I recently updated my mobile phone and part of the package included a free year of Google’s Gemini Pro. I’ve been using more AI assistance at my workplace to help my research efficiency and improve my work throughput, and thought I would take advantage of the advanced Gemini access to do the same for my own personal research.
(more…)Author: michael raven
Half-penny thoughts — 27nov25
Happy Thanksgiving, if you’re the kind of folks who celebrate such things. My mother didn’t give an option to decline the festivities and, having grown up in an environment where Catholic Guilt Syndrome was (and is still) employed as the weapon of choice, I’ll be heading out in a bit to do family things.
But, as Arlo Guthrie sang, “Alice — remember Alice?”… [listening to Alice’s Restaurant Massacree on Thanksgiving is about the only personal tradition worth keeping in my mind, but—]… let’s get on with my weird, cheap thoughts for the day. But first:
In my shower moments, maybe in those moments leading up to the shower as well, I was thinking (once again) about the nature of crushes.
(more…)Towards the Within — Vicious Thorn, Rose Chronicles
It’s been a spell since I added a song to the series of posts that was originally intended to look backwards to look forwards for music discovery.
I was disappointed with the discovery process, which either sent me to bands I already knew full well or directed me to bands that sounded nothing at all like my “seed” music.
Rose Chronicles, copyright status unknown After yesterday’s post quoting an opinion piece writer who has essentially declared that we have settled for the enshittification of our culture via the monetization of everything artistic thanks to the internet, I was left thinking about the last time I really enjoyed most of the music I was discovering. I can safely say that started to wane at some point near the end of the 90s.
(more…)casting runes — 26nov25
hagalaz dry lips shedding skin
with a raw aching to be
bruised once againA rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.
Today’s rune is hagalaz, which has a core meaning of “hail”, which was associated with potential, transformation, renewal and change; hail is imagined a seed from which change will arise. Hagalaz is also seen as representative of things beyond our control: a clash between fire and ice.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
unimagine
i unimagine shared madness
wrapped of kohl eyes twinned
and mirroring the within
unimagine a phantom recollect
of promises bound in lace
another madness, another dream
another unworthy
we ghost nighttime streets
cobbled in maritime fog
forgetting unimagined
shared madness together for
a dreaming winterlongMore Trouble, Boys
The biography I am reading for the Minneapolis band, The Replacements, is both lengthy and well done. I’m just crossing the half-way point and the tale has reached that point in their story where the band started to show their cracks with their lead guitarist, Bob Stinson.
There was always a bit of tension there between Bob and the singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg. Paul was a little older than Bob and Chris Mars (the drummer) and all of them were older by quite a bit than Tommy Stinson (bass player). Paul used his age and experience to take over what had originally been Bob’s band, Dogbreath. [Side note: Tommy was very young and playing bars on a regular basis by 13 years of age.]
(more…)memento
laying snow to the ready
her hair tumbles down
night against the pale
i give to the weary
a wanting to the wait
pictures with shadow hands
wind speechless stole
blood lips silent kiss
to hum at barbed wire
can you remember?casting runes — 25nov25
sowilo a sputtering candle flame
from a shack in wildwood
perhaps there is something
illuminated in the wode old face
or maybe just a desire to dreamA rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.
Today’s rune is sowilo, the sun. Sowilo is the source of enlightenment, for lighting the way and illumination. It is also called the “icebreaker” and gives power to an “attack”, ensuring success and/or prosperity. This rune also represents hope, the light at the end of a long darkness.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
On Culture and Subculture
…[R]eviving culture requires a new generation of outsiders willing to create their own movements from scratch.
Unfortunately, the current media ecosystem discourages this. The major internet platforms encourage creators to chase virality rather than cultivate smaller, self-sustaining communities. Global brands tease lucrative deals to emerging artists and micro-influencers, reinforcing the idea that “getting the bag” is the ultimate goal. […] In an era when we live as personal brands, every decision is made to increase our own shareholder value.
Making art with lasting meaning requires resisting the pull of instant exposure and early buyouts. We must think through ways to encourage artists to disappear into their own worlds for a while, developing ideas away from corporate influence and assimilation. Not everyone will have the discipline or capacity for this, but those who do or can will shape the future. And the least that critics and fans can do is give them esteem—when justified—for attempting to move culture forward, instead of ignoring them as marginal, castigating them as pretentious, or belittling their view counts. The past 25 years have taught us that the contemporary economy and media will not prioritize creative invention. The question is: Will you?
— from W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century in Make Culture Weird Again, originally published at The Atlantic.
burning low
i so ghost the slip/fade
the lips, they move
the words, they say
lost to the flux/shift
miming animal faces
in heavy rains
it is only echo, right?
i ask night burning low
