A Sense of Doubt blog post #3946 - SoD Reprint of #3022 - Still Status - KAPOW!! Comic Book Sunday 2512.07

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3946 - SoD Reprint of #3022 - Still Status - KAPOW!! Comic Book Sunday 2512.07

I am in reprint mode as I explained in yesterday's post.

Today was a good day. I accomplished many things, and so this KAPOW! status is still true but more for completing things (two papers, check-in to class I teach, setting up reprints for blog, dishes, laundry, Christmas decorating, and the usual things like feeding dogs).

Happy Comic Book Sunday.

Thanks for tuning in.

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.

Link to the original post I am reprinting below:

Sunday, May 28, 2023

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3022 - STATUS TODAY: KAPOW! BOOM! ZOK! Comic Book Sunday for 2305.28

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3022 - STATUS TODAY: KAPOW! BOOM! ZOK! Comic Book Sunday for 2305.28

Status for today.

Feel like punching out.

No fucks to give.

Thanks for tuning in and sorry for a bit hostile and a downer of a Comic Book Sunday.

I am not always happiness and light.

http://bullpenbulletins.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/B_W_H_A_M

This feels appropriate again...

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2305.28 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2886 days ago

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2512.07 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3810 days ago & DAD = 465 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3913 - ELECTION DAY 2025: Vote as if Your Life Depends on it (it does)

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3913 - ELECTION DAY 2025: Vote as if Your Life Depends on it (it does)

The last time I voted in person:

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #490 - I voted!

Me - Arcadia Elementary - 1611.08

flag in the background = very cool

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2511.04 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3778 days ago & DAD = 432 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3860 - This is How I Feel - RING OF FIRE

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3860 - This is How I Feel - RING OF FIRE

Once again, I had to postpone already scheduled though not yet finished blog entries for something more pressing and timely.

Conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/10/us/charlie-kirk-shot-utah

Farron of Ring of Fire published this video today and it struck a chord. I share it and my thoughts below.

I’m taking a break from Ring of Fire

My blog hardly gets as much attention as Farron's RING OF FIRE channel. Sadly, he shared that he gets death threats to his home by Republicans.

But I have been political on this blog. I have an entire category called "State of the Hate Nation."

And though I think that the pressure to be silenced is not one to which everyone should capitulate -- and thankfully many, many are not capitulating -- like Farron and Ring of Fire, I need to avoid politics on this blog for now until I see where the wind will be blowing. If this incident begins a civil war and good ol' boys start "shooting the libs" as they have been asking to do for years, I don't want to be another target for them, even though I am very minor and much harder to find, surely not at the top of any list.

But I agree with EVERYTHING Farron says in the video above and that Lucien Greaves shares in the post below.

Do I think that Charlie Kirk espoused hateful rhetoric to which I am vehemently opposed? Absolutely.

Do I believe he should have been killed as he was for doing so? No. I do not.

Can I understand why people might want to kill him for his hateful ideas? Yes, I do.

Do I think it's the right thing to do to kill him? No.

Also, since I am studying clinical mental health counseling, I encountered an ethical dilemma being discussed in one of my classes about use of social media and the Internet for espousing personal views that may make clients feel unsafe. As such, I need to evaluate how I use my blog and what my posts contain.

I am not going to go back an delete past posts.

But I can rethink if I want to post about politics at all.

Some of my nerd friends don't post about politics at all on social media.

And maybe, for the most part, I need to stick to music, comics, space, science, science fiction, counseling, and so on.

Like Farron explains in his video, I am also taking some time to evaluate who I am online and how I want to be perceived.

Thanks for tuning in.

ALSO, THIS:

The Indefensible Use of Political Violence

On the assassination of Charlie Kirk

by Lucien Greaves

While I feel that I should begin with some mention of my own, brief, indirect encounter with Charlie Kirk, I want to make emphatically clear from the start that I in no way mention our oppositional alignments out of any concern for the fear that to do otherwise might contribute to “bad optics” in which condemning his murder makes me suspect in being a bit too agreeable to his ideas. To speak out against violence never requires such justifications. Rather, I point to our contention to directly confront a different knee-jerk predictable response to my condemnation of his killing that insists that I am simply blind to the harm that his words presumably caused, and that from a place of relative privilege I am simply incapable of grasping the threat that Kirk is believed to have presented. I have already seen mob-demented social media bloviators describe his murder as a "symmetrical attack” and a result of violence begetting violence. But if we are to agree with the overbroad categorization that accepts words as violence, we must at least agree that there is a significant difference in degree between hearing offensive ideas and taking a bullet to the fucking head, and a line here was clearly crossed. In 2022, in response to The Satanic Temple’s first SatanCon conference in Scottsdale, AZ, Kirk wrote an op-ed for Newsweek arguing that Satanists should not enjoy First Amendment protections. It was astonishingly hypocritical for the self-styled Free Speech crusader and, it must be said, impossible to reconcile with what I have seen of his typical rhetoric. My offers to debate him on the topic went unanswered, and I can not help but feel that the indefensibility of the position under scrutiny played a role in that silence. If a significant number of people feel that we can be deprived of basic fundamental civil liberties, what other deprivations might they be able to justify? Since then, we have been the target of terroristic attacks, including arson and a bombing attempt on our headquarters. Nonetheless, my first reaction upon hearing that Charlie Kirk has been murdered during a speaking event at a university in Utah is far from some delusion that the world has, in some way, been made a safer place for me and adherents to our Tenets. In fact, beyond the visceral horror and revulsion, it is clear upon any reasonable analysis that the opposite is true. We are all a bit less safe now. Nor do I blame Kirk for death threats I receive or the terrorism against us. Influencers are never these raw thought-dictating svengalis that the outrage mobs they generate— mobs which never fail to elevate the celebrity and perceived importance of those they decry — seem to think. Rather, influencers are almost always at least as influenced by their followers, their audience and subscribers, as their audiences are shaped by them. Regardless of how independent-minded Charlie Kirk may or may not have been, his popularity could only be made possible by a significant popular willingness to accept the message he was propagating. Shooting him does nothing to diminish that willingness, does nothing to make those ideas disappear, and it serves no positive function. You will notice that I am not making an argument for a metaphysical moral position regarding the sanctity of all human life, or even an absolute prohibition against all forms of political violence. Nor is this because I disagree with these positions, but it is because I do not dignify the murder of Charlie Kirk as necessitating them. Such arguments land like stale, scripted absolutes that are impervious to circumstance upon the ears of those who imagine there are benefits to this type of violence that occasionally supersede such lofty moral ideals. But there is no benefit to this barbarism, no greater ends served by unfortunate means, no clearer path forward to a more just and equitable world by Kirk’s brutal slaying. Political violence rests on a justification of liberation, the idea that a movement’s followers are ruled by fear, coercion, and threat of state violence. Tyrants are slain in hopes of breaking free those who exist under such oppression. Kirk had no such coercive force. Even if you argue that Kirk provided the philosophical framework undergirding potential or existing authoritarian oppression, he did so in the realm of debate, in the realm of persuasive influence, where his ideas are better confronted and known than suppressed or extinguished by force. We gain nothing if we silence known arguments prevalently held without challenging the ideas themselves, and the Charlie Kirks of the world allow us the opportunity to do that. The battle here is one for popular support, and shooting Kirk is more likely to make his ideas appear moderate and defensible in contrast to a thoughtless, murderous, and savage opposition. To those who would justify this act of violence, it must be asked, what is the imagined gain here? While I see social media commentary about the perceived delusion of “civil politics,” and its inability to “save us,” the implicit delusion seems to be that the MAGA movement will now cower in fear and ultimately realize its folly after witnessing this assassination. While the notion that we can progress forward by way of debate is denigrated as naive and unrealistic, the deeply unrealistic, even infantile, counter-assumption seems to be that, even in the midst of a Trump administration, this does more to diminish autocratic aspirations than to create an argument for their justification. Even if one is to argue that debate is not working, or somehow not viable, or point to Kirk’s failure to debate me after his Newsweek piece, it is impossible to accept his assassination as any type of acceptable follow-up option. As with those whose cognitive simplicity is such that they can not separate a defense of Free Speech for advocacy of the most odious expressions of opinion that the First Amendment protects, I already see backlash against those who condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk as some kind of special love for the man and his ideas. (Some asshole on BlueSky already called me Nazi because of it.) No deep analysis of Kirk’s history is needed to condemn his assassination or recognize how counterproductive it is in the fight to preserve democratic norms and advance social equity. To attempt to justify Kirk’s assassination based on commentary he made that presumably argues for political violence is almost laughably self-negating. It is thoughtless and destructive, and it should be recognized as such. Nor is this all about how you should feel about Kirk himself. The important issue is how we feel about this kind of violence, and we should never be ambiguous in our condemnation of it.

Originally published on September 11, 2025 at luciengreaves.substack.com Click here to subscribe to Lucien Greaves' Substack.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2509.12 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3725 days ago & DAD = 379 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3849 - National Anthem Mix - Everyone is So Near - We're in this Together - Music Monday for September FIRST, 2025

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3849 - National Anthem Mix - Everyone is So Near - We're in this Together - Music Monday for September FIRST, 2025

An episode of the final season of Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale featured the song "The National Anthem" by Radiohead from the 2000 album Kid A.

The horns in the song were influenced by Charlie Mingus.

The repeating bass line is urgent and a stern warning of the horrors to come, not fully envisioned in the year 2000 or were they?

Critics were of mixed opinion about the song, some savage in their criticism, but its warning, its clarion call bass line and the cacophony of horns that follow is even more relevant in 2025 than it was twenty-five years ago.

This song provided the focal point, even a fulcrum, for this music mix.

I have curated it for a couple of months trying to get a good sequence. I did a pretty good job with the mix, though I still feel that I could link the sounds a bit better.

In terms of the content of the songs, though not every song speaks to this theme, the general theme is terror, horror, abject disbelief, and more about what I call the STATE OF THE HATE NATION, which is its own category on the blog.

The mix moves from loud to quiet and shifts tone several times with some artists heavily featured, such as Radiohead and assorted solo projects, Peter Gabriel, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, and a few more. The mix is framed by "The Spoils" by Massive Attack, which is the last track, and though it cannot be the first track, because of the Radiohead, it is the fifth, so early in the mix.

Originally, it was the third track, but when I really fell in love with the sound of the Fever Ray song 

"Keep The Streets Empty For Me," I had to get that song early in the mix. Radiohead's "The Pyramid Song" had to go with it as those flow well. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" felt right after Radiohead's "The National Anthem," so when adding the other two songs, "The Spoils" shifts down to the five spot.

Lyrically, "The Spoils" seems to intersect with Radiohead's "The National Anthem," at least in my head.

Peter Gabriel's "The Court" musically feels right in following "the Spoils." And lyrically it feels like a culmination of all the songs before it in the mix.

And then a big shift to a signature anthem song for me as I shared last week:

Monday, August 25, 2025

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3842 - "Brand New Start" - Paul Weller - Music Monday for 2508.25

I also included one of Paul Weller new songs from this year's album, a cover version of the Guerillas song from 1969. I almost took out that song because I didn't think it fit, but the more I listened, the more I think it does fit.

Cabaret Voltaire, Lorde, and Nick Cave have to be in here, too.

I removed a half dozen or more songs and replaced them with tunes that fit much better like "Strangers" by the Kinks, "Farewell Transmission" by Ohia, "Bete Noire" by Bryan Ferry, and "Untitled" (2012 Remaster) by Interpol.

"Anguish, Fear, Lamenting" as the 10,000 Maniacs sang in the song about dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan: "Grey Victory."

I also have some great sequences in terms of how songs link in sound and content, like this one:

[18] Carriers "Every Time I Feel Afraid" official lyric video

[19] Doechii - Anxiety (Visualizer)

[20] Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Spitting Off The Edge of the World ft. Perfume Genius (Live in KC)

[21] Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong

[22] Cabaret Voltaire : Do Right

Feeling afraid, anxiety, spit off the edge of the world, though hedge (might be wrong), but then DO RIGHT.

The mix has good diversity though not the widest scope of diversity. But a variety of men, women, groups, people of color, and time periods.

This mix of great music is helping me; I hope it helps you, too.

PUSH THE SKY AWAY!

35 songs in this mix for 1935, the year my father was born.

Here's just the main song, a live version.

"National Anthem" - Radiohead - LIVE

Here's the mix:

National Anthem Mix - Everyone is So Near - We're in this Together - Music Monday for September FIRST, 2025




TRACK LIST

[1] The National Anthem - Radiohead

[2] Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush 

[3] Fever Ray 'Keep The Streets Empty For Me'

[4] Radiohead - Pyramid Song

[5] The Spoils by Massive Attack | AI Music Video

[6] Peter Gabriel - The Court (Dark-Side Mix) (Oranguerillatan Official Video)

[7] Paul Weller Brand New Start Acoustic

[8] Nine Inch Nails - We're In This Together

[9] Rage Against The Machine - Know Your Enemy (Audio)

[10] Björk - Army Of Me (feat. Skunk Anansie) Stereo HD

[11] The Kinks - Strangers (Official Audio)

[12] Biko | Peter Gabriel | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

[13] Brian Eno, Beatie Wolfe - Play On

[14] Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke - Gangsters (Official Video)

[15] Cabaret Voltaire - Soul Vine (70 Billion People)

[16] Lorde - Man Of The Year

[17] Paul Weller - Lawdy Rolla (Official Music Video)

[18] Carriers "Every Time I Feel Afraid" official lyric video

[19] Doechii - Anxiety (Visualizer)

[20] Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Spitting Off The Edge of the World ft. Perfume Genius (Live in KC)

[21] Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong

[22] Cabaret Voltaire : Do Right

[23] Lorde - Team

[24] She Keeps Bees - Owl

[25] Untitled (2012 Remaster) - Interpol

[26] Rage Against The Machine - Sleep Now in the Fire (Official HD Video)

[27] Burial - Ghost Hardware

[28] Cabaret Voltaire - Deep Time

[29] Radiohead - No Surprises

[30] Nine Inch Nails - As Alive As You Need Me To Be (Official Lyric Video)

[31] Rage Against The Machine - Testify (Official HD Video)

[32] Bryan Ferry - Bete Noire

[33] Farewell Transmission - Ohia 

[34] Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - "Push the Sky Away" | Live at Sydney Opera House

[35] Massive Attack - The Spoils ft. Hope Sandoval

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2509.01 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3714 days ago & DAD = 367 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3681 - Brush the Cobwebs of the Sky - Music Monday Mix for 2503.17

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3681 - Brush the Cobwebs of the Sky - Music Monday Mix for 2503.17

Another new mix!

Something that kind of grew out of the most recent mix that really responded to the election in many ways though not in all ways.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3660 - A Mix - Stealing it Back - About Intolerance, Ignorance, and Stupidity - Music Monday for 2502.24

This mix also uses a theme of Radiohead music to bind it all together.

It starts and ends with Radiohead's "Sail to the Moon" from Hail to the Thief, which is also where the title comes from.

There's more Radiohead in the mix but mostly in the form of the side project THE SMILE.

I think the first six cuts really work well together, especially the flow from Radiohead's "Sail to the Moon," The Smile's "Speech Bubbles," and David Bowie's "Some Are" in a set of three and then a pause for the circus barker who opens "Live With Me" by Massive Attack and the devastating video of extreme alcohol abuse.

Two more Massive Attack songs follow though not immediately. There's also the great interjection of "The Kiss" by the Cure (at #8, which is significant as I will explain) with its driving guitars between "The Spoils" by Massive Attack with Hope Sandoval and David Bowie's throbbing synths of "All Saints" before the lull of Tracey Thorn's vocals on "Protection," the last of the Massive Attack songs in the mix. I return to Hope Sandoval with "Trouble" joined by her band the Warm Inventions.

There's two by björk, two by Nightmares on Wax, two by Portishead, two by Moby, and two by Goldfrapp, which is intentional.

The William Orbit produced song from Beth Orton off her first album is a gem that slips in here nicely as are single tracks by Can, Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, and Sigur Ros.

There are 28 tracks to pair with "The Kiss" at number eight for my father, who passed away on 8/28/24, and the 200th day since his death was yesterday.

It's not possible to make a mix of "protest" songs, of music completely relevant in all ways to the destruction our country is experiencing under white supremacist, Christian Nationalist, patriarchal, fascist rule.

These are songs for coping, for trying to get by, for remembering the good things, for their energy, their raw, emotional weight.

Thanks for tuning in.

BTW, yes, that's a picture of a van painted with the cover art of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief. I found it on the Internet. I did not find it in the wild on my own.



Brush the Cobwebs of the Sky Music Mix 




Brush the Cobwebs of the Sky Mix - TRACK LIST

[1] Sail To The Moon Radiohead

[2] Speech Bubbles The Smile

[3] David Bowie - Some Are

[4] Massive Attack - Live With Me

[5] Radiohead - A Wolf at the Door

[6] Moby - 'The Last Day' ft. Skylar Grey (Official Video)

[7] Massive Attack - The Spoils ft. Hope Sandoval

[8] The Cure - the kiss

[9] All Saints (2001 Remaster) David Bowie

[10] Massive Attack - Protection

[11] björk : army of me (HD)

[12] Portishead - Glory Box

[13] Goldfrapp - Everything Is Never Enough (Official Video)

[14] Beth Orton - She Cries Your Name (Video)

[15] Zero 7 - Home (Official Video) ft. Tina Dico

[16] The Smile - The Opposite

[17] björk : human behaviour (HD)

[18] CAN - Vitamin C (Official Audio)

[19] The Smile - Open The Floodgates (Live at Magazine, January 2022)

[20] Goldfrapp - Stranger (Official Video)

[21] Nightmares on Wax - Les Nuits

[22] Until The Morning - The Richest Man In Babylon Thievery Corporation

[23] Nightmares on Wax - You Wish

[24] Moby - This Wild Darkness (Official Video)

[25] Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions - Trouble [Official Music Video]

[26] Portishead - Numb (Official Video)

[27] Sigur Ros - Glósóli [Official Music Video - 4K]

[28] Radiohead acoustic - Sail To The Moon / I Will [HD]

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2503.17 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3546 days ago & DAD = 201 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3660 - A Mix - Stealing it Back - About Intolerance, Ignorance, and Stupidity - Music Monday for 2502.24

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3660 - A Mix - Stealing it Back - About Intolerance, Ignorance, and Stupidity - Music Monday for 2502.24

DAD: 180 days since you went away...

I am rather under the weather, both IRL as it's cold and rainy and as a metaphor for illness. Luckily, I had this one mostly written and ready to publish.

This mix went through some substantial edits.

I listened to Radiohead on repeat after the 2024 election, mostly Hail to the Thief, but also others, especially In Rainbows, which has jumped up in my esteem to maybe be THIRD over even The Bends and after Kid A (my number one) and Hail to the Thief (my number two).

After putting together the first three tracks, I did not know where to go next, and so I created a "remainders" playlist.

Stealing Remainders

Fifteen tracks just didn't fit, first fifteen in that playlist, and then I added six more based on You Tube's recommendations.

I have been playing this mix since November, trying to find the right sequence and the right tracks. A couple still feel like they stick out a little, but then sometimes I like that jarring effect. I tried to group tracks by theme or types of artists.

Often these mixes are a clearinghouse for tracks in my FAVORITES, and this one is no different. But as I worked on it, I think I sequenced it in a meaningful way. I like the variety of voices and styles. Ending on "Freedom" by Beyonce and its recent use in Harris' political campaign was intentional, obviously.

I humbly assert that this may be one of my top ten best mixes ever.

To prove that point, it may be time for another mix round-up soon to go with these:

Monday, January 2, 2023

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2876 - Music Mixes Since 2019 and reprint of Top Twenty Music Mixes from 1908.19 - Music Monday for 2301.02

I have now started another mix that is Radiohead-centric and will give it the same vetting process of playing, adjusting, and considering for weeks or months until I am ready to post it here. Those who subscribe to my YOUTUBE channel will see the mix evolve, as I usually make them public. It's called "Brush the Cobwebs of the Sky," which is a line from the first song, "Sail to the Moon," which is also off Hail to the Thief.

Meanwhile, until that was one is ready, enjoy this one.

Thanks for tuning in.

A Mix - Stealing it Back - About Intolerance, Ignorance, and Stupidity

TRACK LIST: A Mix - Stealing it Back - About Intolerance, Ignorance, and Stupidity

[1] Radiohead - Nude

[2] David Sylvian - Les Fleurs Du Mal

[3] Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

[4] David Bowie - The Hearts Filthy Lesson (Official Music Video) [HD Upgrade]

[5] Radiohead - Reckoner (By Clement Picon)

[6] Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Long Dark Night

[7] Radiohead - Everything in its Right Place (HD)

[8] Paul Weller - One Tear (Instrumental)

[9] Saddest Song Ever, Barber's Adagio, Theme from Platoon, Andrzej Kucybała conductor

[10] Radiohead - Weird Fishes - by Tobias Stretch

[11] Goat Girl - words fell out (Official Video)

[12] Paris Paloma - labour [Official Video]

[13] Ani DiFranco - Play God - (Official Music Video)

[14] Feist - Hiding Out In The Open (Official Music Video)

[15] Tori Amos - Crucify (Official Music Video)

[16] Radiohead - Faust Arp

[17] PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

[18] SEVDALIZA - ALIBI FT. PABLLO VITTAR & YSEULT (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

[19] Travis Scott - STOP TRYING TO BE GOD

[20] David Gilmour - Dark and Velvet Nights (Official Lyrics Video)

[21] Martha Sin Del - I want to die alone but you won’t let me

[22] Billie Marten - This Is How We Move

[23] Kate Pierson - Evil Love (Official Music Video)

[24] Kim Deal - Coast (Official Audio)

[25] Ani DiFranco - You Forgot to Speak (Official Audio)

[26] Goat Girl - Sad Cowboy (Official Music Video)

[27] SEVDALIZA - RIDE OR DIE PT. 2 FT. TOKISCHA & VILLANO ANTILLANO (LYRIC VIDEO)

[28] The Psychedelic Furs - Heartbreak Beat (Official Video)

[29] The Judybats - Being Simple (Video)

[30] Jfarrari - The Unknowing (Lyric Video)

[31] The Lightning Seeds - Pure (Official Video)

[32] Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven [1989]

[33] Radiohead - All I Need | From The Basement

[34] Chelsea Wolfe - Whispers In The Echo Chamber (Official Music Video)

[35] Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Wild God

[36] Beyoncé - Freedom

8 + 28 = 36

Always remember 8/28/24

Day after our arrival out west in 2017

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2502.24 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3525 days ago & DAD = 180 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3555 - Hail to the Thief- RADIOHEAD - Music Monday for 2411.11

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3555 - Hail to the Thief- RADIOHEAD - Music Monday for 2411.11

I have been listening to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief for 20 years.

21 to be precise.

After last week's election debacle, I turned to Radiohead, starting with Kid A and then turning to this album. I posted about "How to Disappear Completely" last week:

Thursday, November 7, 2024

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3551 - "This isn't Happening" - "How to Disappear Completely" - Radiohead

Though Kid A is my favorite Radiohead album, Hail to the Thief is a very, very close second.

I must confess that I was not crazy in love with In Rainbows (2007), The King of Limbs (2011), and A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) when I first heard them. But in the week since the November Fifth, now known as the Eve of Our Life in Hell, I am falling in love with them. They're really great!

Had Hail to the Thief  come out when I was in college, I would have poured over the lyrics and memorized the whole thing, but adulting is harder. Though I have been listening to Hail to the Thief  since its release, I never much even looked at the songs and the titles let alone the lyrics. And yet, in so many listens, surely over 100 and maybe approaching 200, much of the lyrical content has soaked in.

I share a link near the bottom for ALL THE LYRICS, and I share the song that Thom Yorke felt was the "most protest." "The Gloaming" ("Softly Open Our Mouths in the Cold") was almost the title of the album until Yorke heard protests to Bush's election as president as "Hail to the Thief."

"The Gloaming" is an electronic song with "mechanical" rhythms that Jonny Greenwood built from tape loops.^[3] Greenwood described it as "very old school electronica: no computers, just analogue synths, tape machines, and sellotape".^[9] Yorke said it was "the most explicit protest song on the record", with lyrics about the rise of fascism and "intolerance and bigotry and fear, and all the things that keep a population down".^[20] 

I love all the sources for the lyrics: Orwell, Dante's Inferno, fairy tales and folklore, and 1970s children's TV. Brilliant.

I also love the alternate song titles that harkens back to Victorian playbills for music halls and the "Moralistic" songs featured there.

Reading over the WIKIPEDIA page for the album, Radiohead later disliked the album for a variety of reasons, but I don't agree with them.

Without really paying much attention to the lyrics or even the song titles, the album has an urgency, a tension, high anxiety that was present in previous Radiohead work but reaches an apex here.

This album and the others released since have helped me through this week in our new LIFE IN HELL.

Maybe it can help you, too.

Thanks for tuning in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Thief

"The Gloaming" ("Softly Open Our Mouths in the Cold")

Song by Radiohead

Genie let out the bottle

It is now the witching hour

Genie let out the bottle

It is now the witching hour

Murderers you're murderers

We are not the same as you

Genie let out the bottle

Funny ha ha funny how

When the walls bend

When the walls bend

With your breathing

With your breathing

When the walls bend

When the walls bend

With your breathing

With your breathing

With your breathing

They will suck you down

To the other side

They will suck you down

To the other side

They will suck you down

To the other side

They will suck you down

To the other side

To the shadows blue and red

Shadows blue and red

Your alarm bells

Your alarm bells

Shadows blue and red

Shadows blue and red

Your alarm bells

Your alarm bells

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

They should be ringing

This is the gloaming

Radiohead - Hail To the Thief (Full Album HQ)

1. "2 + 2 = 5" ("The Lukewarm.") 3:19

2. "Sit Down. Stand Up." ("Snakes & Ladders.") 4:19

3. "Sail to the Moon." ("Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky.") 4:18

4. "Backdrifts." ("Honeymoon Is Over.") 5:22

5. "Go to Sleep." ("Little Man Being Erased.") 3:21

6. "Where I End and You Begin." ("The Sky Is Falling In.") 4:29

7. "We Suck Young Blood." ("Your Time Is Up.") 4:56

8. "The Gloaming." ("Softly Open Our Mouths in the Cold.") 3:32

9. "There There." ("The Boney King of Nowhere.") 5:25

10. "I Will." ("No Man's Land.") 1:59

11. "A Punchup at a Wedding." ("No No No No No No No No.") 4:57

12. "Myxomatosis." ("Judge, Jury & Executioner.") 3:52

13. "Scatterbrain." ("As Dead as Leaves.") 3:21

14. "A Wolf at the Door." ("It Girl. Rag Doll.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Thief

Lyrics and themes

[edit]

Yorke's lyrics were influenced by what he called "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the 2000 election of the US president George W. Bush.^[20] He took words and phrases from discourse around the unfolding war on terror, which he described as Orwellian euphemisms, and used them in the lyrics and artwork.^[2] Yorke said the "emotional context of those words had been taken away" and that he was "stealing it back".^[2] Though Yorke denied any intent to make a political statement,^[2] he said: "I desperately tried not to write anything political, anything expressing the deep, profound terror I'm living with day to day. But it's just fucking there, and eventually you have to give it up and let it happen."^[23]

Yorke, a new father, adopted a strategy of "distilling" the political themes into "childlike simplicity".^[20] He took phrases from fairy tales and folklore such as the tale of Chicken Little,^[4] and from children's literature and television he shared with his son, such as the 1970s TV series Bagpuss.^[3] Parenthood made Yorke concerned about the condition of the world and how it could affect future generations.^[24] Greenwood said Yorke's lyrics embraced sarcasm, wit and ambiguity,^[25] and expressed "confusion and escape, like 'I'm going to stay at home and look after the people I care about, buy a month's supply of food'."^[19]

Yorke also took phrases from Dante's Inferno, the subject of his partner Rachel Owen's PhD thesis.^[26] Several songs, such as "2 + 2 = 5", "Sit Down Stand Up", and "Sail to the Moon", reference Christian ideas of heaven and hell, a first for Radiohead's music.^[27] Other songs reference science fiction, horror and fantasy, such as the wolves and vampires of "A Wolf at the Door" and "We Suck Young Blood", the reference to the slogan "two plus two equals five" in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the allusion to the giant of Gulliver's Travels in "Go to Sleep".^[28]

The phrase "hail to the thief" was used by protesters during the controversy surrounding the 2000 US presidential election.

Radiohead struggled to choose a title.^[3] They considered using The Gloaming (meaning "twilight" or "dusk"), but this was rejected as too poetic^[29] and "doomy"^[2] and so became the album's subtitle.^[30] They also considered the titles Little Man Being Erased, The Boney King of Nowhere and Snakes and Ladders, which became the alternative titles for "Go to Sleep", "There There" and "Sit Down. Stand Up".^[4][12] The use of alternative titles was inspired by Victorian playbills showcasing moralistic songs played in music halls.^[25]

The phrase "hail to the thief" was used by anti-Bush protesters as a play on "Hail to the Chief", the American presidential anthem.^[31] Yorke described hearing the phrase for the first time as a "formative moment".^[2] Radiohead chose the title partly in reference to Bush,^[32] but also in response to "the rise of doublethink and general intolerance and madness ... like individuals were totally out of control of the situation ... a manifestation of something not really human".^[3] The title also references the leak of an unfinished version of the album before its release.^[25] Yorke worried that it would be misconstrued solely as reference to the US election, but his bandmates felt it "conjured up all the nonsense and absurdity and jubilation of the times".^[2]

ALL LYRICS to Hail to the Thief

https://thomthomthom.com/discography/hailtothethief_lyrics.html

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2411.11 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3419 days ago & DAD = 075 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.