But This Is Wondrous Strange: Week 4
BITWSx 004
Week the Fourth
The Sad, Sad Truth, the Dirty Lowdown
Boz Scaggs had a series of hits in the late 70s and just out the other side of the 80s. But the one that comes to mind most often is the sultry groove of “Lowdown.” It’s not about depression, and it’s lyrically a bit sexist^1, but out-of-context lyrics is a staple of essays and hip novel chapter headings, and I grew up with a lot of those. Particularly Stephen King’s. The song is the opposite of how I feel, but music is a massive comfort in emotional times, being closely linked to emotion itself. Sometimes countering feeling bad works well. Sometimes magnifying sadness or anger feels like the necessary thing to do.
Scaggs and co. set up a smoldering beat and bass line, casually adding instruments and vocals, unhurried and sure. It feels good to listen to. One of the perennial opposite-effect pieces of media, on the other hand, that often comes to mind in low moments for me is the Kids in the Hall sketch, “Each Day We Work.” It’s another in Bruce McCulloch’s masterful takes on vaguely Eastern European dystopian futures. It’s funny because Nietzsche. But it, too, makes me feel better. Maybe dystopias make things not so bad to me by comparison?
This is all a lead-in to say it’s been a rough week inside the Harwell brain, and I tend to associate music with feelings, whatever the original context may be. There’s a weird moment when you realize some acute depression may be becoming chronic depression. Everyone has some kind of momentary melancholy, it’s the human condition. It’s important, I think, to note when that temporary bout of the blues seems frequent or steady that signals it’s time to acknowledge a problem. There was a moment of fear last week when I looked back in time and saw that very transition looming large. Too much self-reflection is bad. Some self-reflection is healthy and illuminating.
There’s lots of help available to those with and without health insurance, and the mental health side of “health” is getting more attention and benefit allotment. While we fight to initiate universal health care in the US, I’m taking advantage of the corporate subsidy my day job brings to re-engage with my “team” and figure out what’s going on and how to treat it. This is a somewhat privileged position, and it’s not lost on me that everyone can’t just make an appointment. I have a job that pays a large portion of my health insurance, and access to care in a big, American city. But we—the Usanian we—are a long way from a healthy system. Maybe we can fix that soon. Soonish.
Delays, Delays
I find myself torn this year, between a fervent desire to make stuff, and the endless feeds of distraction I've filled my life with the past decade. Be fair, two decades. This ongoing struggle is shaping up to be the defining characteristic of the new year. I've made some progress, but like social justice, human rights, and technology, there's a fair bit of backing that goes along with the forthing.
The other delay is the lateness of this edition. I wasn't able to access the newsletter site for most of the week, and I think I pinned it down to a VPN problem. I'm encountering more sites these days blocking swathes of the popular VPN IP ranges. Netflix is another one I'll have to shell out a bigger fee for if I want to watch without sending out my location and such, and at that point I might as well get a hardware-based solution.
For now, though, mea culpa, and I'm planning a second edition the next couple days to catch up to the weekly thing. Since it's an entirely new month, I'm [over]confident it won't be as rough, creatively. One does like to hope.
The End
Weird things:
- Deep fakes are coming for us all
- No, not that Warren Ellis (I liked Ghosteen a lot)
- A mesmerizing discussion of dating-app-ready AI