"This aspect of The Meadowlands feels far more worthy of reassessing than the lore that came before and after, which is likely very familiar at this point. After all, the Wrens broke no new creative ground on The Meadowlands, nor did they break through to an audience far beyond people who really cared (and still care) about online music writing. They did not go on to become a staple influence for a new wave of bands and certainly haven't spent the last 20 years capitalizing on their goodwill. No, The Meadowlands is celebrated in 2023 because people for whom a midlife crisis was at least a decade away heard a 'bored and rural-poor at 35' guy call himself the best seventeen-year old ever and thought, 'Damn, I feel that.'
Having experienced a lot of The Meadowlands' subject matter firsthand has not vindicated my original feelings towards this album as much as entering a career in mental health and understanding the importance of validation—that you can point out the objective facts about someone's life while respecting their subjective experience of it as its own form of truth. 'Facts don't care about your feelings'—that's what the worst people in your life say, and that's why they tend to have a pretty dim view of therapy. But just as often, feelings don't care about facts, and a person's perception is their reality. You can tell an eighth grader who got picked last in volleyball that their suffering pales in comparison to the unimaginable atrocities occurring right this minute in a country they might not be able to find on a map; but in a context where gym class might be the single most important thing that happens in a fourteen-year old's day, getting picked last really might feel like the end of the world."
This is old ground for PoYB to be covering, but I really love the idea of an album hitting differently at different ages. More relevant to this piece, I like the idea of saving onto albums that may not have worked well when you were younger, in the hopes that they will sprout when you grow up. Cohen is indicating that it didn't make sense to love this very 35-year-old-burnout album at age seventeen, but I'm thinking that maybe this is the very reason I could never get into it as much as people on the message boards. Maybe it wasn't actually meant for me, at least not back then.
Well, I'm in my mid-30s now, and I relistened to The Meadowlands, and I do think I'm starting to see a window for liking this album a lot. One relisten wasn't going to bridge any gap, but it gathered the materials to start the process. I'll be sticking around for more relistens well into my 40s, when the emotions on this album start to feel like nostalgia.
Something New
Main point being that I had never heard of jazz trumpeter jaimie branch, and I most likely would not have checked out her wonderful posthumous album Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) if it hadn't received a glowing write-up on Stereogum and a BNM tag on Pitchfork. But yeah, man, the acclaim is real. I love reading "artist histories" even when I have never previously heard of the artist, so the Stereogum piece was a great place to start.
"She kept the Fly Or Die band together, with just one change—Tomeka Reid left, and was replaced by Lester St. Louis—and released a second album, Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise, in October 2019. They began touring the world to ecstatic response from jazz fans, indie rock fans, and people who simply didn't place boundaries around their tastes. She also launched a second project, the electronic duo Anteloper. The quartet recorded a live album in Switzerland on January 23, 2020, but the tour was ultimately abbreviated thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eventually, the world began to return to life, and branch got back to work. She got a grant that allowed the band to go back on the road, and then a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, where the band convened for a week at the end of April 2022 to record new material. In late July, she went to Chicago to edit and mix the record and add some additional instruments. And then in August, she was gone. But the record was almost complete, so her family, led by her sister Kate, in whose Brooklyn apartment the first Fly or Die album was recorded, and the other three band members got together to put the finishing touches on it. Now it's here."
The key phrase here is "people who simply didn't place boundaries around their tastes," which is just a really swell way of describing my aspirations when it comes to being a music listener. No boundaries. There is potential beauty in all kinds of music and in all kinds of genres. I didn't think I'd be listening to a new jazz album this year, or loving a new jazz album this year. But here I am. And Fly or Die III isn't really a jazz album anyway, not really. It's jazz but also world music and maybe some punk and definitely some folk and on and on. That's a lot of different sounds, and that's a lot of means to restrict yourself, if you're the type of person to draw boundaries. Not me.
Something Borrowed
"In the last decade, alternative meat options, like Impossible and Beyond, rose as a potential solution, a product that can substitute for animal meat without the ethical and planetary penalties. But plant-based proteins have been hitting a wall: inflation, politicization of food, and supply-chain hurdles punctured the hype—at least for now.
However, there's a simple way to provide plenty of protein that doesn't require animals or plant-based startups: beans. Beans are high in protein, efficient to grow, and can even improve soil health. They cost less than conventional or new plant-based meats, and they're increasingly getting attention among foodies.
As one global campaign to double bean consumption by 2028 frames it, the answer to the question of how we can get inexpensive protein without sacrificing animals or the planet is simple: 'Beans is how.'"
Read the rest of it HERE, and check out the beans website HERE. For real, the idea of upping my bean consumption ticks at least two boxes for me—cheaper, and friendlier for the environment (probably, and unfortunately, in that order). And the article goes on to say the big thing that's holding beans back—public perception. That's it's a "poor food," basically. Which is fucked up. Maybe I'm only saying that because that's never been a worry of mine, to put on airs of financial success or however you wanna put it. I'm cool wearing a ratty T-shirt. I'm cool taking the bus. I'm cool eating a shit ton of beans.
Not gonna lie, it's a bit easier to diet now that I'm not shattering that diet into a thousand pieces every weekend with the ol' fourteen-Miller-Lite-and-double-cheesesteak combo. But I needed to take it to the next level, and so I've been trying pescatarian for the past few weeks. I love fish, but beans are essential for this diet. Or so I'm told. I'm liking it so far, as long as you don't catch me on a windy day.
Something Blue
"Soccer fans know what happens in Welcome to Wrexham Season 2, but fans of the show may not. We'll keep you in suspense here, but there will be plenty of drama and high-pressure matches to keep viewers interested throughout the season.
For the uninitiated: In 2020, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham AFC, a soccer club in Wales that at the time was competing in the fifth tier of English soccer. The show follows their journey as new sports teams owners, as well as the team's journey to work their way up the English soccer pyramid in the midst of more attention than they've ever faced before."
I've never seen it, and I don't plan to—fuck soccer, fuck reality TV—but it seems to me, based on this description, that Season 1 was an introduction to the characters, and Season 2 is going to be the characters reacting to the fact that they were featured on a television show. So it's an added layer. Much like Season 2 of Jersey Shore, when Ronnie, Mike, et al., went from portraying their real bozo selves to portraying characters from Season 1 of the television show they were currently starring in.
I respect the level of meta that goes into it. But I think I'd rather watch Snooki smoosh some gorilla juiceheads again than attempt to watch Mac and Deadpool win a soccer championship.
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