ROLEY

Author: Kris Roley

  • LINK: The History of Album Art

    Matthew Ström:

    The invention of album art can get lost in the story of technological mastery. But among all the factors that contributed to the rise of recorded music, it stands as one of the few that was wholly driven by creators themselves. Album art — first as marketing material, then as pure creative expression — turned an audio-only medium into a multi-sensory experience.

    The Fujita covers are old friends; my parents and my grandparents had many albums with that kind of artwork on the cover. Maybe they were all Fujita or inspired by him. I’ve been thinking about buying a turntable and starting a new collection, and it’s only because the convenience of digital media doesn’t afford you the experience of the art and the liner notes. Even the vinyl gives you that experience now. Back in 1981, the Styx album Paradise Theater had the Styx logo cut into the vinyl and at the time, I thought that was pretty awesome. Now they’re making all sorts of color pressings that could be framed on your wall, never mind listening to it. I miss that. In other news, I’m old and my back hurts.

  • The Verbs: May 2025

    Watching: 1923, Paramount+

    I am completely invested in Yellowstone. It doesn’t hurt that Sam Elliott was in 1883, 1923 is just loaded with actors I like, and Yellowstone was one of the best shows on TV at the time, with characters who were both horrible and compelling. Costner made a huge mistake leaving, but Kevin is going to Kevin.

    Reading: A Peoples’ History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.

    History is usually written by the victors, not the vanquished. As such, there are things you may not know. This book is not a definitive source for the side you aren’t taught in school, but it’s a damn good starting point. A lot of people consider this to be a heretical book, and Zinn to be too leftist and American-hating. I don’t. Your mileage may vary.

    Jamming: Pink Floyd, Meddle thru The Final Cut

    Deep diving into the Floyd for the period that most people will tell you is the correct era to be listening. I was on a podcast a while back that asked me to select the Rush Tracks I think people should listen to as a jumping off point. This is my return trip. There’s one more I really want to do, that I don’t think they’ve done yet.

    Podding: Call Jonathan Pie, S2

    If you don’t know Jonathan Pie, you need to correct this. He’s a satirical character who skewers the news, news broadcasters, and politics. More UK driven than anything else, but he lowers the boom at the EU and USA very well.

    Working: I’m still having a hell of a time with that video project, I’ve started it and junked it several times over the past two months. I’m still on it, but I’m going to set a goal of having it done by the end of the Summer. So, Labor Day?

  • No RTFM Leads To Fugly Formatting, Probably

    Last night, I attempted to crosspost “Election Day, Eh?” to Bluesky, and I was shocked to see the formatting of that post. This is probably my fault, so some investigation is probably required. The post on Bluesky showed as the title, followed by as much of the post as it could, followed by an embedded link with exactly the same thing. It looked extremely ugly, and if I were a casual reader I wouldn’t click it. There must be a way to do this so that I can write a sentence in a preview message, and that posts along with the embedded link. I’m sure it’s got to be there, I’m just fulfilling my PEBKAC quota.

  • But If You Tell The Truth? We Can’t Have THAT!

    The fact that El Naranja doesn’t want Amazon to display the additional cost of an item because of the tariffs should cause all kinds of alarm bells.

    It won’t. We never do anything until it’s just past too late.

    We’re the children of Reagan’s America, where the money will get down here eventually. Any time now.

  • I turned the comments back off on this site. I knew there was a reason I had them off. I have the Jetpack App on my phone, and when the comment spammers found my site, my phone blew the fuck up. I had everything set to be manually approved before they posted, so that is both the good and bad news. Anyway, we’re back to you getting your own site if you want to respond to any of my half-baked, meaningless babble.

    We shall never speak of this again.

  • Election Day, Eh?

    Today is the Canadian election, and of course El Naranja couldn’t resist going down the 51st state road again. Every time I hear him talk about Canada being the 51st state, I remember how Saddam Hussein tried to make Kuwait the 19th Province of Iraq.

    On a related note, if I was Pierre Polievre, I’d be really pissed at Trump. The Conservatives were poised to win, and win big at the next election. This has done nothing but hand Canada back to the Liberals for another 5 years.

    ETTD.

  • If you have to tell people you’re an alpha male…

  • The Verbs: April 2015

    Watching: Bosch Legacy, Season 3

    Bosch, for my money, is one of the best shows on TV. Legacy is the last season that Harry Bosch will be the main character, although he may be in the spinoffs as a side character. If you haven’t caught this, it’s on Amazon Prime. Watch this.

    Reading: Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams

    Memoir about life behind the scenes at Meta/Facebook. Here is your periodic reminder that Facebook was not invented for altruistic purposes, and Mark Zuckerberg has never done the right thing without being dragged to it.

    Jamming: Tracy Chapman, Self titled.

    There is no better time to listen to this album than RIGHT. NOW.

    Podding: Amicus, with Dahlia Lithwick.

    Dahlia Lithwick has been covering the Supreme Court forever. I trust what she has to say about the Court, and the law.

    Working: I’m suffering from a bit of second thoughts about the video. I’ve scripted three separate versions of something ad aborted halfway through. So, taking another whack at it.

  • LINK: Justice Roberts Statement

    Newsweek:

    “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

    So, you’re saying it’s settled law? That’s reassuring…

    Fuck.

  • LINK: Tim Berners-Lee on Social Media

    Tim Berners-Lee

    One way to do this is to mandate that social network platforms follow new standards. Another is to quietly build an alternative world using these standards and let people realise that it is better — just as they did when leaving restricted online services AOL and Prodigy for the freedom of the web.

    Tim mentions a new standard called Solid, that acts as a wallet. People can build new apps that request access to user data in that wallet, and the user has control of that. I have one question: Do we need this? It’s presuming that some kind of social media is part of the solution. I don’t know if that’s true.