Hello friends, and thanks for opening up The Cipher! May I offer my sincere congratulations to all of us for nearly making it to the end of the week? That'll be three hips and one hooray from yours truly.
We've got some great stuff on the site today. Please enjoy!
-Sabrina |
Looking For Friends Among Baseball’s Most Passionate Nerds
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Why Your Team Sucks 2024: Kansas City Chiefs
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Dimwitted Right-Wing Influencers Accused Of Being Unwitting Russian Assets
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Three Things We Liked On The Internet Today:
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I realize that recommending a 25-minute YouTube video to someone is an unwieldy ask, like casually requesting someone catsit for a year or help you move a bookshelf up and down three flights of stairs every day for a month. But! I will do it nonetheless.
On Wednesday, the New York Times' Joe Coscarelli wrote a rare profile of Mike Gordon, stage name Mk.Gee, whose "Two Star & The Dream Police" is my favorite record of the year and maybe decade. He makes sounds with the guitar that nobody else could even conceive of, and the "Phil Collins as conceived of by Oneohtrix Point Never" thing he has going scratches an itch I never knew I had. There's a lot to chew on in the story, and the impression of Gordon is of a true original, someone dedicated to the lofty task of pushing musical boundaries with the self-assurance to match. It would read like arrogance if he wasn't right, and, crucially, was not also a great collaborator.
Which brings me to the video, a 25-minute movie that Dijon made for his 2021 record "Absolutely," which also rules defies genre conventions in the same way "Two Star" does. Dijon and Gordon collaborated on the album, and Gordon toured in support of Dijon while writing his own debut. Here's Coscarelli:
The first time the two wrote together, it went all night. “We were both trying to kill each other musically,” Gordon recalled. “You know, really testing each other. And it got to a zone where we were like, OK, yeah, we’re the best ever, like, mutually. And then we made a record.”
Enticing! The "movie" basically shows this process, or at least its energy. Its most magnetizing aspect is Dijon and Gordon's ebullience with each other, smiling and dancing as they revel in their creation, Dijon straining to sing as Gordon, clad in a too-tight Totoro t-shirt, plays guitar, piano, and sings alongside him. It adds great depth to an album that already rewarded close listening, and I'm seeing Gordon tomorrow in Oakland and I CAN'T WAIT.
-Patrick Redford |
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Several years ago I blessed my firstborn son Sesame (left) with a younger sister Melon (right). I made this decision in part because Sesame became very attached during the pandemic and I felt terribly guilty each time I left him alone in the apartment.
For those of you who are not familiar with the dreaded process of transitioning cats, it is an arduous process that often comes with dozens of setbacks and snafus that might lead to a weeping breakdown brought about by giving two furious cats back-to-back baths in the aftermath of a litter box duel. Anyway, a process that I thought would take two weeks ended up taking six months and made me a nightmare at any hang, because it was the only thing I could talk about. But my partner and I were ultimately successful in nurturing a relationship between Melon and Sesame that was not based on mutual hatred. They squabble often and only rarely lick each other, but are otherwise respectful roommates.
But every so often, I will leave a room and encounter something like this—a portrait of two cats that suggests some kind of mutual love and affection between them—and am struck dumb with joy. So what if a tear sprung to my eye! This is the two-cat lifestyle I once dreamed of, and I treasure it whenever it comes.
-Sabrina Imbler |
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