The Patreon hit $600 this morning. Which means that I’m posting this after informing my boss that I’ll be stepping down at the end of the semester and not, as previously discussed, applying for a promotion. I’ve got four weeks to serve out because obviously I’m not going to be a complete asshole about this, but in less than a month I am going to be a full-time writer again.
Which… holy shit guys. When I set up that $200 a week goal, I thought it was a longshot. Not something we were going to blow through in thirty-six hours. I’m stunned and, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. There are a lot of things I love about this job, but the feeling of support that you all give me is by far the thing that most often stuns me into a humbled and grateful silence.
That said, I noted in comments on my last post that I was not in any sort of immediate financial insecurity. This fact just changed. The Patreon is currently at $601, just a dollar a week above the threshold at which this adventure is affordable. Patreons go down over time. So while we’ve made ...
I want to start with an update to yesterday's appeal. When I made the appeal for boosting the Patreon by $200, I kind of doubted it could be done. Actually, not even kind of. It felt like the longest of long shots—a desperate appeal to avoid having to give up writing despite the fact that it obviously made the most sense for my financial security. Instead, we've blown past 2/3 of the goal in a single day. As I queue this up before dinner, we only have $61 to go, and what felt like an impossible dream is looking like it very well might happen. I am humbled and stunned and above all grateful to be so widely and deeply supported, and so, so thrilled that I really might get to continue on this mad ride. But we're not there yet, and if you clicked away yesterday because it felt like a pipe dream, well... it's not. But I still need your help. The Patreon link is right here. And with that said, let's get on to dragging Chris Chibnall.
Act I: The Woman Who Fell to Earth
The most impressive thing about Broadchurch is ...
Hey all. It's not the Broadchurch post. Sorry. That'll go up tomorrow. I need to use the big Monday post for something else this week. Because there's a chance that when the Capaldi era of TARDIS Eruditorum ends I'm going to retire as a blogger. I don't really want to do this, but there's some things that have to happen for me to be confident that I can avoid it. Most of them involve the Patreon going significantly higher than it currently is. Like, to around $600 a post. I'll explain the details below.
Three years ago, when Jill and I moved to Ithaca, she took a significant pay cut to do it, and in order to make the finances work I had to take up a part time job. I haven't made a big fuss out of this because I enjoy some measure of privacy, but it's been the big reason why my output over the last few years has been a bit sporadic. It's why I've struggled at getting new Eruditoroum volumes out (or indeed revisions of the old ones), writing new Last War in Albion, or really ...
In Search of Peter Pan
Tour of Life
In recent entries, we’ve addressed that Lionheart is a heavily recycled album. Pressed for time to read an album after months of promoting The Kick Inside, Bush did the sane thing and salvaged songs she’d already written. The result is largely to the album’s detriment, with the overall sound being a step backwards from The Kick Inside’s iconoclasm. Yet the overall retro feel makes Lionheart an interesting album in its own right, with a relative lack of confidence which in some ways makes it more compelling than its predecessor. Lionheart retreats often to the recesses of childhood and theater in the face of worldly adult duties. It’s an album constructed from a terror of being thrust onto the world stage and working in narrower confines than one was allowed in adolescence. Worse, it’s being asked to fall back to keep yourself afloat. Imagine if you had to submit your associate’s degree essays for an undergraduate program, and you have something akin to this album.
Resultingly, Lionheart is apprehensive and often lyrically tense. “In Search of Peter Pan,” an odd track loved more by Björk than the general public, is rife ...
This week, Jack returns and Daniel tells him all about the infamous Red Pill and YouTube as a pipeline into right-wing extremism. A wide-ranging chat that gets into issues like platforming, debating the right, etc.
Warnings apply, as ever.
Direct Download / Permalink / IDSG at iTunes
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Show Notes:
Austrian authorities raid far-right group over alleged links to Christchurch shooter
White Nationalists Adopt Clowns as Their Next Racist Symbol
The Matrix, Red Pill or Blue Pill
2 Dads TV: Take Back Our Future
Faraday Speaks: My Descent into the Alt-Right Pipeline
YouTube’s Product Chief on Online Radicalization and Algorithmic Rabbit Holes
Trainswreckstv debate, Destiny, Nick Fuentes, Hasanabi, Sargon of Akkad
Welcome to Youtube "Bloodsports."
Sargon of Akkad Can't Read (Sean video)
Sargon's Petition: A Measured Response (Hbomberguy video)
The Red Pill is a CULT (NonCompete video)
The Red Pill: The Strange Art of Men's Rights Activism, Part1, Part 2 (Big Joel video)
It’s January 15th, 2017. Clean Bandit have been knocked off of number one by the dawn of the Sheeraning, as Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill” debut at number one and two respectively, heralds of his forthcoming album that will, on its release in mid-March, lead to Sheeran occupying 14 of the top 15 slots in an absolutely unprecedented (and before the streaming era impossible ) turn of events. JP Cooper, Starley, and Jax Jones featuring Raye also chart.
In news, the Justice Department concludes its lengthy investigation of the Chicago Police Department and concludes that, yeah, they’re really bad. Trump gives his first post-election press conference and mostly attacks the press. Much of the London Underground is shut down due to a strike. Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, resigns, sparking the collapse of the power-sharing government. And the Playboy Mansion goes up for sale.
On television, meanwhile, Sherlock reaches its presumptive end with The Final Problem. The central and defining mechanic of Sherlock is as it has always been: a sense of unrelenting, propulsive motion. It’s just that with The Final Problem this motion is not aimed anywhere. The result is like ...
Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake (demo)
Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
Leo Sayer Show
Tour of Life
Xmas special
Following her six months of promotional excursions through Europe, Kate Bush had four weeks to write songs for a new album. This time crunch put great restraint on Bush, and as a result she only wrote three truly brand new songs. Shortly afterwards, Bush spent ten weeks at Superbear Studios in Nice, France, recording her only album to feel like it was made under time constraints. Accordingly, Lionheart is inferior to The Kick Inside: it lacks the “new artist” thrill of that album and the preparedness that is a trademark of Bush’s other albums. Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating collection of ten songs in its own right, and deserves more attention than the critical consensus has given to it.
As we’ve mentioned, Lionheart is mostly leftovers, scraps of The Kick Inside and the Phoenix demos reheated in a French studio. Yet for all that gets made of its leftovers status, Lionheart showcases a drastic tonal shift from The Kick Inside. It’s a much queasier album, with less assurance that the power of youth and precociousness will save the ...
Special episode this week. Daniel has a special guest, Samantha Kutner, self-described 'Proud Boy whisperer' to talk about Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys. (Jack gets out of the way to let the grown-ups talk.)
Warnings apply, as always.
Direct Download / Permalink / IDSG at iTunes
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Show Notes:
Things Gavin McInnes has Written for Taki Mag
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_west_is_history_gavin_mcinnes/
https://www.takimag.com/article/pretending_to_care_about_nazis_gavin_mcinnes/
https://www.takimag.com/article/a_dozen_unlikely_assholes_gavin_mcinnes/
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_importance_of_hatred_gavin_mcinnes/
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_importance_of_hatred_gavin_mcinnes/2/
https://www.takimag.com/article/storm_troopers_gavin_mcinnes/
https://www.takimag.com/article/wonder_woman_makes_you_wonder_about_women_gavin_mcinnes/
Gavin McInnes citing the '14 words' (with "western" replacing "white")
Proud Boys as a Radicalization Vector (His Threats are echoed in articles below)
https://officialproudboys.com/proud-boys/fighting-media-academics/
https://notvice.com/gavin-white-supremacy-article-agreement-page-160a4b5c9037
Islamberg Conspiracy Theory
https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1105884338174881792
Proud Boys Articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/inside-miami-alt-right-and-proud-boys-chapter-10945821
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-proud-boys-became-roger-stones-personal-army-6
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What You Can Do
Get Involved With Light Upon Light & CTRL-ALT-DEL-HATE Campaign
https://www.gofundme.com/light-upon-light
Support the Development of the Proud Boys Incident Map and Dashboard https://www.patreon.com/ashkenaz89
Proud Boys ...