—Oma and Billy and cream sherry and Stockton and John Huston and Stacey Keach was supposed to be 29.

“3. The challenge is to be nostalgic for the future, to see the goodness to come even or especially if that goodness is that all things must end.”
—Bonny Billy

“He guessed he’d known he’d get a call like this one day, and he guessed he’d have to think about it for a while, because the initial impact felt mild, even irritating. He’d have to stick his head into the dirty, hot, self-satisfied state of California and try not to drown in its smugness while he solved the problem of his father’s body, which he hadn’t particularly cared for when his father was alive. But what was most on his mind was this question of kin, and why they had not made another call first.”
—Ben Marcus

“…when an observer doesn’t immediately turn whatever his senses convey to him into language, into the vocabulary and syntactical framework we all employ when trying to define our experiences, there’s a much greater opportunity for minor details, which might at first seem unimportant, to remain alive in the foreground of an impression, where, later, they might deepen the meaning of an experience…. Existential loneliness and a sense that one’s life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place. A continually refreshed sense of the unplumbable complexity of patterns in the natural world, patterns that are ever present and discernible, and which incorporate the observer, undermine the feeling that one is alone in the world, or meaningless in it. The effort to know a place deeply is, ultimately, an expression of the human desire to belong, to fit somewhere. The determination to know a particular place, in my experience, is consistently rewarded. And every natural place, to my mind, is open to being known. And somewhere in this process a person begins to sense that they themselves are becoming known, so that when they are absent from that place they know that place misses them. And this reciprocity, to know and be known, reinforces a sense that one is necessary in the world.”
—Barry Lopez

“2. When things have felt great, if that greatness is not carried forward then it was a false greatness. Love cannot be betrayed; betrayal obliterates the possibility of a previously existing love. And something or someone proves her- or himself to be true then whatever flaws were evident before were unformed and immature hints at the goodness to come.”
—Will Oldham, Apology

While the Cobain demos released Friday aren’t particularly fun to listen to, there are some illuminating aspects to the release worth mentioning. 1. Sound experiments here are in better quality than heard elsewhere. Some of them are quite funny. I never thought I’d like “Beans,” but you get older and learn shit, I guess. 2. You can hear how much care he’s putting into “Clean Up Before She Comes,” at least in this version, which makes him sound like he’s trying too hard. I suspect he is. I also suspect that song was important to him, at least early on, because it sounded like something he wanted to sound like. 3. I’ve often thought “Aneurysm”—or whatever was at the heart of “Aneurysm”—was a core Nirvana idea, the wellspring from which many other ideas came. You can hear it piecemealed around other songs in the catalog; interesting to find it here in that medley with “Something in the Way.” 4. Given what we know about “You Know You’re Right,” “She Only Lies” and “Poison’s Gone” seem like they point in the direction of the new record. Both have that purple/black vibe to them. 5. But, of course, that vibe is also all over the Foo Fighters’ debut. See “X-Static,” “Exhausted,” etc. So we already knew, already knew.

“It’s the most important place in the world—nowhere. Everyone should spend time there. It’s scary, empty, and cold; it’s sad beyond all bearing; it’s where all human communication is lost, where all your sins, all your shortcomings, all lies and half-truths and double-dealings come out from the dusk and look you in the eye without disapproval, without empathy, but simply and factually, as is. Here we are. Here you are. And filled with revulsion, you read the story of your life. And you make decisions.”
—Tatyana Tolstaya, “Nowhere”

You only like me when you think I’m looking sad
I didn’t think you’d end up treating me so bad
—Grimes

“1. If there is a time in life that feels strong and good, and then another, later, that feels strong and bad, then the first was not good, as it was really the foundation for the bad. It is this thought that weakens nostalgic impulses.”
—Will Oldham, Apology