triumphant present; Saturn, + senescence, decline. The son who castrates his father, the father who + devours his sons: once every twenty years, they are indistinguishable + in the sky. Astrologers call this the Great Chronocrator. The last one + was at the end of 2020, and it’ll occur twice more in my lifetime: when + these witless trendwatchers finally shuffle off, they’ll be tended on + their deathbeds by a nurse with messy black eyeshadow and low-rise + scrubs. Jupiter and Saturn will burn above you as a single point, and + with your last rattling breaths you’ll still be asking if she thinks + you’re cool. You don’t get it. ‘For oute of olde feldes, as men seith, + cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere.’ We are entering a blissful + new Middle Ages, where you simply soak in a static world until the + waters finally close in over your head. + + The things that will survive are the things that are already in some + sense endless. The sea; the night; the word. Things with deep fathoms + of darkness in them. + + The internet will not survive. + +The argument + +1. That it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the +internet + + In 1977, Ken Olsen declared that ‘there is no reason for any individual + to have a computer in his home.’ In 1995, Robert Metcalfe predicted in + InfoWorld that the internet would go ‘spectacularly supernova’ and then + collapse within a year. In 2000, the Daily Mail reported that the + ‘Internet may be just a passing fad,’ adding that ‘predictions that the + Internet would revolutionise the way society works have proved wildly + inaccurate.’ Any day now, the millions of internet users would simply + stop, either bored or frustrated, and rejoin the real world. + + Funny, isn’t it? You can laugh at these people now, from your high + perch one quarter of the way into the twenty-first century. Look at + these morons, stuck in their grubby little past, who couldn’t even + correctly identify the shape of the year 2022. You can see it + perfectly, because you’re smart. You know that the internet has changed + everything, forever. + + If you like the internet, you’ll point out that it’s given us all of + human knowledge and art and music, instantly accessible from anywhere + in the world; that you can arrive in a foreign city and immediately + guide yourself to a restaurant and translate the menu and also find out + about the interesting historical massacres that took place nearby, all + with a few lazy swipes of your finger. So many interesting little + blogs! So many bizarre subcultures! It’s opened up our experience of + the world: now, nothing is out of reach. + + To be honest, it’s difficult to reconstruct what the unbridled + techno-optimists think; there’s so few of them left. Still, those who + don’t like the internet usually agree with them on all the basics—they + just argue that we’re now in touch with the wrong sort of thing: bad + kids’ cartoons, bad political opinions, bad ways of relating to your + own body and others. Which is why it’s so important to get all this + unpleasant stuff off the system, and turn the algorithm towards what is + good and true. + + They might be right, but you could go deeper. The internet has enabled + us to live, for the first time, entirely apart from other people. It + replaces everything good in life with a low-resolution [10]simulation. + A handful of sugar instead of a meal: addictive but empty, just enough + to keep you alive. It even seems to be killing off sex, replacing it + with more cheap, synthetic [11]ersatz. Our most basic biological drives + simply wither in its cold blue light. People will cheerfully admit that + the internet has destroyed their attention spans, but what it’s really + done away with is your ability to think. Usually, when I’m doing + something boring but necessary—the washing up, or walking to the post + office—I’ll constantly interrupt myself; there’s a little Joycean + warbling from the back of my brain. ‘Boredom is the dream bird that + broods the egg of experience.’ But when I’m listlessly killing time on + the internet, there is nothing. The mind does not wander. I am not + there. That rectangular hole spews out war crimes and cutesy comedies + and affirmations and porn, all of it mixed together into one + general-purpose informational goo, and I remain in its trance, the + lifeless scroll, twitching against the screen until the sky goes dark + and I’m one day closer to the end. You lose hours to—what? An endless + slideshow of barely interesting images and actively unpleasant text. + Oh, cool—more memes! You know it’s all very boring, brooding nothing, + but the internet addicts you to your own boredom. I’ve tried heroin: + this is worse. More numb, more blank, more nowhere. A portable suicide + booth; a device for turning off your entire existence. Death is no + longer waiting for you at the far end of life. It eats away at your + short span from the inside out. + + But lately I’m starting to think that the last thing the internet + destroys might be itself. I think they might be vindicated, Ken Olson + and Robert Metcalfe and even, God forgive me, the Daily Mail. + + In the future—not the distant future, but ten years, five—people will + remember the internet as a brief dumb enthusiasm, like phrenology or + the dirigible. They might still use computer networks to send an email + or manage their bank accounts, but those networks will not be where + culture or politics happens. The idea of spending all day online will + seem as ridiculous as sitting down in front of a nice fire to read the + phone book. Soon, people will find it incredible that for several + decades all our art was obsessed with digital computers: all those + novels and films and exhibitions about tin cans that make beeping + noises, handy if you need to multiply two big numbers together, but so + lifeless, so sexless, so grey synthetic glassy bugeyed spreadsheet + plastic drab. And all your smug chortling over the people who failed to + predict our internetty present—if anyone remembers it, it’ll be with + exactly the same laugh.[12]5 + +2. That exhausted is a whole lot more than tired + + You know, secretly, even if you’re pretending not to, that this thing + is nearing exhaustion. There is simply nothing there online. All + language has become rote, a halfarsed performance: even the outraged + mobs are screaming on autopilot. Even genuine crises can’t interrupt + the tedium of it all, the bad jokes and predictable thinkpieces, + spat-out enzymes to digest the world. ‘Leopards break into the temple + and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry; it keeps happening; in the + end, it can be calculated in advance and is incorporated into the + ritual.’ Online is not where people meaningfully express themselves; + that still happens in the remaining scraps of the nonnetworked world. + It’s a parcel of time you give over to the machine. Make the motions, + chant its dusty liturgy. The newest apps even [13]literalise this: + everyone has to post a selfie at exactly the same time, an inaudible + call to prayer ringing out across the world. Recently, at a bar, I saw + the room go bright as half the patrons suddenly started posing with + their negronis. This is called being real. + + Whoever you are, a role is already waiting for you. All those pouty + nineteen-year-old lowercase nymphets, so fluent in their borrowed + boredom, flatly reciting don’t just choke me i want someone to cut off + my entire head. All those wide-eyed video creeps, their inhuman + enthusiasm, hi guys! hi guys!! so today we’re going to talk about—don’t + forget to like and subscribe!! hi guys!!! Even on the deranged fringes, + a dead grammar has set in. The people who fake Tourette’s for TikTok + and the people who fake schizophrenia for no reason at all. VOICES HAVE + REVEALED TO ME THAT YOUR MAILMAN IS A DEMONIC ARCHON SPAT FROM + BABYLON’S SPINNING PIGMOUTH, GOD WANTS YOU TO KILL HIM WITH A ROCKET + LAUNCHER. Without even passing out of date, every mode of + internet-speak already sounds antiquated. Aren’t you embarrassed? Can’t + you hear, under the chatter of these empty forms, a long low ancient + whine, the last mewl of that cat who wants to haz cheezburger? + + When I say the internet is running dry, I am not just basing this off + vibes. The exhaustion is measurable and real. 2020 saw a grand, mostly + unnoticed shift in online behaviour: the [14]clickhogs all went + catatonic, thick tongues lolling in the muck. On Facebook, the average + engagement rate—the number of likes, comments, and shares per + follower—fell by 34%, from 0.086 to 0.057. Well, everyone knows that + the mushrooms are spreading over Facebook, hundreds of thousands of + users [15]liquefying out of its corpse every year. But the same pattern + is everywhere. Engagement fell 28% on Instagram and 15% on Twitter. + (It’s [16]kept falling since.) Even on TikTok, the terrifying brainhole + of tomorrow, the walls are closing in. Until 2020, the average daily + time spent on the app kept rising in line with its growing user base; + since then the number of users has kept growing, but the thing is + capturing [17]less and less of their lives. + + And this was, remember, a year in which millions of people had nothing + to do except engage with great content online—and in which, for a few + months, liking and sharing the right content became an urgent moral + duty. Back then, I thought the pandemic and the protests had + permanently hauled our collective human semi-consciousness over to the + machine. Like most of us, I couldn’t see what was really happening, but + there were some people who could. Around the same time, strange new + conspiracy theories started doing the rounds: that [18]the internet is + empty, that all the human beings you used to talk to have been replaced + by bots and drones. ‘The internet of today is entirely sterile
 the + internet may seem gigantic, but it’s like a hot air balloon with + nothing inside.’ They weren’t wrong. + + What’s happening?[19]6 Here’s a story from the very early days of the + internet. In the 90s, someone I know started a collaborative online + zine, a mishmash text file of barely lucid thoughts and theories. It + was deeply weird and, in some strange corners, very popular. Years + passed and technology improved: soon, they could break the text file + into different posts, and see exactly how many people were reading each + one. They started optimising their output: the most popular posts + became the model for everything else; they found a style and voice that + worked. The result, of course, was that the entire thing became rote + and lifeless and rapidly collapsed. Much of the media is currently + going down the same path, refining itself out of existence. Aside from + the New Yorker’s fussy umlauts, there’s simply nothing to distinguish + any one publication from any other. (And platforms like this one are + not an alternative to the crisis-stricken media, just a further + acceleration in the process.) The same thing is happening everywhere, + to everyone. The more you relentlessly optimise your network-facing + self, the more you chase the last globs of loose attention, the more + frazzled we all become, and the less anyone will be able to sustain any + interest at all.[20]7 + + Everything that depends on the internet for its propagation will die. + What survives will survive in conditions of low transparency, in the + sensuous murk proper to human life. + +3. That you have been plugged into a grave + + For a while, it was possible to live your entire life online. The world + teemed with new services: simply dab at an app, and the machine would + summon some other slumping creature with a skin condition to deliver + your groceries, or drive you in pointless circles around town, or meet + you for overpriced drinks and awkward sex and vanish. Like everyone, I + thought this was the inevitable shape of the future. ‘You’ll own + nothing, and you’ll be happy.’ We’d all be reduced to a life spent + swapping small services for the last linty coins in our pockets. It’s + Uber for dogs! It’s Uber for dogshit! It’s picking up a fresh, creamy + pile of dogshit with your bare hands—on your phone! But this was not a + necessary result of new technologies. The internet was not + subordinating every aspect of our lives by itself, under its own power. + The online economy is an energy sink; it’s only survived this far as a + parasite, in the bowels of something else. + + That something else is a vast underground cavern of the dead, billions + of years old. + + The Vision Fund is an investment vehicle headquartered in London and + founded by Japan’s SoftBank to manage some $150 billion, mostly from + the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which it’s + poured into Uber and DoorDash and WeWork and Klarna and Slack. It + provides the money that [21]effectively subsidises your autistic + digital life. These firms could take over the market because they were + so much cheaper than the traditional competitors—but most of them were + never profitable; they survived on Saudi largesse. + + Investors were willing to sit on these losses; it’s not as if there + were many alternatives. Capital is no longer capable of effectively + reproducing itself in the usual way, through the production of + commodities. Twenty-five years ago manufacturing represented a + [22]fifth of global GDP; in 2020 it was down to 16%. Interest rates + have hovered near zero for well over a decade as economies struggle to + grow. Until this year, governments were still issuing negative-yield + bonds, and [23]people were buying them—a predictable loss looked like + the least bad option. The only reliable source of profits is in the + extraction of raw materials: chiefly, pulling the black corpses of + trillions of prehistoric organisms out of the ground so they can be set + on fire. Which means that the feudal rulers of those corpselands—men + like King Salman, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques—ended up sitting on + a vast reservoir of capital without many productive industries through + which it could be valorised. So, as a temporary solution, they stuck it + in the tech sector. + + It didn’t matter that these firms couldn’t turn a profit. The real + function was not to make money in the short term; it was to suck up + vast quantities of user data. Where you go, what you buy; a perfect + snapshot of millions of ordinary lives. They were betting that this + would be the currency of the future, as fundamental as oil: the stuff + that rules the world.[24]8 + + They were wrong, but in the process of being wrong, they created a + monster. Your frictionless digital future, your very important culture + wars, your entire sense of self—it’s just a waste byproduct of the + perfectly ordinary, centuries-old global circulation of fuel, capital, + and Islam. It turns out that if these three elements are arranged in + one particular way, people will start behaving strangely. They’ll + pretend that by spending all day on the computer they’re actually + fighting fascism, or standing up for women’s sex-based rights, as if + the entire terrain of combat wasn’t provided by a nightmare + head-chopping theocratic state.[25]9 They’ll pretend that it’s normal + to dance alone in silence for a front-facing camera, or that the + intersection of art and technology is somehow an interesting place to + be. For a brief minute, you’ll get the sociocultural Boltzmann entity + we call the internet. ‘But nevertheless, it was only a minute. After + nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the + clever beasts had to die.’ + + The tables are already being cleared at the great tech-sector + chow-down.[26]10 Online services are reverting to market prices. The + Vision Fund is the worst performing fund in SoftBank’s history; in the + last quarter alone it’s [27]lost over $20 billion. Most of all, it’s + now impossible to ignore that the promise propping up the entire + networked economy—that user data could power a system of terrifyingly + precise targeted advertising—was a lie. It simply does not work. ‘It + sees that you bought a [28]ticket to Budapest, so you get more tickets + to Budapest
All they really know about you is your shopping.’ Now, + large companies are cutting out their online advertising budgets + entirely, and seeing [29]no change whatsoever to their bottom line. One + study found that algorithmically targeted advertising performed worse + than ads [30]selected at random. This is what [31]sustains the entire + media, provides 80% of Google’s income and 99% of Facebook’s, and it’s + made of magic beans. + + A dying animal still makes its last few spastic kicks: hence the recent + flurry of strange and stillborn ideas. Remember the Internet of Things? + Your own lightbulbs blinking out ads in seizure-inducing Morse code, + your own coffee machine calling the police if you try to feed it some + unlicensed beans. Remember the Metaverse? The grisly pink avatar of + Mark Zuckerberg, bobbing around like the ghost of someone’s foreskin + through the scene of the recent genocides. Wow! It’s so cool to + immersively experience these bloodmires in VR! More recent attempts to + squeeze some kind of profit out of this carcass are, somehow, worse. + Here’s how web3 is about to disrupt the meat industry. Every time you + buy a pound of tripe, your physical offal will be bundled with a + dedicated TripeToken, which maintains its value and rarity even after + the tripe has been eaten, thanks to a unique blockchain signature + indexed to the intestinal microbiome of the slaughtered cattle! By + eating large amounts of undercooked offal while trading TripeTokens on + secondary markets, you can incentivise the spread of your favourite + cattle diseases—and if one of the pathogens you own jumps the species + barrier to start infecting humans, you’ve successfully monetised the + next pandemic! Once you get sick, you can rent out portions of your own + intestinal tract to an industrial meat DAO in exchange for + SlaughterCoins. Because SlaughterCoins are linked via blockchain to the + progressive disintegration of your body, they’re guaranteed to increase + in value! And when your suffering becomes unbearable, local abattoirs + will bid to buy up your SlaughterCoin wallet in exchange for putting + you out of your misery with a bolt gun to the head! Yes, the future is + always capable of getting worse. But this future is simply never going + to happen. Not the next generation of anything, just a short-term + grift: the ship’s rats stripping the galley of all its silverware on + their way out. + +4. That the revolution can not be digitised + + If you really want to see how impotent the internet is, though, you + only have to look at politics. + + Everyone agrees that the internet has [32]swallowed our entire + political discourse whole. When politicians debate, they trade crap + one-liners to be turned into gifs. Their strategists seem to think + elections are won or lost [33]on memes. Entire movements emerge out of + flatulent little echo chambers; elected representatives giddy over the + evils of seed oils or babbling about how it’s not their job to educate + you. And it’s true that the internet has changed some things: mostly, + it’s helped break apart the cohesive working-class communities that + produce a strong left, and turned them into vague swarms of monads. But + as a political instrument, all it can do is destroy anyone who tries to + pick it up—because everything that reproduces itself through the + internet is doomed. + + Occasionally, online social movements do make something happen. A hand + emerges from out of the cloud to squish some minor individual. Let’s + get her friends to denounce her! Let’s find out where she lives! You + can have your sadistic fun and your righteous justice at the same time: + doesn’t it feel good to be good? But these movements build no + institutions, create no collective subjects, and produce no meaningful + change. Their only power is punishment—and this game only works within + the internet, and only when everyone involved agrees to play by the + internet’s rules.[34]11 As soon as they run up against anything with a + separate set of values—say, a Republican Party that wants to put its + guy on the Supreme Court, #MeToo or no #MeToo—they instantly crumble. + And if, like much of the contemporary left, you're left with nothing on + which to build your political movement except a hodgepodge of online + frenzies, you will crumble too. + + The post-George Floyd demonstrations might be our era’s greatest + tragedy: tens of millions of people mobilised in (possibly) the largest + protest movement in human history, all for an urgent and necessary + cause—and achieving precisely nothing. [35]At the time, I worried that + the mass street movement risked being consumed by the sterile politics + of online; this is exactly what happened. Now, even that vague cultural + halo is spent. Whatever wokeness was, as of 2022 it’s so utterly burned + out as a cultural force that anyone still grousing about it 24/7 is a + guaranteed hack. More recently, there’s been worry about the rise of + the ‘[36]new right’—a oozingly digitised political current whose + effective proposition is that people should welcome a total + dictatorship to prevent corporations posting rainbow flags on the + internet. You can guess what I think of its prospects. + +5. That this is the word + + Things will survive in proportion to how well they’ve managed to + insulate themselves from the internet and its demands. The Financial + Times will outlive the Guardian. Paintings will outlive NFTs. Print + magazines will outlive Substack. You will, if you play your cards + right, outlive me. If anything interesting ever happens again, it will + not be online. You will not get it delivered to your inbox. It will not + have a podcast. This machine has never produced anything of note, and + it never will. + + A sword is against the internet, against those who live online, and + against its officials and wise men. A sword is against its false + prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against its + commentators, and they will be filled with exhaustion. A sword is + against its trends and fashions and against all the posturers in its + midst, and they will become out of touch. A sword is against its + cryptocoins, and they will be worthless. A drought is upon its waters, + and they will be dried up. For it is a place of graven images, and the + people go mad over idols. So the desert creatures and hyenas will live + there and ostriches will dwell there. The bots will chatter at its + threshold, and dead links will litter the river bed. It will never + again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation. + +A conclusion, or, where I’m going with all this + + I am aware that I’m writing this on the internet. + + Whatever it is I’m doing here, you should not be part of it. Do not + click the button below this paragraph, do not type in your email + address to receive new posts straight to your inbox, and for the love + of God, if you have any self-respect, do not even think about giving me + any money. There is still time for you to do something else. You can + still unchain yourself from this world that will soon, very soon, mean + absolutely nothing. + ____________________ + (BUTTON) Subscribe + + As far as I can tell, Substack mostly functions as a kind of + meta-discourse for Twitter. (At least, this is the part I’ve seen—there + are also, apparently, recipes.) Graham Linehan posts fifty times a day + on this platform, and all of it is just replying to tweets. This does + not strike me as particularly sustainable. I have no idea what kind of + demented pervert is actually reading this stuff, when you could be + lying in a meadow by a glassy stream, rien faire comme une bĂȘte, eyes + melting into the sky. According to the very helpful Substack employees + I’ve spoken to, there are a set of handy best practices for this + particular region of the machine: have regular open threads, chitchat + with your subscribers, post humanising updates about your life. Form a + community. I’m told that the most successful writing on here is + friendly, frequent, and fast. Apparently, readers should know exactly + what you’re getting at within the first three sentences. I do not plan + on doing any of these things. + + This is what I would like to do. I would like to see if, in the belly + of the dying internet, it’s possible to create something that is not + like the internet. I want to see if I can poke at the outlines of + whatever is coming next. In a previous life, I was a sort of mildly + infamous online opinion gremlin, best known for being extravagantly + mean about other opinion writers whose writing or whose opinions I + didn’t like. These days, I find most of that stuff very, very dull. I + wonder if it’s possible to talk about things differently. Not + rationally or calmly, away from the cheap point-scoring of online + discourse—that would also be boring—but with a better, less sterile + kind of derangement. I’m interested in the forms of writing that were + here long before the internet, and which will be here long after it’s + gone. Not thinkpieces or blogs, but the essay, the manifesto, the + satyr, and the screed. Ludibria, pseudepigrapha, quodlibets. Or + folktales. Prophecy. Dreams. + [37]1 + + I am very disappointed that this scene never appears in Disney’s Moana. + [38]2 + + It’s the same thought that, in Marx’s 1873 postface to Capital, Volume + I, ‘includes in its positive understanding of what exists a + simultaneous recognition of its negation, its inevitable destruction.’ + Or Hegel’s famous line on the flight habits of nocturnal birds. Or + Baudrillard after the orgy, sticky and spent, announcing that the + revolution has already happened and the Messiah has already been and + gone. + [39]3 + + As a general rule: by the time you hear about any of this stuff, by the + time it’s in general discursive circulation, whatever was motive and + real in the phenomenon has already died. Every culture warrior spends + their life raging at the light of a very distant, long-exploded star. + [40]4 + + Every few weeks, there are ads for some new band plastered over the + Tube. The acid, whipsmart voice of twenty-first century youth! Then you + listen, and they’re just ripping off the Fall again. ‘You think your + haircut is distinguished, when it’s a blot on the English landscape.’ + [41]5 + + Chances are, though, that it won’t be remembered at all. Gregory of + Tours was a Roman aristocrat, the son of a Senator, raised on Virgil + and Sallust, but in his dense ten-volume History he never bothers to + even mention the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The old imperial + world had ended so decisively that its passing wasn’t even considered + particularly important; the new world of barbarian kings (governing + through a system of ecclesiastical administration inherited from the + empire, and that still functioned, if haphazardly, with only the most + nominal connections to central authority in Italy or the Bosporus) had + become the only possible world order, even as the cities shrank and + Mediterranean trade vanished. Syagrius, magister militum in the Roman + rump state around Noviodunum, becomes the King of the Romans; his + imperial holdout becomes the Kingdom of Soissons. It took several + centuries for people to decide that anything particularly significant + had happened when Odoacer overthrew the teenaged Romulus Augustulus in + 476 AD. This is why the internet has not been a true revolution: + everyone online is still obsessing over how much has changed, and + fondly remembering the time before we all spent all our waking hours + staring at phones. + [42]6 + + Actually, I have two slightly overlapping theories on what might be + happening. The main one is above; the second, which is weirder and + makes less sense, has been shoved down here. Samuel Beckett describes a + version of the internet and its exhaustion, one made of small pebbles. + Here is Molloy on the beach, this limping old bird in his shabby + overcoat, rolling in the sand. ‘Much of my life has ebbed away before + this shivering expanse, to the sound of waves in storm and calm, and + the claws of the surf.’ He has sixteen stones in his pocket, and every + so often he puts one in his mouth to suck on it for a while. ‘A little + pebble in your mouth, round and smooth, appeases, soothes, makes you + forget your hunger, forget your thirst.’ The problem: how to make sure + that when he next reaches into his pocket, he doesn’t take out the + stone he’s just sucked? How to make sure he’s getting the full + enjoyment out of each of his sixteen stones? Novelty is mysteriously + important, even though ‘deep down it was all the same to me whether I + sucked a different stone each time or always the same stone, until the + end of time. For they all tasted exactly the same.’ For a while, his + coat and his trousers and his mouth are turned into a series of + machines for creating sequences of stones. Supply pockets and store + pockets, modes of circulation: curated algorithms, organising the world + and its information. Beckett spends half a dozen pages (in my edition) + describing these systems, as each of them arrives in a flash of divine + inspiration and fails in turn. Eventually, Molloy has exhausted every + possible arrangement of atoms and voids. ‘The solution to which I + rallied in the end was to throw away all the stones but one, which I + kept now in one pocket, now in another, and which of course I soon + lost, or threw away, or gave away, or swallowed. It was a wild part of + the coast.’ In The Exhausted, his grand study of Beckett, Deleuze + comments on the distinction between the exhausted and the merely tired. + ‘The tired has only exhausted realisation, while the exhausted exhausts + all of the possible.’ To exhaust the world as it is you only need to + experience it: wander through reality, and get bored. But for true + exhaustion, you need to know that everything that could be is as empty + as everything that is. To reach exhaustion, you need some kind of + device, made of ‘tables and programmes,’ a technics. Something like + Molloy’s overcoat. ‘The combinatorial is the art or science of + exhausting the possible, through inclusive disjunctions.’ The ars + combinatoria is also the system of formal logic, revealed in holy + visions to Ramon Llull in his cave on Puig de Ronda in 1274, eventually + refined by Gottfried Leibniz, that powers the device you’re using to + read this now. Exhaustion is the mode of life integral to a + computerised society; the internet comes to us already long worn out, + combining and recombining stale elements, shambling through the dead + zones of itself. + [43]7 + + You could compare this process to Marx’s law of the tendency of the + rate of profit to fall: as each individual actor, follows its + incentives and inflates the organic composition, the entire system ends + up stumbling into crisis. + [44]8 + + People claim to be deeply worried by this stuff, but I think you + secretly like it. You like the idea that your attention is what creates + the world. You like the idea that the entire global economy is + predicated on getting to know you, finding out what you like and + dislike, your taste in music and your frankly insane political opinions + and the gooey little treats you buy. Global capitalism as one vast + Buzzfeed personality quiz. The faceless empire of yourself. + [45]9 + + One of the largest shareholders in Twitter is the Kingdom Holding + Company, chaired by Prince al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. + For some reason, people seemed to think that replacing him with Elon + Musk would shift the tenor of the site to the right. + [46]10 + + When I was younger, my brother and I had a running joke about a lemon + that could connect to the internet. Not for any particular reason: a + light would blink just below the lemon’s skin, and it would do nothing, + just slowly rot in your fruitbowl. A few years ago, that lemon would + have immediately secured half a billion dollars in first-round funding. + Now, not so much. + [47]11 + + The ‘cancelled’ always participate in the theatre of their own + cancellation. In Greco-Roman sacrifices, the animal was expected to nod + before being led to the altar; the victim had to consent to its + slaughter. And that nod always happened, even if a priest had to induce + it by pouring a vase of water over the animal’s head. + Share + Next + Top + New + + No posts + + Ready for more? + ____________________ + (BUTTON) Subscribe + + © 2023 Sam Kriss + [48]Privacy ∙ [49]Terms ∙ [50]Collection notice + Start Writing[51]Get the app + [52]Substack is the home for great writing + + This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [53]turn on + JavaScript or unblock scripts + +References + + Visible links: + 1. file:///feed + 2. https://samkriss.substack.com/ + 3. https://samkriss.substack.com/ + 4. https://substack.com/@samkriss + 5. https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/a-vibe-shift-is-coming.html + 6. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-1-71503638 + 7. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-2-71503638 + 8. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-3-71503638 + 9. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-4-71503638 + 10. https://damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of-demons/ + 11. https://onlyfans.com/ + 12. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-5-71503638 + 13. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/21/its-a-modern-day-facebook-how-bereal-became-gen-zs-favourite-app + 14. https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-engagement-benchmark-trends-2020/ + 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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets + 37. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-1-71503638 + 38. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-2-71503638 + 39. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-3-71503638 + 40. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-4-71503638 + 41. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-5-71503638 + 42. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-6-71503638 + 43. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-7-71503638 + 44. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-8-71503638 + 45. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over#footnote-anchor-9-71503638 + 46. 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If you buy + from a link, [102]we may earn a commission. + + tascam portastudio 414 mk 2 on a desk + Eric Limer + + 1. [103]Tech + + [104]Audio + + [105]This Four-Track Tape Recorder Made Me Fall In Love With Music + All Over Again + + This Four-Track Tape Recorder Made Me Fall In Love With Music All Over Again + + The cassette is still cool. + + By [106]Eric Limer + Oct 11, 2023 + + For the past ten years or so I've been a musical rut, playing the same + half-dozen, half-written songs on guitar once every other blue moon and + listening to the same handful of punk bands I listened to in high + school. I’ve been a musician for most of my life. Between church + choirs, garage bands, and a cappella groups, I’ve been involved in + organized (but never professional) music-making for the better part of + several decades. But, after so long uninspired, I thought that maybe + the musical part of my life was mostly behind me. Until the [107]Tascam + Portastudio 414 MKII brought it all flooding back. + + * Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII 4-Track Cassette Recorder + [108]$475 AT REVERB.COM + [109]Read More + [110]$475 AT REVERB.COM + + Released at the tail end of the 90s, the Portastudio 414 MKII harkens + back to a time before MacBooks shipped with Garageband. If you wanted + to record music with multiple tracks that could be altered + independently, you were looking at booking studio time or buying + something like this lovely big blue beast. And make no mistake, this + chunky boy can deliver if you've got the chops. Bruce Springsteen's + Nebraska, a few early Ween records, and some vintage Weird Al tunes + [111]were all recorded on a Portastudio of one make or another. More + recently, Nine Inch Nails' Alessandro Cortini has been almost single + handedly responsible for making the 414 MKII in particular cool again + with [112]his unorthodox (and extremely sick) use of the device as an + instrument in live performance. + Eric Limer + +Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII 4-Track Cassette Recorder + + reverb.com + $475.00 + [113]SHOP NOW + + The 414 MK II lets you record four independent tracks to a humble + cassette tape, just enough room for bass, guitar, vocals, and drums, + with the ability to add more if you’ve got the nerve to "bounce down" + multiple instruments to the same track, irrevocably intertwining two + rivers of sound to free up a slot for additional recording. It’s + ridiculously limited compared to the "digital audio workstations" you + can get literally for free today. but it does come with one killer + feature that has only truly emerged in the millennium following its + original launch: You don’t have to stare at a fucking screen to use it. + close up of leds + Much like celluloid photographic film, magnetic tape handles peaking + more gracefully than digital mediums. + Eric Limer + a close up of a play button + There’s nothing quite so satisfying is pressing play and feeling the + tape start to move. + Eric Limer + + I only ever recorded one (very poorly performed) song with my + Portastudio when my parents gifted it to me back in the mid-aughts, and + for almost twenty years I hadn’t really thought about it at all. But + when an album cover featuring its unmistakable visage cropped up on my + Spotify, it lit a spark in my brain. Mom knew just the closet where it + had spent a decade plus hiding and soon, with a package of fresh + cassette tapes in hand, I was ready to hit record. + a stack of cassette tapes + The Portastudio is designed to use pricey "Type II" cassette tapes for + optimal performance, but cheaper Type 1s work fine (or better, if you + actually want that telltale hiss). + Eric Limer + + The joy of working in an analog medium, as [114]lovers of film + photography can attest, is both the friction and the flavor it brings. + Light leaks can spice up an otherwise average photograph. A little tape + hiss can give your jam that extra flair. The cost, of course, is that + your mistakes get baked all the way in, for better or worse. No undo + buttons here. You have to move slowly and skillfully to find success. + And so my plan to record guitar, bass, and vocals quickly hit a + not-insignificant snag: I am neither a particularly good recording + artist nor a remotely competent audio engineer. + + After a few hours of trying and failing to adequately record the + beat-to-shit [115]Yamaha FG-335II I stole from my dad on my way to + college 16 years ago with a unidirectional dynamic mic not remotely fit + for the task, I tripped and fell into a whole other rabbit hole. What + you really need, the gear gremlin between my ears sweetly whispered, is + a drum machine. Also a synthesizer. + + A bit of research and a few impulse buys later, I was finally in + business: + + This content is imported from Third party. You may be able to find the + same content in another format, or you may be able to find more + information, at their web site. + +Featured in this track: + + Korg Volca Keys + Korg Volca Keys + Korg amazon.com + $237.00 + $147.99 (38% off) + [116]SHOP NOW + + Arguably the cornerstone of Korg's budget "Volca" line, the Volca Keys + has old-school analog circuitry, basic sequencer functionality and + limited polyphony so you can play chords. It's also optionally + battery-powered and I've spent dozens of hours jamming on it while + sitting on the couch. Oh also it sounds fat as hell. + Korg NTS Digital Synth Kit 1 + Korg NTS Digital Synth Kit 1 + Korg amazon.com + $95.00 + [117]SHOP NOW + + You have to assemble this tiny, digital synth yourself, but it packs a + ton of functionality into an itty bitty and affordable package. It + supports [118]a library of community-programmed instrument sounds and + effects and doubles as a capable FX pedal for my other gear thanks to + its passthrough reverb, chorus and modulation effects. + Arturia KeyStep 32-Key Controller + Arturia KeyStep 32-Key Controller + Arturia amazon.com + $149.00 + $129.00 (13% off) + [119]SHOP NOW + + My Korgs all sport touchpad keyboards that are... technically + functional. If you want any sort of precision, an external MIDI + keyboard is essential. Arturia's KeyStep is a go-to choice that sports + some useful features of its own, like a sequencer for recording complex + patterns and an arpeggiator for auto-playing simpler ones. + Korg Volca Sample 2 Korg Volca Sample 2 + Korg guitarcenter.com + $109.99 + [120]SHOP NOW + + It's not a drum machine, but I used it as one because it comes + preloaded with a number of drum recordings (and other sound clips) and + the ability to load your own. It served me well enough, but I'm putting + this one back on the market because I've made it redundant with some + other buys and I've learned that I much prefer synthesis to sampling. + + Like any amateur analog artifact, this track contains mistakes encased + in amber. The hi-hats are too hot because I didn’t balance the levels + of the individual drums in my sampler before committing the whole drum + track to tape. The bass comes in awkwardly because I was doing dynamics + live to tape with the synth's volume knob instead of using a fader + during mixdown. The solo, well, it is what it is. But the Portastudio + saved my ass, not (only) with tape hiss, but by helping me take a deep + breath and put this song to bed. I won’t waste hours trying to improve + on the raw material with endless tiny tweaks, because I can't. Lessons + (hopefully) learned, on to the next jam! + a piano with a keyboard + Controlled over MIDI by the Arturia KeyStep, the Volca Keys outputs its + audio through the NTS-1 for reverb before heading into track one on the + Portastudio. + Eric Limer + + In the months since that inaugural recording, the road of my obsession + has taken me away from analog, and towards digital devices that can + synthesize and sequence a song’s worth of instruments inside themselves + (still no computer screens allowed). At the moment, I’m in love with my + [121]"Woovebox," a petite-but-powerful one-person labor of love out of + Australia, while I simultaneously lust after [122]the wickedly slick, + murdered-out Dirtywave M8 Tracker, a Gameboy-sized studio in a + handheld. + + If the two of us didn't go so far back, I might consider flipping my + Portastudio on the secondary market, where the prices are currently + sky-high. I could probably get more for it now than my parents + originally paid and finance a big chunk of this or that digital + dalliance. But in a way, I'm glad to be spared the temptation. Because + if there's anything I've learned over the past twenty-something years, + it's that the odds are very high I'll come crawling back to cassette. + + * Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII 4-Track Cassette Recorder + [123]$475 AT REVERB.COM + [124]Read More + [125]$475 AT REVERB.COM + + Related Stories + The Best Vintage Cassette Tape Players + The Comeback of the Classic Cassette + + (BUTTON) + + More From [126]Audio + The Best Dolby Atmos Soundbars of 2023 + These Turntable and Speaker Combos Make Vinyl Easy + __________________________________________________________________ + + Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + The Best Accessories for Your Sonos Speakers + __________________________________________________________________ + + 6 Tricks All Sonos Owners Should Know + __________________________________________________________________ + + How to Play Vinyl Records on Your Sonos Speakers + AirPods Pro Don’t Fit Your Ears? 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https://www.instagram.com/gearpatrol/ diff --git a/static/archive/www-nytimes-com-yrjrte.txt b/static/archive/www-nytimes-com-yrjrte.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0cdd6a --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/www-nytimes-com-yrjrte.txt @@ -0,0 +1,667 @@ + #[1]alternate [2]Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill + +The Magazine’s Culture Issue + + * [3]Jesmyn Ward’s Literary South + * [4]The Heart of Swiftiedom + * [5]Culture at a Standstill + * [6]Can Usher Save R&B? + * [7]Sparring With Errol Morris + + An illustration of various people all bunched together. + Credit...Illustration by Tim Enthoven + + [8]Skip to content[9]Skip to site index + (BUTTON) Search & Section Navigation + (BUTTON) Section Navigation + +Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill + + A Times critic argues that ours is the least innovative century for the + arts in 500 years. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. + + Credit...Illustration by Tim Enthoven + + Supported by + [10]SKIP ADVERTISEMENT + * (BUTTON) Share full article + * (BUTTON) + * (BUTTON) + * [11]1240 + + [12]Jason Farago + + By [13]Jason Farago + * Oct. 10, 2023 + + At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in its fall blockbuster show, + [14]“Manet/Degas,” is a painting from 1866 of a woman in the latest + fashion. Victorine Meurent, Manet’s favorite model, stands in an empty + room, accompanied only by a parrot on a bird stand. Her trademark red + hair is tied back with a blue ribbon. Her head is slightly bowed as she + smells a nosegay in her right hand: probably a gift from an absent + admirer, just like the gentleman’s monocle in her left. She’s wearing a + silk peignoir, which Manet has rendered in buttery strokes of pink and + white. This is a full-length image, more than six feet tall, but + Victorine hasn’t even put on her best clothes. She’s in a dressing + gown, and the gown is amorphous. The gown is only paint. + +Listen to This Article + + Open this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS. + + Manet called this painting “Young Lady in 1866,” and the title is the + briefest manifesto I know. After ages in which artists aimed for + timelessness, Manet pictured a woman living in 1866, in the Paris of + 1866, wearing clothes from 1866. The painting was a radical eruption of + temporal specificity. An art for this year, in this place, in a form + possible only now. + + Image “Young Lady in 1866” + “Young Lady in 1866,” by Edouard Manet.Credit...Metropolitan Museum of + Art + + Most artists and audiences at the time did not think this was such a + virtue. “Young Lady in 1866” got bad press at the Salon, the annual + exhibition of France’s official art academy, where artists aspired to + eternal beauty and eternal values, expressed through classicized motifs + and highly finished surfaces. Thomas Couture, Manet’s own teacher, + specialized in bloated but very technically proficient tableaux of + nymphs and heroes. Only a few Parisians could see, in the thick pallor + of Victorine’s face and the impetuous brushiness of her peignoir, the + mark of a new cultural dispensation. Baudelaire, Manet’s great friend, + articulated it in “The Flowers of Evil”: + + O Death, old captain, it’s time! Lift anchor! + We’re sick of this country, Death! Let us sail ... + To the depths of the Unknown to find something new! + + To find something new! That was the imperative of modernism, not only + in painting but also in poetry, in theater, in music, in architecture + and eventually in the cinema. Your job as an artist was no longer to + glorify the king or the church, nor to imitate as faithfully as + possible the appearance of the outside world. It was to solder the next + link in a cultural chain — fashioning a novel utterance that took novel + shape even as it manifested its place in a larger history. “You have to + be absolutely modern,” Rimbaud declared; “Make it new,” Ezra Pound + instructed. To speak to your time, we once believed, required much more + than new “content.” It required a commitment to new modes of narration, + new styles of expression, that could bear witness to sea changes in + society. + + Manet, classically trained, figured out quickly that if he painted + scenes of Parisian prostitutes in the same manner as his teacher + painted Roman orgiasts, that wouldn’t cut it; he would have to invent a + new kind of painting — flatter, franker — if he wanted to capture + modern life. From then on, the creators who most decisively marked the + history of art, again and again, described their work as a search for a + new language, a new style, a new way of being. “I have transformed + myself in the zero of form,” Kazimir Malevich wrote in 1915, and in his + black square he found “the face of the new art.” Le Corbusier insisted + that his open floor plans, enabled by reinforced floating columns, were + not just an architectural aesthetic but an age: “Nothing is left to us + of the architecture of past epochs, just as we can no longer derive any + benefit from the literary and historical teaching given in schools.” + AimĂ© CĂ©saire, who would revolutionize French poetry in the 20th century + as Baudelaire did in the 19th, understood that a modern Black + expression required “a new language, capable of expressing an African + heritage.” “In other words,” he said, “French was for me an instrument + that I wanted to twist into a new way of speaking.” + + For 160 years, we spoke about culture as something active, something + with velocity, something in continuous forward motion. What happens to + a culture when it loses that velocity, or even slows to a halt? Walking + through the other galleries of the Met after my third visit to + “Manet/Degas,” I started doing that thing all the Salon visitors used + to do in Paris in 1866: ignoring the paintings and scoping out the + other spectators’ clothes. I saw visitors in the skinny jeans that + defined the 2000s and in the roomy, high-waisted jeans that were + popular in the 1990s; neither style looked particularly au courant or + dated. Manet was a fashion maven, and I’d been marveling anew at the + gauzy white-striped gown with flared sleeves that Berthe Morisot wears + in [15]“The Balcony” to signal that she is a contemporary woman — that + she is alive right now. What piece of clothing or accessory could you + give a model to mark her as “Young Lady in 2023”? A titanium-cased + iPhone is all that comes to mind, and even that hasn’t changed its + appearance much in a decade. + + To audiences in the 20th century, novelty seemed to be a cultural + birthright. Susan Sontag could write in 1965, with breezy confidence, + that new styles of art, cinema, music and dance “succeed one another so + rapidly as to seem to give their audiences no breathing space to + prepare.” Today culture remains capable of endless production, but it’s + far less capable of change. Intellectual property has swallowed the + cinema; the Hollywood studios that once proposed a slate of big, medium + and small pictures have hedged their bets, and even independent + directors have stuck with narrative and visual techniques born in the + 1960s. Have you tried to furnish an apartment lately? Whether you are + at Restoration Hardware or on Alibaba, what you are probably buying are + replicas of European antiques: “contemporary” designs first seen in + Milan in the 1970s or Weimar in the 1920s. Harry Styles is rocking in + the ’80s; Silk Sonic is jamming in the ’70s; somehow “Frasier” has been + revived and they barely had to update the wardrobes. + + If the present state of culture feels directionless — it does to me, + and sussing out its direction is literally my job — that is principally + because we are still inculcated, so unconsciously we never even bother + to spell it out, in what the modernists believed: that good art is good + because it is innovative, and that an ambitious writer, composer, + director or choreographer should not make things too much like what + others have made before. But our culture has not been able to deliver + step changes for quite some time. When you walk through your local + museum’s modern wing, starting with Impressionism and following a + succession of avant-gardes through the development of Cubism, Dada, + Pop, minimalism, in the 1990s you arrive in a forest called “the + contemporary,” and after more than 30 years no path forward has been + revealed. On your drive home, you can turn on the decade-by-decade + stations of Sirius XM: the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s will each + sound distinct, but all the millennial nostalgia of the 2000s station + cannot disguise that “We Belong Together” and “Irreplaceable” do not + yet sound retro. When I was younger, I looked at cultural works as if + they were posts on a timeline, moving forward from Manet year by year. + Now I find myself adrift in an eddy of cultural signs, where everything + just floats, and I can only tell time on my phone. + + Image + Credit...Illustration by Tim Enthoven + + We are now almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go + down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least + pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing + press. There is new content, of course, so much content, and there are + new themes; there are new methods of production and distribution, more + diverse creators and more global audiences; there is more singing in + hip-hop and more sampling on pop tracks; there are TV detectives with + smartphones and lovers facing rising seas. Twenty-three years in, + though, shockingly few works of art in any medium — some albums, a + handful of novels and artworks and barely any plays or poems — have + been created that are unassimilable to the cultural and critical + standards that audiences accepted in 1999. To pay attention to culture + in 2023 is to be belted into some glacially slow Ferris wheel, cycling + through remakes and pastiches with nowhere to go but around. The + suspicion gnaws at me (does it gnaw at you?) that we live in a time and + place whose culture seems likely to be forgotten. + + To any claim that cultural progress is “over,” there is an easy and not + inaccurate retort: Well, what about X? And sure enough, our time has + indeed brought forth wonderful, meaningful cultural endeavors. I find + the sculptures of [16]Nairy Baghramian, the [17]videos of Stan Douglas + and the [18]environments of Pierre Huyghe to be artistic achievements + of the highest caliber; I think [19]Ali Smith is writing novels of + tremendous immediacy; I believe [20]“Transit” and [21]“Drive My Car” + reaffirm the vitality of cinema; I love [22]South African amapiano and + [23]Korean soap operas and [24]Ukrainian electronic music. My own + cultural life is very rich, and this is not some rant that once + everyone was so creative and now they’re all poseurs. I am asking a + different and peskier question: why cultural production no longer + progresses in time as it once did. + + I have a few theories, but one to start with is that the modernist + cultural explosion might very well have been like the growth of the + economy more generally: not the perpetual forward march we were + promised in the 20th century, but a one-time-only rocket blast followed + by a long, slow, disappointing glide. As the economist Robert Gordon + has shown, the transformative growth of the period between 1870 and + 1970 — the “special century,” he calls it — was an anomalous superevent + fueled by unique and unrepeatable innovations (electricity, sanitation, + the combustion engine) whose successors (above all information + technology) have not had the same economic impact. In the United + States, the 2010s had the slowest productivity growth of any decade in + recorded history; if you believe you are living in the future, I am + guessing you have not recently been on United Airlines. In this + macroeconomic reading, a culture that no longer delivers expected + stylistic innovations might just be part and parcel of a more generally + underachieving century, and not to be tutted at in isolation. + + But more than the economics, the key factor can only be what happened + to us at the start of this century: first, the plunge through our + screens into an infinity of information; soon after, our submission to + algorithmic recommendation engines and the surveillance that powers + them. The digital tools we embraced were heralded as catalysts of + cultural progress, but they produced such chronological confusion that + progress itself made no sense. “It’s still one Earth,” the novelist + Stacey D’Erasmo wrote in 2014, “but it is now subtended by a layer of + highly elastic non-time, wild time, that is akin to a global collective + unconscious wherein past, present and future occupy one unmediated + plane.” In this dark wood, today and yesterday become hard to + distinguish. The years are only time stamps. Objects lose their + dimensions. Everything is recorded, nothing is remembered; culture is a + thing to nibble at, to graze on. + + If there is one cultural work that epitomizes this shift, where you can + see our new epoch coming into view, I want to say it’s [25]“Back to + Black,” by Amy Winehouse. The album dates to October 2006 — seven + months after Twitter was founded, three months before the iPhone + debuted — and it seems, listening again now, to be closing the door on + the cultural system that Manet and Baudelaire established a century and + a half previously. As the millennium dawned, there had been various + efforts to write the symphony of the future (the last of which was + probably Missy Elliott’s “Da Real World,” a “Matrix”-inspired album + from 1999 that promised to sound like “not the year 2G but the year + 3G”). There had also been various retroprojections, trying to + inaugurate a new century with pre-Woodstock throwbacks (waxed + mustaches, speakeasies; perhaps you recall an embarrassing circa-2000 + vogue for swing dancing). + + Image + Amy Winehouse at the Highline Ballroom in New York in + 2007.Credit...Michael Nagle for The New York Times + + “Back to Black” was the first major cultural work of the 21st century + that was neither new nor retro — but rather contented itself to float + in time, to sound as if it came from no particular era. Winehouse wore + her hair in a beehive, her band wore fedoras, but she was not + performing a tribute act of any kind. Her production drew from the + Great American Songbook, ’60s girl groups, also reggae and ska, but it + never felt anachronistic or like a “postmodern” pastiche. Listen again + to the title track and its percussive piano line: a stationary, + metronomic cycle of D minor, G minor, B-flat major, and A7. The bass + line of the piano overlays the chords with a syncopated swing, while a + tambourine slaps and jangles with joyless regularity. We are back to + Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, we are waiting for the Shangri-Las or the + Ronettes to come in, but instead Winehouse delivers a much more ragged + and minor-keyed performance, with a vulgarity in the song’s second line + that Martha Reeves would never pronounce. There is a discrepancy + between vocals and instrumentation that is never resolved, and the + artistry is all in that irresolution. + +Who cares if it’s novel as long as it’s beautiful, or meaningful? + + What Winehouse prefigured was a culture of an eternal present: a + digitally informed sense of placelessness and atemporality that has + left so many of us disoriented from our earlier cultural signposts. + Each song on “Back to Black” seemed to be “borrowing from all the last + century’s music history at once,” as the media scholar Moira Weigel + once observed, though there was something contemporary about that + timelessness too. Extracted from the past into lightweight MP3s, all + the girl-group and jazz prefigurations began to seem just as immediate + as Winehouse’s North London present. + + As early as 2006, well before the reverse chronology of blogs and the + early Facebook gave way to the algorithmic soup of Instagram, Spotify + and TikTok, Winehouse sensed that the real digital revolution in + culture would not be in production, in the machines that artists used + to make music or movies or books. It would be in reception: on the + screens where they (where we) encountered culture, on which past and + present are equidistant from each other. One upshot of this digital + equation of past and present has been a greater disposability of + culture: an infinite scroll and nothing to read, an infinite Netflix + library with nothing to watch. Though pop music still throws up new + stars now and then (I do really like [26]Ice Spice), the market for new + music fell behind older music in the middle of the last decade, and + even the records that sell, or stream, cannot be said to have wide + cultural impact. (The most popular single of 2022 in the United States + was [27]“Heat Waves,” a TikTok tune by a British alternative-pop group + with little public profile called Glass Animals; and what’s weirdest is + that it was recorded in 2020.) + + Outside of time there can be no progress, only the perpetual trying-on + of styles and forms. Here years become vibes — or “eras,” as Taylor + Swift likes to call them. And if culture is just a series of trends, + then it is pointless to worry about their contemporaneity. There was a + charming freakout last year when Kate Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up + That Hill” went to the top of the charts after its deployment on yet + another nostalgic television show, and veterans of the big-hair decade + were horrified to see it appear on some 2022 playlists alongside Dua + Lipa and the like. If you think the song belongs to 1985 in the way + “Young Lady in 1866” belonged to 1866, the joke is now officially on + you. + + Down at the baseline where cultural innovation used to happen, in the + forms that artists once put together to show us something new — in the + sounds of the recording studio, the shapes on the canvas, the movements + of the dancers, the arrangements of the verse — something has stopped, + or at least slowed to such a lethargic pace as to feel stopped. Such a + claim may sound familiar if you were around for the postmodernism + debates of the 1980s. The philosopher Arthur Danto averred that art + ended with Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, while the literary critic + Fredric Jameson declared in 1984 that the whole of modernity was “spent + and exhausted,” that there was no more style, indeed no more self, and + that “the producers of culture have nowhere to turn but to the past: + the imitation of dead styles.” As for the influence of digital media, + as early as 1989 the cultural theorist Paul Virilio identified a “polar + inertia” — a static pileup of images and words with no particular place + to go — as the inevitable endpoint for culture on a “weightless planet” + constituted of ones and zeros. + + And yet looking back now, the “postmodern” turn of the later 20th + century looks much more like a continuation of the modernist commitment + to novelty than a repudiation of it. John Cage’s noteless composition + “4'33"” was no last music, but flowered into the impostures of Fluxus + and the ambient experiments of Brian Eno. The buildings of Frank Gehry + and Zaha Hadid did look like nothing that came before, thanks in part + to new rendering and fabrication technologies (CAD software, laser + cutting machines). The digitally produced music of Massive Attack and + even, I hate to say it, Moby did sound different from what was on the + radio 10 years before. No one style could be called the true vanguard + anymore, sure — but that did not preclude the perpetual discovery of + new ones. The forecast at the end of the 20th century was a plurality + of new images and sounds and words, powered perhaps by new, heavy + desktop production machines. + + Since the start of the 21st century, despite all recent digital + accelerations of discovery and transmission, no stylistic innovations + of equivalent scale have taken place. The closest thing we can point to + has been in rap, where the staccato nihilism of drill, deeply + conversant with YouTube and SoundCloud, would sound legitimately + foreign to a listener from 2000. (When the teenage Chief Keef was + rapping in his grandmother’s Chicago apartment, he was following in the + tradition of Joyce and Woolf and Pound.) In fact, the sampling + techniques pioneered in hip-hop and, later, electronic dance music — + once done with piles of records, now with folders of WAV files — have + trickled down into photography, painting, literature and lower forms + like memes, all of which now present a hyperreferentialism that sets + them slightly apart from the last century’s efforts. In the 2010s, + hip-hop alone seemed to be taking the challenge of digital progress + seriously, though it, too, has calcified since; having switched from + linear writing and recording of verses to improvising hundreds of + one-verse digital takes, rappers now seem to be converging on a single, + ProTools-produced flow. + + There have also been a few movies of limited influence (and very + limited box-office success) that have introduced new cinematographic + techniques: Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (2016) was the + first film shot at an eerily lifelike 120 frames per second, while at + the other extreme, Steven Soderbergh shot all of “Unsane” (2018) with + an iPhone 7 Plus. Michael Bay’s “Ambulance” (2022) included + first-person-view drone shots, flying the viewer through the windows of + exploding cars the way your dad shot your last beach-vacation memory + reel. But by and large the technologies that have changed filmmaking + since 2000 have stayed in the postproduction studio: computer-graphics + engines, digital tools for color grading and sound editing. They have + had vanishingly little influence on the grammar of the moving image, in + the way that lightweight cameras did for the Nouvelle Vague or digital + kits did for American indie cinema. Really, the kind of image that + distinguishes this century is less the spectacular Hollywood image than + what the German artist Hito Steyerl has called the “poor image” — + low-res compressed pictures like memes, thumbnails, screenshots — whose + meaning arises from being circulated and modified. + + It may just be that the lexical possibilities of many traditional media + are exhausted, and there’s no shame in that. Maybe Griffith and + Eisenstein and Godard and Akerman did it all already, and it’s foolish + to expect a new kind of cinema. Certainly that exhaustion came long ago + to abstract painting, where every possible move can only be understood + as a quotation or reboot. (Kerstin BrĂ€tsch, one of the smartest + abstract painters working today, has acknowledged that any mark she + makes is “not empty anymore but loaded with historical reference.”) + Consider last year’s hit “Creepin’,” by The Weeknd: a 2022 rejigger of + the 2004 Mario Winans song “I Don’t Wanna Know” with no meaningful + change in instrumentation in the nearly two intervening decades. It was + hardly the only recent chart-topper to employ a clangingly obvious + sample, but it’s not like the endeavors of the 1990s, when Puffy and + family were rapping over “Every Breath You Take.” Back then the critic + Greg Tate could still celebrate such sampling as a motor of cultural + progress; by “collapsing all eras of Black music onto a chip,” a new + generation had new tools to write a new chapter of sound. Twenty-five + years later, the citation and rearrangement have become so automatic as + to seem automated — as our recent fears about artificial intelligence + and large language models suggest we already know. + + Trapped on a modernist game board where there are no more moves to + make, a growing number of young artists essentially pivoted to + political activism — plant a tree and call it a sculpture — while + others leaned hard into absurdity to try to express the sense of + digital disorientation. You saw this Dadaist strategy in the hyperpop + of 100 gecs, in the crashed-and-burned “post-internet” art of the + collective Dis, and above all in the satirical fashion of Virgil Abloh. + (Abloh, who died in 2021, was outspoken about how comedy functioned as + a coping mechanism for a generation lost in a digital fog: “It’s not a + coincidence that things have gravitated toward this invented language + of humor,” he said in 2018. “But then I often wonder: Is streetwear + hollow?”) + + It wouldn’t be so bad if we could just own our static position; who + cares if it’s novel as long as it’s beautiful, or meaningful? But that + pesky modernist conviction remains in us: A work of art demonstrates + its value through its freshness. So we have shifted our expectations + from new forms to new subject matter — new stories, told in the same + old languages as before. In the 20th century we were taught that + cleaving “style” from “content” was a fallacy, but in the 21st century + content (that word!) has had its ultimate vengeance, as the sole + component of culture that our machines can fully understand, transmit + and monetize. What cannot be categorized cannot be streamed; to pass + through the pipes art must become information. So, sure, there are new + songs about texting and ghosting; sure, there are superhero movies + about trauma and comedies about climate change. But in privileging the + parts of culture that can be summarized and shared — the narratives, + the characters, the lyrics, the lessons — digital media have bulldozed + an autonomous sphere of culture into a moral terrain that Aristotle + would find familiar: We again want our “content” to authentically + reflect the world (mimesis) and produce healthy feelings in its + consumers (catharsis). + + Very unfortunately, this evangelical turn in the arts in the 21st + century has been conflated with the long-overdue admission of women, + people of color and out sexual minorities into the culture industry — + conflated, not least, by its P.R. departments. A gay rom-com is trotted + out as “the first”; a Black Little Mermaid is a “breakthrough”; our + museums, studios and publishing houses can bring nothing new to market + except the very people they once systematically excluded. If resisting + such market essentialism was once a primordial task of the artist — “I + am not burying myself in a narrow particularism,” CĂ©saire made clear in + 1956 as he forged a French poetry that could span the Black Atlantic — + today identities keep being diminished, brutally, into a series of + searchable tags. + + This institutional hunger for novelty combined with digital + requirements for communicability may help explain why so much recently + celebrated American culture has taken such conservative, traditionalist + forms: oil portraiture, Iowa-vintage coming-of-age novels, biopics, + operettas barely distinguishable from musical theater. “It scandalizes + progressive sensibility to think that things were so much more complex + in this domain a generation ago than they are now, but there you have + it,” said Darby English, the art historian and author of “How To See a + Work of Art in Total Darkness,” when asked in 2021 about the recent + efflorescence of Black American art in museums and the market. “Because + the core project is communication,” English said, “anything that + resists the art-communications apparatus fails to leave a mark. Form + has become increasingly irrelevant during these 20 years.” + + Image + Credit...Illustration by Tim Enthoven + + There is no inherent reason — no reason; this point needs to be clear — + that a recession of novelty has to mean a recession of cultural worth. + On the contrary, non-novel excellence has been the state of things for + a vast majority of art history. Roman art and literature provides a + centuries-long tradition of emulation, appropriating and adapting + Greek, Etruscan and on occasion Asian examples into a culture in which + the idea of copying was alien. Medieval icons were never understood to + be “of their time,” but looked back to the time of the Incarnation, + forward to eternity or out of time entirely into a realm beyond human + life. Even beyond the halfway point of the last millennium, European + artists regularly emended, updated or substituted pre-existing artworks + at will, integrating present and past into a more spiritually + efficacious whole. + + Consider also the long and bountiful history of Chinese painting, in + which, from the 13th century to the early 20th, scholar-artists + frequently demonstrated their erudition by painting in explicit homage + to masters from the past. For these literati painters, what mattered + more than technical skill or aesthetic progression was an artist’s + spontaneous creativity as channeled through previous masterpieces. + There’s a painting I love in the Palace Museum in Beijing by Zhao + Mengfu, a prince and scholar working during the Yuan dynasty, that + dates to around 1310 but incorporates styles from several other + periods. Spartan trees, whose branches hook like crab claws, derive + from Song examples a few centuries earlier. A clump of bamboo in the + corner coheres through strict, tight brushwork pioneered by the Han + dynasty a thousand years before. Alongside the trees and rocks the + artist added an inscription: + + The rocks are like flying-white, the trees are like seal script, + The writing of bamboo draws upon the bafen method. + Only when one masters this secret + Will he understand that calligraphy and painting have always been + one. + + In other words: Use one style of brushwork for one element, another for + another, just as a calligrapher uses different styles for different + purposes. But beyond the simple equation of writing and painting, Zhao + was doing something much more important: He was sublimating styles, + some from the recent past and some of great antiquity, into a series of + recombinatory elements that an artist of his time could deploy in + concert. The literati painters learned from the old masters (important + during the Yuan dynasty, to safeguard the place of Han culture under + Mongol rule), but theirs was no simple classicism. It was a practice of + aesthetic self-fulfillment that channeled itself through pre-existing + gestures. Without ever worrying about novelty, you could still speak + directly to your time. You could express your tenderest feelings, or + face up to the upheavals of your age, in the overlapping styles of + artists long dead. + + Image + “Elegant Rocks and Sparse Trees,” by Zhao Mengfu, circa + 1310.Credit...Palace Museum, Beijing + + Someone foresaw, profoundly, that this century was going to require + something similar: that when forward motion became impossible, + ambitious culture was going to have to take another shape. Winehouse, + as producers and collaborators have reminded us since her death, was an + inveterate collector and compiler of musical clips. (The drummer and + music historian Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, remembered: + “She would always be on her computer sending me MP3s: ‘Listen to this, + listen to this. ... ’”) She was living through, and channeling into + “Back to Black,” the initial dissolution of history into streams of + digital information, disembodied, disintermediated, each no further + from the present than a Google prompt. She freely recombined those + fragments but never indulged in nostalgia; she was disappointed by the + present but knew there was no going back. And at enormous personal + cost, she created something enduring out of it, showing how much harder + it would be to leave a real mark amid fathomless data — to transcend + mere recombination, sampling, pastiche. + + If the arts are to matter in the 21st century, we must still believe + that they can collectively manifest our lives and feelings: that they + can constitute a Geistgeschichte, or “history of spirit,” as the German + idealists used to say. This was entirely possible before modernism, and + it is possible after. The most ambitious abstract painters working + today, like Albert Oehlen and Charline von Heyl, are doing something + akin to Winehouse’s free articulation: drawing from diverse and even + contradictory styles in the hunt for forms that can still have effects. + Olga Tokarczuk structured her 2007 book, “Flights,” as a constellation + of barely connected characters and styles, more fugitive than the last + century’s novels in fragments; to read her is less like looking at a + mosaic than toggling among tabs. Bad Bunny, working at the crossroads + of trap, reggaeton, bachata and rock, is crafting pick-and-mix + aggregations of small pieces, like “Back to Black,” that are digital in + every way that matters. All of them are speaking out of parts of the + past in a language that is their own. + + We have every ability to live in a culture of beauty, insight, + surprise, if we could just accept that we are no longer modern, and + have not been for a while; that somewhere in the push and pull of + digital homogeneity and political stasis we entered a new phase of + history. We have been evading our predicament with coping mechanisms + and marketing scams, which have left all of us disappointedly asking, + What’s new? Surely it would be healthier — and who knows what might + flower — if we accepted and even embraced the end of stylistic + progress, and at last took seriously the digital present we are + disavowing. And the perpetuity of “Back to Black,” still playing in the + background of avocado-toast dispensaries in East London and West + Hollywood after 17 years, suggests to me that we have not lost our + ability to identify voices of our time, even if they are fated to speak + a language yoked to the past. Culture is stuck? Progress is dead? I + died a hundred times, a poet once said, and kept singing. + + [28]Jason Farago, a critic at large for The Times, writes about art and + culture in the U.S. and abroad. [29]More about Jason Farago + A version of this article appears in print on , Page 38 of the Sunday + Magazine with the headline: Out of Time. [30]Order Reprints | + [31]Today’s Paper | [32]Subscribe + [33]1240 + * (BUTTON) Share full article + * (BUTTON) + * (BUTTON) + * [34]1240 + + Advertisement + [35]SKIP ADVERTISEMENT + +Site Index + +Site Information Navigation + + * [36]© 2023 The New York Times Company + + * [37]NYTCo + * [38]Contact Us + * [39]Accessibility + * [40]Work with us + * [41]Advertise + * [42]T Brand Studio + * [43]Your Ad Choices + * [44]Privacy Policy + * [45]Terms of Service + * [46]Terms of Sale + * [47]Site Map + * [48]Canada + * [49]International + * [50]Help + * [51]Subscriptions + + IFRAME: + [52]https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-P528B3>m_auth=tfA + zqo1rYDLgYhmTnSjPqw>m_preview=env-130>m_cookies_win=x + +References + + Visible links: + 1. nyt://article/86c70725-9ddb-5c32-9032-bf25f25572ba + 2. https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/json/?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/magazine/jesmyn-ward-let-us-descend.html + 4. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html + 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + 6. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/magazine/usher-rnb.html + 7. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/08/magazine/errol-morris-interview.html + 8. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L76170-8570TMP.html#site-content + 9. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L76170-8570TMP.html#site-index + 10. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L76170-8570TMP.html#after-sponsor + 11. file:///2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + 12. https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-farago + 13. https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-farago + 14. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/arts/design/manet-degas-met-museum.html + 15. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/le-balcon-707 + 16. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/arts/design/nairy-baghramian-met-facade-nyc-sculpture.html + 17. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/arts/design/stan-douglass-the-secret-agent-offers-a-refracted-vision-of-history-and-terrorism.html + 18. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/arts/design/pierre-huyghe-serpentine-gallery-london-artist.html + 19. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/books/review/companion-piece-ali-smith.html + 20. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/movies/transit-review.html + 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/movies/drive-my-car-review.html + 22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0luMrf1mU + 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/watching/k-drama-streaming-guide.html + 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/arts/music/cxema-ukraine.html + 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/arts/design/amy-winehouse-design-museum.html + 26. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/arts/music/ice-spice-like.html + 27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRD0-GxqHVo + 28. https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-farago + 29. https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-farago + 30. https://www.parsintl.com/publication/the-new-york-times/ + 31. https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper + 32. https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY + 33. file:///2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + 34. file:///2023/10/10/magazine/stale-culture.html + 35. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L76170-8570TMP.html#after-bottom + 36. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014792127-Copyright-notice + 37. https://www.nytco.com/ + 38. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015385887-Contact-Us + 39. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015727108-Accessibility + 40. https://www.nytco.com/careers/ + 41. https://nytmediakit.com/ + 42. https://www.tbrandstudio.com/ + 43. https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/cookie-policy#how-do-i-manage-trackers + 44. https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/privacy-policy + 45. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014893428-Terms-of-service + 46. 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provided by GOES-16 satellite shows Hurricane + Otis making landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, as a Category 5 storm. + It's bright red in the center. + Hurricane Otis Was Too Fast for the Forecasters[44]ZoĂ« Schlanger + * Cropped images of fruit and bread in a grid + The Great Underappreciated Driver of Climate Change[45]Alexandra Frost + * White threads of mycelium growing on tree bark. + The Invisible Force Keeping Carbon in the Ground[46]ZoĂ« Schlanger + * A collage of 12 photographs of e-bikes against a light-pink + background + The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike[47]Michael Thomas + + [48]Health + +The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike + + It’ll cut your emissions. It’ll also make you happier. + + + By [49]Michael Thomas + + A collage of 12 photographs of e-bikes against a light-pink background + Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. + October 20, 2023 + (BUTTON) Share + [50]Saved Stories (BUTTON) Save + + Today’s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice + for living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. + Don’t forget to save for retirement. They’re not wrong, but few of + these experts will tell you one of the best ways to improve your life: + Ditch your car. + + A year ago, my wife and I sold one of our cars and replaced it with an + e-bike. As someone who writes about climate change, I knew that I was + doing something good for the planet. I knew that passenger vehicles are + responsible for much of our greenhouse-gas emissions—[51]16 percent in + the U.S., to be exact—and that the pollution spewing from gas-powered + cars doesn’t just heat up the planet; it could increase the risk of + [52]premature death. I also knew that electric cars were an imperfect + fix: Though they’re responsible for less carbon pollution than gas + cars, even when powered by today’s dirty electric grid, their supply + chain is carbon intensive, and many of the materials needed to produce + their batteries are, in some cases, mined via a process that + [53]brutally exploits workers and harms [54]ecosystems and sacred + Indigenous lands. An e-bike’s comparatively tiny battery means less + electricity, fewer emissions, fewer resources. They are clearly better + for the planet than cars of any kind. + + [55]Read: America is missing out on the biggest EV boom of all + + I knew all of this. But I also viewed getting rid of my car as a + sacrifice—something for the militant and reckless, something that + Greenpeace volunteers did to make the world better. I live in Colorado; + e-biking would mean freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer. + It was the right thing to do, I thought, but it was not going to be + fun. + + I was very wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. Between + car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas, a car-centered lifestyle + is expensive. According to AAA, after fuel, maintenance, insurance, + taxes, and the like, owning and driving a new car in America costs[56] + $10,728 a year. My e-bike, by comparison, cost $2,000 off the rack and + has near-negligible recurring charges. After factoring in maintenance + and a few bucks a month in electricity costs, I estimate that we’ll + save about $50,000 over the next five years by ditching our car. + + The actual experience of riding to work each day over the past year has + been equally surprising. Before selling our car, I worried most about + riding in the cold winter months. But I quickly learned that, as the + saying goes, there is [57]no bad weather, only bad gear. I wear gloves, + warm socks, a balaclava, and a ski jacket when I ride, and am almost + never too cold. + + Sara Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary, where + she studies low-carbon transportation systems. She’s also a native + Californian who now bikes to work in a city where temperatures tend to + hover around freezing from December through March. She told me that + with the right equipment, she’s able to do it on all but the snowiest + days—days when she wouldn’t want to be in a car, either. “Those days + are honestly a mess even on the roads,” she said. + + And though I, like [58]many would-be cyclists, was worried about + arriving at the office sweaty in hotter months, the e-bike solved my + problem. Even when it was 90 degrees outside, I didn’t break a sweat, + thanks to my bike’s pedal-assist mode. If I’m honest, sometimes I + didn’t even pedal; I just used the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed my + ride. + + Indeed, a big part of the appeal here is in the e part of the bike: + “E-bikes aren’t just a traditional bike with a motor. They are an + entirely new technology,” Hastings-Simon told me. Riding them is a + radically different experience from riding a normal bike, at least when + it comes to the hard parts of cycling. “It’s so much easier to take a + bike over a bridge or in a hilly neighborhood,” Laura Fox, the former + general manager of New York City’s bike-share program, told me. “I’ve + had countless people come up to me and say, ‘I never thought that I + could bike to work before, and now that I have an option where you + don’t have to show up sweaty, it’s possible.’” (When New York + introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled, she told me, from + 500,000 to 1.5 million people.) + + [59]Read: How to get fewer people to commute in cars + + But biking to work wasn’t just not unpleasant—it was downright + enjoyable. It made me feel happier and healthier; I arrived to work a + little more buoyant for having spent the morning in fresh air rather + than traffic. [60]Study after [61]study shows that people with longer + car commutes are more likely to experience poor health outcomes and + lower personal well-being—and that cyclists are the [62]happiest + commuters. One day, shortly after selling our car, I hopped on my bike + after a stressful day at work and rode home down a street edged with + changing fall leaves. I felt more connected to the physical environment + around me than I had when I’d traveled the same route surrounded by + metal and glass. I breathed in the air, my muscles relaxed, and I + grinned like a giddy schoolchild. + + “E-bikes are like a miracle drug,” David Zipper, a transportation + expert and Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. “They + provide so much upside, not just for the riders, but for the people who + are living around them too.” + + Of course, e-bikes aren’t going to replace every car on every trip. In + a country where sprawling suburbs and strip malls, not protected bike + lanes, are the norm, it’s unrealistic to expect e-bikes to replace cars + in the way that the Model T replaced horses. But we don’t need everyone + to ride an e-bike to work to make a big dent in our carbon-pollution + problem. [63]A recent study found that if 5 percent of commuters were + to switch to e-bikes as their mode of transportation, emissions would + fall by 4 percent. As an individual, you don’t even need to sell your + car to reduce your carbon footprint significantly. In 2021, half of all + trips in the United States were less than three miles, according to + [64]the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Making those short trips + on an e-bike instead of in a car would likely save people money, cut + their emissions, and improve their health and happiness. + + E-bikes are such a no-brainer for individuals, and for the collective, + that state and local governments [65]are now subsidizing them. In May, + I asked Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy + Office, to explain the state’s rationale for [66]a newly passed + incentive that offers residents $450 to get an e-bike. He dutifully + ticked through the environmental benefits and potential cost savings + for low-income people. Then he surprised me: The legislation, he added, + was also about “putting more joy into the world.” + + This story is part of the Atlantic Planet series supported by HHMI’s + Science and Educational Media Group. + +References + + Visible links: + 1. file:///feed/all/ + 2. file:///feed/best-of/ + 3. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L8425-8528TMP.html#main-content + 4. file:///most-popular/ + 5. file:///latest/ + 6. file:///newsletters/ + 7. file:///politics/ + 8. file:///ideas/ + 9. https://www.theatlantic.com/category/fiction/ + 10. file:///technology/ + 11. file:///science/ + 12. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/ + 13. file:///business/ + 14. file:///culture/ + 15. file:///projects/planet/ + 16. file:///international/ + 17. file:///books/ + 18. file:///podcasts/ + 19. file:///health/ + 20. file:///education/ + 21. file:///projects/ + 22. https://www.theatlantic.com/category/features/ + 23. file:///family/ + 24. file:///events/ + 25. https://www.theatlantic.com/category/washington-week-atlantic/ + 26. https://www.theatlantic.com/progress/ + 27. file:///newsletters/ + 28. file:///archive/ + 29. file:///free-daily-crossword-puzzle/ + 30. file:///magazine/ + 31. file:///magazine/backissues/ + 32. https://accounts.theatlantic.com/products/gift + 33. file:///projects/dear-therapist/ + 34. file:///free-daily-crossword-puzzle/ + 35. file:///archive/ + 36. https://accounts.theatlantic.com/accounts/subscription/ + 37. file:///most-popular/ + 38. file:///latest/ + 39. file:///newsletters/ + 40. https://accounts.theatlantic.com/login/ + 41. https://www.theatlantic.com/subscribe/navbar/ + 42. https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/planet/ + 43. https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/planet/ + 44. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/zoe-schlanger/ + 45. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alexandra-frost/ + 46. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/zoe-schlanger/ + 47. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/michael-thomas/ + 48. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ + 49. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/michael-thomas/ + 50. https://accounts.theatlantic.com/accounts/saved-stories/ + 51. https://energy.mit.edu/news/us-passenger-cars/ + 52. https://qz.com/135509/more-americans-die-from-car-pollution-than-car-accidents + 53. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara + 54. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/lithium-mining-leaving-chiles-indigenous-communities-high-and-dry-literally + 55. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/04/electric-ev-rickshaw-sales-climate-change/673629/ + 56. https://newsroom.aaa.com/2022/08/annual-cost-of-new-car-ownership-crosses-10k-mark/ + 57. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/how-socialize-outside-winter/617520/ + 58. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518306054 + 59. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/seattle-car-commute/553589/ + 60. https://travelbehaviour.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/caw-summaryreport-onlineedition.pdf + 61. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-commuting/long-commutes-may-be-bad-for-health-study-idUKBRE8470U520120508 + 62. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518305255 + 63. https://peopleforbikes.cdn.prismic.io/peopleforbikes/e3dad6f7-d81b-4e59-9208-b012406ffa8e_E-bike-Potential-Paper-05_15_19-Final.pdf + 64. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-march-21-2022-more-half-all-daily-trips-were-less-three-miles-2021#:~:text=A research study for the,were greater than 50 miles. + 65. https://electrek.co/2023/02/19/free-electric-bikes-rebates-us-cities-and-states/ + 66. https://www.cpr.org/2023/08/10/colorado-ebike-rebates-how-to-qualify/ + + Hidden links: + 68. file://localhost/ + 69. file://localhost/magazine/ + 70. file://localhost/ + 71. file://localhost/ + 72. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/10/hurricane-otis-forecast-warming-oceans/675773/ + 73. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/10/american-families-have-massive-food-waste-problem/675744/ + 74. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/10/tree-survival-fungi-corsica-climate-change/675739/ + 75. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/10/reasons-to-get-e-bike-emissions-climate-change-benefits/675716/