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Anchor States: The name of a 3-part musical suite by Stars of the Lid, forming side B of their LP Per Aspera Ad Astra. My favorite part of this suite is Part 3, which I find shockingly profound in its minimalism. It's the closest thing I've ever experienced to synaesthesia, in the sense that this is what the inside of my head sounds like. There is a beautiful contrast in Part 3 between organic, monotone synths (nostalgia, peace, memory) and shimmering, mechanical ambience (future, forboding), which resonates deeply with my often bifurcated and ambivalent emotional life.

: The word "hevel" (may be rendered "Abel"), used frequently in the book of Ecclesiastes. Translated variously as vanity, meaninglessness, vapor, emptiness, smoke, worthlessness, etc. It is a word that broadly yet pointedly captures the sensibility of our time, that is, of consumer culture -- the illusion of choice, false self-determination and identity formation, and the spiritualization of consumption. English has few remaining words as full of meaning as this, maybe because it has been so brutalized by advertising.

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I was born in 1983, the year that The Precession of Simulacra was published. I am male, white, and happily married. I live in Philadelphia, my home since 1991 --- currently in a row house on 52nd Street. I believe in God, though this makes me a pariah in many of my spheres of interaction (academia, art, Heavy Metal).

I am rarely paid for the work I consider most valuable. I have many useful skills but few credentials. The manual and the abstract are equally important to me.