Randoming on July 28, 2026 🪟🪨🥵🔌🎦
Random thoughts too long for a Mastodon post, but not long enough for a full-blown post.
- 🪟 Once again, Pitchfork raided my tape collection from the 1980s for one of its retrospective reviews. This time, the site re-examines one of my least favorite Rush albums: Power Windows, from 1985. Unlike the last review I discussed, this writer gets most of Rush’s history correct. Still, both reviewers suffer from sticking headlong to a story that omits details that would otherwise change the narrative. The author is a fan of Rush’s synth-era from the 80s, which, okay, but claims this album in particular is a "peak of the prog trio’s synth era, home to both impressive musicianship and pop grandeur.” Citation needed! What rubbed me the wrong way was the casual dismissal of what came afterwards, largely because the band chose to de-emphasize keyboards in the 90s and beyond. For me, Power Windows, as opposed to what the author says, has some of drummer Neil Peart’s clumsiest and coldest lyrics that feel as distant from its subject as a high-school book report by a bored student. It wasn’t until the almost-as-weak follow-up, Hold Your Fire from 1987, where Peart felt comfortable enough to write about interpersonal relationships in a direct and poignant manner. As cheesy as “Time Stand Still” was and is, it marked a turning point in Peart’s writing that the Pitchfork author glosses over in his discussion of the band’s 90s comeback. You can’t get to “Ghost Of A Chance” (from Roll The Bones, 1991) or “Nobody’s Hero” (from Counterparts, 1993) without “Time Stand Still,” and you couldn’t have made it to “Time Stand Still” without wanting to change the lyrical approach from overly-verbose Power Windows songs like “Grand Designs,” "Emotion Detector," or “Territories.” However, if you read the review, all you’ll know about Roll The Bones is that bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee raps on one song, or that Counterparts is their answer to grunge, with enough heavy riffs to make guitarist Alex Lifeson happy. *grumble* Perhaps I should start reviewing reviewers’ reviews more often?
- 🪨 One last thought about the Rush review: I really can’t say anything bad about the reviewer being a big fan of Rush’s 80s synth era. Question it, sure, but that's only from the perspective of the present. Back then, many bands from the 70s went hard into keyboards the following decade as they became cheaper, more reliable, and no longer just the realm of classically-trained musicians. That being said, there’s still a part of me that feels the author’s fandom is trying just a bit too hard to be distinctive, you know? It would be like someone claiming to be a Van Halen fan, but only owning Van Halen III, or that your introduction to the Grateful Dead was through Seastones.
- 🥵 Like many folks in the Midwest, I have been melting due to the exceptionally high levels of heat and humidity over the last few days. Our A/C has been able to keep up with the outside temperatures, though it means a) setting it at 78 or 79, and b) shedding most or all clothing at times of the day. Honestly, even those two steps have fallen short at times. Never breathe what you can see.
- 🔌 My final JulyReply post, “Re: Online Friends Are Real Friends,” went live on Thursday 07-23. It not only elicited its own response from J, which she published on Monday 07-27, but a helpful comment from Steven Hoefer on Mastodon, prompting me to fix my email link at the end of each post. I had accidentally left the example.com address in its place, then used it as a template for the last 2-3 months of posting. Ooops! This has been corrected, along with some much-needed tags cleanup.
- 🎦 I was able to order a $900 camera lens for only $90 last week! How did I pull off this diabolical bit of retail magic? Well, it’s from saving up tons of credit card points that I haven’t used in years, then getting mad at said credit card companies for an issue I won’t publicly discuss. I figured out how to buy a gift card with credit card points from Card A, then used it along with all the points from Card B to purchase the lens. Using up all these points left me with a $90 balance that was covered by Card B. Now I have all of the pieces in place for my future camera swap at the end of the year, which I’ll discuss later.