“More than anything, Dylan and Dante share an unbroken sense of pity for the ‘ill-begotten souls’ of hell. Both in the position of outsiders looking-in, this subversion of time, space, and reality is what makes hell so mystical, and this carnival of characters is what makes hell so unsettling.”
The first time I saw the band Yuck perform live, I had never heard of them. They were simply the group warming up for Smith Westerns on a Friday night at a hole in the wall in downtown Nashville. I saw their name on the marquee above the venue and thought “Yuck” sounded weird and off-putting. When they took forever to set up on stage, I went from skeptical to hostile: “Who do these guys think they are? They’re just the warm-up act!”
Lady Gaga’s new music video tries really, really hard to jump on the current 1980s revival but it’s the worst kind of awkward sci-fi. The whole thing feels clunky, overdone, and manages to make orgies seem lame. Three strikes and you’re out.
“No one thinks of Spotify as a means to immortality. But so long as the platform exists, a sort of permanence is granted. Our long finished playlists will become fuel for Discover Weekly long after we’re gone. We become eternal tastemakers, unconsciously curating mixtapes for future listeners.”
“But I can say this: as I stood on stage on that final sold-out Saturday and belted out the final lyrics to the finale, “We’re home!” for the first time since arriving on Princeton’s campus I felt like I had a place on this campus. I felt at home.”
