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The song "F2020", put up in July on Tiktok by Nashville-based trio Avenue Beat, is still perfect in August.

December 31st, I grabbed a beer
Threw it up, said, "2020 is my year, bitches"
(Three, two, one, Happy New Year)
And I honestly thought that that was true
Until I gave this motherfucker like a month or two
This is getting kind of ridiculous at this point"


Also:

Put your hands in the motherfuckin' air
If you kinda hate it here
And you wish that things would
Just like chill for like two minutes


Forbes and Nylon and Rolling Stone all describe how a song that the group tossed off onto their TikTok account became a viral hit, first on that platform then in mainstream culture. Their success is deserved: This is the sadly funny and melodic summer anthem that we really need.

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I have really become taken with Montréal techno musician Marie Davidson and her muscular, knowing track "Work It". Her 2018 interview with Noisey tells an interesting story of an artist critical of the commercial environment that she has to work in.



I am fond of the Soulwax remix. The video, made of found footage from a 1980s exercise video, is a treat.

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The Kris Menace remix of the 2009 classic "The Girl and the Robot", by Röyksopp with Robyn, is my favourite song for listening in the morning. I like how this particular remix has an urgency to it, a sense of destination; it really does help me get out of bed and feel more energized, at least.



What is your morning song?
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Bob The Drag Queen, winner of season 8 on RuPaul's Drag Race, continues to be one of my favourite listens. Her 2017 single, featuring All-Stars 2 winner Alaska Thunderfuck, is a song that I keep playing again and again.

The song is a glorious performance, a fluently-performed dissection of some of the different fan-driven controversies and tropes of LGBTQ culture, profane and smart and funny. (The show's Reddit group rates a mention.) Fans, mind, are not the song's only constituency; the humour and wit is portable beyond that.

Yet another dig, I'ma get another gig
I'm gluing down my lace front, yet another wig
Collecting coins, getting yet another big paycheck
Who's next? Tell me who's on deck
You're sippin' on the Hater-ade, yet another swig
Frying up some bacon, bitch, yet another pig
I'm a Redwood and you're yet another twig
All Stars 2 was yet another rig


As for the fantastic video, directed by veteran Assaad Yacoub, what can be said but that it has enough pitch-perfect humour to make first-time watchers burst out laughing?
rfmcdonald: (cats)

  • This article by Mirjana Milovanovic at VICE interviewing self-described cat ladies and letting them explain why they prefer cats to men was informative, and fun.

  • Vulture reported that the new Carly Rae Jepsen video, "Now That I Found You", is all about the love of a woman for her cat.

  • The plight of feral cats in Kingston and wider Frontenac County is serious, but volunteers are doing their best to help. Global News reports.

  • Are cats not psychopaths, but simply misunderstood? The Atlantic makes the case for human ignorance.

  • The Guardian shares photos from the Brooklyn Cat Café, where yoga with cats is a thing.

  • Emma Stefansky at Thrillist interviewed cat trainer Ursula Brauner, about cats in movies generally and the cats featuring in Captain Marvel specifically. (I really liked Goose.)

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The Pet Shop Boys song "Paninaro" is a bit unusual in their oeuvre, as a song that was not only released twice (as a B-side from the 1986 album Disco and then in a new version off of the 1996 B-sides collection Alternatives) but as a Pet Shop Boys song that has lead vocals from the usually silent Chris Lowe. The song did start with the paninari, a youth culture trend among young men in Milan in the 1980s, and does musically demonstrate a certain amount of influence from the Italo disco movement that inspired the Pet Shop Boys.

What does the song mean, what does it relate to? That is unclear. There is speculation from fans that this might be a love song of Lowe's, directed to a specific person, the new version of the song being a memorial, but there is only speculation. Chris Lowe has remained silent about this, as he has about so much of the music he has created and about his life as a person.
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  • Centauri Dreams extends further consideration the roles that artificial intelligences might play in interstellar exploration.

  • D-Brief notes that the genes associated with being a night owl also seem to be associated with poor mental health outcomes.

  • Far Outliers looks at the lifeboat system created on the upper Yangtze in the late 19th century.

  • Kashmir Hill, writing at Gizmodo, notes how blocking Google from her phone left her online experience crippled.

  • Imageo notes that, even if halted, global warming still means that many glaciers well melt as they respond to temperature changes.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the racism that permeated ads in 19th century North America.

  • Language Hat looks at how some Turkish-speaking Christians transcribed the Turkish language in the Greek alphabet.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how utterly ineffective the Trump Administration's new refugee waiver system actually is.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the film and theatre career of Lorenza Mazetti.

  • Marginal Revolution notes, in passing, the import of being a YouTube celebrity.

  • Molly Crabapple at the NYR Daily writes about the work of the New Sanctuary coalition, which among other things waits with refugees in court as they face their hearings.

  • The Speed River Journal's Van Waffle looks for traces of the elusive muskrat.

  • Towleroad shares footage of New Order performing the early song "Ceremony" in 1981.

  • Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx now has an app for Presto up!

  • At Vintage Space, Amy Shira Teitel looks at the Soviet Moon exploration program in 1969.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the new pressures being placed by rising Islamism and instability in Afghanistan upon Turkmenistan.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers, briefly, the little is known about the lives of 1980s gay porn stars Greg Patton and Bobby Pyron. How did they lead their lives?

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My attention this week was caught by Jason Parham's article at Wired about the new Troye Sivan single, "Lucky Strike", and its associated video.

Not to make this about politics or walls or borders or displacement, but Australian pop balladeer Troye Sivan’s “Lucky Strike” is all about politics and walls and borders and displacement. More specifically, it is about the negation of those thorny, unkind configurations. At first blush, the song is a cool, coy slowburner with pure intentions. “I wanna tiptoe through your bliss, get lost the more I find you,” Sivian coos over producer Alex Hope’s garden of ambrosial synths. Later on the chorus, he implores: “Tell me all the ways to love you.”

“Lucky Strike” is about queer desire, sure, about the feeling of summertime infatuation; in its just-released video, Sivan’s pursuit of another man unfolds during a day at the beach. But much of the song is about the unsaid, about the power and refuge we find in another person. The song, then, becomes something much more: a paean to a world that doesn’t just unite us across cultural and bodily borders, but whose lifesource depends on that exchange.




Making this song about politics, mind, I remain somewhat amazed by the extent to which Troye Sivan is not only an out celebrity but viable as said. As I write this, the "Lucky Strike" video just one week old has 2,355,700 views. He scores multiple international hits on the pop and dance charts--Sivan is not a one-hit wonder--and he has successful international tours, and his star shows no sign of fading. Sivan's career is hugely political, all the more so because he does not have to be. He can just be in a way that other artists, other people, in the LGBTQ community have until recently not been able to enjoy.
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  • This Chaka Grier article on NOW Toronto looks at how activists for different endangered languages--Wolastoqey, Yiddish, Garifuna--use music to try to keep them alive.

  • Hornet Stories takes a look at some gay-themed country music.

  • This year, 1980s pop star Corey Hart will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. CBC reports.

  • Sarah MacDonald at Noisey takes a look at the prescience of Britney Spears' 1999 song "E-Mail My Heart".

  • At Wired, Jason Parham praises the new Troye Sivan single, "Lucky Strike", for its profound curiosity in and empathy for other people.

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I have just come across a fantastic remix of Dua Lipa's 2017 song "New Rules", an 80s-style Hi-NRG remix. The video, too, a deft reuse of footage from the Miss Teen Canada 1988 competition that, in the contestants' synchronized motions, keeps the theme of the coordinated female action of the original song's video intact is a delight.

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"Over It" is one of the most recent songs from Hamilton's Junior Boys, product of a thriving music scene in that city.

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"The Power of Good-Bye", a stand-out song on a rather strong Ray of Light that became a lovely gentle classic as soon as it was first heard. This song is a good way--a mature way, a pensive way--to say good-bye to a partner who is no longer.

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  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that whereas cities in developed countries tend to be spread evenly across resource-rich agricultural areas, cities in developing countries tend to cluster near coasts where transport is easier.

  • At In Medias Res, Russell Arben Fox responds to Krugman in considering what role there is for smaller cities and towns in the 21st century.

  • Tracey Lauriault at Policy Options argues that, in projects like Google's involvement in Toronto's Quayside, the underlying values of the AI systems used should always be thoughtfully considered. What do they represent?

  • Dangerous Minds shares the oddly haunting YouTube videos of a man who plays classic 1980s pop songs in deserted shopping malls.

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If I have one regret about my visit to New York City last month, it was that I was not able to witness the truth of a lyric from Kate Bush's 1993 song "Moments of Pleasure", "The buildings of New York/Look just like mountains through the snow". It just happened to be too warm for snow, that's all.



"Moments of Pleasure" is one of the songs off of her The Red Shoes, Bush's last album for twelve years. It's quieter than some of the other songs on that album, certainly quieter than her higher-profile hits of the 1980s like "Running Up That Hill." It's a song about Kate, the person, remembering the time she spends with the people she loves including the people who have passed. I love the first four lines.

I think about us lying
Lying on a beach somewhere
I think about us diving
Diving off a rock, into another moment

The line about New York City comes at the end of a longer verse, of an imagined encounter with someone dear who is doing poorly in a New York winter. He's beloved, he's doing badly and nearing death, it's cold out, but still, this is a precious moment spent with someone cherished.

On a balcony in New York
It's just started to snow
He meets us at the lift
Like Douglas Fairbanks
Waving his walking stick
But he isn't well at all
The buildings of New York
Look just like mountains through the snow

Just being alive
It can really hurt
And these moments given
Are a gift from time
Just let us try
To give these moments back
To those we love
To those who will survive


"Moments of Pleasure" ends on this sadly nostalgic note, Bush remembering the people she lost starting first with her mother. (Hannah Bush had not died when the song was written, but she was ill and was approaching death.)

And I can hear my mother saying
"Every old sock meets an old shoe"
Isn't that a great saying?
"Every old sock meets an old shoe"
Here come the Hills of Time

Hey there Maureen,

Hey there Bubba,
Dancing down the aisle of a plane,

'S Murph, playing his guitar refrain,

Hey there Teddy,
Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road,

Hey there Michael,
Do you really love me?

Hey there Bill,
Could you turn the lights up?encountered the photographic works of Nan Goldin. This song tries to carry out that vision in musical form, and does so superbly. Kudos, Kate.
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The Ryan Adams classic song "New York, New York" is a perfect song to start off a soundtrack for a New York City trip.

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The song "Ghost Dance", by Robbie Robertson, is the third track on his 1994 soundtrack album Music for the Native Americans. I first heard the song on MuchMusic, when I saw the video, and was caught by it. This song is as powerful now as it is when I first heard it more than two decades ago, in its promise of survival and rebirth.



You can kill my body
You can damn my soul
for not believing in your god
and some world down below

You don't stand a chance
against my prayers
You don't stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again
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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the bizarre extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua, as does Centauri Dreams, as does Bruce Dorminey. Yes, this long cylindrical extrasolar visitor swinging around the sun on a hyperbolic orbit does evoke classic SF.

  • The Boston Globe's The Big Picture shares some photos of autumn from around the world.
  • D-Brief examines how artificial intelligences are making their own videos, albeit strange and unsettling ones.

  • Dangerous Minds shares some Alfred Stieglitz photos of Georgia O'Keefe.

  • Daily JSTOR takes a look at the mulberry tree craze in the United States.

  • The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper examining at water delivery to terrestrial planets in other solar systems. Worlds with as little water as Earth are apparently difficult to produce in this model.

  • Hornet Stories profiles the gay destination of Puerto Vallarta, in Mexico.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the new vulnerability of Haitian migrants in the United States.

  • The LRB Blog notes the end of the Mugabe era in Zimbabwe.

  • The NYR Daily features a stellar Elaine Showalter review of a Sylvia Plath exhibition at the Smithsonian National Picture Gallery.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw reports on how the production of New England Cheese reflects the modernization of Australian agriculture.

  • Roads and Kingdoms reports on the awkward position of Rohingya refugees in India, in Jammu, at a time when they are facing existential pressures from all sides.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares twenty beautiful photos of Mars.

  • Towleroad shares a fun video from Pink, "Beautiful Trauma", featuring Channing Tatum.

  • The Volokh Conspiracy notes that a Trump executive order threatening sanctuary cities has been overturned in court.

  • Window on Eurasia notes one study claiming that the children of immigrant workers in Russia tend to do better than children of native-born Russians.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at enormous, explosive Wolf-Rayet stars, and at WR 124 in particular.
  • The Big Picture shares heart-rending photos of Rohingya refugees fleeing Burma.

  • Centauri Dreams considers the potential of near-future robotic asteroid mining.

  • D-Brief notes the discovery of vast cave systems on the Moon, potential homes for settlers.

  • Hornet Stories exposes young children to Madonna's hit songs and videos of the 1980s. She still has it.

  • Inkfish notes that a beluga raised in captivity among dolphins has picked up elements of their speech.

  • Language Hat notes a dubious claim that a stelae containing Luwian hieroglyphic script, from ancient Anatolia, has been translated.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the question of preserving brutalist buildings.

  • The LRB Blog considers how Brexit, intended to enhance British sovereignty and power, will weaken both.

  • The Map Room Blog notes that the moons and planets of the solar system have been added to Google Maps.

  • The NYR Daily considers how the Burmese government is carefully creating a case for Rohingya genocide.

  • The Power and Money's Noel Maurer concludes, regretfully, that the market for suborbital travel is just not there.

  • Visiting a shrimp festival in Louisiana, Roads and Kingdoms considers how the fisheries work with the oil industry (or not).

  • Towleroad reports on the apparent abduction in Chechnya of singer Zelimkhan Bakayev, part of the anti-gay pogrom there.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that rebuilding Kaliningrad as a Russian military outpost will be expensive.

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"Yeah, Whatever" is the title track off of Vancouver-based Canadian electronica group Moev's 1988 album "Yeah, Whatever". Produced by the second incarnation of this band, featuring one Dean Russell as vocalist and lyricist, this song deserved wider recognition. Russell's vocals and the guitar-driven lyrics bring to mind a sort of Canadian fusion of Depeche Mode with the Smiths.

Most unfortunately, Moev and Dean Russell never got the chance to break through into the mainstream, Russell dying of HIV/AIDS in 1994 and the band subsequently splintering. What could have been--But at least we have this.
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Possibly Canadian folksinger Bruce Cockburn's signature song, his 1984 single "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" amply deserves its fame. It's a strong song, deserving its top ranking on any number of lists of top Canadian love songs, the poetry of Cockburn's lyrics carried by the urgency of his vocals.



This song arguably achieved greater fame outside of Canada by virtue of the Barenaked Ladies' later cover. That cover is decent, I grant, but it lacks Cockburn's signature urgency. Cockburn wrote this song, like other songs at this time, in the context of the Cold War, in his concern for refugees from Latin America. (I read somewhere that he was thinking of couples caught up in Argentina's then recently-concluded dirty war.) Other critics linked this song to the emergence HIV/AIDS crisis. The Barenaked Ladies' cover is light, too light--their Scarborough might have been boring, but it was not that bad. Cockburn understood perfectly that love matters, even especially when times were difficult, and his performance gets this across wonderfully.

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This vibrant skin, this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

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