Matt Blair

10 songs that were hyperpop before the subgenre was born To commemorate 10 years of SOPHIE's debut, World Cafe put together a mix of "proto-hyperpop" tracks.

To commemorate 10 years of SOPHIE's debut, World Cafe put together a mix of "proto-hyperpop" tracks.

I went to college in 1997. My mother was a widow, a refugee, and couldn’t help me pay for it. There is no way I would be able to afford college if it was 2025 & the bill US Congress just passed was the law of the land. There are millions of people like me. What a shame.

Be unsummarizable

Since it is Juneteenth, I will share a lil something...

My ancestors were slaves in Texas & were freed on June 19, 1865. They came together to meet with other ex-slaves & formed the Limestone County 19th of June Organization. They bought 30 acres of land on Lake Mexia.

No kings, and no caesars. 👎👑

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.

SORRY, NERDS 5/4 1s DAVE BRUBECK DAY

#MusicSky #MayTheFourth

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

This is perfect.
No notes. (I say as a fan of these pieces, because there are no adequate words)

On April 9, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia. This historic moment marked the closing of the Civil War to end slavery. 133 Days to Slavery Remembrance Day. #CountDowntoSRD

The image is a screenshot of a tweet from Brandon Bradford (@BrandonLBradfor ). The tweet reads: "Deporting Americans without due process then saying they no longer get due process because they aren’t in America means no one has rights, FYI. Nightmare scenario."

If you think this can’t happen, remember that of the 125,000 Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII for years without charge or trial, two-thirds were U.S. citizens. Including me.

It is no wonder Dada flourished in the wreckage of what was known then as The Great War. How could the head not explode at the monumental attack on meaning. Apollinaire died with a fragment in his head. Typography itself, the fixed form of industrial publication, had to be shaken, dismantled.

Every time someone my age says something about “a brainrot trend on TikTok…” I’m compelled to remind Gen X that we were obsessed with Gregorian chant for a year in the 90s. Like we *went to the mall* & *bought CDs of it*. We blasted it in our cars driving to our high schools. This was normal to us🥸

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. George Orwell

🎯

It's critical to keep naming these losses, not in the spirit of "can you believe what they're doing," but to remember what's being lost. I've taught students from countries that erase the past, and they're stunned to learn of major events in their own countries. That's the fascist goal here.

YouTube video by ANTI- Records Tom Waits - "Hold On"

i am trying so, so hard to hold on and it is really hard
youtu.be/0P5jV4lHHR0?...

At SXSW, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber pokes fun at Mark Zuckerberg with Latin phrase T-shirt | TechCrunch When Bluesky CEO Jay Graber walked on stage at SXSW 2025 for her keynote discussion, she wore a large black T-shirt with her hair pulled back into a bun.

Graber’s shirt — which directly copies the style of a shirt that Zuckerberg wore onstage recently — says Mundus sine caesaribus. Or, “a world without Caesars.”

List of words banned from federal agencies

Hey poets! These are the words now banned or discouraged at federal agencies—on yer mark, get set, ✍️….

"What language
would we speak
without ears?"

– Raymond Antrobus

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

The American bald eagle knew.

This is a wildly dangerous sign — the idea that there are only five SCOTUS votes for paying congressionally mandated invoices for work *already* done!? This should be as basic a test of Article I as you can get. And that does not bode well for decisions to come.

Somewhere, Jeff Bezos is angrily clicking “track shipment” to see what happened to his new editorial page.

The most ill-conceived infographic in history

Every time I look at this again I find something new to be horrified about.

Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth the feeding.

Dean Karlan, Chief Economist at USAID, has resigned

www.npr.org/sections/goa...

Goose meme chasing Jeff Bezos to define what he means by "Personal Liberties"

My signature “tap tap cronch” mushroom ASMR compilation with >70 million views across platforms #asmr #mushrooms #mycology

I hate these bastards in Silicon Valley so much for what they've done to the idea of tech. The idea that we as a collective people could work together to improve our lives through ingenuity, collaboration, and determination. Instead, it's become a ponzi scheme based on the idea of line goes up.