Two close friends of mine were married yesterday. It was a nice (read: fast) ceremony held in a private home, with plenty of food and drink.
No coffee, though. Which, frankly, almost ruined the entire event (I joke, Laura and Jesse! I joke! It was lovely!).
I don’t think I’ve ever written about a married couple in any of my books. I’d have to think about it… and I know that I have written about people who are married, but not specifically the couple itself. Lots of romance in several of my books, a few “husband is dead” or “wife is lost in space” relationships, but no honest-to-goodness marriages. I don’t think there’s anything particularly significant about that, honestly. I didn’t have great models for good marriages, since my parents are still married but haven’t been happy together since… oh, at least 1970. At this point they are almost entirely together out of spite and familiarity: they refuse to get divorced because they don’t want to see the other person being happier without them.
And, hey, who am I to judge. They’ve been married a good long time, and despite not really being happy with the marriage it also doesn’t seem to be making them dramatically miserable. So maybe they’re in the right relationship for them?
But the idea of marriage… I should really try to write about one or two good ones at some point. I already try to write healthy relationships, based on communication and honesty, so it shouldn’t be a big jump to write about a marriage in the same way. Not for the book I’m working on right now, but maybe for the next one. I’ll have to keep it in mind.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
And congrats again on the wedding, Laura and Jesse. It was an honour to attend!
The Proper Application of Hashtags
I’ll be honest… I’m kinda tech-savvy, but I’m really more tech-savvy adjacent. When I was young, I read that there are three kinds of tech users: those afraid to break their computers by touching it, those who have broken their computer by touching it, and those that go around and break other people’s computers. I’m firmly in the second camp… I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m usually willing to poke and prod at the tech to get what I need out of it (although rarely much more).
Hence running a podcast for years. I knew enough to edit the audio, to get the right software to the right people, and to make sure the mic setup worked, but anything past that point was usually out of my abilities.
The reason I mention all this is that at my day job I do bi-monthly streams to teach people about board games. I enjoy doing it, it’s fun and a neat way to engage with the audience, but I almost never do much more than the actual show. I can start the Facebook Live stream and writeup the thread, but that’s about it. My co-host for the last several years handled all the “social media” stuff, advertising and sharing and hashtagging as needed.
She’s moved on to greener pastures (for which I am very happy for her! Way to go Nat!), and one of my other colleagues has taken the torch from her. I overheard part of the transition conversation, and part of it was focused specifically on making sure you used relevant hashtags.
And the reason I mention that is because on here I keep a pretty close eye on the engagement numbers. They’re usually pretty consistent, but occasionally I will get these huge spikes of four or five times the number of people coming to the site (or spending longer on the site, which I also really appreciate!). If I was really on the ball, I’d dive into what those threads have in common and try to focus in on whatever topic that is… but that feels… I dunno, weird to me. I' come here to write, to keep people updated on what I’m working on (I hit the halfway point in the novel!), and because I enjoy it.
Sure, I want people to find and enjoy my books, no question. But spending time on doing that is time away from writing those books… at least more time away from writing those books, and I think I probably spend too much time on this business-side stuff already! Maybe someday I will have more time to devote to that side of things. But it is not this day.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Slow Forward Trudge
One of the most notable downsides to returning to university is the homework. I didn’t like it much back then, and I sure as heck don’t like it much now.
At least these days I can sort of see the point. The class time is for learnin’… talking about the material, asking questions, being provided with evidence for or against the various interpretations of a work. But you still need to write stuff for an English degree, and that leaves homework and essays.
Granted, my 4th year course is awful for that, demanding weekly comments on an online forum (blargh) as well as journal entries (gah) and a term paper in addition to all that. I don’t think I would mind so much if it didn’t all feel like busy-work. Stuff we have to do because the prof wants to check off stuff we’ve done.
My other course (a 2nd year American Lit course) is better, and provides much more useful feedback, but there is still a significant amount of “Do This Because You Have To Do This.” Oh, and an exam. I have a love/hate relationship with exams… I kinda enjoy them as a challenge or a contest, but I hate actually having to go to them and the buildup to them. Too stressful.
Anyway. A lot of today is going to be devoted to picking essay topics for my two courses, and starting to do the preliminary readings for those. Not the worst way to spend the day… but it does mean less time for the novel (again). Ah well… if I get these essays done soon, I can get right back to putting all my focus into the novel. That’ll be nice!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Book Tabs and Other Weird Things
For years as a university student I have been told that it is okay to damage your books.
That’s not the language my profs use, of course. “Mark up your books!” they cry. “Fold pages, scribble in the margins, add tabs! Highlight as necessary!”
And I understand. On a conscious, thoughtful level, I get it… especially in the context of essays. It is hard to go through a book and find that one quote you remember from your read-through but can’t recall quite where it was… highlights or arrows or whatever would be a huge help!
But I can’t do it. Going all the way back to elementary school when I was finally old enough to read on my own and I would sit in our living room on the couch or an armchair with “The Hobbit” or (eventually) the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and read for hours and hours… from that point to today, 30-something years later… and I still can’t do it.
I encourage anyone and everyone to write in your books! They’re yours! There is literally no reason not to write in your books unless you specifically have borrowed them or they are bookmarked (ha) for somebody else eventually… and even then! The notes you leave for yourself, as long as they don’t render the book unreadable, could be useful… or at the very least heartwarming, as people in the future look upon your insights into whatever work you have marked up.
But not for me. I couldn’t even tell you why. It just… feels… wrong? I guess? If I had to guess I probably ruined one (or several) of my brother’s books or comics as a kid and he disciplined me harshly enough that it stuck until today. Just a guess, but I suppose it feels the most likely explanation. Maybe one day I’ll get over the hangup… I have just purchased some lovely book tabs, and I think I’m going to use them as a gentle introduction to the fine art of marking up a book.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Music That Matters
To some extent, all music matters. To the same extent that I suppose all writing matters, or all fiction matters… which is to say that “matters” is a highly subjective thing. Maybe one of my books is somebody’s favourite book ever… I doubt it at this point in my career, but only because there are only about a thousand copies of my books out there, and the odds of being “the best thing I’ve ever read” if your pool is only about a thousand people is pretty small.
But who knows? It’s not impossible.
But I started talking about music, and I’d like to loop back to it. On Tuesday I mentioned that I had watched, and loved, the Cyberpunk Edgerunners series. Part of that love is how the director (or whoever is responsible) wove the music into the story. Music sets so much in our lives as meaningful or meaningless. The soundtrack of everything we consume is as significant, if not more, than the dialogue or actors for a good drama. There is an argument that comedy or sci-fi or other specific genres don’t hinge on the music as much (although I think the really good ones do), but drama and romance and horror and probably a bunch of other visual media definitely, absolutely require good music. Or perhaps less “good,” and more “appropriate.”
A lot of the Edgerunners music is not my style. Very heavy rock, or really synth-focused EDM, or whatever. But it always felt “right.” Any time the music was noticeable, it was great. It tied to the story and added meaning and punch to whatever was happening.
I almost always listen to music when I write, but rarely when I read… I suppose that is one area that reading lags behind television and movies. Because a good soundtrack is a thing of beauty.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Genre Conventions and Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Going into Cyberpunk Edgerunners, I knew it was going to be sad. There are plenty of genre conventions, and occasionally they are subverted, but for cyberpunk as a genre (as opposed to Cyberpunk as a specific world/universe/fictional setting for video and tabletop games) one of the pillars is that the ending is going to be some flavour of sad.
Completely soul-crushing, lightly depressing, a very temporary happiness with crushing oppression looming… “happy” just doesn’t really factor into the genre. And, on the one hand, I’m kind of okay with that. I mean, well done cyberpunk is one of my favourite genres ever, full-stop. It’s great when it’s great.
The show is fantastic. A little over-the-top with the violence and blood, but again, genre appropriate and more “cartoony” in most cases than really horrifying (although there are a few exceptions). The tone and pace are perfect, the characters are interesting, and they avoided most (although, again, not all) of the trope-heavy traps that often befall good sci-fi and cyberpunk work.
It was a joy. Even knowing I was going to be sad about how it ended, it still landed that amazing “sudden but inevitable” that I, and many other media consumers, love so dearly. You could see it coming. You knew it was coming. And it still managed to land with the emotional impact of a rocket launcher to the face.
Bravo, Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Bravo.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
"Spicy" Language
One of my courses I’m taking this semester is “American Literature,” and let me tell you… reading this stuff has been a trip. Some of it has been quite good… I have a new appreciation for Edith Wharton, although I don’t like her work I can at least say I don’t hate it… oh, and I now “get” Modernism as a genre, even if I think it’s awful. At least I understand the underpinning concepts, and I can respect them in the same way I can respect a Picasso and yet never want one in my house.
But Faulkner. Yeesh. His language is “spicy.” The argument that will be made (that is always made) is that it was acceptable language back then. The same argument is leveled against Twain, and in both cases I get it… but I still don’t like it.
Of course, part of this is because Faulkner probably thought there was nothing wrong with his choice in words. And I think there is nothing wrong with my choice of words… but who’s to say in a hundred years? Two hundred? If it happens during my lifetime, sure, I’ll happily fix it and apologize for my blindness. It happens to all of us. But if it happens afterwards? Or should I say when it happens afterwards? The fact that there may be people around saying that they “shouldn’t” fix my work because it would change my intent… that’s a weird thought to have in my head. I don’t know how it makes me feel. But I don’t like it. But there’s also nothing I can do about it except for being as conscious as I can be now so that when it does happen everyone already knows I wouldn’t protest to changing my work to be less insulting.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Motivation and the Truth Thereof
Motivation is a weird thing. It comes and it goes, sometimes predictably, and sometimes unpredictably. It is predictably unpredictable, I suppose.
The trick is to not care. I don’t write when motivation strikes me: I write whenever I have the time, whenever I have the energy, and whenever I can. Motivation helps me write when it aligns, but whether it is there or not… I write.
And I kind of think that is the way it has to be. We can’t sit around waiting for lightning to strike. You can’t sit and stare at the screen until the perfect sentence forms, or the perfect line of dialogue. You just write the best you can, and then you edit the best you can, and then you pay for the best professional editor you can. And at the end of all that, you get something that hopefully you can be proud of.
That’s kinda the trick, I think.
Now, I will wait for motivation for other things. Motivation to practice guitar or to paint or to bake, sure. Those are things I enjoy but nothing is hinging on it more than personal fulfillment. But motivation for work? Nice when it’s there, but the writing has got to get done no matter what.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Start Of the Tough Times
I’m pretty sure I say this every year (but at the same time can’t be bothered to scroll back through 12 months worth of posts!), but November and December are hard, hard months.
I work at a game store to pay for my writing expenses (and my living expenses, although those often feel significantly less important), and as a result the “holiday season” starts today and ends basically in January. During this time we will see more and more customers who get more and more frantic. The store will be packed, shoulder to shoulder, in my aisle (board games), and people will become increasingly belligerent and angry as the things we “should” have in stock are unreleased, impossible to get, or “too expensive.”
I am always of two minds about this. On the one hand, it can be difficult when people have no idea what they’re looking for: on the other hand, I love talking to customers, and a good one is always a joy. But no matter what, I always crawl home at the end of every shift exhausted as work keeps piling up and we simply lack the people to stay ahead.
And then exams, of course… only 2 this year, both on the 12th of December (because of course they’re both on the same day), but I like being prepared, and so that means long nights coupled to earlier and earlier days.
One upside, I suppose, is that this continues to shine a light on how much I love writing. Because even in the midst of all this… I still find time to sit down and crank out a few thousand words. Just wish I could do that more often!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Remembering!
So for once, I remembered to write this Sunday! I’m very proud of myself… I had a very busy day of reading homework and cooking (roast pork ribs, vegetables, potatoes, and a blueberry shortcake with whipped cream for dessert). Still have more reading to do in Gabor Mate’s “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts,” but I’m making good headway into it and wanted to make something nice for dinner.
I don’t usually read “real world” stuff like this. In fact, I wouldn’t be reading it now if it weren’t a course requirement (full disclosure: I only have to read half of it for the course, but I’m a completionist… not going to do something halfway if I can avoid it). Too depressing, even with the occasional sprinkling of optimism and hope. I know that the Vancouver East End (“Hastings”) hasn’t gotten better in the years since the book was written and revised. My brother had a office in the area for a long time, and he is not sympathetic to the plight of the less fortunate but he is a reliable observer. The stories he tells are not encouraging.
But Mate (there should be an accent on the “e” there, but I don’t know how to find/put one on Squarespace quickly) is a very talented writer, and his admissions of his own addictions are really interesting. Still too depressing for me, but I’m glad I’m reading it.
Anyway, only a few more days before the end of the month, and I’d like to get a bit more work done before then, so I’m gonna get back to it!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Problem with Quantum Mechanics
I failed my third year Quantum Mechanics course the first time I took it. I passed on the second attempt, but I think more out of the professor’s pity than any firmer grasp of the material.
Which is slightly unfair. I more-or-less understood QM. The issue is that it’s fundamentally nigh-impossible to actually understand QM without the underlying mathematics, and I have never been any good with the mathematics.
Let’s take a simple example: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This is familiar to some non-scientists, but it is most often summarized as “The more accurately you know an object’s velocity, the less accurately you know that object’s position.” Keep in mind this only applies to quantum-level physics (hence the ridiculous joke where a police officer pulls over Heisenberg and says “Did you know that you were going 100 km/h?” and Heisenberg throws up his hands and says “Great, now I’m completely lost!”), but the concept sort of makes sense.
Except that’s not the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The HUP is more along the lines of “Any pair of canonically conjugate variables are connected such that there is an upper limit to the accuracy of any measurement of those variables in relation to each other,” and that is defined by an equation. And it doesn’t matter if it makes sense… quantum mechanics, if you will excuse the oversimplification, doesn’t need to make sense: it just has to be true. So the age-old question of “Is Light a wave or particle” has the answer “Yes, and no, and both, but sometimes neither, depending on the circumstances.”
What are the circumstances? Just plug the variables into this equation…
Hopefully you understand what I’m getting at. Classical mechanics is all about grasping and understanding how objects interact: a cannonball has a parabolic trajectory, so how does that relate to gravity? The sun’s mass allows us to understand the Earth’s mass and the way that our moon orbits us is the same way, albeit simpler, than the way Titan or Io orbit their planets. But QM? Doesn’t care. It doesn’t need to make sense, but it has to be mathematically solid.
This long tirade brought to you by trying to explain the Uncertainty principle to somebody last night. It did not go well… but that’s in part because it’s a very difficult concept once you get into the weeds of it.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Single Sundays
I lament that with such limited “free” time (what is “free” time? Either all time is without price, or all time is priceless, and nary the twain shall meet!) I still am unable to tear myself away for an hour to write a blog post. I should’ve posted on Sunday, but it was such a whirlwind of friends and visits and cooking that I, quite plainly, completely forgot.
My apologies, dear reader/visitor. I shall endeavour to do better!
Progress on the novel is slow, but steady. Sadly, at this point it would require a nigh-miracle for me to have the time to finish it and have it edited in time to publish in December. Perhaps it’s for the best… perhaps releasing two novels in 2023 will be better than only 1 novel in 2022? Hard to say… I look forward to the day that I’m established enough that my audience knows the next book is coming without me having to maintain a constant pace of publishing! Perhaps one day.
For now, I apologize again for the lack of a Sunday post, and then head back to my studies! Big test in a few hours… the joys of university education.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
T.S. Eliot, And Why I Don't Like Him (or Faulkner!)
Honestly, I know almost nothing about T.S. Eliot as a human being aside from the following facts:
1. He was born in America but moved to England at some point, and
2. If you don’t use his middle initial in his name, it spells “toilet” backwards.
Not a lot to go on as a human, really, but I suspect I could learn more if I cared to. The fact is I don’t, because having read a few of his poems and one short story (As I Lay Dying) I have determined I don’t like his work.
Granted, it’s probably unfair to say since I haven’t read his magnum opus in The Wasteland, but I also feel no compulsion to do so. He’s just so… dreary. Turns a good phrase, crafts really evocative scenes, but gosh are they ever depressing.
I should point out that this isn’t to say I don’t think he’s good. His work is incredible. But it’s like appreciating a painting by Picasso or a building designed by Gaudi. I can admire the artistry without actually wanting to be anywhere near the work itself. They’re just not my style.
But it’s equally important to know that. Since I know what I don’t like in Eliot’s work, I can now avoid making the same creative decisions in my own work. And that’s worth something.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
EDIT: Ha! I forgot that As I Lay Dying is a Faulkner, not an Eliot! Gosh, that’s embarrassing. I don’t like either of them, though. ^_^
And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program
Well, it was almost a nice vacation while it lasted. My leg is still giving me a bit of trouble, but it could be much worse. My arm is definitely on the mend, but no workout for me this morning since I don’t want to push my luck just yet. Next week for sure.
Oh, and the weather has decided that it should be heckin’ cold all week, and rain/snow, so that’s also a joy.
But that’s okay! I finished all my assigned reading and started on the next wave of books I need finished for November. Nothing super fun, unfortunately, and the Faulkner I had to read was basically torture, but what can ya do?
You can write! Which I am. Right now. Yay!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Last Leg of Vacation
Well, I have two days left off from school and my other job before I am back in the metaphorical salt mines. It wasn’t the break I wanted due to my injury a week ago, but I can’t really complain. It could’ve been much, much worse, and this gave me an excuse to go on a few long walks (to figure out how my leg was healing. Turns out… pretty well!), play lots of Battletech the video game (still one of my all-time favourite games… this is probably my 8th time playing the mercenary campaign), and build a few LEGO buildings.
So, while not perfect… I’m not complaining. It’s worked out pretty dang well, all things considered.
However, since today is my 2nd last day off for who-knows-how-long, it is the day I have to wrap up all the things I need to wrap up before heading back. I fixed the brake lights on the car, I cleaned up and organized the basement a little, and I bought a new bike helmet to replace the noble one that saved my life. Oh, and washed all my 2nd layer masks (I wear an N95 as my primary mask, which is thrown out at the end of every day obviously, but the advisement to wear a 2nd mask if you are in frequent contact with the public, which I am, has resulted in me wearing my “nice” masks as a second layer).
Not a sentence I think I would have ever imagined writing 3 years ago. Ah well!
I am going to finish up a few more chores, and then… get back to writing! Woo!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Problem with Gravity
Normally, with a title like that, I would be waxing poetic about the difficulty of writing a story that includes realistic interpretations of gravity. It can be done (see the sublime The Expanse for it done extremely well), but in my case I normally just wave my hand and say “Grav-plating” or some-such technobabble and am done with it.
But in this specific case, what I mean is that I fell off my bike on Saturday and have been slowly, slowly recovering ever since. Hence no posts on Sunday or Tuesday this week. Sorry about that for anyone that was looking!
I’m feeling much better. My right leg has a bruise the size of a sheet of paper, my right arms has a bruise bigger than my hand, and my left shoulder is still sore, but I really can’t complain. Wear your helmets, folks, because I took that fall straight to the head and it might’ve killed me.
But, hey, it couldn’t happen at a better time, because I’m on vacation for a week! And let me tell you, getting an immobilizing injury the day before that started is exactly how I wanted to start my holiday.
Sigh
Ah well. Now that I’m okay with stairs again, I can at least get back to writing! And I can’t really do much else… So not all bad.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Icarus Down by James Bow
I just finished reading a neat YA-style sci-fi written by James Bow called Icarus Down. I won’t say it’s the best sci-fi I’ve ever read, but it was very good. Enjoyable, light, moved at a nice pace… the protagonist is a little too mature for the age he’s depicted, but under the circumstances it’s a justifiable choice. Like, it feels slightly surreal, but by the same token the situation he is thrust into is pretty surreal, so it works.
I love good YA fiction. I don’t read a tonne of it, but the stuff I have read is as satisfying as “adult” sci-fi. Actually, much of it is more so… trying to find that balance of approachability without patronizing, and still engaging? That’s a very tight balance to hit, and honestly I think Bow did a great job!
Added bonus: James Bow is (or at least was at the time of writing Icarus Down) a local! He apparently lives in Kitchener, Ontario, which is where I am! The thought that I may have randomly run into him at some point makes me smile. He’s a bit older than me (I think 7 years or so?), but that’s still pretty close. I wonder what he’s up to these days… I hope still writing good sci-fi! I should check out the rest of his oeuvre… in fact, I’m going to do that right after I leave him a 5-star review on Goodreads!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Busy Busy Busy
There is an old fable that my father was very fond of telling me about a lazy grasshopper and an industrious ant. Depending on the mood dad was in, the lazy grasshopper either died from starvation, froze to death, or was permanently indebted to the ant. Basically your stock-standard story about the importance of working hard at all times without exception.
Several years ago, somebody told me “Hard work isn’t rewarded: it is exploited” and that’s kinda stuck in my head. Which isn’t to say I don’t work hard: I work very hard. But the rewards from that work have been… fleeting? And that’s okay… hard work without good luck is useless. I get that. But days like today, as I witness the state of my bank account and my bills… it can be hard to keep a positive outlook.
But what choice do I have? I can’t not work hard. It’s just not the way I’m wired. The new push for “Quiet Quitting” is really good for other people (honestly! Work to what your contract stipulates you are paid for and not more unless they pay you more!), but it’s not possible for me. I try, but I always end up rising to meet new challenges, to write more words, to be a better employee at the job I work in order to pay for my writing. I say I don’t care about my grades and then bend over backwards to make sure I maintain my straight-A average.
Ah well. Hopefully at some point the work I put in will be rewarded enough that I don’t have to constantly work at the razor edge of breakdown. That’d be nice.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Organization
I am, by my nature, a man who enjoys organization. There is a “way” that things should be done, a place that things should be placed, a location where a thing can be located.
My current working environment is not a reflection of that internal belief at the moment.
Right now I am surrounded in a situation that, were I Skurge, I would proclaim “Behold! My stuff.” I am slowly and steadily chipping away at the mess, organizing and reorganizing, deciding what stays and what goes.
For example, I currently have two full shelves of photo albums. I don’t think I’ve looked at them in the last decade. Should I keep them? I could really use that shelf space, as my book collection continues to grow but my ability to put things in it does not (no “shelf extenders,” as retail workers might say).
But even along with stuff that I have emotional attachments to, there is a lot that just takes up space because of the sunk-cost fallacy. I haven’t thrown out that glowing scoreboard that I wanted to use for board game sessions in the BeforeTimes… maybe I will use it when I feel comfortable having people over again, but maybe not? I really don’t know. But I’ve held onto it for 2 years, and it feels like I shouldn’t throw it out now because then why did I hold onto it for two years?
Ah, stuff is weird. I’m probably going to have to do a really good clean and toss a lot of stuff in a week or two. That will be a hard day, but afterwards I will feel much, much better.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Music That Matters
I got into music relatively late in life. My parents didn’t want me to “waste my time” on frivolous stuff like the arts, and so it wasn’t until high school that I actually got introduced to the concept of performing music.
Just as a brief moment of context, my high school had three different art streams: Drama, Music, and Visual Arts, and every student had to pick one. There was a really cute girl I liked in the Drama stream, but there were two in Music, and so I picked music. No regrets there, although I do sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had pursued one of the other streams… just curiosity more than anything.
Anyway, my parents also didn’t like music aside from opera and the occasional Christmas carol. My brother used to listen to rock and/or roll, and when he moved out in protest of my father’s utterly draconian parenting my parents decided that music (and roleplaying games) were the cause. So no pop music for me.
I mention this only because I love music. Not all music, and definitely not at all volumes, but I have wide ranging and diverse tastes. A lot of it not in English or without vocals at all, because those help me write.
I can’t listen to English songs when I write because the lyrics work themselves into my writing. A lesson I learned in university the first time around.
So I listen to Japanese and Korean pop music (J-Pop and K-Pop respectively), Mongolian rock, Chinese ballads. I listen to instrumental bard songs and French love songs. I listen to Swedish punk and German alternative. Just about anything as long as it’s catchy and got a solid hook. I’m a simple man, I like simple music.
The music I’ve listened to most over the last decade is almost certainly the Skyrim soundtrack… the decade before that it would’ve been the music from the Final Fantasy series or Katamari Damacy’s soundtrack. Good tunes, folks. Good tunes.
I hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!