esoteric bullshit

she knows I love my cereal (week notes 21)

Doing

I recently discovered some weirdness with my hard drives in my PC. It’s a long story that isn’t worth telling, but the end of it is that I bought an NVMe drive and am starting fresh with a clean install of Windows. It’s fairly painless now that I have a drive that’s just my files with a separate OS drive. I do have to reinstall and set up some apps again, but it has been a good opportunity to reassess the cruft I’ve let build up on there over the years.

I went to the gym for the first time in a long time. A friend wants to join and get into the routine, so I’m hoping that I can latch on to that momentum.

Otherwise, I’m unfortunately glued to the news and despairing about the incoming presidency. I was never on TikTok (an intentional choice), but this whole ridiculous saga has emphasized to me the importance of having a space on the internet I own and control. I’ve got plans for a direction I want my site to take, but all in time… For now, I’m grateful to have this. Larger than that, though, I’m terrified for what the future holds.

Reading

I’m something like twenty pages from the end of Pride & Prejudice. I need to just sit down and finish it, but work has been so hectic. I’ve let that become an excuse.

Playing

I had some friends over and played YARG with them. I’m happy to have a backup and potential replacement for Rock Band as it is no longer maintained and I don’t know if I see myself buying another home console ever (Rock Band is the only thing I turn my PS4 on for these days). I’m a little disappointed that many of the fan-made charts out there are only for guitar, but there’s still a great library to select from.

I played a little Vampire Survivors, for the first time in a long time; it’s easy to pick up after months (years?) away, and it might be a good replacement for idle scrolling on social media.

Listening

I listened to Mac Miller’s Circles all the way through, I think for the first time since it released, after a friend became hyperfixated on “Right” (which I had not heard yet — I never listened to the bonus tracks for the deluxe release). I had such mixed feelings about it when it came out. It’s the first posthumous release I’ve ever really thought about, and it just didn’t grab me. I think it didn’t feel like an authentic Mac release; I don’t hold any ill will for anyone involved, and I think his family has handled his estate respectfully, but it was missing something — but then, it was intended to be a new, different direction for Mac. Regardless, I wanted to see how I felt years on, so I jotted feelings down track-by-track.

  1. “Circles” - I’ve loved this song from the jump. I heard a leaked version months before the release was announced and adored it.
  2. “Complicated” - The synths in this song are so bad, and the pitched up ab libs are awful. It feels like if someone else tried to make a Mac song and imitate Delusional Thomas features.
  3. “Blue World” - I like it more than I remember, but it is a little grating.
  4. “Good News” - A good song. I loved it when I first heard it, but it’s grown stale for me. This is probably the song I’d recommend to someone who wants to get into Mac but isn’t big on rap.
  5. “I Can See” - Again, the synths! They’re awful. They sound like a jrpg hotel track and not in a good way.
  6. “Everybody” - Another I like more than I recall. I like hearing Mac sing, but there’s something bland in the instrumentation and production. It’s a refined but dry track.
  7. “Woods” - I love “Woods.” I think it’s my favorite on the album.
  8. “Hand Me Downs” - Probably the most reminiscent of Mac’s Swimming sound. Despite that, it’s not my favorite; I like the Mac parts but not whoever is featured on it
  9. “That’s On Me” - Awful and repetitive; can’t stand it.
  10. “Hands” - Fine, but I wouldn’t listen to it unless I was making it a point to listen through the entire album.
  11. “Surf” - This is probably my most listened to song from the album. It’s simple, but it works.
  12. “Once a Day” - Another I like more than I remember. I think I like Circles most when it’s pared down, simple tracks.
  13. “Right” - I really like this one. The drums are sick.
  14. “Floating” - No real feelings.

It really is a pop album (hot take: a pop album for old people). I admire how Mac always experimented and evolved his sound — this direction just wasn’t for me, I guess.

And, of course, Balloonerism was released this week. I’d heard all but two songs through listening to leaks, so it didn’t hold any great surprises for me, but I love it still — it’s a fantastically weird, experimental little project that has some of my favorite Mac songs on it (namely, “Do You Have a Destination?” and “Excelsior”). It’s beautiful to hear the tracks properly mastered and to assuage some of my guilt about listening to leaks, but it’s bittersweet, too: this feels pretty definitively like the last proper Mac release we will see aside from some bonus tracks and loosies on anniversary editions (please give me “He Finally Sleeps” and “Pure” 🙏). Blue Slide Park aside (it’s about the progress, the journey!), I think Mac was an incredible artist with so much still left to share when he passed. It’s good to hear his voice and fresh songs, but they always linger with loss.

A coworker also recommended The New Pornographers to me; I listened to a few songs from Twin Cinema and found them aggressively fine, but I think perhaps I don’t have headspace for anything that isn’t Mac right now. I’ll finish the album and give Mass Romantic a shot some other time.