I Feel the Cosmos!

Wow! Where has the time gone?? I never forgot about this page, but I was getting all up in my head about posting. I would love it if some other friends hopped on neocities and started blogging so I had some accountability buddies ;)

I got busy curating and planning exhibits for work and then soon enough summer started. Thank goodness!

I've been biking and preparing for Intelligentsia Cup with what little time and we'll see what happens with my fitness on Saturday at Lake Bluff, I suppose.

Pitchfork was, minus the rain and being forced to evacuate, great. My favorite part will always be linking up with friends from undergrad and catching up for little moments between sets. I love sitting in the grass with everyone and doing play-by-play recaps of who we saw.

Speaking of hanging in the grass, my summer days have picked up a semi-regular routine of biking to the park and chatting for a few hours over snacks and drinks, then going to a show. I didn't hang out at the lake as much as I anticipated, but I don't think I'll be leaving Chicago soon.

Lately, whenever I've gotten misty-eyed for these laidback days, I've been thinking of the Action Button review of Boku No Natsuyasumi for the PS1. It's a great essay and I love how Tim Rogers goes deep into the idea of being nostalgic for a place you've never been to, rural Japan in this case.

I think this post has run its course though and I'd like to go on a bike ride.

With love,
brandon <・)))><

What a year for music! Every year I sit down and think, “there’s no way there’ll be even more great music this year,” and I’m wrong every time. I love it!

With the holidays in November, I slowed my listening habits down quite a bit and missed a few releases, so it’s a little late winter/early winter-heavy. If I had to narrow down a top 5 albums based on listening time and visits, it may be something like this:

→ Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You
→ Florist: Florist
→ JID: The Forever Story
→ Kilo Kish: AMERICAN GURL
→ Mamalarky: Pocket Fantasy

That said, here’s a list of my favorite albums from 2022 in the order from when they came out this year. Many new favorites from artists I had not heard of before and pleasant surprises from artists I already love.

With love,
brandon ( ˘ ɜ˘) ♬♪♫

In the past year, or so, I’ve talked in private at length to coworkers and friends about starting a blog. As I’ve been on social media more and more, the idea of a blog feels feels so fresh and unlike anything else social media offers at the moment. I mean, there are more traditional blog options like Tumblr and CoHost, but the particular limits of each have me scratching my head and I say to myself, “Ah, this is annoying. I wish I could just set this up from scratch,” (I suppose I am using Neocities to host this site though…).

As of writing, I have no real clear goals as to how I plan on using it besides having a central location for any longer takes and ideas that go beyond the confines of a tweet or Instagram story caption. Maybe something between a personal blog and digital garden? Whatever happens, I do know that posts will be written on the fly with minimal editing.

I’ve been seeing news outlets and other world wide web users tout about web 3.0 (maybe web 3.0 is really just a return to web 1.0?) and the move away from centralized platforms, but it still feels a bit far-fetched to me. When I see these discussions, I feel like I’m missing steps that other people subconsciously know about, and I’m left not knowing what to do to make the web experience better for myself and others. We can’t go cold turkey on all social media sites, but it’s a totally real possibility that any (and all) social media websites will randomly power off all their servers one day. For the time being, I’ll end up linking to any sites I use to host images, videos, or embed any other media.

For now, I am excited to finally start this experiment. If you’re reading this, thanks for checking this site out—I really do appreciate it. If you’re interested in starting to blog again or have an old one, send it to me: I’d love to read it.

With love,
brandon (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ