I very nearly walked into him once at night in Columbus Circle, but swerved at the last moment. I also once physically ran into to Janeane Garofalo in Grand Central, who is quite short.
These "Jewish" orgs represent elderly donors, fascist or fascist-friendly Jews, and Israelis, NOT the vast population of Jewish New Yorkers who support Mahmoud Khalil and despise his kidnapping and imprisonment by the Nazi pigs in our government.
The ADL continues its campaign of making me feel less safe, as a Jew. Some percentage of the response to this sort of naked Islamophobia from a prominent Jewish organization (even one that has strayed so far from its stated mission) is going to be antisemitic. And fuck that.
My bracket did as well (statistically) as tossing a coin in the first round. 16 for 32. But three of my final four are now out, including my pick for champ.
I did manage to read all 64 essays though, while the matches were live, a feat that I don’t think I had accomplished since Plaidness in 2021.
Woven in with Erin L’s grief, the backstory of Without You (both songwriters suicides) compounds its sadness, and the notion that Carey felt freer on her remixes is illuminating. I think I’m sold by Erin M’s examination of CTD’s “quirky, sad folk song” as a “rallying cry” for our collective despair.
Where Emma comes to in her essay, “I need people a lot [but] they make me feel so much…I can’t wait [to be] alone” is a defining feature of the contours of my own depression. I lol’ed at Nora Ephron calling Philip melodramatic, and loved the arc of his story that ends just as his chosen song begins.
I’m a sucker for a novel approach to Shakespeare so really enjoyed Erin’s look at Hamlet through the lens of Axl Rose. But the mapping of sadness through consumerism and its aftermath is (maybe too) personally relatable, plus Camellia paints Kershaw as such a nice guy.
Emily’s exploration of the runaways and kidnappings of Soul Asylum(‘s video) is harrowing, though I was in the “terrified of nuclear war” crowd more than the “terrified of stranger danger” one. You Don’t Even Know Who I Am is, as Kathleen says, “sad sad sad…with no redemption.”
There is something heartbreaking in the clinical precision of Sinéad’s “Last Day” and Andrew’s deconstruction drives that home. But Kurt really was (and in dust, still is) the voice of our generation, and Jenifer pays lyrical and visceral homage to his (and her own) and so many others’ pain.
I haven’t ventured into anyone else’s thoughts on this, but the Clapton essay is generative ai, right?
Regardless, I adore the Grandpaboy/Westerberg song, which I had never heard. Thanks Barry for bringing it to my attention. (And for being a bio writer after my own heart.)
Silas muses that if you don’t form certain neural pathways in the “everything is so dramatic” era of adolescence, you might never. But Mo realized in middle age that you can be messy and imperfect and still be loved. I saw both artist each play once in the 90s, nearly opposite energies. Leaning Cat.
What do we take from our parents and what do we leave behind for our children? Are questions Nanette and Christopher both tackle here. Feeling echoes of myself in both essays, my parents in their 80s and kids under 5, and wondering how not to fuck it all up. Vote-wise, I find “Winter” a sadder song.
I managed to read and vote in all the day 5 and 6 matches, but up against the wire without time to share thoughts.
I might still, if I find some space today or tomorrow.
But now with a new batch live…
This is more or less the conversation that precipitated my vegetarianism when I was two.
Yeah, there’s a (of course fuzzy) line between review and critique. And I typically prefer the latter in the case of most media.
I lack the words to capture it, but ... it's just endlessly remarkable to me that so many people in our society have chosen trans kis -- TRANS KIDS, the smallest, least significant, most vulnerable demographic slice you could possibly pick -- as a repository for all their fears & insecurities.
*My Ballard novels (with the exception of High Rise, which was sorted onto a shelf of books published in 1975) were in that box of books that I lost in a move.
Like Ballard’s Concrete Island, the spaces under a bridge and in a parking lot are both liminal spaces of automobile culture. I don’t recall whether Ballard’s protagonist gets out or not* but I’m glad Timothy and Brittney both made it through. Aesthetically, the (empty) lot & emo are more my thing.
A deep, personal, tragic sadness barged in to Katie’s essay and subsumed. But like Jenny, I have phantom recollections of a Morphine show that I’m pretty sure happened, but retain no tangible proof. By the end, Mark was playing a one-string bass and Dana was playing two saxophones simultaneously.
I like the fact that both these essays center a live, amateur rendition of the song. Abigail’s reading of Thomas as a sad young man who lost his friend personalizes a story I really only know from Caravaggio’s painting. But Brian’s multiple revisitations of the beautiful and the sad tipped it.
For many (most?) of us, sad songs are part of how we navigate the trials of adolescence, as in both these essays. Counting Crows were a feature of my own late-teen sadness and the fog and the crows have followed me as well.
And also about Shakespeare and the virtual spaces of the early social internet and James Turrell.
So I voted against my @marchxness.bsky.social bracket champion. I’m 90% certain I bought Out of Time in ‘91. How did I sleep on “Country Feedback”? Did I just never listen past the radio-friendly upbeat numbers? Was I not ready for alt-country? It’s worked its way in since yesterday, and it’s stuck.
Two absolutely fantastic essays and two songs that, while both undeniably earworms, don’t move me. I love Gabriel’s poetics, but can’t help but feel some tenderness for an 18 year old James moved to tears by what is ultimately a pretty heavy handed last chance redemption story.
Erin’s call to arms puts me in mind of another chronically misread ‘90s satire of heteronormativity, Lisa Germano’s “You Make Me Want to Wear Dresses” which I’ve been threatening to cover for decades. But fireflies, Yayoi Kusama, and Ashley digging home the line “you won’t be happy anyway” = tears.
Kay reminds us not to be snobs and Amy finds some solace in the favorites of others. Ultimately, I think Vince Gill wrote the sadder song, even if it’s not so much to my tastes.
In my bracket, my gut had Liz Phair going all the way. It’s personal. One of my “divorces” (we weren’t married, but I felt we someday would be) ended on a cross country road trip. But I had forgotten “Country Feedback.” I too was 16 in 1991 and had moved on from REM. Don’t know which way this goes.
Two very personal essays of grief, two very sad songs. This could go either way. I think is that synth tremolo on “Roads” that does me in though.
