Streaming services are silly
Three Recs: January 31, 2024
A lot of people like to hate on the month of January because it’s usually pretty bleak weather-wise, if you live anywhere away from a beach. I, for one, love January and am a bit sad it’s coming to an end. January is cold, and gray, and slow, and quiet. It’s home to our best chance of snow down here in the Nashville area, and snow makes me happy. I could love in the Upper Midwest and be much more climatologically content than I am living in Middle Tennessee, and January is the best taste of life in the Upper Midwest that I’ll ever get. I’m a bit sad January is coming to an end.
Alas, February awaits. Some recommendations for you:
1) Dunkey’s Guide to Streaming Services by videogamedunkey
We recently canceled Netflix for the first time since I opened my account sometime around 2009. It feels sort of weird, but we really just weren’t using it at all outside of a couple of Netflix exclusive shows that I suppose we can re-subscribe for when and if they release new seasons. We have access to a handful of streaming services, but really only use Disney+ for our daughter, occasionally Hulu for ourselves, and YouTube TV for live sports.
Anyway, all of that is to say I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how streaming is just cable now, and this video by the legendary Dunkey shines some light on how goofy all of this is. Dunkey usually does funny video essays about video games, but here he turns his attention to streaming services.
2) anastasiawessex on Instagram
I just absolutely adore this artist’s work, and every time I see it in my feed it makes me happy. Artists like this have revolutionized my Instagram experience. I follow many of them now.
3) Armin van Buuren’s A State of Trance Year Mix 2023
I’ve been listening to Armin van Buuren, Above & Beyond, and other trance artists since I was about 16-years-old. These guys and other related trance DJs have been my soundtrack for countless research paper, blog, book, and sermon writing sessions over the years. I still listen to either Armin or A&B virtually every day as I’m working.
Side note: I’ve had the opportunity to see Above & Beyond in concert—in Nashville, in 2018. Here’s my video from that, featuring the part of the concert in which an audience member is invited to come up and “push the button” to make the beat drop. It was…amazing. I really can’t describe what it was like to see these guys live, 10 feet in front of my face, after listening to them almost daily for over a decade.
Anyway this isn’t about Above & Beyond, this is about Armin.
This is Armin’s two-hour-long mix of some of the best trance songs of 2023, and I’ve been listening to it a lot in the new year so far. (Love Is A Drug was my favorite trance song of 2023, and it’s featured briefly as the fourth track on the list below.)
An illustrator I love following on IG is William Joyce. We read his Rolie Polie Olie books to our kids. His IG is heybilljoyce. Some of his content is videos of his art creation (usually with moody music he has playing in the background), sometimes he does progressions of his art mixed with images of what inspired him.
DUNKEY!!!