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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3h

Ben Webster & Sweets Edison, Ben and Sweets (Wanted to Do One Together) (1962). Swing greats do their thing. Tho Webster's well into his ballad stage, he can add toughness for contrast. Edison's a more up-and-down player, but his straightforward muted solo on "Embraceable You" shows it ain't broke.

Did You Call Her Today

YouTube video by Ben Webster - Topic

www.youtube.com

Reposted by bradluen

Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader.bsky.social · 17h

I wrote about "Seiobo There Below," which I think is K's most interesting book, in two parts:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/11/who-...

&

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/03/art-...

But "The Melancholy of Resistance" likely gives a better sense of why he won the big prize.

who can say what is essential and what isn’t - <i>Seiobo There Below</i> - Krasznahorkai's defense of the picturesque

If it took me so long to read the latest László Krasznahorkai book, Seiobo There Below (2008), it was because the novel has, based on the n...

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 20h

Favorite '60s jazz albums, a thread:

Gene Ammons, Boss Tenor (1960). Legendary battle saxist/soul jazz pioneer stretches out. He leans into his huge ripe tone, occasionally double-timing to show his former sideman Trane's steps don't impress him much, before returning to crafting exquisite phrases.

Gene Ammons 04 "Canadian Sunset"

YouTube video by Penta Shack-G

www.youtube.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 21h

Blurb of an album I heard about from Chuck E and which neither us expended enough hyperbole on to convince anyone else to listen to:

Tamara Stewart: Woman

Australia-to-Nashville singer, a couple of decades into the grind. She’s not the most prepossessing vocalist, and the arrangements offer no special excitement. But the standout tracks are among the year’s most poignant country. “Just a Woman”, an answer to both “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and “Stand by Your Man”, notes there hasn’t been as much change since the Sixties as one might wish. “Mondays” is an elliptical song about trauma as well as a reminder that it’s a victim’s right to be elliptical. And “The Orphan” is possibly the finest song ever written about childlessness, not least because of its apparent ambivalence.

Grade: B PLUS (“The Orphan”, “Just a Woman”, “Mondays”)

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 21h

#TheTwen2ie5 ranked:

9. Tamara Stewart: "The Orphan"
Australia 2023

The best song ever written about childlessness, in large part because of its ambivalence—whatever her choice, whether she could or wouldn't, it's a future foregone. 14 YouTube views.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNt5...

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 22h

anyway nobody alive deserves the Nobel more, unless Fujimoto has an ending that shows Chainsaw Man Part 2's actually been great all along

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 22h

can't believe I didn't wake up to a hundred "Krasznahorkai finally did it" notifications, do my friends even know me

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d

#GWE Midnight Rockers vs. Buddy Rose & Doug Somers 12/25/86. A normal good match, with everyone reasonably obedient to the tag rules despite the cage. The limitations of the Rockers' brawling offense are apparent, so Somers and especially Rose have to make eeverything happen. Best: Michaels (3¾*)

The Midnight Rockers vs Rose & Sommers (cage match)

YouTube video by AWA stuff

www.youtube.com

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d

#GWE Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs. Midnight Rockers 8/30/86. This ruled, maybe the best '80s US tag I've seen. Most shocking is that career dickhead Shawn Michaels is an incredibly sympathetic underdog in peril. Rose/Somers are clearly in control, but it's not a carry job at all. Best: Michaels (4¾*)

Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs Midnight Rockers (AWA TV) (08.30.1986)

Dailymotion video by MegaSting1981 .

www.dailymotion.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d

Alexander Boldizar, The Man Who Saw Seconds. A guy with a limited precog window stares at a NYPD cop on the subway; things escalate. Boy, do they escalate. This has some value as a critique of the National Security apparatus, but mostly it's a Watchmen-like reductio that superpowers are scary shit.

Alexander Boldizar - The Man Who Saw Seconds — CLASH BOOKS

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future. Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontation with a cop on a New York City subway goes tragically wrong, those seconds give P...

www.clashbooks.com

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d

Original sarky April 2022 blurb. Definitely a song that's benefitted from me being someone who spends the week after Christmas listmaking

me in spring: well the fireworks are a bit much

me on Dec 31: WHIZZ BOOOM BANG!!!

my original April 2022 blurb for Let's Eat Grandma, "Happy New Year": "Epic Morodersynths, literal fireworks, a wisp of a song that doesn’t derive any tension from the fact that time passes despite four thousand years of precedents and is kind of moving anyway. Now that’s what we call indie pop!"

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d

#TheTwen2ie5

8. Let's Eat Grandma: "Happy New Year"
UK 2022

Like Heavenly Creatures, this is about the most intense phase of teen BFFship burning out, except instead of murder they decide to become minor pop stars and allow each other personal space. Sensible, IMO

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9q...

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d

#GWE Midnight Express vs. Rock N Roll Express 2/23/86. Fun sprint rather than one of their great matches. R&Rs dominate early, then Morton plays Morton, then Gibson plays Morton, and Ricky teases getting a shot on Cornette with the racket before everything disintegrates teasingly. Best: Morton (3½*)

Midnight Express vs Rock N Roll Express 1986

YouTube video by CWAMemphis

www.youtube.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d

What I wrote in May 2024:

'Fifth octave choruses are back: mostly head voice until it's time to belt "I told you so"… Song of the summer in a slightly higher RPM world; in this one it feels more likely to stall at number 18.'

BAD CALL, SEMIPOP

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d

#TheTwen2ie5 ranked:

7. Chappell Roan: "Good Luck, Babe!" USA 2024 It takes a song 2–3 years to fully vest in my mind, so this is in a prime position to do very well with me in whatever the finale of all this is. Might do well with other people too! Conceivably!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKq...

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d

#GWE Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee 12/30/85. Maybe the greatest punching match ever. Lawler's exceptional as the one-eyed man taking wild swings; it's so satisfying when he hits. Dundee's work is hard to judge structurally b/c of the clipping, but moment to moment he's great too. Better: Lawler (4½*)

Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee Loser Leaves Town 12 30 85 Memphis

YouTube video by CWAMemphis

www.youtube.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d

Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido, Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Parts 1 & 2 (tr. Schutz/Kander.) Talking cat detective and talking weasel muckraker investigate the dodgy deals of talking bird Robert Moses. A page-turner, though much more violent than that description might have you expect.

Comic page from Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido, Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Part One. Talking falcon Robert Moses and his talking seagull henchman discuss personal problems they need to take care of.

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Reposted by bradluen

Jason Halprin @j-halprin.bsky.social · 3d

RIP Ken Jacobs (1933-2025)

It has been announced that this pioneer of Avant-Garde film and pioneering projector-performance master has passed on.

Photos courtesy of Pip Chodorov, taken from a July 18, 2025 roll of #16mm film.

#experimentalfilm
#experimental-film
#avantgardefilm
#kenjacobs

The late artist Ken Jacobs, shot on 16mm film on July 18, 2025, by Pip Chodorov (used with permission of the filmmaker)

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d

Her husband is updating her Facebook page and has suggested courses of action, if you happen to live somewhere where your elected representatives might think the illegal detention of American citizens is a bad thing:
www.facebook.com/carsieblanton

Redirecting...

www.facebook.com

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d

#TheTwen2ie5 ranked

6. Carsie Blanton: "Be Good"
USA 2021

"Be good to the people you love, and love everybody alive", she sings (citing MLK and JFC.) If you think that's soft-headed or soft-hearted, she's currently being detained as part of the Gaza flotilla.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAFm...

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d

#GWE Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart 11/11/87. Hart's surprisingly close to his '90s form, but '87 showcase match Savage is out of this world. One of the great leg selling performances (with a big assist from Liz's unbooting), such that we don't get the big elbow and feel satisfied. Better: Savage (4¼*)

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d

Our current iterations of AI are in some sense trained *only* by playing games, then set to work on wider tasks. Is it any wonder they're superhumanly good at things that can be gamified and underwhelming at everything else? Can a model one day appreciate its own low-dimensionality aesthetically?

bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d

The hope is that if you play a gamut of games aesthetically, you *protect* yourself against gamification, and maybe Galaxy Brain Utilitarianism—against the idea of one overarching metric you need to optimize at all costs. (Is the "aesthetic" attitude to gameplay necessary or helpful for this?)

C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Art as Agency p. 402

"Aesthetic striving play, I'm suggesting, offers a way to build an analagous pair of capacities. First, it develops the capacity to submerge ourselves in temporary agencies. But it also helps to develop the capacity to manage and control that subersion. It helps us assert our own values and interest against the pull of the temporary agencies, with their compartmentalized and clear experiences of value. Aesthetic striving play builds both the agential fluidity, and the capacity to manage that fluidity."

C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency as Art p. 403:

"Games let us flirt with such seductive little agencies in a portected context. Here is the hope: if you spend a lot of time engaged in aesthetic striving play, you will have plenty of practice losing yourself in, and then drawing back from, the pleasures of value clarity. You will be used to wearing your submersion a little lightly. Then when life hands you far more pressing agenital models, and value clarities with more seriousness and force behind them—when you face the calls of the crisp and clear value systems inherent in money, grades, Twitter likes, and research impact facotrs—you will have developed the right habits of lightness and control with your agency."

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d

Hilda Tloubatla and Pulp are indestructible, Maria Muldaur and Sabrina Carpenter have more comfort with dick jokes than [REDACTED], Djrum and Barker digest club music for those of us who don't get out much, plus jazz, B-pop, and more in this month's Semipop Life
bradluen.substack.com/p/semipop-li...

Semipop Life: Indestructible libido

Mahotella Queens, Maria Muldaur, Pulp, Sabrina Carpenter, and more!

bradluen.substack.com

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bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d

What I wrote in 2022: "Over the last year he's become Ghanian's rap great export hope: having so far conquered Nigeria, he's a feature from recent acquaintance K. Lamar from global viability." I should listen to this year's album, I guess!

Over the last year he’s become Ghanian’s rap great export hope: having so far conquered Nigeria, he’s a feature from recent acquaintance K. Lamar from global viability. More forceful than any melodic rapper to date, and just as importantly, a good lyricist, unlike his New York drill model [don’t speak ill of the dead—ed.], capable of copping to fuck-ups like no one since mixtape Wayne. Given his comfort gesturing with a fork at the press conference in the video, a Presidential run seems feasible once he gets out of his early twenties.

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