MUSIC IS BETTER THAN TALKING

I’ve been dragging my feet about writing here for years, and my inclination toward reticence has only increased over the past year; a brief flirtation with TikTok, and my terminal relationship with social media in general, has led me more than ever to think that everyone needs to shut the FUCK up a little more—that while I may have legitimate reasons to believe that I have something valuable to say and contribute, the endless unedited chatter, the apparently burning need by EVERYONE to dramatize EVERY thought, has been discouraging me. I have been reluctant to add to the tsunami of noise this culture seems to need to drown out our very real and possibly fatal problems.

So while I continue to hem and haw over this dilemma, please enjoy—if your ethics don’t recoil from this platform—these playlists, which represent a lifetime of daydreaming and mixtaping and loving music more than almost anything else. I have little to say that can’t be found somewhere here, or that would be more valuable.

Writing

I am a published academic writer holding a Ph.D. in American literature with an emphasis on the politics and history of slavery and racism in the United States. My dissertation outlines the 18th and 19th century discussions of the obvious and blatant contradictions of a slave economy in a democratic state founded through revolution; these ideas culminated in the attempt by radical abolitionist John Brown to organize a slave rebellion that would destroy the Southern economy and force the US to grant full citizenship to its African descended population.

I have spent many years thinking long and hard about American politics—our past, our bizarre and deeply troubling present, and our potentially disastrous future. I sometimes write on these topics, as well as others, from a reasonably informed and far left perspective, and when I do, I will feature that writing here. You may take it for what it’s worth.