Blue Neuron
Blue Neuron
It's 2 AM, I can't sleep, and I have nothing better to do, so here's a video of Curie being amazing and a rundown of some stuff I like that you should support so that more of it gets made... where applicable, anyway.
Want to talk about some of this stuff, or anything else, for that matter? Let's hang.
I think I mentioned somewhere on here that I'm a politics/news junkie and read and listen to a bunch of substacks and podcasts that fit that bill? Pod Save America and Pod Save The World (and Dan Pfeiffer’s related substack) are among my most consumed, and NPR’s Up First marks the start of most of my days. I also like DW Inside Europe, Code Switch, Strict Scrutiny, The World Next Week, The President's Inbox, Mark Leonard's World in 30 Minutes, and The Argument.
The rest of my favorite podcasts are a mishmash of topics that interest me. History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, What's Left of Philosophy (no, I'm not a socialist -- didn't you see all the Crooked Media links?), and Offline with Jon Favreau are definitely up there. I also like podcasts about art, art theory, and art history, such as The Art Angle, A Brush With... This Week in Art, The Grand Tourist, and Art Detective. Other neat podcasts are Suicide Noted, which features interviews with suicide survivors, and Hamilton Morris's Patreon-only clandestine chemistry interviews.
Honorary mentions go to The Brookings Cafeteria and Unsupervised Thinking, neither of which are producing new episodes anymore.
I really like philosophical fiction and experimental writing. Some of my favorite books include Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, White Noise by Don DeLillo, The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq, The Tunnel & Of Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato, and Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.
Beyond that, I also really like books that examine the interconnectedness of science, art, thought, and culture at large, such as The Age of Insight by Eric R. Kandel, How Far The Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler, and The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf. Non-fiction books that deal with these subjects individually, such as This Life by Martin Hägglund or The Book of Why by Judea Pearl are of interest to me as well. Also, while I’m not the biggest fan of science fiction, I am a big fan of Isaac Asminov, and The Foundation Series might well be my favorite book series of all time.
All genres have good music, but punk rock is probably my personal favorite. Dead Kennedys, Nomeansno, Reagan Youth, and Crass make up most of the punk rock on my playlists, but bands like IDLES, Abwärts, Anti-Flag, and Die Ärzte are on there too -- and shoutouts to Iggy Pop, always.
German/foreign language music in general is well represented: Karat, City, and Udo Jürgens all make appearances. I also like stuff like Parquet Courts, Motion City Soundtrack, Animal Collective, and Hobo Johnson. There's the odd Donna Missal, Big Thief, Kishi Bashi, Takenobu, and Girlpool song in there, some Devon Welsh, ... and I don't mind getting weird with stuff like Pogo, Blümchen, or Tenacious D. Though speaking of the latter, I do really like some classic rock -- Blue Oyster Cult, Omega, and The Scorpions, for example.
Christ, what else... I don't know man, there's too much good music out there. Go check my Spotify if you want to dig into the stoner, early 2000's, and classical bits of it all. If you see Gigi D'Agostino, you've gone too far.
I didn’t watch a lot of YouTube until the pandemic hit, but it has since slowly crept its way into my daily routine. My favorite channels include DW Documentary, NativLang, PBS Space Time, The Atlantic, KunstSpektrum, 3Blue1Brown, ThorHighHeels, Perspective, PhilosophieKanal, Contrapoints, Cambridge Union, New Frame Plus, Eva zu Beck, Geography Now, and Doug’s Dharma. I also like Hot Ones… because of course I do.
I've been playing Chess since I was a kid and used to go to classes for it. Got pretty good, stopped playing in my teens, then got way into it in undergrad and never really stopped. If you know me (in which case -- hi, what the hell are you doing here?), you've likely seen me sneak games whenever I'm bored. It's a problem, but a very fun one.
Far as video games go... I used to play a ton of them when I was younger, but I can't really get into most games anymore unless they're either really well written, a really big title like Grand Theft Auto, or something that friends ask me to play with them. That said, my favorites are Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, Final Fantasy 7, Norco, Mass Effect 2/3, Fallout: New Vegas, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and Assassin’s Creed 2. I also used to be wicked good at Super Smash Brothers Melee, TLOU Factions, and Civilization 6.
