The Music of Protest

Some years ago, I was in my car with my music on shuffle, and NIN’s “Head Like A Hole” came up. It struck me how entirely relevant and appropriate that song still is today. And I wondered: What’s the angry protest music that kids listen to today? Who are the pissed off bands raging against the status quo?

I try to keep up with the new music scene, but I couldn’t think of anything. I asked around people I know who have kids and they told me there mostly isn’t any. They say their kids don’t listen to protest bands the way earlier generations did.

That thought makes me immeasurably sad. It really bothers me to think there’s no new protest music being made by and for young kids today. I mean, NIN is still awesome and the anger is still powerful, but new generations deserve better than to borrow the music of their parents and grandparents.

Or so I thought. I think now that I’m wrong about this.

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Tilly Norwood & AI Art

There’s been some discourse lately about Tilly Norwood, the AI generated actress, along with discussion of Gal Gadot’s AI movie. Given my open public stance opposing LLMs and my desire to be an intentional AI Luddite (to the extent that’s possible) I’m surprised to discover that my reaction to all this is…

I’m not too worried about it.

To be clear, AI performers, along with generated design elements, pose a significant threat to paying gigs for human beings. This has the potential to prevent many talented people from making a living. That’s a real problem and we should not support it.

But Tilly and her ilk will never pose a meaningful threat to the art and craft of acting. Acting, in its essence, is a method for human beings to explore our own nature. AI doesn’t change that in the least.

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My Real Fear of AI

At a previous library job, I helped host a series of technology drop-in sessions: a couple hours for people to bring in their devices and get help figuring out how to use them, walking them through their frustrations and pinch points.

Often after I had shown someone how to do something, they would ask me how I knew how to do that. Most of the time, I didn’t. I just poked around until I figured it out. This is really the core skill of using modern technology: the willingness to figure it out. (Also, a base knowledge of how to poke around safely.)

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to make your tech do what you want. Sometimes it’s not obvious or intuitive where certain functions live. Sometimes you have to click through way too many options until you find what you’re looking for. Sometimes, it takes longer than you want it to.

The number one thing we tried to teach folk was persistence in the face of frustration.

Which highlights my biggest fear about AI and how it’s being deployed in our society:
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Thoughts on T’ai Chi Ch’uan

Originally posted April 15, 2026

UPDATED April 29, 2026

I recently attended a three day silent t’ai chi ch’uan retreat. I spent much of my time there thinking about my practice and what I want to get out of it. One night, I sat down and wrote this before I went to bed.

I practice Yang style t’ai chi: specifically the short form developed by Professor Cheng Man-ch’ing. Yang style seeks relaxation, the release of tension, strength through softness and expansion. This type of strength is referred to as sung. Most martial arts—from Shaolin gung fu to Western-style boxing—use the opposite type of strength: contraction, hardness, tension. This is called li. Yang style only seeks sung, never li.

There are other styles of t’ai chi, most of which are notably older than Yang style. Chen style, for instance, has been practiced for centuries and remains the most popular style in China (Yang is the most popular in the West).

Musician Lou Reed practiced Chen style t’ai chi for decades and he wrote a book about his experience. I read it last year. The way he describes his style is markedly different than how we describe Yang. He talks about balancing softness with hardness, expansion with contraction, relaxation with tension, slow with fast, sung with li, and the ability to move from one to the other. This is so different from Yang practice, in which all tension is released and none allowed to build up, that it’s difficult to think of these as both being t’ai chi.

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In Praise of Simplicity

Back in high school, I knew a very gifted electric bassist. He started out by playing along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bootsy Collins, he got himself Louis Johnson’s video instruction series. By the time we graduated, he was starting to get through Jaco Pastorius tunes. Incredible technical virtuosity!

In our early 30’s, he got recruited into a bar band. All his bass lines were simple walking quarter notes on the root, maybe an occasional eighth note run for decoration. As simple as simple could be. Simple enough I could learn to play it.

He told me it’s the music he’s most proud of, that it’s the best music he’d ever made. It was the first time that his ego completely disappeared and the only thing he cared about was serving the songs. The songs needed simple, so he gave them something simple.

Another musician I know had almost the exact same evolution: started out mastering the most complicated techniques, developed incredible virtuosity on their instrument, and then decided one day to just start playing simple. I asked them why:

“I got bored with complicated,” they answered.

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Neurodivergence & Personal Identity

Recently, someone dear to me received an adult diagnosis of ADHD, and stated that they think I have it, too. No one had ever suggested that before. I fully disagreed with them.

I’ve known a lot of people with ADHD over the years. Theater and the arts tend to attract people who are very different from the “norm,” and that includes more neurodivergent folk than many other professions. The same is true of libraries, I think. Most of the women I’ve dated in my life have had ADHD. I’ve never seen much of myself in these people I’ve known. I’ve witnessed many of them struggle to function in the world, but that’s never been much of a challenge for me.

I have hyperfixation, but that doesn’t constitute a diagnosis of ADHD on its own. I have a long history of not doing things I don’t want to do, but that’s as much my innate contrarianism as anything else.

I recently read this excellent article:

“A Generation Got Told to ‘Just Try Harder.’ The Neuroscience Just Said ‘That Was Never Going to Work.'”
by Ross Grossman, February 4, 2026

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Book Review: Platform Decay by Martha Wells

Cover of the book Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Platform Decay
by Martha Wells
Tor, 2026

This review was first published by Booklist on March 1, 2026.

**STARRED REVIEW** The newest Murderbot novel (after System Collapse, 2023) has our titular (not really an anti) hero aided by Three, the newest rogue SecUnit, on a stealth mission in a planetary ring habitat to retrieve members of Mensah’s family, who’ve been kidnapped by the Barish Estranza Corporation in retaliation for her role on the plague planet. Along the way, an unexpected ally complicates the mission, and somehow the corporate mercs seem to know they’re coming. The plot starts off in the middle of the action and doesn’t let up until the very end. It’s an incredibly satisfying ride, and one of the funniest installments in the series: After their false memory issues, Murderbot installed an “emotion check” subroutine and it’s a perfect vehicle for the sarcastic, cynical humor readers crave. Perhaps most intriguing is a small side plot that teases a change with potentially huge implications. Wells returns to form with this one, offering a setting and cast that feels smaller and more intimate, more like her earlier novellas. At the same time, she sets up exciting possibilities for where this universe could go next. The family dynamic adds real poignancy, providing one of the most emotionally resonant Murderbot tales yet.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The success of the Apple TV series only adds to Murderbot’s popularity, and readers have patiently waited several years for the next installment in the series.

Book Review: The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey

Cover of the book The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey
The Faith of Beasts
by James S. A. Corey
Orbit, 2026

This review was first published by Booklist on March 1, 2026.

The human moiety (last seen in The Mercy of Gods, 2024) has adapted surprisingly well to their imprisonment on the Carryx world, proving their usefulness and even making their prison something like a home. The conspirators continue to wait for the right moment, and potential new allies are revealed. A handful of humans sent out into the wider galaxy make discoveries that radically alter their understanding of what underlies the never-ending galactic conflict. This entry in the Captive’s War series feels more intimate than its predecessor. With less world building to do, the focus has shifted more toward exploring the characters, including their relationships and complexity, as well as the ways they adjust to their new circumstances, offering an examination of how people acclimate even during horrific upheaval. Readers also learn more details about the society of the Carryx. While it’s somewhat less propulsive than The Mercy of Gods, The Faith of Beasts is a wonderful set-up for whatever is next. Fans of the series should be satisfied here and excited for the next installment.

AI: What I Really Think

I’ve spent a lot of time and devoted a lot of attention to the development of AI over the past few years, and my thoughts about it can be summed up very simply:

Why are we trying so hard to remove people from the world we’re building for ourselves?

I don’t understand why this is the thing we’ve decided we should want.

Years ago, I read some commentary that said this about social media: “More and more of our social lives are being designed and maintained by deeply antisocial people.”

This is especially true of AI. The people building it all seem to be deeply antisocial, even misanthropic. I could also update this criticism for AI a couple other ways:

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2025: My Year in Reading

I read 38 books this year. Mostly nonfiction, and proudly representative of my major interests: cosmology, deep time, and human nature. I ended the year with a stack of around 10 books sitting on my end table, most of which I’ve had checked out for several months and I just haven’t bothered to read yet. I keep renewing them from the library but when the time comes, I choose to sit in front of the TV rather than read.

When I have done some reading this year, it’s been in intense spates, several titles all in a row, all in a couple days. A punctuated equilibrium: watching TV is my default state, with quick periods of ravenous reading scattered around.

I’ve been struggling with this for the better part of decade. Peruse any of my past Year in Reading posts and you’ll see me harping on this. I consistently get to the end of each year with a feeling that I didn’t read enough, or didn’t read regularly enough. I have this idea in my head that I’m supposed to be a more dedicated reader than this.

Thing is: I didn’t used to worry about this. I didn’t used to think about it much at all. So why has it been such a major source of pressure and disappointment for me over the past decade? Let’s do some honest accounting of my history as a reader…

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