Non-Authoritative Information @benhamill@cybre.space

Good morning, gentles all. 🌇

Time for an #introductions

I'm a white cishet man, more or less living at the top of Privilege Mountain, trying to learn to dismantle and undermine that privilege.

Things I'm into:
• #roleplaying
• #linguistics
• #socialjustice
• #software
• #parenting
• #reading
• #videogames
• #kindposting
• #lego
• #comics
• #argyle

Things I'm (interested in?) learning about:
• #socialism
• #coops
• #urbanplanning
• And all the stuff above, naturally.

This is, of course, incomplete. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Uh. What do you do when the #introductions post you pinned to your profile is out of date? I guess you make a follow-up post with the correction, pin it and hope people notice?

Anyway, uh, in the above post, I describe myself as "cishet", but I figured out I'm actually pansomethingual? Only in the last, like, 8 months or so. I'm still a white cis man, so the thing about Privilege Mountain is still pretty accurate, though. But, yeah.

Thinking more about this, I’ve realized it’s what’s bothering me about Star Wars IX, too. Change is necessary. Just doing what you or others have done before is… not really a contribution to the conversation.

Which is, by the way, a reasonable way to learn! I’m not saying no one should ever do it. Just that it shouldn’t be at the center of a creative effort, let alone a whole subculture or genre.

“You should see elves who have actual houses. It’s so fashionable that you melt like a Nazi at the end of Indiana Jones.”

“Warg and associates, attorneys at law.”

“Your dog is a Dire Good Boi.”

Intent and intention mean the same thing.

I just came across this Ruby library that I wrote long ago. I'd forgotten what it was even for. And I have no idea if the code is any good or whatever, but I'm really proud of this README: https://github.com/benhamill/assembler#assembler

I think this is broadly applicable to any genre of cultural artifact: maintaining relevancy requires change. It requires a dialog with the world and creators to be unafraid to play with conventions.

Some of those bands sound more like third wave reenactors rather than people participating in a living breathing subculture.

Which is not to say that the music isn’t good. In particular, Oreskaband, Los Skagaleros and We Are the Union fit my tastes very well. Not mentioned in the video, but I also like The Interrupters. Kill Lincoln is good, but sound like they’re a Less Than Jake cover band from an alternate reality. 4/4

If you view third wave ska as a revival of second wave as a revival of first wave, there’s a lesson: you can’t revive a genre without changing something. Playing ska/punk _harder_ won’t “bring it back”. Ska isn’t third wave, ska is broader than that and any kind of revival would, IMO, necessitate a fourth wave that is stylistically distinct. Throw some hip hop shit in there. Adopt some synth stuff? I don’t know. Pretend you’re David Bowie tasked with writing a ska album. What would that look like? 3/4

First off, from a certain perspective: fuck broad popularity. Make and listen to the music you like. Clearly bands need enough fans to make ends meet because capitalism is terrible, but that’s a shit game for any musician in any genre beyond the absolutely most popular.

But also, having listened to to these bands for a week, a lot of it sounds just like stuff I listened to in high school? Which, like, cool. It’s fun music and I still like it, but y’all I’m nearing 40. It’s been 20 years… maybe innovate more? 2/4

Ever since watching https://youtu.be/iU6FXwfi9WU I’ve been thinking about ska a lot. I made a playlist with music from all those bands and have been listening to it. Having been in HS and in a ska band during the late 90’s when Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake and them were getting played on mainstream radio stations, I feel like I have some perspective on third wave ska.

Something he says in the video sort of implies a goal of “reviving” ska, which I take to mean a return to at least the level of broad recognition and popularity on the late 90’s. 1/4

Good morning, gentles all.

The Terminator Phase sounds like a good name for a pulpy-ass SciFi novel with a space ship and a person with a laser pistol and bubble space helmet on the front.

Learning Spanish on Duolingo has helped me learn to spell necessary in English.

I kinda wanna run for office just so I can say, at the end of a TV spot, "My name is Ben Hamill and I bendorse this message."

I heard that @HTHR will arm wrestle you and win. No, it doesn't matter who you are. She will win.