from Notes I Won’t Reread

I know all i do in these notes is that i complain and ramble, and complain about rambling, then somehow turn that into three more paragraphs of rambling. But I’m having fun with it. Not as much fun as how today went, earlier my housemate and i got into a massive argument. By the end of that, he threw a knife at me. And he missed. Anyway, such a productive conversation. I’d explain what happened, but then I’d have to think about it again, and I’ve already been through enough. i keep having that dream again. The navy dressed woman. i don't think she'll be reading this, and she doesn’t read these notes anymore, so i can talk about it without pretending I'm being overly mysterious. i dont even know why my brain keeps bringing it back. same senario. same places, she tries to kill me or pretend to yadda yadda whatever, and i honestly never get an answer before i wake up and spend the whole day thinking about it, like somehow going to make more sense the hundredth time i replay it. and here where it gets all embarrassing or messy or when i start making it sound deeper than it is for no reason, i dont personally want it to stop even though i wake up sweating and slightly concerned for my wellbeing, and laugh about it for five minutes, its funny in a way i cant discribe but again ill spend the rest of the day wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean and never get an answer.

If anything, the dream is probably the least ridiculous part of the whole situation. The real issue is me waking up and thinking that spending my whole day wondering what it means is what i should be doing with my life.

Sincerely, Ahmed

ps, quick nap. You know why.

 
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from Ennui Vagaries

 Recreation of a Conklin Crescent Filler fountain pen. (Photo by Unattributed, Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Recreation of a Conklin Crescent Filler fountain pen. (Photo by Unattributed, Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Introduction

I don't recall any point in time where I had any interest in fountain pens. I was born well after the time of the fountain pen, and there weren't any relatives in my family that had any special attachments to fountain pens. Then, there are some questions to answer:

  • What drove my initial interest?
  • How long have I been interested in them?
  • Do I have some objective in collecting fountain pens?
  • And of course: why fountain pens? Why not other writing tools?

Answers to these questions await, along with a few extra tidbits here and there along the way.

Why Fountain Pens

The idea came to me last fall. I was looking for something to do during the coming winter, didn't rely on a computer or cellphone. And, it was on my mind that as I age, it's necessary to do things that will help with hand/eye coordination, and manual dexterity.

Fountain pens was a natural fit. I'd always liked looking at really nice calligraphy. But I knew I would drop it if I tried to force myself to learn calligraphy. However, I did see where improving my penmanship could be beneficial.

What I didn't expect was that I would find a solution to a different concern I'd had. What problem was that?

The Journal

I've tried to keep a journal on my computer for years, and failed miserably. When I am sitting at the computer I have a tendency to write what ever is on my mind as quickly as I can. (Even this post has gone through severe edits: I just cut four paragraphs from an earlier session.)

But soon, I found that my mind seemed to be working differently when I was holding a pen and looking at a piece of paper. There is something that is much more intentional when writing in ink. You have to have intent in the words that you put on the page, there's no backspace key for a pen. There's no cut-n-paste for moving things around on the page.

This meant that what I wrote had to have intentionality. And, to gain that intentionality I had to focus and use my mind differently. It was almost like finding a zen place where my focus guided the pen, and what flowed out was more meaningful to me since it couldn't be edited easily. (Yes, you can scratch out things, or write in the margins, etc., but this is very limited compared to the edits you can do in a word processor.)

This has made the fountain pen “hobby” one of the best things that I have undertaken in over a decade. It has brought me a better connection with my writing, and that connection is allowing me to write in a way that I haven't in a long time.

(Another theory I have is that over the years the changes that have been made to software have actually made it worse for writers. I know, for example, that I started to dread writing in WordPress ever since they introduced the Gutenberg block editor.)

Collecting Goals

I didn't set out to start collecting fountain pens. That came as a result of the re-found connection with my writing. This led to me doing a little research into writers that use (or used) fountain pens. As it turns out there are quite a few people that were or are known to use fountain pens:

  • Mark Twain
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • James Joyce
  • Stephen King
  • Salmon Rushdie
  • Neil Gaiman

And, the thing that really clicked, and made me laugh my bum off was finding out about the letter Samuel Clemens sent to Roy Conklin, the founder of the Conklin Pen Company. In the letter Clemens extolled the virtues of the Conklin Crescent Filler (picture at the top of this article) as a “profanity saver” as it wouldn't roll off his desk. This communication led to Clemens endorsing the product and appearing in print advertisements until his death in 1910.

But the more interesting part was non-authors I found that use or collect fountain pens:

  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
  • Albert Einstein
  • Rick Wakeman

This isn't even an exhaustive list, I've seen lists of 50 or more people. However, many of them were somewhat obscurer to me.

The one that really sealed it for me was finding out that Rick Wakeman (former keyboardist for Yes, and prolific recording artist in his own right) has been collecting vintage fountain pens since the 1970s. This was an activity that he undertook while on tour with the band.

This is where my pen collecting hobby came from. I decided to build a collection of pens that represent people that have some significance. The objective is to collect pens that are period correct representations of the instruments that would have been used by a person who meets my criteria for notability.

My current list has about 15 people on it, of which I've only acquired 4 pens. I have no illusion, I might not be able to acquire fountain pens representing everyone in the current list. And, I might add more people eventually (my current thought is that a collection of approximately 20 pens would be ideal).

Current Focus / Obsession

Currently, I have been fascinated with Parker 51 fountain pens. Especially ones that used the Vacumatic filling system.

 Parker 51 clone that incorporates the Vacumatic filling system. (Photo by Unattributed, License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Parker 51 clone that incorporates the Vacumatic filling system. (Photo by Unattributed, License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I have on my list at least one author that was known to use a Parker 51 fountain pen, so eventually I will try to find a period correct pen. But for now, these clones will suffice for my personal usage.

Conclusion

So, the story started pretty simply: I wanted a winter hobby that would help maintain my hand/eye coordination and manual dexterity. But it quickly turned into something else as I realized it was different writing with a pen and paper again.

Then, doing a bit of reading about people who have used and / or collected fountain pens has inspired me to start building a small collection of my own. In the meantime, I am using pens that are clones of classic pens, or new pens that are modern reinterpretations of this over one hundred-year-old technology.

The benefits using fountain pens surprised me. It's literally changed how I approach my writing. (This essay is not an example, as I wrote it completely here at my computer.) It has given me a renewed focus, and is helping me to improve the ideas that I am committing to the page.


Categories: #Hobby, #Collecting Tags: #fountain-pens, #writing, #history, #authors, #collectors

 
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from Unattributed

I stated the other day that I was surprised my former web host emailed me asking for feedback after I'd closed out my account. No survey, or feedback form, just a straightforward email.

And now I am surprised again. Why? Yesterday morning I received a response to that email. Only nine or ten hours after I sent it. And, much to my pleasure, the representative largely understood what I was talking about. She had some interesting and relevant comments.

So, here I am, presenting part two of this email exchange. I plan to respond to her email to clear up a minor mis-perception I think she has, but otherwise I feel like she's really taking my feedback and handling it properly.

(And this is something I have to say… I have respect for all the people I worked with at this host. They were very professional, responsive, and good at resolving issues. This email is further indication of the customer service this hosting service provided.)


First of all, thank you for taking the time to share such thoughtful and detailed feedback. We genuinely appreciate the level of insight you provided, and I can tell this wasn’t a decision you made lightly.

I’m glad to hear that, overall, you found value in the infrastructure and services we built. At the same time, I completely understand the frustrations you experienced, especially with the recurring optimization issue and the feeling of having to repeatedly reapply fixes after updates. I can absolutely see how that would become frustrating over time, particularly when your setup was intentionally kept simple and close to the default WordPress experience.

Your comments regarding testing against default WordPress themes and preserving user-defined optimization settings are especially valuable, and I’ll be sure to pass that feedback along to the relevant team. Even though the underlying issue may have been more nuanced, the impact on your workflow was very real, and that matters.

I also appreciate your honesty about pricing and feature fit. It makes complete sense that a platform designed for agencies, developers, and more complex website management can feel excessive when your primary focus is writing rather than maintaining large-scale web infrastructure. Sometimes the best solution is the one that stays out of the way and lets you focus on the work you actually care about.

And regarding WordPress itself, while experiences and preferences naturally vary, I can certainly understand your perspective on how the platform has evolved over the years. For users whose priority is writing efficiency and simplicity, the shift toward block-based editing and increasingly visual workflows hasn’t always been a welcome change. It’s clear you’ve given a lot of thought to your workflow and the tools that best support it, and it sounds like you’ve found an approach that aligns much more closely with how you prefer to work.

It’s great to hear that you were able to migrate your sites successfully and settle into a solution that better fits both your workflow and your budget.

Thank you again for having been with us and for giving our platform a chance over the years. We truly appreciate your support, your candid feedback, and the professionalism with which you shared your experience.

Wishing you all the best with your writing and your new setup moving forward.


Categories: #Article, #Feature Tags: #Webhosting, #Customer-Service, #email, #rants

 
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from Faucet Repair

23 June 2026

Saw Shao Fan's show Refrain | 复沓 at White Cube this morning—wonderful work. First time in a while that such large paintings have felt justified. Deep sensitivity in all aspects, a practice of looking and re-looking, and a lived engagement with antiquity that generates work with an intensity that truly honors his subjects both human and nonhuman. There are a few stunners, but Fruit 1924 (2024) and Rabbit Portrait 1025 (2025)—both large ink on rice paper works—are with me the most right now. Fruit has an almost paper-like two-dimensionality; it's an apple sliced in half to reveal a core that becomes a network of overlapping planes and openings. Starts to become a skull-like memento mori the longer you look at it. Rabbit manages to achieve an unflinchingly direct and confrontational quality through symmetry without locking itself off in any way (which is something that usually doesn't sit well with me)—the odd strands of hair/whiskers whimsically trail off beyond their defining limits, and certain elements like the white of the rabbit's ears remain true to the eye rather than an ideal, so my feeling is that the impressive balance comes more from an endearing emotional groundedness than a technical fastidiousness.

 
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from Sprachabenteuer

Umziehen: 19. Juni

Heute ist der Tag des Umzugs und inhaltlich natürlich nicht besonders spannend. Aber nicht nur unsere Unterkunft verändert sich – auch das Wetter macht gerade große Schritte. Schon gestern war es hier sehr heiß, und ab jetzt steigt die Temperatur offenbar täglich weiter.

Ein bisschen traurig war es schon zu entdecken, dass unser neues Hotel keine Klimaanlage hat. Na gut – es gibt eben immer Raum für Verbesserungen. So ist auch der Mensch: Er findet immer etwas, worüber er sich beschweren kann. Wenn der Sommer kälter ist, warte ich auf wärmeres Wetter. Und jetzt, wo es heiß ist, beschwere ich mich wieder. Trotzdem versuche ich, diesen Teil von mir ein bisschen zu kontrollieren! Meine Freude über die neue Unterkunft kann das jedenfalls nicht so leicht mindern.

Ich kann übrigens auch feststellen, dass die Wäschereien in Berlin toll sind – wenn auch ein bisschen teuer. Umso praktischer ist es, in der Nähe meiner Freundin zu wohnen. Sie kann mir diesen Service nämlich kostenlos anbieten! Nur zur Information: Zwei Waschladungen (helle und dunkle Kleidung) und 30 Minuten Trocknen kosten hier 17 Euro.

Unser Apartment – oder sagen wir: zumindest kein Loch mehr – hat jetzt auch einen Teppich! Unsere Hunde sind daran nicht besonders gewöhnt. Hoffen wir also, dass sie den Sinn dieses Teppichs nicht falsch verstehen. Bei meiner früheren Arbeit dachte Begemotas zum Beispiel einmal, dass man auf einen Teppich ruhig kacken darf. Aber das war noch in seinen jüngeren Jahren.

Was außerdem anstrengend ist: Wir haben immer unglaublich viele Sachen und Gepäck dabei. Wir reisen also nicht besonders ökonomisch. Das liegt auch daran, dass wir uns unterwegs nicht so einfach alles Nötige besorgen können. In Zukunft möchte ich deshalb nicht nur meine Deutschkenntnisse verbessern, sondern auch meine Packfähigkeiten. Schließlich muss ich einen Teil dieser Sachen auch selbst tragen – und das dauert nicht nur, sondern macht mich auch müde.

Ich habe sogar ein Foto von der großen Menge an Taschen und Gepäck gemacht, aber ich weiß noch nicht, wie man auf dieser Seite Bilder hochladen kann.

Insgesamt kann ich sagen, dass mir dieses günstige Hotel wirklich sehr gut gefallen hat – abgesehen von dem kaputten Aufzug. Wenn also jemand eine preiswerte Unterkunft in Berlin sucht, darf man sich gern bei mir melden!

 
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from spotidown.me

SpotiDown is an easy-to-use online platform that allows users to download Spotify music for offline listening. By simply pasting a Spotify track, album, or playlist link, users can quickly access downloadable audio files without installing any software. The service is compatible with desktops, tablets, and smartphones, making it a convenient solution for music lovers who want fast, browser-based access to their favorite songs anytime and anywhere. Visit our site: https://spotidown.me/en1

 
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from spotidownme

spotidownme https://spotidown.me/en1 SpotiDown is an online Spotify downloader and converter. It is designed to process Spotify links and convert the associated content into downloadable audio files. Unlike traditional desktop applications, SpotiDown works directly within a web browser, meaning users do not need to install additional software.

The platform advertises itself as a free service capable of handling:

spotidown spotidownme spotidown.me spotidownloader spotifydownloader

 
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from Libretica

Este artículo es parte de una práctica de la universidad que ya he entregado. En el ejercicio, teníamos que elegir una sala expositiva real e intentar pensar modos de intervención que ayudasen a las obras existentes a dialogar con otras obras nuevas.

IMPORTANTE: Todo lo descrito aquí es especulativo, no se ha hecho ni se ha expuesto al verdadero museo. Sólo he elegido la sala y museo por mi propio cariño al espacio y mi interés por Granada y Al-Andalus.


1. Selección del museo y análisis de la sala

El museo seleccionado es el museo de la Alhambra, se trata de una serie de salas una detrás de otra que se encuentran a la derecha de la entrada principal del Palacio de CarlosV, junto a los Palacios Nazaríes. El museo, actualmente, presenta una colección principalmente arqueológica,mostrando elementos relacionados con la Alhambra y Granada, como leones originales del Patio de los leones, cerámicas andalusíes, alicatado y herramientas, entre otros objetos. Este museo se encuentra jutno al Museo de Bellas Artes (comparten edificio), con pinturas emblemáticas de la ciudad y sus artistas.

Se trata de siete salas una seguida detrás de otra, que recorren el Palacio en su costado derecho. Las temáticas de las salas son:

Sala I: La ciencia, la fe y la economía Sala II: Periodo emiral y califal Sala III: Decoración arquitectónica califal y arte taifa al nazarí Sala IV: Período nazarí, edificios públicos Sala V: Periodo nazarí. La Alhambra y otros palacios de la ciudad Sala VI: Periodo nazarí. La rauda, la cerámica de lujo Sala VII: Periodo nazarí. La decoración y el ajuar.

Aunque cualquier sala se presta a este ejercicio, he elegido la sala V, donde se encuentra una de las piezas fundamentales de la colección (el Jarrón de las Gacelas) y otras piezas seleccionadas. La sala actualmente gira (literalmente) alrededor del Jarrón, pero muestra obras de taracea, ejemplos de alicatado y carpintería nazarí. He visitado el museo recientemente (13 de junio) , aunque no sea la primera vez, y he podido observar cómo el jarrón es lo primero que atrapa al visitante, ya sea por la iluminación o por estar en el centro, también porque es muy grande y es lo primero que se avista desde la entrada a la sala. El resto de obras bailan alrededor y tienen una narrativa que honra a la artesanía. La sensación que da es de admiración.

He elegido esta sala por varios motivos. Por un lado, esa narrativa centrada en la artesanía girando entorno a una pieza creo que da juego a la hora de incluir artesanías contemporáneas inspiradas en el legado nazarí. Por otro lado, siento una atracción fuerte por el jarrón, desde que lo vi en una exhibición anterior sobre cerámica nazarí. Me gustó tanto que me regalaron el catálogo especial de la exposición poco después, y siendo la pieza central de la sala, esa atracción personal creo que es relevante. Quería, además, usar los contextos y artículos de la publicación para el desarrollo de la práctica. He hecho un plano y análisis de la sala actual en mi libreta, y será sobre lo que trabaje como boceto:

Mapa dibujadso a mano de una sala de exposiciones, con varios elementos sobre alandalus y la alhambra

2. Planteamiento curatorial

Como menciono en la sección anterior, la narrativa actual de la sala se centra en la artesanía nazarí, y destaca en el centro una pieza sorprendente, absorbiendo un claro protagonismo. El resto de piezas, que incluyen alicatado, las hojas de la puerta de cierre a la Qubba Mayor, los restos de solerías del Peinador de la Reina, Las puertas de alhacena del palacio de los Infantes, celosías, una colección de cerámica pintada con temas figurativos y de geometría, vidrios y otros (los he listado por posición en la libreta arriba).

Al entrar a la sala, esta está primero partida por un mueble-cristalera expositivo que funciona como pared. Pero una vez traspasada esta falsa pared, lo primero que destaca es el jarrón de las Gacelas.

El planteamiento curatorial sería una revisión de la artesanía contemporánea en cerámica y madera que se haya inspirado en las técnicas y la estética nazarí. Para ello, se incluirían displays con obras contemporáneas, también alrededor del jarrón. La idea es que las piezas dialoguen con los elementos actuales, y que su proximidad de indicios de relación, haciendo una selección que sea intuitiva para el visitante.

3. Incorporación de elementos externos

Aunque no sea una limitación estricta, me gustaría seleccionar artistas locales que dialoguen con las obras de una forma íntima, más allá de lo académico, a través de la proximidad y la ubicuidad de lo nazarí en el día a día. Esto no quiere decir que otras obras puedan encajar en la narrativa. Para empezar, en la entrada, junto a la puerta, colocaría un panel informativo.

La lista de artistas ha sido eliminada de este post, ya que no se ha pedido permiso, y he preferido dejarlo en el entorno académico, pero son dos pintores/dibujantes y una ceramista.

Además de les artistes seleccionades, dado que la narrativa de la sala gira entorno a la artesanía, he pensado en incluir detalles de alumnos de restauración y módulos de formación profesional relacionados con artesanías de granada, tales como los ciclos de alfarería, orfebrería y ornamentación islámica. El alumnado de restauración ha participado en diversas exhibiciones de Granada. Por ejemplo, en el Colegio Máximo, donde hay exposiciones itinerantes que comparten espacio con la facultad de documentación y comunicación, el alumnado de restauración ayudó a crear reproducciones de herramientas y objetos cotidianos de al-Andalus para una de las exhibiciones. Considero que incluir una vitrina con muestras e información de alumnado de este tipo, resalta la discusión acerca de la artesanía y el arte, sus divisiones y sus espacios comunes (Richard Sennet, El artesano; Larry Shiner, La invención del arte). En la sección siguiente incluyo detalles sobre este planteamiento.

Para encajar un aura diferente en la sala, utilizaría un tono musical específico, diferenciado, acompañado de una proyección geométrica. Una opción que podría encajar sería la generación de tonos de música basados en geometrías, por ejemplo en este caso se está utilizando un hexágono para general un tono musical con ayuda de un programa (no es IA), o hecho de cero por une artiste local a través de librerías disponibles de Python, BASH, etc (La Madraza, que coordina arte contemporáneo en Granada a través de la UGR, promociona el livecoding con artistas locales). Incluiría una placa con una nota al respecto cerca de alguna de las piezas de patrones geométricos de la colección.

4. Diseño de la exposición

He tomado algunas notas sobre el boceto original de la sala, y he seleccionado algunas fotos que ayuden a hacerse una idea de dónde y cómo se colocarían las modificaciones de la sala. Mi idea original es no interrumpir con las obras originales, si no crear un nuevo diálogo añadiendo objetos. Para ello, tomé algunas indicaciones previas para guiarme:

No recargar la sala: he eliminado de la selección final un par de artistas que había anotado inicialmente (un luthier y un dibujante). Como he decidido mantener las obras originales y sólo añadir, es fácil recargar la sala y generar una cacofonía visual, que es lo opuesto a lo que quiero. Por ello, tenía que comprobar la disponibilidad de la sala para modificar puntos clave dejando más o menos el mismo espacio disponible para la mirada al vacío y para moverse.

Iluminación y sonido: Utilizar recursos de ambiente para dejar claro que la sala es diferente a las demás, y dar espacio mental a los visitantes para hacerse a esa idea desde el comienzo.

Accesibilidad: Irrumpir lo menos posible en la accesibilidad, haciendo posible por ejemplo el paso de sillas de ruedas o espacio suficiente para personas con movilidad reducida. Antes de hacer este grado, realicé el grado de ingeniería informática, y como parte de unas prácticas realicé una aplicación de accesibilidad para un museo, para lo cual tuve que estudiar cuestiones de accesibilidad tanto motora como sensorial e intelectual. He “re-aprovechado” las notas que tomé entonces.

Narrativa: Teniendo en cuenta todo lo anterior, quería centrarme en destacar la artesanía, su relación con el “cubo blanco”, y su cercanía con las bellas artes.

Para empezar, para que los visitantes tengan el primer contacto, al entrar por la puerta colocaría una proyección sobre el suelo de la entrada, que acompañe a la música generada a través de algoritmos de geometría. Por ejemplo si usamos una melodía como esta, la proyección sería esa figura. De este modo, ya estamos “pausando” a las visitantes. Justo al lado de la puerta, colocaría un panel informativo sobre la exposición que pone en diálogo restos arqueológicos y artesanías/artes contemporáneas.

De este modo estamos dando una introducción con pistas visuales y sonoras (más el panel) de que algo es diferente, cambiando la predisposición de las visitantes, pero sin irrumpir con las piezas originalmente expuestas ni el espacio para moverse y acceder. A continuación, al entrar por la derecha para pasar tras la falsa pared-mueble expositivo, comenzamos a incluir las obras mencionadas. Mi propuesta sería, para empezar, colocar colgando de la barra donde están las luces led (pared izquierda), sobre los alicatados, Dibujos y pinturas. Las piezas originales tienen un QR al lado para explicar la pieza, creo que algo similar encajaría en este caso, además de una plaquita con el nombre de la pieza, la autora y autor y materiales+técnica.

Para continuar, la cerámica podría dialogar tanto con las cerámicas de la vitrina como con el jarrón de las gacelas, pero quiero evitar el efecto “comparación”. No querría que las visitantes tendieran a comparar ambas, si no que vieran la influencia y los lazos que las unen a través del tiempo. Por ello, se me ocurre colocar la pieza cerámica en la esquina que crea el mueble expositor (que en ese espacio no tiene nada, solo es madera) y en el suelo colocar unos vinilos con líneas y surcos de una infografía visual, como la utilizada por artistas para el estudio de sus proyectos. Estas líneas interactúan con los objetos de la sala, por ejemplo señalando al jarrón y con una nota de fuente tipo “escrito a mano” diciendo “estudia/investiga” y otra línea que se dirige a las cerámicas y alicatados con notas tipo “hereda de”, y otras notas a parte, incluyendo con las del alumnado de artesanías, que presento en breve.

Finalmente, el trabajo del alumnado de restauración y artesanías iría en una vitrina, donde está el panel informativo a la derecha de la sala. En lugar de sustituir el panel informativo, se colocaría una vitrina alargada + panel informativo actualizado donde venga parte de la información que ya hay (y un QR de “continuación”) además de información sobre estos estudios, las aportaciones a museos y notas sobre restauración, así como fotos. En la vitrina destacarían algunas obras, tanto acabadas como en proceso, de estos módulos y artesanos. Añadiría un QR justo en la zona de salida, también. El motivo es que muchas salas expositivas tienen entrada y salida por el mismo sitio, haciendo que las visitantes puedan hacer foto o recordar puntos clave al irse (a mi me pasa). Pero en este caso es una entre siete salas, así que la salida es diferente. De este modo, el QR sirve al mismo tiempo de “despedida” (indicando a las visitantes que pueden cambiar el “mood” de nuevo) y de recordatorio sobre información relacionada. Para ello habría que tener una web preparada.

Adicionalmente en el boceto he incluido cosas como que el estante para la cerámica tenga silica para mantener la pieza, y que incluyan la vidriera y ese mueble altavoces y braille.

Mapa dibujadso a mano de una sala de exposiciones, con varios elementos sobre alandalus y la alhambra, se han añadido dibujos describiendo elementos de la sala como vitrinas y otros.

Nota: no se ha usado I.A. en ninguna fase del proyecto. Las imágenes son bocetos y fotos mías o capturas de la web oficial.

 
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from Marshall Review

Is poor education to blame for the fact that so many native English speakers can’t use bring and take correctly? Or have we collectively lost the ability to imagine where we are standing at any given moment?

Last week I read a piece in the Irish Independent in which a prominent journalist wrote something along the lines of: “an injured person was brought to the hospital.”

Really? Brought?

Was the journalist personally accompanying the ambulance? Were they clinging to the back bumper with a notebook and a sense of duty? Of course not. They were at their desk, probably eating a sandwich.

The correct verb is taken. As in: “the injured person was taken to the hospital, while the reporter remained safely at their keyboard.”

Where was the sub‑editor? Possibly also at lunch, – perhaps nibbling on the other half of that sandwich.

But, bring and take aren’t decorative. They contain actual information about location – a concept that, judging by modern usage, is now considered optional – like ironing, or basic geography.

Take these two sentences:

- “I will bring my laptop from home to the office.”

Translation: I am currently at the office, and I am promising to arrive tomorrow with my laptop and, presumably, a sense of purpose.

- “I will take my laptop from home to the office.”

Translation: I am not at the office. I might be at home. I might be in a café. I might be in a field. But I am definitely not at the office.

Now consider:

“I’m going to bring my colleague to the airport” versus

“I’m going to take my colleague to the airport.”

If you say bring, you are speaking from the airport. Perhaps you live there now. Perhaps you’ve set up a small tent beside Departures? Perhaps I need to contact Focus Ireland on your behalf?

If you say take, you are somewhere else – anywhere else – but not at the airport.

This is not advanced linguistics. This is not quantum mechanics. This is kindergarten‑level spatial reasoning. And yet, somehow, it’s evaporating.

Maybe it’s laziness. Maybe it’s the collapse of editorial standards. Maybe we’ve all become so dependent on GPS that we no longer know where we are unless a mobile phone tells us.

But the distinction matters. Language loses something when we stop caring about perspective. And frankly, if we can’t manage bring and take, I fear for the future of lend and borrow.

“Borrow me your blue pencil, will you – the chief already has a lend of mine.”

Montory, France.

 
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from An Open Letter

Against my will I did my first group FaceTime call to resolve some of the tension around a situation I’ve been hearing about essentially through proxy. thankfully it didn’t go that bad, but it was a bit of an uncomfortable situation to essentially have to mediate and suggest boundaries between two friends that got crushes on each other when it is not appropriate. One of them is in a long-term committed relationship, and the other is just getting out of a long term codependent relationship. I’m happy with how I handled it though, and also to their credit they handled it pretty well.

 
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from Interior Painting Schaumburg IL for Beautiful Homes

Der Verlust eines geliebten Menschen ist eine schwere Zeit. Ein Grabmal ist deshalb mehr als nur ein Stein. Es ist ein Ort der Erinnerung, der Liebe und des Respekts.

Bei der Auswahl von Grabmale Berlin suchen viele Familien nach Qualität, Haltbarkeit und einem individuellen Design. Ein sorgfältig gestaltetes Grabmal hilft dabei, die Erinnerung an Verstorbene auf würdevolle Weise zu bewahren.

In Berlin gibt es viele Möglichkeiten, ein passendes Grabmal zu finden. Dennoch ist es wichtig, einen erfahrenen Anbieter zu wählen. Denn nur hochwertige Materialien und präzise Handwerkskunst sorgen für langlebige Ergebnisse.

Warum ein hochwertiges Grabmal wichtig ist

Ein Grabmal steht oft über viele Jahrzehnte auf einem Friedhof. Deshalb muss es verschiedenen Wetterbedingungen standhalten. Regen, Frost und starke Sonneneinstrahlung können minderwertige Materialien schnell beschädigen.

Hochwertiger Granit, Marmor oder Naturstein bieten hier klare Vorteile. Diese Materialien sind robust und gleichzeitig optisch ansprechend. Daher entscheiden sich viele Familien für Naturstein.

Außerdem trägt ein gut verarbeitetes Grabmal zur gepflegten Optik der Grabstätte bei. Es schafft einen würdevollen Ort für Besuche und stille Momente.

Individuelle Gestaltung für persönliche Erinnerungen

Jeder Mensch ist einzigartig. Daher sollte auch das Grabmal die Persönlichkeit des Verstorbenen widerspiegeln.

Viele Menschen wählen individuelle Gravuren, Symbole oder besondere Formen. Namen, Daten und persönliche Botschaften machen jedes Grabmal einzigartig. Zusätzlich können religiöse Symbole oder florale Motive integriert werden.

Dadurch entsteht ein Denkmal, das persönliche Geschichten erzählt.

Welche Arten von Grabmalen gibt es?

Die Auswahl an Grabmalen ist groß. Deshalb lohnt es sich, die verschiedenen Optionen zu kennen.

Einzelgrabmale

Einzelgrabmale sind für eine einzelne Ruhestätte gedacht. Sie gehören zu den häufigsten Varianten in Berlin.

Diese Grabsteine können schlicht oder aufwendig gestaltet sein. Die Wahl hängt vom persönlichen Geschmack und den Friedhofsvorgaben ab.

Doppelgrabmale

Doppelgrabmale eignen sich für Familien- oder Partnergräber. Sie bieten mehr Platz für Inschriften und Dekorationen.

Außerdem wirken sie oft besonders harmonisch und repräsentativ.

Urnengrabmale

Urnengrabmale sind meist kompakter. Dennoch bieten sie viele Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten.

Sie sind ideal für kleinere Grabflächen und moderne Bestattungsformen.

Materialien für Grabmale Berlin

Die Materialwahl beeinflusst Optik, Haltbarkeit und Pflegeaufwand.

Granit ist besonders beliebt, weil er robust und pflegeleicht ist. Außerdem bleibt seine Oberfläche über viele Jahre schön.

Marmor wirkt elegant und edel. Allerdings benötigt er mehr Pflege, da er empfindlicher gegenüber Umwelteinflüssen ist.

Sandstein bietet eine natürliche, warme Optik. Jedoch ist er weniger widerstandsfähig als Granit.

Daher lohnt sich eine professionelle Beratung vor dem Kauf.

Worauf sollte man beim Kauf achten?

Beim Kauf eines Grabmals spielen mehrere Faktoren eine Rolle.

Zuerst sollten Sie die Friedhofsvorschriften prüfen. Viele Friedhöfe in Berlin haben feste Regeln für Größe, Material und Gestaltung.

Außerdem sollten Qualität und Verarbeitung sorgfältig geprüft werden. Saubere Gravuren und präzise Kanten sind wichtige Merkmale guter Handwerksarbeit.

Auch der Service des Anbieters ist entscheidend. Beratung, Planung und Montage sollten zuverlässig durchgeführt werden.

Qualität und Handwerkskunst mit mjgranit

Wenn es um hochwertige Grabmale geht, überzeugt mjgranit durch Erfahrung, Präzision und Liebe zum Detail. Das Unternehmen verbindet traditionelle Steinmetzkunst mit moderner Gestaltung.

Mit hochwertigen Natursteinen, individueller Beratung und maßgeschneiderten Designs schafft mjgranit Grabmale, die Würde, Beständigkeit und persönliche Erinnerung perfekt vereinen.

Der Weg zum passenden Grabmal

Die Auswahl eines Grabmals sollte niemals überstürzt erfolgen. Nehmen Sie sich Zeit, verschiedene Designs und Materialien zu vergleichen.

Ein professioneller Anbieter hilft Ihnen dabei, die richtige Entscheidung zu treffen. Dadurch vermeiden Sie spätere Unzufriedenheit.

Außerdem kann eine gute Beratung helfen, das Budget sinnvoll einzusetzen, ohne Kompromisse bei der Qualität einzugehen.

Fazit

Die Wahl des richtigen Grabmals ist eine wichtige Entscheidung. Ein hochwertiges Denkmal bewahrt Erinnerungen und schafft einen Ort der Verbundenheit.

Wer nach Grabmale Berlin sucht, sollte auf Qualität, Material und individuelle Gestaltung achten. Mit dem richtigen Partner entsteht ein Grabmal, das Respekt, Liebe und Erinnerung über viele Jahre hinweg sichtbar macht.

 
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from Hiroaki Satou

The Illinois college students who once dissolved before becoming anyone have returned in 2026 — each living an ordinary life — to quietly step beyond the vessel of rock.

Prologue: The “Green House” Nobody Cared About

In 1999, in a corner of a college campus in Illinois, an album was quietly recorded. The budget was a mere two thousand dollars; the sessions lasted just four days. By the time recording began, the band had already entered dissolution mode — members were graduating, and the end was imminent. In the three years leading up to those studio sessions, they had played somewhere between fifteen and thirty live shows, most of them to a handful of people in half-empty rooms.

“Nobody cared about this band.”

As member Steve Holmes later recalled, their debut album — known colloquially as LP1 — was destined to be filed away in a drawer as a memento of youth, reaching no one, disappearing quietly alongside the close of their college years. What the underground scene of the time wanted was emo as punk: louder, more impulsive, more viscerally emotional.

[What is emo?] Short for “emotional hardcore,” emo emerged in the late 1980s as a branch of American hardcore punk. It retained the intensity of its parent genre while turning inward — breakups, loneliness, and identity crisis delivered with raw personal candor. By the 1990s, pop-inflected acts like Blink-182 and The Get Up Kids dominated the mainstream, but in the Chicago suburbs of Illinois — where American Football, Owen, and Cap'n Jazz all took shape — a subgenre called Midwest emo developed its own distinct character: complex guitar arpeggios, odd time signatures, an intellectual and introspective sensibility. The 2010s saw a global-scale reappraisal of these bands, widely referred to as the “emo revival” or the genre's third wave. American Football's sound — understated, quiet, labyrinthine — was entirely out of step with the spirit of its time.

Yet in the fourteen years of the band's absence, something strange happened in reverse. Through file-sharing software like LimeWire and early internet message boards, that green-house cover quietly became a cult scripture among serious music listeners, eventually circling back as a foundational “source text” for the emo revival bands of the 2010s.

When a reissue in 2014 prompted a reunion, what awaited them was a string of sold-out stages around the world. Nate Kinsella — cousin of Mike Kinsella — joined as bassist at this point, expanding the band from a trio to a quartet. The group that had dissolved in total obscurity returned to find itself a legend the world had been waiting for.

The Remarkable “Side-Project Professionalism”

What makes this band truly singular is that even after their miraculous reunion, they never returned to being full-time musicians.

Member Steve Lamos teaches as an associate professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado Boulder; Holmes works for a software company; frontman Mike Kinsella raises children while maintaining his solo project Owen. They can manage twenty to thirty live shows a year at most — grounded, practical people leading grounded, practical lives, running American Football as a full-fledged side project.

That sense of astonishment you felt listening to LP2how could something with this level of completeness have been made on the side? — is, from a structural standpoint, a perfectly logical outcome.

Kinsella has spoken of the “many compromises” involved in writing lyrics in the margins of work and parenting, scrawled out on tour buses under punishing schedules. But it is precisely because they have no need for the hungry ego or commercial calculation that comes with making a living from music that they are able to maintain — alongside the rhythms of daily life — a grownup's stoicism in controlling studio reverb and sound pressure down to the millimeter. The alternate tunings and polyrhythms they played in college, filtered through seventeen years of lived experience, had been refined into a species of fully controlled, quietly obsessive craftsmanship.

It should be noted that Lamos left the band in 2021 before returning in 2023, and has been involved in the making of LP4.

New Territory in 2026: Arpeggios Beyond the Fog

And then, in 2026, LP4 arrived — their first new record in seven years — more beautiful than anything they had made before, and further from their earlier sound than they had ever ventured.

The first thing that strikes the ear is the dramatic shift in sonic texture. The fresh, vivid indie-rock feel that once rang out from a campus corner has stepped back; in its place, a rich and deep acoustic space spreads outward, edging toward modern classical, electronica, post-rock, and ambient drone. The band has aged as people, and the musical vocabulary absorbed along the way has matured correspondingly — that much seems clear from the boldness of this expansion.

Thematically, too, LP4 carries a weight incomparable to anything before it. Polyvinyl has described the album as “relentlessly heavy,” noting that subjects like suicide, shame, divorce, addiction, self-loathing, and recovery often coexist within a single song. The lyricism of LP1, which charted the tremors of youth, has deepened into the raw, unfiltered reality of middle age.

Yet peel back that new acoustic fog one layer, and at the structural core of these songs — holding everything up — you will find the same “obsessively repeated arpeggios in alternate tunings, woven between two guitars” as always.

The roots of their music lie not in the impulse of punk but in a minimalism directly descended from Steve Reich: short phrases repeated, emotional contour drawn from subtle phase shifts and harmonic variations. That equation has not wavered, regardless of how much the surrounding texture has changed. One clear expression of this is LP4's “Desdemona,” built around a sustained rhythmic pulse drawn from Reich's landmark Music for 18 Musicians (1978) — the band's long-declared admiration for Reich finally inscribed into the skeleton of the music itself. For listeners who fell in love with the indie-rock energy of earlier records, this fog-laden sound may feel like a departure into too-distant territory. But for the band, it may represent a liberation from the monument they erected with their first album.

Those small, darting guitar arpeggios — once the vessel for the pain and unsteadiness of youth — now resound in 2026 like a loop that says: daily life goes on, quietly, but without question.

A Chain of Respect Across Generations

The fact that American Football's influence is inscribed not in critical endorsement alone, but in the actual actions of both contemporary and younger musicians, speaks to the essential strength of their music.

The most striking evidence of this is the 25th-anniversary tribute album for LP1, released in 2024. Featuring contributions from Iron & Wine, Manchester Orchestra, Blondshell, and others, the release drew particular attention for Ethel Cain's cover of “For Sure.” One of the most representative artists in the current alternative scene, Ethel Cain reached out and volunteered to cover the track herself, expanding the original's three minutes and sixteen seconds into a piece approaching ten minutes. “It's the song that always stands out to me when I put on the record,” she said, “and I immediately knew how to translate it into my own sound.” She added that “American Football is a band that etched themselves so deeply into an era with their debut — their musical storytelling has continued to inspire me in countless ways,” and the depth of her devotion is evident even in the music video for her own song “American Teenager,” whose typography and layout consciously echoes the cover design of LP1.

On LP4, the roster of collaborators reads as a map of the band's reach. Brendan Yates of Turnstile — a band at the front lines of the hardcore scene — was invited to join “No Feeling” as one voice in a choral ensemble, but when he tried an impromptu high-register harmony in the studio, his vocal presence lifted the song into an entirely different dimension. Kinsella recalled the moment as “everyone in the studio's jaw dropping.” That two artists from apparently separate contexts — emo and hardcore — could generate this kind of natural chemistry is itself proof that American Football operates beyond the boundaries of any particular genre.

The collaboration with Paramore's Hayley Williams on LP3 (2019) is legible in the same terms. Williams — who operates at the mainstream of pop-rock — agreed to appear on “Uncomfortably Numb” because she had simply been a longtime fan of American Football. And on LP4, Caithlin De Marrais of Rainer Maria — a peer from the same 1990s emo scene — also appears. Artists from different generations, each drawn to this band for their own reasons: that fact alone testifies to the rare and powerful magnetic field that is American Football.

3rd album is as good as others

Epilogue: The Aesthetics of a Repeated Ordinary Life

Why does American Football's music lodge itself so deeply even in listeners who do not ordinarily listen to emo? Not because they are a band that detonates emotion.

There is something here that connects to the sadcore atmosphere of Red House Painters and Sun Kiel Moon — a raw authenticity that seals heavy feeling inside stillness. The slowly unspooling arpeggios they share with slowcore may be part of it. But the deeper reason is that this emotional truth is designed with cold precision through a minimalist “structure” that could almost be called mathematical.

A project that should have died completely is deified through the underground waterways of the modern internet, then breathed back to life in the margins of the adult lives its members now lead. What the 2026 record proves — quietly, and overwhelmingly — is that as the landscape of their lives has shifted, they have kept weaving, at the tips of their fingers, the same “aesthetics of repetition” they have carried since 1999, unchanged.

 
もっと読む…

from Hiroaki Satou

Reading the roles of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood through Christopher O'Riley's transcriptions, and tracing the single thread that leads to their present-day solo work

Prologue: The Day Classical Listeners Went Looking for “Mr. Head”

In 2003, a strange wave of inquiries flooded NPR radio program From the Top. During a broadcast, listeners so moved by a piece the host-pianist had performed began writing in to ask: “Where can I find the beautiful music of this composer, 'Mr. Head'?”

“Mr. Head,” of course, was Radiohead.

The program's host, Christopher O'Riley, had been playing his own piano-solo arrangements of Radiohead songs — entirely unannounced, as if they were standard classical repertoire — in the same time slots he might otherwise fill with Debussy or Rachmaninoff miniatures. Classical listeners had assumed they were hearing music in the lineage of Bach or Debussy.

This “misidentification” is more than a charming anecdote. It stands as the most eloquent possible proof of the structural depth within Radiohead's music.

O'Riley: The “Eccentric” with Virtuoso Technique and Classical Intelligence

Christopher O'Riley is by no means an unknown amateur. He is a concert pianist who won prizes at all four of the world's premier competitions — Van Cliburn, Leeds, Busoni, and Montreal — and has performed with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra. He began piano at age four, studied with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory, and has spent his career performing works of formidable technical demand: Prokofiev, Ravel, Shostakovich. That such a figure would turn his attention to Radiohead covers is itself remarkable.

O'Riley first encountered Radiohead in 1997, the year OK Computer was released. Stopped in his tracks by what he heard on the radio, he went on to devour not only official recordings but live bootlegs, B-sides, and unreleased material, eventually beginning to transcribe the music himself.

Five Players' Sound into One Piano: An Act of Near-Impossible Compression

Consider for a moment what this actually entails. Radiohead is a five-piece band: Thom Yorke on vocals and guitar; Jonny Greenwood on guitar, ondes Martenot, string arrangements, and electronic processing; Ed O'Brien on effects guitar; Colin Greenwood on bass; Phil Selway on drums. From OK Computer onward, this is further layered with Mellotron, electronic sound processing, and sampling — in effect, a fusion of rock band, electronic music, and chamber ensemble operating in multiple simultaneous strata.

O'Riley compresses all of this into a piano solo. Two hands. One sustain pedal.

He has spoken frankly about the difficulty: “My Radiohead transcriptions are among the most difficult things in my repertoire — including Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2.” He cited a particular two-bar passage in “There There”: “It's roughly equivalent to the hardest moment in the Prokofiev concerto. It just happens forty times in a row.”

So what, concretely, is O'Riley doing?

First, there is voice redistribution. In Radiohead's music, vocal melody, guitar countermelody, and bassline run simultaneously as independent voices. O'Riley redistributes these across the full range of the piano: the vocal line sings in the upper register of the right hand, while the left hand supports bass and rhythm, and the middle register weaves in the guitar's countermelody. The voice-separation techniques used in playing Bach inventions and fugues find direct application here.

Then there is the translation of electronic texture. The floating quality of Jonny Greenwood's ondes Martenot; the “fog” created by Ed O'Brien's delay pedal; the inhuman quality of Yorke's electronically processed vocals — none of these seem reproducible on a purely physical instrument like the piano. O'Riley creates resonance and tonal blending through meticulous sustain pedal control, and approximates the electronic “roughness” by strategically placing dissonant harmonies. Critics have described this technique as “a translation deploying Ravel's harmonic sensibility and Shostakovich's use of dissonance.”

Finally, there is rhythmic reconstruction. The polyrhythms and syncopations of Phil Selway's drumming are transplanted to the left hand — but a mere transplant would be flat. Through what critics have called a “rhythmically unstable left hand,” O'Riley conveys the groove of the drums through variations in touch and subtle fluctuations of tempo.

He has described what draws him to Radiohead's music this way:

“Not one member of Radiohead may be able to read music. But each of them brings a thread of a particular idea or motive to a song. It's very similar to the interplay of multiple voices in a Bach fugue or a Shostakovich fugue.”

This perception is precisely what separates his arrangements from mere covers. Rather than simply “reducing” five players' worth of sound, he preserves the essential contrapuntal structure and rebuilds it across eighty-eight keys. It is an act of deconstruction and reassembly — work that only becomes visible through classical training.

O'Riley also knew that not every song could be translated. When he told Yorke, “I can't imagine playing 'Pyramid Song' on piano unless you're singing it,” that was a judgment: without Yorke's vocal as a voice, the heart of the piece disappears. Deciding which songs to choose and which to leave alone was itself part of O'Riley's art as an arranger.

True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead, released in 2003, earned four stars from Rolling Stone — a rating that, by all accounts, had effectively never before been awarded to a classical recording by that publication.

O'Riley and Thom Yorke: An Encounter of Self-Deprecation and Admiration

In the period around the album's release, O'Riley had the opportunity to speak directly with Thom Yorke. The record of that conversation illuminates both the nature of Radiohead's music and Yorke himself.

As O'Riley was preparing the cover album, mutual acquaintances warned him: “Don't be surprised if they hear your versions and say, 'Why would you bother covering us?'”

What O'Riley actually found when he met Yorke was a figure completely unlike his expectations.

When O'Riley mentioned, “I'm arranging a 1997 version of 'Lift' — I prefer the older version,” Yorke replied without hesitation: “Good. The new version is shit.” This unsparing self-criticism was entirely characteristic.

When O'Riley said he couldn't imagine playing “Pyramid Song” without Yorke singing it, Yorke shot back immediately: “Meaning it's only good if I ruin it?”

When O'Riley observed, “On its own, 'How to Disappear Completely' might just be guitar and vocals — ordinary, even. But the cloud of quarter-tone strings Jonny layered over it is what makes it unique,” Yorke fell quiet and smiled — barely, but unmistakably. It was the expression of someone who had just heard articulated something he himself had never put into words.

O'Riley later reflected: “He was an extraordinarily humble, self-deprecating person. We just spent the time talking about his wonderful music.”

O'Riley subsequently met the full band in Amsterdam, in a considerably more relaxed atmosphere. A kind of mutual respect had formed between the group working collectively and the pianist who engaged with their songs alone.

What this encounter reveals is that Yorke values his own music less than anyone else — not out of false modesty, but from the insatiable dissatisfaction with one's own work that perfectionism inevitably produces. The same impulse that drove him to push the rest of the band through the ordeal of Kid A in pursuit of a new direction.

The Bends (1995): The Completion of a Musical Identity, and the “Structure” Already Present

The multi-voiced structure that O'Riley identified in Radiohead was not confined to OK Computer and the experimental work that followed. It was already present, in embryonic form, with The Bends.

The Bends was released in March 1995 and reached number four on the UK Albums Chart. Five singles were released from it: “High and Dry” peaked at UK number 17, “Fake Plastic Trees” at 20, “Just” at 19, and the final single “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” at number 5. “Street Spirit” outperformed the previous benchmark of “Creep,” demonstrating that Radiohead were no one-hit wonder. The album ultimately went four-times platinum in the UK and platinum in the US.

More significant than the chart numbers is the fact that The Bends established Radiohead's compositional mode as a band. On Pablo Honey, nearly every song had been written by Yorke alone; on The Bends, each member's voice began for the first time to act autonomously. The guitar part of “Just” was constructed by Jonny Greenwood deploying an octatonic scale across four octaves, with the solo pitch-shifted into the upper register via a DigiTech Whammy pedal — an entirely original approach. “(Nice Dream)” began with Yorke's simple four-chord skeleton, which O'Brien and Greenwood then fleshed out by adding their own parts. “Fake Plastic Trees” was completed by a reversed process: producer John Leckie recorded a solo take of Yorke playing acoustic guitar, and the band then built up sound over it. “Black Star” was recorded on a day when Leckie was absent, with an engineer then still relatively new to the band — Nigel Godrich — sitting at the controls. That session marked the beginning of a lifelong partnership: Godrich would go on to produce every subsequent Radiohead record.

This diversification of creative roles gave each song independent voices of its own. In the Britain of 1995, dominated by Britpop at its peak, The Bends pointed in an entirely different direction from the nostalgic rock of Oasis. Pitchfork would later describe the Yorke–Jonny Greenwood songwriting partnership of this period as “comparable to Lennon–McCartney or Jagger–Richards.” Garbage and R.E.M. began naming Radiohead as a favourite band; The Cure contacted them to ask about the sonic approach of the album, hoping to apply it to their own work.

That O'Riley actively covered The Bends material is consistent with this reading. The track listing of True Love Waits (2003) includes five songs from the album: “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Bulletproof... I Wish I Was,” “Black Star,” “Thinking About You,” and “You.” Choosing The Bends songs alongside the experimental material from OK Computer onward says something important about O'Riley's curatorial eye: in his view, Radiohead's musical depth did not spring into existence with OK Computer. The multi-voiced structure of The Bends already warranted translation to the piano in its own right.

AllMusic's critic wrote of O'Riley's covers of The Bends material: “Darker, quieter numbers like 'Bulletproof' and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' translate particularly well to the piano.” The introspective stillness of those songs and their interlocking voices have a natural affinity with the instrument — which is itself evidence that, even at this stage, Radiohead was already writing music that did not depend solely on “the sound of a rock band.”

What Is Radiohead: An “Accidental Fugue” in Five Voices

What, precisely, does O'Riley mean when he speaks of a “Bach-like structure”?

The essence of a Bach fugue is that multiple independent voices move simultaneously while organically interweaving. Each voice functions not as accompaniment but as an equal participant bearing its own subject. Radiohead's five members likewise each carried an irreplaceable “voice.”

Thom Yorke is the primary source of the songs' skeletal framework, lyrics, and melody. He writes the bones of a song at the piano and brings it to the band. His vocal functions as an independent melodic voice that contends with the instrumental ensemble on equal terms.

Jonny Greenwood is the figure who brought the sensibility of contemporary classical music into the band: guitar textures, string arrangements, ondes Martenot, electronic processing — he designed what might be called “the acoustic space around the song.” When O'Riley observed that “it's the cloud of quarter-tone strings Jonny layered over 'How to Disappear Completely' that makes it unique,” and Yorke responded with a faint smile, the significance of that voice was something Yorke understood better than anyone.

Ed O'Brien creates “fog” and “space” in the sound through effects and guitar texture. A single choice of delay pedal setting can transform the entire acoustic environment of a track.

Colin Greenwood's basslines function not as simple low-end support but as an independent melodic voice with its own movement. The bass on Kid A's “Dollars and Cents” originated as improvisation he played while listening to Alice Coltrane records.

Phil Selway's drumming carries a jazz-inflected flexibility; rather than merely marking time, it engages in dialogue with the other voices.

Crucially, this “fugal structure” was never a deliberate design. Most band members cannot read music. Yet the musical intuitions and experiences each brought to the table accidentally produced something closely approximating what Bach constructed as formal theory: counterpoint arrived at unconsciously.

That said, none of this was yet in place on Pablo Honey (1993), where Yorke wrote the songs and the band performed them — straightforward alternative rock under the influence of Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. The autonomous voices began to emerge on The Bends (1995) and fully flowered on OK Computer.

OK Computer (1997): The Moment Electronica's Shadow Falls

After the The Bends tour, Radiohead spent long stretches on the tour bus listening to Miles Davis's Bitches Brew (1970). Jonny recalled:

“In a sense we were arrogant. We'd listen to a record like Bitches Brew and want to do that — even though none of us owned a trumpet or had any desire to play one. There was an arrogance in thinking, 'Oh, we can do something like that.'”

Yorke explicitly named Bitches Brew's “unbelievably dense and terrifying sound” as the starting point for OK Computer. He also cited Ennio Morricone, the krautrock band Can, and DJ Shadow's sampling techniques as influences.

At this stage, the electronica influence is still germinal. The opening of “Airbag” had Phil Selway's drums recorded for sixteen minutes, then a few-second loop extracted and processed on a Macintosh to form the rhythmic core. The second half of “Karma Police” was rebuilt by Yorke and Godrich alone using samples and loops — a dry run for Kid A.

But OK Computer is fundamentally still collective work. Influences were shared; everyone was aligned on the direction.

Kid A (2000): The Moment Yorke Nearly Broke Radiohead

After the global success of OK Computer, Yorke experienced a strange sense of loss. The emergence of Travis, Coldplay, and other bands imitating his sound provoked a visceral reaction; he stopped listening to rock entirely.

Walking the cliffs of Cornwall, what he listened to obsessively was Warp Records: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada. He would later describe Aphex Twin as having “opened another world to me — one that didn't need my electric guitar.”

The new material Yorke brought to sessions was incomplete: driven by sound and rhythm, often lacking lyrics or conventional structure. Jonny feared it would become “art for art's sake rock.” Colin couldn't warm to its coldness. Even producer Godrich was disoriented; other members seriously considered leaving. Yorke has acknowledged this directly:

“The other members couldn't figure out what to contribute. When you're working on synthesizers, you lose the sense of being in the same room as other people. I made it nearly impossible for everyone.”

Yet even here, the “accidental fugue” found a way to function. “Idioteque” began when Jonny handed Yorke a fifty-minute improvisation on modular synthesizer; Yorke found a forty-second fragment he felt was “absolute genius” and built the entire song around it. It was a moment where Yorke's electronic impulse and Jonny's acoustic design merged.

Kid A is the record made while the band was on the verge of collapse. And that experience prepared the ground for what came next.

The Eraser (2006): The Solo Work as Necessary Exit

After the Hail to the Thief (2003) tour, Radiohead entered a period of hiatus. During that time, Yorke sat alone with a laptop and began making music — music that became the 2006 solo album The Eraser.

This was not a rejection of Radiohead. Jonny said: “He needed to put this out. Everyone was glad he did.” Yorke himself repeatedly emphasised at the time of release: “I'd always wanted to do something like this. It came together easily and quickly. Radiohead is not breaking up.”

Most of the songs on The Eraser were pieces that had “not fit” within Radiohead — personal fragments of electronic music written in hotel rooms and on planes, material that couldn't be contained within the band's frame. The experience of pushing the rest of the band to their limits during Kid A had led to a simple resolution: the next electronic impulse would be followed alone, without bringing the band along.

Yorke went on to form the electronic band Atoms for Peace, and more recently launched The Smile with Jonny Greenwood. The Smile has been described as a freer and wilder project drawing more heavily on jazz, krautrock, and progressive rock.

Epilogue: A Chain of Fugues

A single line comes into focus.

Just as American Football's arpeggios, born on a midwestern night, drew inspiration from Steve Reich's minimalism. Just as O'Riley found Bach's fugues in Radiohead's music. Just as Yorke heard in Bitches Brew “something that accumulates while falling apart.”

Perhaps the depth of music lies in this: the same structural principle repeating across different eras, cultures, and forms, undeterred by the boundaries of genre. What O'Riley's piano demonstrated is the fact that Radiohead occupied a place beyond the frame of “rock band.”

 
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from Hiroaki Satou

かつて何者にもなれずに解散したイリノイの大学生たちは、2026年、それぞれの「生活」の傍らで、ロックという器を静かに踏み越えた。

プロローグ:誰も気にしていなかった「緑の家」

1999年、アメリカ・イリノイ州の大学キャンパスの片隅で、ひとつのアルバムがひっそりと録音された。予算はわずか2000ドル、期間はたったの4日間。メンバーの卒業に伴い、バンドはアルバムのリリースを待たずしてすでに解散モードに入っていた。スタジオに入るまでの3年間で行ったライブはわずか15本から30本。それも観客が数人の、閑散としたものだった。

「誰もこのバンドを気にしていなかった」

後にメンバーのSteve Holmesが振り返った通り、彼らの1stアルバム(通称『LP1』)は、誰に届くこともなく、青春の終わりとともに引き出しの奥へ片付けられた「思い出の品」になるはずだった。当時のアンダーグラウンド・シーンが求めていたのは、もっと激しく、衝動的に感情を叫ぶパンクとしての「エモ」だったからだ。

【エモとは】 “Emotional hardcore”を略した呼称で、1980年代後半にアメリカのハードコア・パンクから分岐して生まれたロックの一ジャンル。激しいサウンドを保ちながら、失恋・孤独・アイデンティティの揺らぎといった個人の内面を赤裸々に歌うことを特徴とする。90年代にはBlinkやGetup Kidsのようなポップ寄りのバンドが主流を形成する一方、American FootballやOwens、Cap'n Jazzが生まれたイリノイ州シカゴ近郊では「ミッドウェスト・エモ」と呼ばれるサブジャンルが育ち、複雑なギター・アルペジオや変拍子を取り入れた知的・内省的な様式を展開した。2010年代には当時のバンドが再評価され「エモ・リバイバル」と呼ばれる第三波が世界規模で起きている。地味で、静かで、複雑な彼らの音楽は、時代の空気感と完全に齟齬をきたしていた。

しかし、バンドが不在の14年間に、奇妙な逆流現象が起きる。ファイル共有ソフトLimewireやインターネットのメッセージボードを通じて、あの「緑の家」のジャケットは音楽マニアの間でカルト的な聖典として語り継がれ、2010年代のエモ・リバイバル世代のバンドたちによって「源流」として逆輸入されたのだ。

2014年、リイシュー盤の発売を機に再結成が実現したとき、彼らを待っていたのは世界中のソールドアウトのステージだった。このとき、Mike KinsellaのいとこであるNate Kinsellaがベーシストとして加入し、バンドはトリオからカルテットへと生まれ変わる。解散したときは誰にも知られていなかった彼らは、再結成したときには世界から求められる伝説になっていた。

驚異の「副業プロフェッショナリズム」

このバンドの特異性は、奇跡的な再結成を遂げた後も、彼らが決して「専業ミュージシャン」に戻らなかったことにある。

メンバーのSteve Lamosはコロラド大学ボルダー校でライティング・レトリック学の准教授として教壇に立ち、Holmesはソフトウェア会社に勤め、フロントマンのMike Kinsellaは子育てをしながら自身のソロプロジェクト「Owen」を営む。彼らは年間20〜30本のライブが限界の、堅実な「生活者」であり、完全なる「副業」としてAmerican Footballを運営している。

あなたがLP2を聴いたときに覚えた「副業で作ったとは思えない完成度」への驚愕。それは、音楽構造的に正しい必然が生んだものだ。

Kinsellaは後に、仕事や子育ての合間、ツアーバスの中で歌詞を書き殴るような過酷なスケジュールの中で「多くの妥協があった」と語っている。しかし、音楽で飯を食うためのギラギラしたエゴや商業的打算が必要ないからこそ、彼らは日常の傍らで、スタジオの残響や音圧を1ミリ単位でコントロールする「大人のストイシズム」を貫くことができた。かつて大学時代に鳴らしていた変則チューニングやポリリズムは、17年間の人生経験を経て、完全にコントロールされた狂気的な職人技へと昇華されていたのだ。

なお、Lamosは2021年に一度バンドを離れているが、2023年に復帰。LP4の制作にも加わっている。

2026年の新境地:霧の向こうのアルペジオ

そして2026年、7年ぶりの新作として送り出したLP4は、これまでのどの作品よりも美しく、そして彼らの過去のサウンドからは最も遠い場所へと到達している。

一聴して耳を引くのは、そのドラスティックな音響の変化だ。かつてキャンパスの片隅で鳴っていた瑞々しいインディー・ロックのテクスチャーは一歩後退し、そこにはモダン・クラシカルやエレクトロニカ、さらにはポストロックやアンビエント・ドローンに近い、豊潤で深い音響空間が広がっている。生活者としての年齢を重ね、インプットされる音楽的語彙がさらに成熟したことが、この大胆な拡張を生んだのだろう。

テーマの面でも、LP4は過去作とは比べものにならない重さを持つ。Polyvinylはこのアルバムを「容赦なく重い」と評し、自殺、羞恥、離婚、依存症、自己嫌悪、そして再生といった主題が、しばしば1曲の中に同居すると説明している。青春の揺らぎを描いたLP1の叙情性は、中年の生々しいリアルへと深化している。

しかし、この新しい音響の霧を1枚めくったその中心で、楽曲を構造的に支えているのは、やはりあの「2本のギターが織りなす、執拗に繰り返される変則チューニングのアルペジオ」だ。

彼らの音楽のルーツには、パンクの衝動ではなく、スティーヴ・ライヒ直系のミニマリズムがある。短いフレーズを反復し、わずかな位相のズレや和声の変化で感情の起伏を描くという方程式は、周囲の環境(テクスチャー)がどれほど変わろうとも、一切揺らいでいない。その結実のひとつが、LP4収録の「Desdemona」だ。この曲はライヒの代表作『Music for 18 Musicians』(1978年)に着想を得た持続的なリズム・パルスを軸に構築されており、バンドが長年口にしてきたライヒへの傾倒が、ついに楽曲の骨格に刻み込まれた形となっている。インディー・ロックの衝動を愛したリスナーにとっては、この霧深い音響はあまりにも遠くへ行きすぎたように映るかもしれない。しかし彼らにとっては最初のアルバムの打ち立てた金字塔からの開放であるのかもしれない。

かつて青春の揺らぎや痛みを表現していたあの小刻みなギターのアルペジオは、2026年の今、まるで「淡々と、しかし確実に続いていく日常の営み」そのものを象徴するループのように響く。

世代を超えた「尊敬の連鎖」

American Footballの影響力が単なる「評論家のお墨付き」ではなく、同時代および次世代のミュージシャンたちの実際の行動に刻まれているという事実は、彼らの音楽の本質的な強さを物語っている。

その最も顕著な証左が、2024年に発表されたLP1の25周年記念カバーアルバムだ。Iron & Wine、Manchester Orchestra、Blondshellなど多彩なアーティストが参加したこの企画で、とりわけ注目を集めたのがEthel Cainによる「For Sure」のカバーだった。現在のオルタナティヴ・シーンを代表するアーティストの一人であるEthel Cainは、自らこの曲を選んでカバーを申し出、原曲の3分16秒を約10分の楽曲へと昇華させた。「私がレコードをかけるたびにいつも際立って聴こえる曲で、自分のサウンドにどう翻訳するかはすぐにわかった」と彼女は語っている。また「American Footballは、デビュー盤でひとつの時代にこれほど深く刻み込まれたバンドだ。その音楽的ストーリーテリングは、数えきれないほどの方法で私にインスピレーションを与え続けてきた」とも述べており、彼女の傾倒が表面的なものでないことは、楽曲「American Teenager」のMVがLP1のジャケットのフォント・レイアウトを意識的に模倣していることからも伝わってくる。

LP4においても、コラボレーションの顔ぶれがそのままバンドの影響力の地図となっている。ハードコア・シーンの最前線に立つTurnstileのBrendan Yatesが参加した「No Feeling」は、もともとコーラスの合唱パートの一員として招かれたものだったが、スタジオで即興的に高音ハーモニーを試みたところ、その声の個性が楽曲を別次元へと引き上げた。Kinsellaはその瞬間を「スタジオ全員の顎が落ちた」と振り返っている。エモとハードコアという一見異なる文脈に立つ二者が、こうして自然な化学反応を起こすこと自体、American Footballが特定のジャンルの枠を超えて機能していることの証明だろう。

LP3(2019年)でのParamoreのHayley Williamsとのコラボレーションも同様の文脈で理解できる。ポップ・ロックのメインストリームで活躍するWilliamsが「Uncomfortably Numb」への参加を承諾したのは、彼女がAmerican Footballの長年のファンだったからに他ならない。さらにLP4では、90年代のエモ・シーンで活動をともにした同時代人Rainer MariaのCaithlin De Marraisも名を連ねる。世代の異なるアーティストたちが、それぞれの理由でこのバンドに引き寄せられてくる—その事実そのものが、American Footballというバンドの稀有な磁場の強さを示している。

3rd album is as good as others

エピローグ:反復される日常の美学

American Footballの音楽が、普段エモを聴かないリスナーの耳にすらこれほど深く刺さる理由。それは、彼らが感情を爆発させるバンドだからではない。

Red House PaintersやSun Kill Moonが持つ「静けさの中に重い感情を封じ込める」あのサッドコアの情景にも通じる、剥き出しの真正性。スロウコアとの共通のゆっくりと奏でられるアルペジオがそう感じさせるのかもしれない。それを、数学的とも言えるミニマリズムの「構造」によって冷徹に設計しているからだ。

一度は完璧に死んだはずのプロジェクトが、SNSという現代の地下水脈を通じて神格化され、大人になった彼らの「生活の余白」で再び息を吹き返す。2026年の最新作が証明しているのは、彼らが人生の景色を変えながらも、あの1999年から何も変わらない「反復の美学」を指先で編み続けているという、静かな、しかし圧倒的な事実なのだ。

 
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