katt, migrating 🌟 🌈 @starkatt@awoo.space

listen I know it's a blatant cliche at this point but I genuinely do think that Sandstorm is a fantastic song.

I'm running pretty tag-happy this evening. Cc'ing people all over the place.

cc @cyndisision@octodon.social

So there's a thing I think about when I hear the lyric "Well at least I author my own disaster".

"Disaster" comes from latin dis aster, "bad star". As in things were cosmically fated to go wrong.

But the lyric claims authorial control over that supposed fate. That's the point of the song, that we get ourselves into fucked up situations and sorta maybe learn from them, painfully.

It probably was wasn't deliberate, but I find that contrast of meanings compelling.

BIG GAY FEELINGS.

I don't even know if "god" is at all the right word.

A god doesn't have to be far away, unreachable. They don't need to exist as a defined, clearly-patterned entity, either.

I don't know the names or identities of most of the gods I quietly experience. It just doesn't seem to matter very much.

I've been thinking about immanence a lot lately. About experiencing divinity in tiny, everyday moments -- fog in the pine trees, gently headbobbing while listening to music, the first drops of rain, a lover's touch.

I wish I could communicate the feeling, but I'm neither poet nor songwriter.

Okay so the CW on that last post was extremely inaccurate.

It's clear EVERY DAY that the DJs at KEXP see their job as a genuine higher calling. They don't usually say so explicitly, but you can hear it in the way they talk about their programming. They take moments to contextualize the stuff they play, both musically and in terms of their own personal experiences. Days of special programming designed to highlight particular social topics are also a routine occurrence.

It's beautiful.

Seattle genuinely has one of the greatest radio stations in the country, KEXP.

The job site is a little bit out of the clear broadcast range or I'd have requested it Tuesday.

But like, KEXP has showed me just how much *more* a radio station can be, in terms of quality and diversity of programming and commitment to the ideals of music as a form of human connection.

So the last three days my coworker has had an 80s pop rock radio station on for eight hours.

The list of songs has seemed nearly identical each day.

Quick mental math indicates that they probably play 150 to *maybe* 200 songs, TOPS.

What is even the *point* of broadcasting the same 150 songs from four decades ago?

Randomly heard this song on KEXP earlier today and okay I definitely need to go listen to more Portishead. Mellow vocals + retro synth is love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBOaLjtR4mw

I miss that kind of darkness.

A friend of mine would get scary, non-gentle hallucinations. She didn't like the lights to be out for longer than a few seconds.

I used to be into caving. There's something transcendental about complete darkness. Not just the merely dark of an overcast, moonless night, but the truly black. Caves are the only place I've seen it. No visible-wavelength photons beyond those made by radioactive decay, maybe.

It's uncanny. Humans aren't built for it.

Most people begin to gently hallucinate after anywhere from a couple minutes to a half hour.