...Because when patriotism and piety are woven together, they reach into the deepest, most primal parts of who we are — our need to belong, our hunger for meaning, our instinct to trust authority.

And if you can control those instincts… you can control almost everything.

Today, we’re talking about a band that captured the easygoing, sun-drenched vibe of the 1970s better than almost anyone else. Their sound was soft rock at its finest—gentle harmonies, polished acoustic guitars, and lyrics that felt like open highways and lazy afternoons.

This is the story of America.

Let’s rewind to 1984. Rick Rubin, a punk-loving NYU student, starts producing hip-hop tracks out of his dorm room.

Israel’s land grabbing, and the darkness of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

Emma Goldman once said: “Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time.”

That was over a century ago. And she was right — maybe even more right today than she could have imagined.

Today, we’re talking about I Came By — a tense British crime thriller from 2022 that mixes political edge, creeping dread, and the most unsettling Hugh Bonneville performance you’ll probably ever see.

Today, we’re traveling (figuratively) to the heart of Avalon, Mississippi — home to one of the most beloved and quietly revolutionary figures in American music: Mississippi John Hurt.

When we canonize certain books — when we elevate some stories above all others — we risk building a wall. Not just between “high” and “low” art, but between cultures, languages, perspectives. Between who gets to tell stories and who we’re willing to listen to.

Today we’re diving into Deerhunter — a band that calls Atlanta, Georgia home, but whose music belongs to no single place or time. Formed in 2001, they’ve carved out a space all their own in the indie rock universe, stitching together elements of punk, ambient, garage, shoegaze, and noise to create, as they once described it, “ambient punk.”

I have thoughts on this...