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Thanks to NPR for bringing some mainstream attention to the lack of dynamic range in pop music today.
Have you ever heard a pianissimo on the radio? Nope. How can a song build to a rewarding musical climax without crescendo?

As we come to the end of the decade, we turn to one of the more dramatic [...]

The “study” I refer to is All Songs Considered’s annual ballot of listeners’ picks for best music of the year. As usual, there isn’t much diversity on this list in terms of musical styles, but at least it’s not an echo of the Billboard list. Thank goodness for that.
And the presence of Andrew Bird at [...]

I don’t enjoy posting links to articles like this one. I wish the article didn’t exist, that it’s nightmarish tale was a demented horror story born in a sick man’s imagination, not a reflection of true human behavior.
But sadly, sickeningly, this story is real. We can’t ignore the gruesome and depressing reality of situations like [...]

If two cars are traveling towards each other, with one car traveling at 60 mph and the other trying to drive as far away from McDonald’s as possible, how far can it drive?
The answer is 145 miles. In other words, you’re never more than 2 1/2 hours from a Big Mac.

Excerpt:
“For maximum McSparseness, we look [...]

Vampires are everywhere in pop culture today: books, TV, movies, and teenage girls’ dreams. Long before Robert Pattinson was sending 13 year-old girls into a state of blood lust, where did the mythology of the vampire begin? Perhaps, the myth of the undead blood-sucking beings was born of real-world illnesses. The article below covers a [...]

Sometimes I don’t think we have a new reporting industry in the US so much as we have a news manufacturing industry.
This should be good news for those bemoaning the decline of the industrial manufacturing segment of the American economy. We can replace the forging of automobiles with the forging of controversy by the media.
If [...]

I recognize that recommending a TED video is one of the slam-dunks of blogging, up there in taking-the-easy-way-out with pointing a friend to someecards for a laugh. But that’s not going to stop me from linking anyway. After all, I’m sure there are many of you out there who haven’t watched even one TED talk [...]

I’m not talking about hipsters wearing “ironic” John Deere baseball caps.
PSFK recently posted (via Edible Brooklyn) about a nascent young farmers movement and its emerging name, Greenhorns.

Growing up in Iowa, I was surrounded by farming most of my life. At the same time, I was not raised in a farming family myself. So, [...]

I enjoy the criticism of hipsters beyond any justifiable degree, as I have never been personally wronged by them. However, they do assault my belief in the value of individuality, as they try so hard to be different and end up being the same, so maybe that’s enough.
Here are some enjoyable hipster critiques:
Hipster: The Dead [...]