Jamieson Cox

while folks are on this whole internship phase: if one were to skip the internship/blogging/writing etc. stage and go directly to pitch, how do you do that? Emailing and just forming connections via internet?

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:19:00 -0400

I understand eschewing the formal internship route, but I think anyone interested in making a serious beer money hobby/career out of writing about music should absolutely fire up a Tumblr (there are other platforms, but this one is the best right now) to showcase themselves and host a few quality pieces/clips they want to show off when pitching. I think it’s rather difficult to send a cold email pitching something if you don’t have a) a few semi-recognizable bylines for the recipient to check out and/or b) a few posts you’re really proud of, hosted on a personal site at the very least. With that in mind, I suppose your first step towards consistently pitching should be the creation of a platform/home base that’ll give editors something to work with: a short bio, links to other platforms, some of your best work, etc.

As for the mechanics of pitching itself, I suppose “emailing and just forming connections” covers it in a very broad sense. Take a look at the staff/contact pages of the publications you respect, have a gander at their cold pitching guidelines, and proceed from there. A good first email can really grease the skids, I think, so work hard on that: get to the point, keep it relatively clean, infuse it with a bit of your personality but not to a degree that detracts from a default professionalism, etc. There are plenty of ways to do this, and I suppose everyone develops their own personal style; I certainly have. Try to minimize your sulking time if it doesn’t work out.

At this point I should issue a huge, flashing disclaimer noting that I’ve had, at the very least, an acquaintance-type relationship on Tumblr/Twitter with everyone I’ve ever emailed with a pitch, so my advice on totally cold, blind efforts might be completely useless. I suppose the best advice I can offer is to form those relationships and use them as a launching point for future endeavours.

I received a similar question a few months ago, about getting involved in the music writing community on Tumblr — there might be useful general tips in that response that apply to this question, if you’re interested. You can read that here. And of course, if this response made little to no sense and/or you have specific questions, don’t hesitate to send me an email, I’ll happily offer my limited wisdom.

do you know any senior high school writing/blogging internships that you could point me in the direction of?

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:54:49 -0400

Hm, this is a bit of a blind spot for me — if you were looking for Canadian senior chemistry and math contests, I could really help, but I don’t know much about the writing internship scene. I know Pitchfork, Spin, Rolling Stone, etc. all have internship programs, but the intricacies of application and location are beyond me. I guess the one piece of advice I’d give is to undertake a bit of research, which I’m sure you’ve done already: think about your favourite publications, see what they’re offering, apply liberally. Take a peek around Twitter and Tumblr for people who have experience interning and ask them for help or advice — if you’re deep enough in the game to find and ask me, you’re probably near people who have actually done this and can provide some real knowledge. And if you have any specific questions about anything else, shoot me an email and I’ll answer them to the best of my abilities.

Daft Punk, “Fragments of Time” 1. There’s only one way to experience this song at...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:22:00 -0400

Daft Punk, “Fragments of Time”

1. There’s only one way to experience this song at its best. You have to trust me. It’s the last day of recording in Los Angeles, and Todd Edwards has just packed up the last of his personal items and is preparing to leave the studio. Thomas and Guy-Manuel are sitting helmeted at a recording console, adjusting some levels and speaking quietly. Todd looks upon them fondly and turns for the door. The sun is just beginning to set, hanging heavy in the sky; the light is blinding. He stops, turning to look at the robots hovering over the console. He starts singing “Fragments of Time,” coming up with the lyrics on the spot, occasionally tossing in jazz hands, a single tear rolling down his cheek. Upon finishing, he takes a small bow and salutes, then steps into the glow, the door closing slowly behind him. I choose to believe that’s how this song was created.

2. I can’t say enough about the control and skill exercised by the rhythm section in this song, especially during the transition from the chorus into the solo portion. While the drums and bass are lively and active throughout the verses and chorus, spraying showy little fills everywhere they can, they really step out front and drive the pace around 2:56, even as the pedal steel and guitar maintain their place from the previous bars. When the talk-box (I think?) roars to life soon after, it’s ecstatic and surprising, but it didn’t just pop up out of nowhere — the groundwork had already been laid, rhythmically speaking, in a very neat way. I love hearing the craftsmanship and care present in that brief sequence, which could’ve been maybe 80% as good with half the effort; the polish and attention to detail was worth it.

Daft Punk, “Touch” In the last few days and weeks of 1 B.R.A.M., I told anyone...

Wed, 15 May 2013 23:50:00 -0400

Daft Punk, “Touch”

In the last few days and weeks of 1 B.R.A.M., I told anyone who asked that I was steeling myself for minor disappointment with the album. I knew that I had filled my internal hype reservoir to such an insane depth that it would take a flawless, life-altering record to justify my expectations. It’s been roughly two days since I heard Random Access Memories for the first time, and it’s not quite on that level, mostly because the level itself is unattainable by design. But there are moments and segments that leave me thinking that the hype might’ve been justified anyway, and a few such moments make up “Touch,” a supremely batshit, utterly brilliant odyssey bracketed by the album’s two most immediate tracks.

As “Touch” moves through its eight-plus minute runtime, it’s backlit by a palpable joy and reverence for a wider range of concepts and sounds than just “dance music”: operatic musicals, ABBA-style pop, interstellar fables, the simple, elementary click of a beautiful melody or the harmony of notes blending together. Many of the album’s best moments exist because Daft Punk had the power, vision, and money to find collaborators and performers with the skill to take that joy and reverence and translate it into song: the sheen and glow of “Lose Yourself to Dance” and “Get Lucky,” the wistfulness of “Fragments of Time,” the sheer scope of “Contact.” (It doesn’t get much bigger than having NASA give you carte blanche when you need a sample.) The idea motivating “Touch” is humanity, and our everyday struggle to maintain and find it within ourselves and the people around us. Daft Punk found Paul Williams for this, a man who has written an anthem for legendary puppets and written and performed a movie musical in the guise of a disfigured phantom; he’s excellent, ably emoting through the disco of the song’s first third and returning to close the narrative loop at its end.

I’m more interested in what comes between, as “Touch” jumps from funk to jaunty, brassy pop to sweeping, electro-cosmic vocoder-choral fantasia to a bouncing orchestral return. There’s an ambiguity to the lyric that holds these movements together as they spiral out of control and fly back into orbit that’s ineffably human: “Hold on, if love is the answer you want // Hold on, if love is the answer you’re wrong // Hold on, if love is the answer you’re home.” Being alive means that any of the three options above can be true at any given time. They aren’t mutually exclusive, either: love can at once be the answer you want and also totally the wrong answer. It’s a remarkably honest, organic statement, maybe the most touching one on an album from two robots whose best moments tap into a wholly unsynthetic, semi-unexplainable magic.

13. “Motherboard”

12. “Within”

11. “The Game of Love”

10. “Giorgio by Moroder”

9. “Give Life Back to Music”

8. “Beyond”

7. “Doin’ It Right”

6. “Contact”

5. “Instant Crush”

4. “Lose Yourself to Dance”

3. “Get Lucky”

2. “Fragments of Time”

1. “Touch”

helmutdoork: inspired by: one does not simply walk into...

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:05:00 -0400

helmutdoork:

inspired by:

one does not simply walk into Moroder

People I Saw in the Pitchfork Office Today

Fri, 10 May 2013 22:06:04 -0400

markrichardson:

http://printedinternet.tumblr.com/

http://jamiesoncox.tumblr.com/

http://theremixbaby.tumblr.com/

http://jakec.tumblr.com/

http://airgordon.tumblr.com/

http://contrarybritt.tumblr.com/

Day 1 of From URL to IRL: Internetpalooza.

House rules: no more than three songs per album/one song per EP...

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:54:00 -0400

House rules: no more than three songs per album/one song per EP (inspired by this, which I respectfully disagree with). I might need this later.

THINKING TO PIECES: Deerhunter's MONOMANIA Wipes the Slate Clean | Myspace

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:33:00 -0400

THINKING TO PIECES: Deerhunter's MONOMANIA Wipes the Slate Clean | Myspace:

I wrote about Deerhunter’s new album for Myspace. This band means a lot to me, and I’m only scratching the surface here — I have no doubt Monomania will continue to take on meaning in my life as weeks and months roll by. You don’t need an account to read this one (but get one anyway, what the hell). Thanks for taking a look!

Vampire Weekend, “Hannah Hunt” My first and only girlfriend was named Hannah. We used...

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:09:00 -0400

Vampire Weekend, “Hannah Hunt”

My first and only girlfriend was named Hannah. We used to sit in her basement and watch reality shows on MTV Canada when the weather wasn’t nice enough to jump on her trampoline or bike around the lake. We kissed at a party one night in May, and when our friends and classmates hooted at us and we looked up burning it was with one of those fleeting rushes of young, local celebrity.

One thing I’ve learned is that any meaningful relationship can only really be understood by the two people in it. I can’t stop listening to this song even though I have a lot of other things to do, in large part because it takes that statement as truth and treats it with respect. “Though we live on the U.S. dollar, you and me / we’ve got our own sense of time.” “Hannah Hunt” is riddled with details but leaves their ultimate significance for our consideration: the crawling vines and weeping willows somewhere along the road, the frozen beaches of home, the thick paper used as fodder for an infant flame. It’s a gesture of kindness, an invitation to then imagine our own such sticky moments. I don’t know what “A man of faith said hidden eyes could see what I was thinking” means to Ezra Koenig or Rostam Batmanglij, but I know what it means to me, and when the song blooms like their feeble Santa Barbara fire it’s a late July sunset over that lake, it’s quick heat at a high school party, something I shared with my own Hannah once.

Oh, and I only remembered this half an hour after posting: the song we listened to most together was “Walcott,” tucked at the end of the debut album from this very band.

Thom Yorke, “Ingenue” I promise I’m not...

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:47:00 -0400

Thom Yorke, “Ingenue”

I promise I’m not praising this Thom Yorke solo piano version of Atoms for Peace’s “Ingenue” in an attempt to fetishize traditional, “authentic” arrangement and performance with respect to the original, which I love for its quicksilver percussive droplets and its fat-rippled, metallically tangy synths. (And here you might cry I’m fetishizing tradition etc. by praising a Thom Yorke tune, which is a tiny bit valid, maybe, but I’m ignoring it.) I love the potential that’s coursing through this: if your ears are familiar you can hear the points at which it’d bloom into a traditional Radiohead song, or where it’d turn inward into a The Eraser-era Yorke song, and the elements that found their way into the ultimate Atoms for Peace hybrid-type cut. It’s an incredibly intimate performance, too, Yorke’s mouth right there on the mic making physical contact, and maybe that’s a totally normal, commonplace detail (I don’t know) but I find the way it’s filmed very striking. Love the songs or hate them, the man is a remarkable vocalist.

welcome to poutine land enjoy :)

Thu, 02 May 2013 01:18:21 -0400

welcome to poutine land enjoy :)

This is going to be a quiet Internet week for me, because I’m bringing my boyfriend home to...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:53:00 -0400

This is going to be a quiet Internet week for me, because I’m bringing my boyfriend home to meet my family (!!!), but before leaving I wanted to pop in and say this: I’m so, so happy for Jason Collins — like, unimaginably happy, the same way I’m happy for anyone who has the strength to come out and live their fullest, best life. I’m so proud, too: proud to be gay, proud to love and play basketball, proud to find myself in communities who universally rejoiced over yesterday’s news.

I saw a few people turn a critical eye towards yesterday’s events: will he find a team next season? Would this matter more if he was a more talented, individually successful player? Was the response from his peers littered with double-speak and iffy support? And I get that, I do — I’m usually one of those people, observing and inviting discussion. But not yesterday, and not even today. All I want to do right now is celebrate Collins’ courage, so utterly ordinary and yet also incredibly extraordinary. Here’s to a bright future, for him and for everyone.

See you in a few days!

what's the big deal with tank tops?

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:37:00 -0400

A valid question!

I bought a bunch of tank tops last summer in a burst of therapeutic shopping after suffering some predictable romantic distress. I don’t even remember the particular guy, not without looking it up. I think they were purchased at the end of May. It was already apparent at that point in the season that a) getting through the next few brutally hot months would be easier with less fabric, and b) Toronto’s ravenous gayboy hordes were mostly sleeveless. It’s absolutely preposterous to suggest that only gay men wear tank tops, and I don’t mean to make that suggestion, but grabbing some of my own and wearing them out and about after work and on the weekend felt like a small gesture of pride, a wink and a nod that was mostly internal but still meaningful.

I wasn’t just doing it out of pride, either: I honestly love the way I look in a tank top. My arms look nice, I develop a little bit of a glow, I’ve grown a spattering of chest hair that peeks out in a way I think might be appealing. I try to wear them as much as I can because I want to revel in that feeling of total confidence and positive body image; I want to present the sexiest, happiest version of myself, and in a small way wearing a tank top helps me do that.

I remember one night in June when I had been cajoled into waiting in line for a horrid pub/club hybrid in the Entertainment District, Toronto’s home for straight club-goers. It’s a world of double-digit cover charges, stamps and cover bands, watery beer and palpable testosterone wafting over everyone’s heads as twenty-something business dudes flare their nostrils and flex their biceps, engaging in primal mating rituals. It’s a zone I try to avoid, but I had been drafted into a “wingman” role that night. We slowly advanced to the front of the line; I moaned and groaned quietly while my friend chatted with a girl he was seeing. I was wearing a yellow tank top. Upon reaching the bouncer, we were denied entry — no male tank tops allowed. In that moment, I could feel meathead eyes on my bare skin; it felt like “faggot” was lurking just below the surface, unsaid. But I felt empowered, beautiful. We got out of the line and went somewhere else. I think about that night every time I put a tank top on, even if it was ultimately just a dumb dress code violation at a fratty straight bar. There’s a voice in the back of my head saying fuck a dress code, fuck a straight bar. Work that tank, own it. Be proud. I am, and I do.

(And honestly, there are two reasons I talk about tank tops so much on the Internet: it makes me laugh, and it’s a way to distinguish myself/develop a “character,” so to speak. I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but everyone on a social network is performing, presenting a 2D version of themselves. The 2D version of Jamieson Cox loves Diet Coke and burritos, the NBA, and wearing tank tops. And of course I honestly, truly love all of those things, but there are deeper, more nuanced parts of me that get expressed through Tumblr posts and Gchat conversations and emails. Tank tops are just one of a few “personality crutches” I employ for humour and recognizability, I guess. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to chug a Diet Coke while twerking to Beyoncé.)

I reviewed the new album by The Boy Least Likely To for Pitchfork

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:31:05 -0400

I reviewed the new album by The Boy Least Likely To for Pitchfork

April odds and ends, part 2

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:16:05 -0400

I spent a lot of time listening to Devendra Banhart with my friends in high school, specifically Rejoicing in the Hands and Cripple Crow. The most difficult song I ever learned to play on guitar was “The Body Breaks.” I remember reading Rolling Stone and stumbling upon the review for Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, and then arranging a trip to the CD+ outlet in the mall to pick up a copy. I think four or five of us saw and heard in Banhart the image we had fashioned for ourselves: a bit arty, a bit whimsical and off-kilter, a bit weird, but still possessed of a sense of melody and purpose. His output trailed off and faltered towards the end of the decade, but his newest album Mala occasionally recaptures the magic that ran through his earliest work, never more so than on the mid-album instrumental “The Ballad of Keenan Milton.” I didn’t know the name before hearing the song. Keenan Milton was a skateboarder who accidentally drowned twelve years ago at a Fourth of July party, and the song perfectly captures the ache for someone long lost, sadness and anger having mellowed into something softer and sweeter. The first night I heard it I fell asleep with the song on repeat. It makes me feel that same ache for a few years ago, playing an acoustic guitar in the bowels of our high school’s theatre, bullshitting and cackling and making future plans.
Charli XCX’s debut True Romance hasn’t left my speakers since it began streaming on Pitchfork Advance a few weeks ago. I don’t exactly recall what I was expecting, but when listening I always think, “This is completely exceeding my expectations!” Most of the standouts are singles that were previously released — “Nuclear Seasons,” “You (Ha Ha Ha),” “You’re the One” — but at least one new cut has immediately joined the ranks of the finest Charli songs. Everything I need to know about “So Far Away” is contained in the spinning kaleidoscope of a synth that forms the song’s backbone, a sound I found immediately affecting; when I think about dizzying, ultra-powerful infatuation, this is the sound I’ve been hearing all my life. (“Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad.”) When I make the effort to focus on Charli, I sense the same dark energy and charisma that drives her intrigue on every one of her other songs, papering over a few iffy lyrical moments, but most of the time I just let her fade away. This is one of those rare songs where the sound immediately takes me somewhere and I choose to ride that feeling to its ultimate destination, and she functions as just another component of that sound here. (I learned while zipping around YouTube for a link that “So Far Away” might’ve been recorded as early as 2009, and pulls heavily from a song of the same title by a British producer named Paul White, which itself seems to sample Todd Rundgren, and that Charli’s version was included on the UK and Australian releases of the You’re the One EP AND her Heartbreaks and Earthquakes mixtape from last year. The more you know!)
I’ve spent maybe a week and a half focusing on EDM, and here are a few of my incredibly amateur conclusions: 1) almost every producer is like a baseball player that either hits a home run or strikes out, and there isn’t much variance in the batting averages (certainly no one is smacking singles and doubles and frequently getting on base) 2) the only two components affecting a song’s success are melody and magnitude, the former’s meaning being obvious and the latter meaning the size of the release that arrives upon hitting the chorus 3) there’s something called the Womp Spectrum with Avicii at one end (nearly pure house) and Skrillex at the other (once and future king of the drops), and everyone else falls somewhere between those two poles in their own work 4) there are a disturbing, startling lack of prominent women producing, from what I’ve seen 5) Calvin Harris’ “Sweet Nothing” is probably the best song ever recorded 6) Cazzette’s “Beam Me Up” has already taken over college campuses and has a good chance of being everywhere this summer 7) Avicii is my favourite producer going out of this scene — he has a certain touch and handle, especially on his longer mixes (“Silhouettes,” “X You”) that i) isn’t too far distanced from critically beloved stuff like Todd Terje and Lindstrøm and ii) is much more apparent than in everyone else’s work. I still have some diving to do.
Smarter, more invested people are going to say a lot about this than I am, but the video for “Body Party” came out last night, and suffice it to say that the presumptive favourite for the year’s best song now has the brilliant cinematic rendering it deserves. I want to focus on the dramatic interludes between Future and Ciara quickly, only to say this: I know that they’re celebrities and so every interaction between them needs to be taken with one hundred grains of salt, and that it’s commercially beneficial for Future to appear in this video, and that I and everyone else in my Twitter feed are way too invested in this relationship to be considered healthy, functioning humans, BUT I’ll be damned if my eyes didn’t start to water when they introduced themselves and Future held her hand for a few seconds longer than necessary. (P.S. I’m leading the Future for Best Supporting Actor campaign, please email for more details. “They don’t call me the Future for no reason.”) Their whole conservation is adorably awkward but crackling with a true chemistry that’s immediately palpable to anyone who has ever been attracted to anyone else (I think.) I want to believe in CiBandz, I really do.
One more thing: allow me to remind you that I’m visiting New York from May 10-13 and that you should contact me if you’re available to get together quickly for a meal or a snack or whatever. I’m also soliciting food recommendations, because if I’m being absolutely honest 90% of my hopes and dreams for this trip revolve around food. I’m already going to Shake Shack once and probably Mighty Quinn’s for barbecue stuff — please tell me your favourites and I will probably eat them. (And get in touch so we can eat them together!)

rawkblog: uncoolmag: We made you a zine. UNCOOL #1: Guiltless...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:06:00 -0400

rawkblog:

uncoolmag:

We made you a zine.

UNCOOL #1: Guiltless Pleasures is a 43-page .pdf about the ways music makes us feel bad — and sometimes, proud. It was designed by Traci Larson. Sam Alden did the cover art. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

* Punk Rock Princesses: A Case for Something Corporate by Devon Maloney
* Dangerously in Love: My Decade with Beyoncé by Jamieson Cox
* Repeat Offenders: Pressing Play, Over and Over Again by Harley Brown
* Guiltless Pleasures: Imagining a Post-Snob World by David Greenwald, Simon Vozick-Levinson and Lindsay Zoladz
* Miss You Like Crazy: Canada’s Lost Boy Bands by Melody Lau
* He Ain’t Even Know It: On Rick Ross, Rap, and Responsibility by Henry Adaso
* I Don’t Wanna Come Back Down From This (Sound)Cloud by Taleen Kalenderian
* Why Bother? Talking To Myself About Weezer by Jillian Mapes

With the help of its readers, UNCOOL is a publication that pays its contributors. Thanks in advance for your support.

DOWNLOAD UNCOOL #1: GUILTLESS PLEASURES.

I’ve been putting this together the last couple months and am very happy to have it out in the world. We made it for you. Let me know what you think.

For those asking about our SXSW panel, it’s reenacted within.

I’m excited to be a part of UNCOOL 2.0! My essay focuses on the way a guilty pleasure can slowly morph into a guiltless pleasure over time, and how it can sometimes turn into something else entirely. Beyoncé is involved. I really hope you’ll consider paying $4 to check it (and 7 other fantastic pieces) out.

A Shot of Jamieson, Episode 2.10 - Ian Mathers This week’s...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:51:00 -0400

A Shot of Jamieson, Episode 2.10 - Ian Mathers

This week’s episode features Tumblr’s Mr. Congeniality, Ian Mathers. We talked about relationships, Infinite Jest, the 33 1/3 series, the recent Gucci Mane “BITCH, I MIGHT BE” memetroversy, and being a decent human being.

This is the last episode of the season. I mention it a bunch of times on the show, but here it is again: I want to thank everyone who came on the show, sent a comment, or took some time out of their day to listen. I still struggle to believe that people are interested in these podcasts. Planning, recording, and posting them are highlights of my time on Tumblr. Your support isn’t unappreciated. I’ll be back with more of these in the fall.

Happy listening!

April odds and ends, part 1

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:42:00 -0400

Let’s make a list:

Camera Obscura released a single today. It’s called “Do It Again,” and like most Camera Obscura songs, it’s absolutely excellent. My Maudlin Career is a horrendously underrated record that had the misfortune of being released in 2009, a year that saw career defining releases from several indie heavyweights and peak #chillwave coverage. “Do It Again” is perfect pop craftsmanship in much the same vein as that album’s lead single, “French Navy,” light and bittersweet and totally charming. The summer release calendar is already looking very crowded, but I’ll find plenty of time for this song and its parent album.
I’m not sure if it still exists, but Esquire once had a running feature focused on things that men shouldn’t do. I used to read this magazine regularly, and one month it was mentioned that men should never use emoticons. (This was maybe four or five years ago.) And while it’s lame to admit that I tried not to use emoticons because some haggis-brained editorial assistant tucked it into a magazine, that’s exactly what I did. I mention this because in recent months I’ve started to sneak the odd face into my communications, usually a :) or ;) or ;( or my personal favourite, :’). I sent one in an email to a coworker today. It felt right. A man knows when his emoticons are appropriate and uses them to augment his communication at his own comfort level. >:( to Esquire for the unnecessary waste of half a decade of solid faces.
I tried to create a Branch last week to talk about Deerhunter’s new album Monomania, which had leaked a few days earlier. I’m intrigued by the possibilities of the platform, because I think it could fill a niche for conversations that are too long or detailed for Twitter but unfit for email chains or continuous reblogging. It failed fairly quickly: just a few posts, a handful of participants. It was a quiet death. There are plenty of potential reasons why this particular effort failed: Deerhunter isn’t quite popular enough to sustain a discussion, the time of day choice was poor, I don’t have the social sway necessary to involve people. But there’s one in particular I want to focus on: Branch’s removal of the “Ask to Join” feature. Up until recently, you could set up a discussion and post the link, and potential participants could request entry into the group pending your permission. This made a lot of sense to me! However, it seems the button has recently been removed. This means that there are only two ways (to my knowledge) to involve people in your conversation: open invite links that grant permission as soon as they’re clicked, and more direct invitations via email, @-mention, or DM. I think the removal of this feature is a major mistake, because it a) underestimates the power of the hierarchy of Internet intimacy, and b) skews the system towards power users. It’s easy to go into detail with both of these points, but quickly: Internet relationships are like real relationships in that you need a bit of history before you DM or email or engage in more direct forms of communication. You might have a mutually following relationship with someone, but that doesn’t mean you feel comfortable DMing them to talk about something. This dissuades conversation starters from inviting potential and/or obvious participants. Power users with more experience, stronger connections, and larger follower bases will feel more comfortable directly contacting people for participation, and will have their “open invite” links more widely circulated. I don’t know what the tipping point is for that positive experience, but I think I found myself on the wrong side of it.
I spent much of March listening to “Pressure,” by Danish duo Quadron. The producer half of the group has fallen into prominence as one half of Rhye, whose album from earlier this year remains one of my favourites of 2013 thus far. Quadron’s second album is coming out in June, and it’s poised to find similar levels of success — if anything, their chance of breaking into something like the mainstream is probably much greater than Rhye’s, because they work within a more accessible pop framework. Anyway, “Pressure”: this song is flawless, achingly sung and radiating a palpable warmth. There’s something about that descending vocal in the chorus, slowly falling like a finger traced along a sleeping spine; I want it to soundtrack movies, moments, humid drizzle. I want that sound in my life forever!

I’ll finish this off tomorrow evening with Devendra Banhart, Charli XCX, EDM, and NYC food solicitation.

"Then the elite men came, a half-dozen tiny black men from Kenya and Ethiopia, beautiful as always,..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:19:00 -0400

“Then the elite men came, a half-dozen tiny black men from Kenya and Ethiopia, beautiful as always, gliding more than running, covering the ground in a whisper. There is a feeling that these men weigh no more than necessary. How much does a heart weigh? How much does a femur weigh? How much does a tooth weigh? Add the necessary weights, no more. That is how much these tiny men weigh. They are magicians.”

- This little chunk from Leigh Montville’s excellent Boston Marathon piece left me in a crumpled heap underneath my desk. It’s very hard to convey the absolute beauty and grace of the world’s best runners, but this comes close.

I’m not religious or spiritual by any means, but if I believe in something, I believe in the...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:54:00 -0400

I’m not religious or spiritual by any means, but if I believe in something, I believe in the first few seconds after a long run: a glimpse of ultimate mind-body communion, a chunk of sweaty, salty, thirsty transcendence. I dream about running the Boston Marathon someday. It’s one of running’s high temples. My heart is broken today, it’s absolutely splintered, and as much as I’m angry at the world and dark with the thought that irregular, senseless acts of violence are part of being alive, I’m mostly just aching for all those people who were out there on the course, fighting for 3:59:59, struggling just under. An ecstatic, shining moment in their lives has been forever tainted; around the world, a sanctuary has been compromised.

After posting this, I’m going to tie on my running shoes and head outside for a bit. It’s the first real day of spring here. Every step is a tribute. I don’t know what else to do.

Jamieson Cox

while folks are on this whole internship phase: if one were to skip the internship/blogging/writing etc. stage and go directly to pitch, how do you do that? Emailing and just forming connections via internet?

do you know any senior high school writing/blogging internships that you could point me in the direction of?

Daft Punk, “Fragments of Time” 1. There’s only one way to experience this song at...

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THINKING TO PIECES: Deerhunter's MONOMANIA Wipes the Slate Clean | Myspace

Vampire Weekend, “Hannah Hunt” My first and only girlfriend was named Hannah. We used...

Thom Yorke, “Ingenue” I promise I’m not...

welcome to poutine land enjoy :)

This is going to be a quiet Internet week for me, because I’m bringing my boyfriend home to...

what's the big deal with tank tops?

I reviewed the new album by The Boy Least Likely To for Pitchfork

April odds and ends, part 2

rawkblog: uncoolmag: We made you a zine. UNCOOL #1: Guiltless...

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April odds and ends, part 1

"Then the elite men came, a half-dozen tiny black men from Kenya and Ethiopia, beautiful as always,..."

I’m not religious or spiritual by any means, but if I believe in something, I believe in the...

THINKING TO PIECES: Deerhunter's MONOMANIA Wipes the Slate Clean | Myspace