bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen
@bradluen.bsky.social
260 followers 94 following 1.1K posts
https://bradluen.substack.com/
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4h
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4h
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 16h
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19h
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 19h
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 1d
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d
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
j-halprin.bsky.social
Jason Halprin @j-halprin.bsky.social · 2d
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) The late artist Ken Jacobs, shot on 16mm film on July 18, 2025, by Pip Chodorov (used with permission of the filmmaker) The late artist Ken Jacobs, shot on 16mm film on July 18, 2025, by Pip Chodorov (used with permission of the filmmaker) 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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 2d
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
#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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
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.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
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
1 4
bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
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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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 3d
#TheTwen2ie5

5. Black Sherif: "Kwaku the Traveller"
Ghana 2022
11 POINTS

His force of delivery makes drill finally live up to its name. Blows his shot at number one smoking away the second verse, but if you've never fucked up, put your hands in the air. No hands?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIDi...
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
#GWE Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat 3/29/87. On rewatch this is SUCH a Macho Man show—he drives the action and the narrative, so credit/blame him alone for creating the template for the WWF workrate match. Steamboat plays generic face challenger; he's good at it, of course. Better: Savage (4½*)
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
I know talking mere commerce is as crass as bragging about your tight end's wood, but if the reports of 3M in two days are right, she has to be clear of Madonna as the biggest woman star in American pop history, right? Only Bing/Sinatra/Elvis/MJ are on the horizon, and I could argue about 3 of those
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
Chris Miller, Chip War (2022). How the US fell behind Asia at chipmaking. Since publication, Intel's spent $$$$ to get back to the tech frontier (look up "18A"), but there's no prospect that they can manufacture at TSMC's capacity. Prolly a bad time for a US govt to sabotage its Taipei relationship!
Chip War
The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—m...
www.simonandschuster.com
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
tbf most US Morgan Wallen discourse north of Nashville is still this (if quickly followed up by "oh THAT racial slur")
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bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
I got to this in 2021 (after TSJ coverage iirc):

"Doechii starts out in kindergarten, then accelerates into a credible Nicki imitation. Then she starts to do it again, but that's just a fake out preceding a lusher alt-R&B beat, a Paramore quote, and a toilet paper joke. What hath Weird Al wrought?"
bradluen.bsky.social
bradluen @bradluen.bsky.social · 4d
#TheTwen2ie5
4. Doechii: "Yucky Blucky Fruitcake"
USA 2020
11 POINTS

It's unreasonable we expect our Black women stars to do everything (rap, write, serve looks, take the chicken out), but it's exhilarating when someone comes out of nowhere and IS great at everything
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnO...
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