Here’s my first attempt at flash fiction. Under 1,000 words. Think I’ll try something even shorter next time, but this was fun. Inspired by a scene I witnessed while taking a walk today.
Music Finds, September 2025
I recently wrote about my digital music collection. Here are 6 of my favorite songs that were new (or new to me) in September.
The Social Website — Update
This is a follow-up to my previous post, The Social Website. In that post, I challenged myself to turn this website into my “central social media hub”. Having thought about it a while, I suppose that can mean any combination of a few things:
Digital Music Collection
It seems almost silly to write about a music collection, but then I’m reminded that many people don’t have one — especially a digital one. Most folks listen to music from streaming services and rarely buy physical or digital music. The very idea of purchasing digital music is no longer mainstream, with some new releases unavailable in the format.
If music was agriculture, the best songs would be giant pumpkins or prize tomatoes. Album cuts, potatoes and carrots. Tours would be the grain harvest.
Lowell, MA
I took the day off for jury duty and we got out early. It was a beautiful day, so I spent an hour or so walking around downtown Lowell.
Single-file URL Shortener
Recently I decided it would be fun to write a URL shortener. Something I can run on my domain to share shortened URLs that redirect to a longer one. (If you want to skip the blah-bidy-blah, here is the code.)
I finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell today. This book has a very unique nested structure, with six stories of completely different context, time and narrative style each unfolding to climax points in chronological order, then unraveling to completion in reverse order. In the afterward, the author compares the structure to a Russian nesting doll. The complexity of interrelations between narratives makes the head hurt, but also gives the novel some continuity amidst it’s fragmented structure.
Stereolab at Royale, Boston
Although I’ve been listening to Stereolab pretty consistently since the 90s, I somehow never managed to see them live until now. I’ve always appreciated this band’s quirky song names, retro vibe, mesmerizing jams and vocal counterpoint.
Rae & Christian — Blazing The Crop
Several layers deep in a YouTube music surf, I ended up at this video about the Mutek electronic music festival in Montreal, which I’d never heard of. I definitely have to get to that. In the video, Hans Thomann picks up this CD at a record store offering festival discounts and says it is “one of my personal trip-hop holy grails,” as a beautiful clip from “Vai Viver A Vida” plays in the background. I checked out the album on Spotify and got hit in the face with the opening track, “Blazing The Crop”.