hey does anyone else think that "turn around and let me go free" in going to dallas could be read as a reference to the story of orpheus
#daily affirmations
are you doing this for revenge? are you doing this to try and stay true? are you doing this for the ones they left to twist in the wind? are you doing this for you?
genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital
2014–2016: omg same
2017–2019: this is so relatable
2020–2024: why did you have to attack me like that
2025–2028: and so we are truly no more different than two leaves of the same tree
It's nuts that Antarctica is just down there. On this planet. With me. I want to know what's going on in there
So this is a revenge fantasy, right, uh, and, uh, and it's a song, um—you know, I mean, revenge obviously is bad, right? I mean, this is obvious, this is clear, right? [inaudible audience yelling] No, it's bad! It's not valuable. Justice is good and revenge is bad, it's, it's just -- and this is just obvious and true. Right now, on my side politically, we kind of got blood in our eyes and we're like, no, revenge is fucking good! No, it's not. Because—the whole, if you read Greek tragedy, right, the whole theme of Greek tragedy is that when you take revenge, you're gonna overdo it. And then the other person you've been taking revenge on is gonna have a legitimate gripe, uh, that you overdid it, right, that you killed one too many when you, when you came to their town, so now they have to come back and get one. But they don't get one. They get five, right. And then you're mad, right. And that's how revenge works, and that's the nature of revenge, that you always take too much and so you never get enough, right, that's the nature of revenge. Uh, which also makes it a great thing to inhabit if you have issues, right. If you have—if you have things you need to work out. I may talk a good game about revenge being bad, but what I mean is that revenge is wonderful. It feels fantastic. It fills you with delusions of power, right, you sit there, you sit there dreaming of your revenge fantasy and you see the person upon whom you are going to enact this revenge cowering, begging you for mercy, and you understand that you, you alone possess that precious gift of mercy which you're not going to impart, and that's, and that's all delusion, and, uh, uh, but it's a pretty potent one, and this is—and so what happens while you're in the grip of it is that you're not just thinking that you're going to take revenge, but how. And that's what this song is about. It's called Getting Into Knives.
John Darnielle introducing Getting Into Knives (September 23rd, 2021)
oh im gonna be weird about this for so long