As I approach the half-century mark, I have been spending an unreasonable amount of time lately watching people react to music on YouTube. The format is simple enough: someone listens to a song, watches a performance, or encounters an album for the first time, while a camera records the experience. Sometimes the results are amusing. … Continue reading Metallica, Trust, and the Business of Staying Power
Tag: Cultural Memory
The House That Homer Built
When I was a teenager, my dad moved into a small house out in the country. It wasn’t much of a house. A single-story concrete-block house in Gandy's Cove. The kind of house you could pass a hundred times without ever wondering who lived there. Not long after he moved in, one of the neighbors … Continue reading The House That Homer Built
What We Rename and What Remains
Names fascinate me because they promise clarity while quietly concealing continuity. A new label suggests a new reality, yet the older structure often remains intact beneath the paint. Watching institutions rename themselves feels a bit like standing on a riverbank; the surface moves quickly, but the current below keeps its direction. The renewed use of … Continue reading What We Rename and What Remains
