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Surrender to Steely Dan - How the insufferably perfectionist duo captured the hearts of a new generation of listeners

Pappademas tries out several theories to explain the Danaissance’s timing. The most compelling of them is the idea that their songs, full of gallows humor and wry disillusionment, resonate with a generation raised on crashing economies and a climate crisis. “Donald and Walter’s songs of monied decadence, druggy disconnection, slow-motion apocalypse, and self-destructive escapism seemed satirically extreme way back when; now they seem prophetic,” he writes. “We are all Steely Dan characters now.”

Steely Dan’s music posed a question: Was it possible to be an ironist and a perfectionist simultaneously? Was taking rock and roll this seriously a high-concept joke, or the only way to unlock the music’s full creative potential? Or had Steely Dan somehow come up with a blend of both, a virtuosic balancing act of scathing satire and fervent earnestness? At one point, Pappademas describes Fagen and Becker as “cynical about their own cynicism,” a phrase that hints at the fierce idealism that runs beneath the surface of even their iciest music.

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posted by Pachylad at 7:21 PM PST - 198 comments

Daniel Ellsberg, former military analyst and leaker of the Pentagon Papers, has passed away at the age of 92
posted by brundlefly at 12:23 PM PST - 69 comments

Statistics Canada has a page where they extrapolate from census data, births, deaths, immigration, etc. and smooth it out to estimate the exact population of the country at any moment. The country will, by this metric, hit 40 million in the next half hour or so.
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Mal Leary reported on politics in Maine. His 10 Rules are worth reading.
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Queen Bey’s concert in Sweden’s capital apparently put its economy in a tizzy.... [Michael Grahn, chief economist for Sweden at Danske Bank] assessed that the concert days probably accounted for 0.2 of the 0.3 percentage points added to inflation by hotels and restaurant prices.
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Happy Bloomsday! Celebrate with this short international film:“Yes I Will Yes” [more inside]
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Tears of the Kingdom site will help you make those wild builds you're seeing Meet the inventors making Hyrule’s most complicated contraptions. [more inside]
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After my mother died, my father had a choice: Give up or reinvent himself. (NYT gift link)
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Concurrent with the rise of message boards in the early aughts, there was a group of young, ambitious hip hop artists in North Carolina who were schooled in the trade of that ol’ boom-bap. In 2001, they launched a message board of their own that created a unique online community that spawned unexpected collaborations and relationships that led to the creation of albums and families alike.
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Have You Been to the Library Lately?
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Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) is a podcast ( Spotify ; Apple ) run by Tim Scarfe, and also a Youtube channel, featuring interviews with prominent researchers in machine learning and related fields. [more inside]
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A sludge clapper never chubs a bubble, or at least that's what I'd murm if these keeblies scruffed a skimple a sun in their ivies. Zee Bashew is back, with a cartoon depicting every crunchy dystopian RPG.
posted by JHarris at 6:14 AM PST - 20 comments

Happy Pride Month! We're halfway through the month, and here is an amazing video I found. Three decades of queer women in music, Hayley Kiyoko [32, previously], Brandi Carlile [42, previously], and Meshell Ndegeocello [54, previously] sit down for a Pandemic Pride Month chat in June of 2020 [58m]. They talk about being queer and out in music, about Pride and what it means, and the importance of role models, and music in queer life, and about so much more. It's a joyful and introspective conversation that I'm really happy to share.
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In The Nation, Karen Krajcer writes about trying to keep her transgender daughter safe in Texas. Be prepared to cry.
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Hosts Junia Joplin and Anne Thériault recently finished their 5 episode podcast And Also Some Women, which examines the stories of biblical women with a lively assortment of guests and scholars of feminist theology. [more inside]
posted by the primroses were over at 5:14 AM PST - 6 comments