SHELFDIVER: DIVE 3 - MAY 22, 2024
DIVE 3 - May 22, 204
I’m short on time this week, so 1) No images this week, and 2) let’s dive straight into book recommendations I promised:
URBAN HISTORY
To fill out an elective in college I took a class in urban history, and it sparked an interest that’s helped fill out my reading list ever since. Here are some of my favorite books on the topic that are on my shelves:
The Death and Life of Great American Cities: If you only read one book on this list, Jane Jacobs’ masterpiece about how cities evolve in the hands of their people and then go to war with architects and city planners is the one. It cracked my head open, and it’s shaped how I view every city I’ve lived in and visited since—not least when I see where the highways are located.
The Power Broker: Robert Caro’s intimidating doorstopper of a book actually surpasses its reputation as it breaks down how Robert Moses seized control of New York City in the twentieth city. The wonderful podcast 99% Invisible (read host Roman Mars’ book too) is in the middle of a podcast series/ wonderful online book club working through the book with fans like Conan O’Brien and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The Works: Anatomy of a City: If you’re a visual learner, this book of wonderful diagrams breaks down all the hidden layers of a city, from the drainage under a single street to the massive infrastructure serving an entire city.
Unbuilding: I’ve been a fan of David Macaulay’s work since I was a wee lad, and while all of his books are worth checking out this is the one most germane to this list, a fable-that-teaches as the Empire State Building is disassembled to be moved to the Middle East, revealing all the structures and systems beneath the surface of a skyscraper.
Streetcar Suburbs: One of the texts I read in that long-ago class, and one I still think about often, tracking how Boston grew from its earliest days and then exploded outward as technology advanced to give birth to the suburbs.
A Field Guide to American Houses: My 1984 copy of this book is a bit dated, but I see there’s a 2015 revised edition for sale now that might help you like it helped me, learning bits of architecture and cultural history from just a glance at houses.
London: The Biography: Is it a big book? Yes. Does it have to be to try and capture this scope and history of a sprawling two thousand year-old metropolis? Quite probably.
Sons of the Pioneers: If you’re in the Seattle area, this popular history of our region is easily available in every used bookstore, and is worth reading no matter where you are. But I include it mostly to encourage you to find its equivalent for your area. We all live atop history.
PLAYLIST
MUSIC: Toptape 2023 [Spotify]: Almost every month I put together a playlist—and then, at the end of the year, I boil those down to my favorite earworms. I thought ‘23 tracks from 2023’ would be a fun goal—but it was also a futile one, so here’s 70 great songs.
VIDEOS: Unfinished London [YouTube] Given the book recommendations above, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I enjoy this series from Jay Foreman (half of the Map Men, who cap their great videos with some of the most watchable sponsor ads I see in my Too Many Hours on YouTube.)
TELEVISION: Hilda: [Netflix] If you love the gentle tone of Bluey but are ready for a bit more adventure, this series about a young girl exploring a wonderful and mythical new world after her move to Trollberg may be what you’re looking for. They’re based on the graphic novels by Luke Pearson, also worth your time.
GAMEPLAY
GAME: CRYPTMASTER [Source; Trailer]: Is it a dungeon crawler? Is it a word game? Is it a descendent of Typing of the Dead? It’s all of those and more, driven by a narrator who will mock your every mistep, not least by showing that they predicted your lunacy enough to record a line for it.
RPG: Errant [Itch.io]: Lots of role-playing games try to keep things simple drag you into overcomplications; Errant does mostly keep it simple…then tempts you into overcomplications by providing optional rules modules for nearly everything under the sun to use and dispose of as they come up during gameplay.
DECK: The Highwire Deck [GameCrafter]: A highly useful deck of cards that not only supports playing them as standard playing cards but also a variety of other purposes from playing double-6 dominoes, Boggle, Uno, and Love Letter, as well as using them to drive storytelling in an improvised plot.
GAME: Telehack [Play online]: Revisit the pre-browser internet, and have fun hacking your way around. It will require persistence and a notebook for those who weren’t there the first time around, but it’s fun to poke at. If you want something a notch more video-gamey, Uplink is one of my favorites (a game I once got questioned on a plane for playing in-flight on my laptop because it looked like I was hacking something), and if you just want an easy way to revisit the content of the past, textfiles.org is your place to go.
GUESTDIVE
I’m turning this week’s Guestdive over to one of my best friends, Jon, who’s been guiding me across a new frontier lately as he shares his love of rap and hip-hop online as “PapaSquat”. Before you read further, go subscribe to his YouTube channel—you may get to be his 50,000th subscriber!
I've always been a music lover and have kept up with the major movements in music as well as enjoying off-kilter, avant-garde music for decades. The first album I asked for was Gary Neuman's Pleasure Principle -- but received The Cars by The Cars instead because I asked for "that song about cars." A later stand-out for me was Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode, anything by Prince, and Skylarking by XTC.
But on wave I mostly missed out on was rap and hip-hop, although I liked the stuff that happened to break through to the mainstream and get played on radio stations that served my smal Wisconsin hometown '80s, “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, “Jam On It” by Newcleus, and “Parents Just Don't Understand” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.
It wasn't until years later, when rap/hip-hop had taken over everything that I actively paid attention to it and started to appreciate what was going on there, especially with the advent of acts like De La Soul, Digital Underground, and Eminem.
During the autumn of 2020, months into isolation brought on by the pandemic, I decided to start a YouTube reaction channel in which I'd go back and watch the old hip-hop I never experienced when I was a kid. I started randomly picking tracks that I wanted to check out and did one reaction video per day. I did that for over a year and attracted maybe 1,000 subscribers. Then, people in my comments section started to ask for reactions to more modern stuff -- just to see what I thought of it and the channel took off.
I'm 54 now and I'm sure some of the novelty was seeing what someone of my generation thought of modern artists (spoiler: I love them), but people also seemed to like the way I reacted to things. I read up on the artists I was unfamiliar with, read the lyrics, and reacted to the music, but also the lyrics and what the artist seemed to by saying in between the lines. I now have nearly 50k subscribers, many reactions with tens of thousands of views and one with nearly 300k views.
All that preamble to get to this; Seth asked if I could recommend some music to the other Shelfdivers, so that's what I'm here to do. I've included a wide range of styles below and most of them are hip-hop/rap, but that one genre includes a huge variety, including some that I'd be equally calling rock, alternative rock, and electronic. The diversity in hip-hop is astounding and if you're not familiar with the music being made now, do yourself a favor and check some of these out. I hope you find a new favorite!
“12 Stout Street” by Rx Papi: My reaction to this is approaching 300k views. The beat is simple and acts as a backdrop for a blisteringly honest track about Rx Papi's life, his feelings about it, and how he feels about it. The rawness and pain is amazing. (Sidenote: the style of his rap in this is called "punching in" and involves him improvising each line as he goes along, then cutting the lines he likes best together. You can hear how each line is self-contained. He and RXK Nephew are the ones best-known for this style.)
“Blue EP” by Sewerperson: Excellent emo rap from Toronto. Sewerperson used to go by the name 9TAILS, but retired the name because his fans expected him to keep going back to the same painful emotional well for all his tracks and he couldn't keep doing that. Now, as Sewerperson, he still does emo, but is freer to do whatever music he wants. This is his first EP under the name and it's excellent.
Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern by Lil Ugly Mane: Fair warning, I haven't listened to this entire album, but I can tell you that Headboard, VPN, and Porcelain Slightly are fantastic alt rock tracks. Lil Ugly Mane makes rap and alt rock and it's all great. I hightly recomment Porcelain Slightly if you want to check out only one track.
2093 by Yeat: One of the biggest modern rap artists around. This is a cyberpunk/dystopian concept album that revolves around Yeat's addictions and current sobriety. Yeat's grown as an artist and this album features some interesting production, fuzzy vocals, and a style that looks to actually be going somewhere. Yeat is growing into one of the most interesting artists around as h'se grown more confident in his writing, music, and as a human.
I don't want to overwhelm Seth or you with too many albums, so if you're curious about other tracks that I've liked, here are Spotify links to some other great ones: Cleaver Valley by Sematary, Gout by Joeyy, Google Me by Subsad, Play With Fire by Gweilo Ghost, Digits by Young Thug, and All Girls Are The Same by Juice WRLD.
Thanks, Jon!
BACK TO THE SURFACE
The spouse and I are slipping away for a delayed anniversary getaway this week, which for us means a couple days sitting around chatting and reading. I can’t wait to share some of what I find when I get back. From the reading, I mean. The chats are all ours.
QUOTEBOOK
“The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”
– Robert Benchley
I don’t just collect things on shelves. The text file with my personal collection of quotes runs over a hundred pages, so I’ll close each of these emails by sharing a few of those quotes with you. Like I’ve done over the years, you can sift, save, and jettison as your mind and heart feel fit. See you next week!
“You know bad things are afoot when people are suddenly willing to be completely honest.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
“Better to put things at the worst at first, and reserve the best for a surprise.”
– Jules Verne, Mysterious Island
"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way."
–The last words of gunslinger-turned-reporter Bat Masterson, written at his desk at the New York Morning Telegraph, October 25, 1921