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Album Club #24: Tim
Members present: William A. Rawls, Swedish Oxers, Cuban Pete, Plan B, Charlie Face, Consigliere, Crackity Jones, Miss Mistoffeles
Favorite songs: “Swingin’ Party”, “Bastards of Young”
Discussed: Transition album, between band’s earlier, more punk sound and later commercial incarnation; group known to most AC members by name but few knew the music, to which all members responded positively; Paul Westerberg’s original vocal style — not perfect sounding, but distinctive and varied; Westerberg as the obvious, most talented member of the band (although Tommy Stinson became Guns N’ Roses’ bassist); Westerberg’s juggling act of trying to please the other member’s different musical tastes; melodic beauty combined with lyrical darkness; band’s notorious track record in live concerts — brilliant or awful; band’s tendency to shoot itself in the foot when big success came calling; memorable “SNL” performance; welcome rockabilly sound in some songs; very American quality to band’s sound; “Here Comes A Regular” as a great album closing song
Next album, courtesy of William A. Rawls: Either/Or, Elliot Smith (1997)
Great pick!
Space makes me emotional.
Spectacular new time-lapse of earth from the ISS. Fullscreen, HD, turn the volume up, be amazed.
(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
― Mark Twain
(via jesseharding)
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“Crowds at the Kumbh Mela await their turn to bathe in the Ganges. Allahabad, India. Photo © Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos”
McCurry, in my opinion, is the world’s greatest living photographer. More from his Simple Act of Waiting series.
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Stunning photo of earth from space. CLICK TO ENLARGE! Makes a great wallpaper.
EDIT: The photo is a composite of two photos. Still makes a great wallpaper though.
BUS YOUR OWN TRAY: On the Virtue of Brevity in Email
BUS YOUR OWN TRAY: On the Virtue of Brevity in Email
Long emails are, more frequently than not, the worst. When you send someone an email, you make a demand on their time. If you use more words than necessary, you waste their time. Sure we’re talking maybe a fraction of a minute, but given the number of emails the average person sends in a day those fractions add up pretty quick.
This conflicts with an older style of correspondence that associated pleasantries with tact. Tactful emails now are efficient, and pleasantries are a waste. People accustomed to pleasantries see their absence as rude, or a sign of being cross. They infer a tone that isn’t there, while people accustomed to brevity know how difficult it can be to ascertain tone from an email.
If you want to keep the software and services around that you enjoy, do what you can to make their businesses successful enough that it’s more attractive to keep running them than to be hired by a big tech company.
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Hard boiled eggs for the @topspinmedia office. @iancr buys. I cook. (Taken with Instagram)