Category: Reflections
-
When Taylor Swift dropped 1989 in 2014, she was pivoting the entire pop landscape. That record captured a generational shift: the country girl had fully transformed into a pop architect, and the world adjusted to her new rules. Ten years later, a similar moment may be unfolding—not in the stadiums of the most powerful artist…
-
Coming across an article in the New Yorker called “How music criticism lost its edge” (behind paywall), it got me thinking: Has criticism gone shallow in its quest for safety? And what does that mean for cultural honesty? What passes for “criticism” right now often feels like risk-managed copywriting wrapped in pseudo-thoughtful language. It’s less…
-
Back in 2022, Substack writer Heath Racela got to meet legendary musician Ben Folds. Apparently, Folds holds master classes now, this one being in Concord, MA. The key take away that Heath mentioned in his write-up: “embrace the messiness of learning” Other keys: songs as a three-act story, “balance between the liberal and the practical”…
-
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly…
-
“I have always felt like I was two wrong turns away from complete destruction. We all are, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re not.” – Jami Attenberg This piece of raw honesty from Jami Attenberg comes from her memoir, “I Came All This Way To Meet You: Writing My Way Home,” when discussing…
-
Many people are so scared to fail that they don’t even start. If you wait until everything is perfect before acting, then you will never succeed at anything. It may seem prudent to keep your confidence level high by giving up after your first attempt ends in failure. But, your chances of success aren’t much…
-
Whether it is expressed through words or pictures, artistry thrives, no matter what the medium. Like other forms of art, writing cannot be perfect; this does not mean it cannot be a work of beauty in its own right. Everyone has their own personal style to everything they do – whether you’re speaking aloud or…
-
In my college years, I often lamented at length in my journals about so-called higher education being rarely more than an extension of high school. On some rare occasions, a professor would present more advanced and challenging material, but those happenings were few and far between. I was thinking about what my first class would…
-
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the entertainment industry. It’s not really a novel realization, and it’s been hit on by quite a few critics and commentators, but it’s really beginning to bother me. Human creativity seems to be waning in such a dramatic way in recent years. There are so many formulaic attempts at…
-
Illusions of success, or perhaps even delusions of success, have become the key reason that most talented individuals find themselves in dead-end avenues of employment or must struggle as “starving artists” in an attempt to get by. The issue is not in having employment where you have to answer to a boss or going to…