Rendezvous with Planet X

September 22, 2017 by Leave a comment

We hit our tenth anniversary earlier this year, which is a good run for a blog, if not so long in cosmic terms. Even in that brief spell though we have managed to survive two predicted apocalypses, in 2011 and 2012, and probably a few more that we didn’t hear about.

So I think I can be excused for being fairly relaxed about the forecast that tomorrow will bring the end of the world (or at least the start of the End Times; the details are a little sketchy). My insouciance seems to be fairly widely shared; the overwhelming reaction of even the more credulous sections of the media has been one of amused ridicule, and I haven’t heard any stories of people leaving their families, selling all their possessions, or otherwise acting irrationally in anticipation of the Rapture, as has happened in the past.

I don’t know if this means that the general appetite for doom-mongering has waned, or if we’re all just so numbed by the routine craziness of the world these days that global annihilation doesn’t seem that big a deal. Whatever, I’m still making plans for next week, whether Nibiru shows up or not.

Filed under Culture Tagged with

Grant Hart RIP

September 16, 2017 by Leave a comment

Sad news about Grant Hart. The one and only time I saw Hüsker Dü play live was more than 30 years ago, just after Candy Apple Grey came out, but I can still remember it clearly. It was in a tiny venue, and I was right at the front, about two feet away from the PA, which probably explains why I couldn’t hear a thing for about a week afterwards. Temporary deafness seemed like a small price to pay to be in the vicinity of genius though.

I’ve subsequently seen Bob Mould play loads of times, solo and with Sugar, but I never managed to catch any of Grant’s later shows, and now I never will. That’s obviously a trivial concern, when we’re talking about a man passing away at a tragically young age, but it’s another reminder that the list of things that I always just assumed would happen some day, but probably, or definitely, won’t, is getting longer all the time, and that perhaps I should pay more attention to the ephemeral nature of life, and how important it is to be in the moment. That sentiment isn’t a million miles away from the themes that Grant touched on in his best work, and I guess that that’s an epitaph that he might have appreciated.

Filed under Culture Tagged with , , ,

%d bloggers like this: