Reading truly is fundamental. Don’t just take my word for it – take it from two members of the “Hill Street Blues” cast:

 

Here are three articles I’ve stumbled across recently that are worth reading.

  1. The supremely talented singer/songwriter Iris DeMent has an interesting take on her career in general, and performing in particular. Read the entire Boston Globe article here. As someone who loves live music, I love this quote from the interview:

“I feel really close to the world. Close to the people in the room. Unobstructed. I feel like everything’s going to be OK in a way I don’t really understand. I feel part of something that’s timeless and ancient. I feel a lot of love. That’s probably what I’m describing — love. I feel love.” 

2. Staying in the music vein, but on a sadder note, this article on Uproxx uses the Conan show decision to axe musical acts from their new half-hour format as the lead-in to a larger lamentation about the lack of exposure for up-and-coming artists. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Regularly putting on musical acts that are virtually unknown to a mainstream audience, making a late night show an avenue for actual discovery — not to mention spontaneity, surprise, and plain old genuine excitement — who is doing that now?….

Things are far too staid in late night, musically and otherwise — which is the opposite of how it should be, and yet reflective of how culture generally feels right now. We live in a time where there are more media outlets serving a wider range of people than ever in the history of human civilization. And yet, those outlets feel more homogenized, sanitized, centralized, and corporatized than ever. Whether the driver is ratings, web traffic, or algorithms, the pull of culture now is always toward the familiar, fatuous middle of franchise reboots, comic book adaptations, and pop music “perfection.” This inevitably influences how we see that world — the middle assumes outsized importance, and the margins are further, well, marginalized.

3. And it isn’t just late night musical experimentation that’s dying… it’s also your refrigerator. This great Washington Post article about the tradeoffs of technology is equal parts entertaining and enlightening.

That’s the irony of modern life in so many ways, multiplying all our choices while taking away the most fundamental one: the ability to choose something simpler and more likely to endure.

Happy reading!

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