Category: Music

  • New songs, same loop

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    This series might be the longest-running commitment in my life right now. Ha. That’s probably because it doesn’t feel like a chore or an obligation, just something that comes into being over time. It’s funny: there are only three playlists so far, but they span three years, which is too long and too short a…

  • Sunday Share: The Greeting Committee

    My best Sundays so far have all featured good music. There’s nothing like a quiet afternoon in, hot tea in your hands and an album setting the vibe. Today, that album was This Is It by The Greeting Committee. I found this Kansas City-based band through Spotify: one of my Discover Weekly playlists included their…

    The Greeting Committee band
  • Home and the city

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    I’ve been working my way through Reportage on Crime, an anthology of Nick Joaquin’s true crime stories. One such piece, “The Lodger,” deals with the demographic shift in Manila brought on by the influx of laborers (and their families) from the provinces. I don’t have the same intimate understanding of Manila as Nick Joaquin does,…

  • Obligatory New Year Post

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    There’s this funny game I’ve been playing for the past few months. Imagine this: a supervillain wraps a hapless woman in chains, balances a set of spinning plates on a stick perched on the tip of her nose, sets her on a unicycle, and tells her to make her way across a tightrope. Or else…

    Bokeh photo of people holding sparklers
  • Hugs From Your Grandma: Favorite Tiny Desk Concerts

    I’ve been spending my after-work hours browsing NPR’s rich and varied library of Tiny Desk Concerts. There have been many gems, but even in such fantastic company, the winners of last year’s Tiny Desk Contest stand out: Tank and the Bangas hail from New Orleans, Louisiana, and they play a luminous mix of rock, folk,…

    NPR Tiny Desk Concerts logo, white text on black background
  • Ode to Joy: Natalie Prass’ “Short Court Style”

    The world is on fire. Or so the relentless news cycle would have us believe. Every hour comes with a litany of scandals, disappointments, and threats to life as we know it. All of us, the headlines scream, are doomed to wail, gnash our teeth, and scrabble at the edge of sanity with the tips of…

    Album art for Natalie Prass' The Future and the Past