little surfer

This sounds worse than it is. Anika Pyle used to sing and write in Chumped a rad punk band from a while ago. It is good to check in with artists whom one has fallen out of touch with once in a while. So:

Beautiful stuff!

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And then there is a band from BErlin that has released on EP to date called Sterben as in “Dying”. The EP is called “Bleibende Schäden” which translates to “permanent damage”. Heavy music and well worth taking a listen if you like intricate tunes and shouts.

Very clean and great for a first EP!

Trae Stephens & Gwyneth Paltrow on the GOOP Podcast. Stephens is co-founder of a military tech company that stole a fine name from Tolkien.

Things got particularly odd when the two dug into religion. Stephens, a devout Christian, brought up the Pope’s Palm Sunday homily, in which Leo XIV declared that “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those that wage war.”

and then

Stephens liked that. Warmongering can be good, he seemed to interpret, if only done with a pure heart, and without against-ness. “And so if you’re approaching it with a heart of peace, I think it’s very different on a mystical level than approaching it with a heart at war.”

In school, in my work, I have come to the conclusion that being a child is hard work. Being a teacher is also hard work. And the same goes for being a parent and many other things. But all of those have a simple baseline of not being an asshole. If I can stay above that line I am not doing so bad.

Actively building and designing weapons and then profiting from war makes you an asshole. NO matter what you think you hold in your heart. Because all I can see in there is evil and piles of shit.

via Mother Jones

We were walking around this pastel colored castle, wobbling on the ice and being a bit cold, and all I could think of was “how do I turn this place into a dnd dungeon?” Hasn't happened yet. But the pictures I took have some energy I like.

The kinds of tasks that I hear teachers being encouraged to offload to “AI” — grading, lesson planning, communication with students and parents, design of handouts and other classroom material, IEPs — are actually constitutive of the very work. These tasks — and yes, some of them can be burdensome, time-consuming, annoying as hell — are how you come to know the content, the community, the classroom, yourself and others. Nothing about teaching and learning should be thoughtless or careless the way in which “AI” promises thoughtlessness and carelessness as-a-service. Education isn’t comprised of tasks that should be automated; this isn’t work that needs to be made faster and cheaper. Teaching and learning are not something to be optimized or engineered like machinery, turned into the very “factory model of education” that Silicon Valley has spent decades inventing and positioning against.

via Second Breakfast.

I am still anxious about “AI” arriving at my school in the form of tools for teachers. Students use it obviously and some teachers also do. But it is not there in an official capacity (yet).

The new Muse singles are heavy and good.

How does one get better at a job like teaching? Over time and through a bunch of struggle it seems.

Anne Will talks with Caroline von St. Ange about children and school and the general German situation. And I listen. I complain about wrongs and I look myself deep in the eyes and realize, that I am not doing that great of a job quite often. Instead I complain about the kids and the situation. I could instead prepare better. Or read and learn to then be able to prepare better. I used to have much more drive to try and do things in the classroom. Now I feel spent.

Any show has to end at some point. And some bands have signature last songs. die ärzte used to play zu spät now it is Vorbei ist vorbei. I think I don't remember the last one. Beatsteaks used to end a show with Let Me In and it was fantastic every single time. The Divine Comedy ends shows with the spectacular Tonight We Fly. And recently the wonderful Kapa Tult ended their show with Ich bau ab a song about going on tour and being quite tired of it.

Those are all great songs, BUT there is one that almost stands over the rest in my eyes. When Maybeshewill played He films the clouds pt.2 in that dinky club I went to when I saw them for the first time my heart opened. It was a singular experience. Such a great song, made for being the last one of a gig.

I love how songs become more when I've heard them live. They become connected with memories and feelings. They grow leaps and bounds when I hear them played in a stinky club or in a big arena. Turnstile's Holiday will never feel as good as when I danced to it. And I only learned to love Under a clear blue sky by the Beatsteaks when I heard it live. Atomic Love by the same band will forever be connected with them playing the song to work lights in an arena, when so many people had already left and they came back out on stage.

The picture up top is from a Petrol Girls gig at Reeperbahn Festival 2018. It was a tiny room and it was packed to the brink. It was amazing. This is where I first heard Touch me again and this is where that song came alive for me. As I write this I remember more of these moments. Two women in front of me getting really into Fire Drills by Dessa during those most important lines and that feeling of frustration washing over and away from them. I mean heck, I got to shout along to The Hotelier and the Nite Ratz Club last year. A dream come true.

When I talk to guys in my comments who express desires for ‘a date’ or ‘a relationship’ or ‘a girlfriend’, I want to sigh and hurl my laptop in frustration. Because I know so many funny, smart, beautiful women who are ready and eager for those things, but only if the love is genuine. Specific, not generic. Love that supports and plays with and uplifts and celebrates the unique person it orbits. You’re not buying a pair of shoes, you’re choosing a partner. And for what it’s worth I think this ‘anyone will do’ attitude is doing people far more harm than good.

writes Girl on the Net and I feel caught for the way I used to use dating apps in the past.

I think that’s another aspect to the AI job killing a lot of people overlook; what kind of jobs will be left? What kind of rights and benefits will we have to give up just because we’re meant to feel grateful to have any sort of job at all when there are thousands competing for every opening?

I am thinking of Capitalist Realism and of author Jason Reynolds who said in a recent interview: “If people can imagine racism, they can imagine a world without racism.” (roughly translated by me from a interview)

So much of the space and world we live in is because we/some people/I decided to be there. And I don't mean the means by which I get through the day. I mean something like AI. Someone said “This is a good idea, it is going to make me rich.” And not “This is a bad idea, it is going to fuck over so many people.”

The above quote is from Did AI kill my job? a series of testimonials (?) about AI taking out jobs one by one. I found out about it because Joanne McNeil edits it and she wrote a great book about self-driving cars called Wrong Way.

What jobs will this create? I can see very little. I currently don’t have any faith that this will get better at any point in the future.

Once upon a time there was a story about Rammstein. It revealed atrocious and horrific behavior by the lead singer and that every one else in the band essentially let it all happen.

Then one of my favorite artists made a song with one of the more famous members of Rammstein. It was generally not seen as a good thing and basically sucked. This artist has been essential for my upbringing and supplied not only some of my core memories around shows, but I know so many of his lyrics by heart and they mean a lot to me.

Which leads us to a few days ago when Farin Urlaub released a new single for an upcoming record. It is a bad song and he used AI in it. So we had him make a song for a musician who knowingly supported a (supposed) rapist. And now there is a AI background in his music video. This guy never has to work again in his life. He could just pay someone to draw it. It is bullshit and it sucks.

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During a recent holiday I read Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer and really enjoyed it. There is this bit I think of when I look at said music video.

“We each bring our subjective experience to art and to love. If I were to give an exhaustive list of monsters and tell you my response to them, I would be acting out a kind of falsehood. I would be suggesting there is a correct answer in each particular case. I would be telling you what to think, and, in telling you what to think, I would be telling you what to do. And I don’t want to enshrine my own subjectivity in that particular way; don’t want to cloak it in the garb of authority.”

And that is a bit of a cowards way out.

“There is not some correct answer. You are not responsible for finding it. Your feeling of responsibility is a shibboleth, a reinforcement of your tragically limited role as a consumer. There is no authority and there should be no authority. You are off the hook. You are inconsistent. You do not need to have a grand unified theory about what to do about Michael Jackson. You are a hypocrite, over and over. “

You are a hypocrite over and over is what gets me. I am selective in what I like. I have Keine Lust by Rammstein perpetually stuck in my head because it speaks to something very specific inside of me. I will never not have a lot of feelings when I hear OK/Kein Zurück by Farin Urlaub. I will go and see die ärzte with my parents and maybe also my sister next year, even though they are old asshats. (Farin Urlaub is a member of die ärzte).

“Solving this unreconciled contradiction. In fact, you will solve nothing by means of your consumption; the idea that you can is a dead end. The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.”

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I guess what I want to say is that I think some art is part of your life and that is okay. Pick a different hill to die on than to make it not a part of you. I want to be able to articulate why something is important to me and still critique it. I think of Nalo Hopkinson who said:

“I may love these things too. I just don't think love should be blind.”

What does that mean for me in particular? Good question. I am still figuring it out. But I think you can love something and still see it's flaws. Spending money on it is a different beast though.

Three songs. The first came to mind recently and made me listen to what I have of Lumber Lung. Absolute excellent records. Engaging, full of feelings and just a blast.

Kapa Tult played a great show on Sunday in Berlin. Entertaining, funny, cute and homely. I love how hearing a record live will make it more alive and easier to connect with.

This last track, I've listened to every day this week. It is about staying home when everyone else wants to party. And I feel it in some part of my body, when the rest goes out and does things. Kochkraft durch KMA is a lovely group,