More early than late: The 2024 Dadaist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem

I did not publish a Dadaist epic poem shortly after Thanksgiving 2024 as I had in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Perhaps it was too soon after the 2024 elections, when I was not feeling especially celebratory. Or perhaps it was that more pressing matters demanded my attention. Whatever the reason, the inspiration to craft … Continue reading More early than late: The 2024 Dadaist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 7 (My 100 Favorite Artists and Conclusion)

Having spent four essays detailing how difficult it is to rank one’s favorite music with both objectivity and methodological rigor (here, here, here, here), then using one such method to rank my 100 favorite tracks and albums, I conclude this series with an examination of my favorite artists and some final thoughts. As with every … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 7 (My 100 Favorite Artists and Conclusion) →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums)

In five previous essays (here, here, here, here, here), I detail how I used appearances on 434 mixes (August 1981 to November 2023) and total plays to calculate a score for 9,560 tracks. Using these Track Scores (“TS”), I ranked my favorites from a tie for #7,529 (2,032 tracks with one play and no mix … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums) →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks)

In the first four essays in this series (here, here, here, here), I detail the evolution of the 434 music “mixes” I have created since August 1981. These mixes migrated from cassette to CD to 150-GB flywheel iPod, with a handful of videocassettes added along the way. As of April 2024, I have put 3,625 … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks) →

Charting the Second British Invasion: The Singles

Through most of the 1980s, I bought a copy of the music trade magazine Billboard every week. Friends and I pored over its singles and albums charts, seeking insights into that week’s most popular music. I also calculated the top artists each week, as well as the top singles, albums and artists of each year. … Continue reading Charting the Second British Invasion: The Singles →

Surrealist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem, 2022 Edition

As I first noted here, the following epic poem is technically Dadaist, not Surrealist. For the history of my multi-hour solo post-Thanksgiving-meal cleanup, please see here. As with 2021, despite there being only only five of us (my wife Nell and I, our two daughters and the cousin, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, who officiated … Continue reading Surrealist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem, 2022 Edition →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 3

In June and September of 2021, I wrote the first two essays in a series on the evolution of the methods I use to rank my favorite tracks (a term I prefer to “songs”). These essays presented the history of the 309 individual “mix” cassettes, videocassettes and CDs I constructed between August 1981 and August … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 3 →

Crafting the “Soundtrack” to my Interrogating Memory book

In 2005, Rupert Holmes published his second novel, a murder mystery called Swing. Being, well, Rupert Holmes, he also wrote and recorded an accompanying seven-track CD of swing-inflected music; both are well worth finding. The combination, meanwhile, led him to quip, “I’ve been singing songs from my new book.” In the past month, I received … Continue reading Crafting the “Soundtrack” to my Interrogating Memory book →

Another Surrealist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem

I begin with a correction: the following epic poem is technically Dadaist, not Surrealist. Two years ago…well, two years ago everything was different. Outside of places like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) and the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), almost nobody had ever heard of COVID-19. The race for the 2020 Democratic … Continue reading Another Surrealist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 1

I recently updated a data-based discussion of my cinematic “guilty pleasures,” adding a comparison of “most-acclaimed” and “my favorite” films from a given year or years. In so doing, though, I side-stepped the question of determining with something approaching academic rigor just what my favorite films are, relying solely on my gut to select a … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 1 →