Light over Dark
I’ve been holding onto an unusually intense dream that’s appropriate for today.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, was leading a very small tactical team including me on a covert mission deep within the Kremlin. We all were incredibly silent and the living quarters were eerily vacant as we breached them, so I figured there had to be help from the inside — which just got me even more worried that our mission was to, you know, take a certain someone out, quite possibly for the greater good of humanity but perhaps at a cost to my own since I was new to this stuff.
Once we arrived in a long, ostentatious dining room, a signal was given and a bunch
of children filed in. Then a film projector started up and unspooled Star Wars on an expanse of blank wall space to the kids’ delight. I can’t say if it was meant to be humanitarian relief for a group of hostages, soft propaganda to win over sheltered, indoctrinated young minds, or what, but it was apparently successful as the scene jumped to a few of us sitting in a dimly lit parlor with a woman who might have been the late Madeleine Albright offering congratulations on a job well done.
Worth a Cool Grand, Charlie Brown
I’m happy to report that the digital library of Peanuts books offered at Humble Bundle to mark Fantagraphics’ 50th birthday was extended.
Click on that link now — as long as it’s not yet 2 p.m. ET on April 23rd, 2026. I’ll be here when you get back. [Update: The campaign seems to have a rolling deadline, although that could easily change.]
Go Fish
Not sure why I haven’t shared this here before. I put it up on Tumblr (man, I need to update and rework that layout) and Facebook (geez, I need to get the public Blamposts page there going) like a decade ago. Sorry if you’re not familiar with the French expression but at least I amuse myself.
Related: 5 by 5 • All I Needed Was the Laugh You Gave • Pyg’ Spy
Sounds Great
“I Wish” as put to vinyl by Stevie Wonder in 1976 contains your recommended daily minimum of joy. Yet the jazzy instrumental cover whipped up last year by Polish guitarist Marcin and Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino is so infectious, so irrepressible, that it almost renders the original tame in comparison. [3:17]
That’s among the more recent music links I’ve been sitting on for too long. I’ll round
out this post with another cover and another instrumental, both employed in a pivotal episode of Vince Gilligan’s brilliant Apple TV series Pluribus — a chapter loaded with songs, within and external to its narrative, as enumerated in a Decider article which you might not want to read if you get kitschy ’80s pop like Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” stuck in your head easily. (Oops! Sorry.)
First is the haunting rendition of “Aquarius” from Hair that plays over the end credits, produced by the mononymous Nasaya featuring his frequent collaborator Maro and her fellow Portuguese vocalist Ana Moura. Sony Music Portugal announced back in December that Pluribus’ Season One soundtrack would include the full piece, but it doesn’t, so I’m breaking my general rule of not linking to unauthorized content to share a bit of this exceptional sonic art that I’d like to just live inside for a while. [1:36]
Watching the episode, I mistook Hermanos Gutiérrez’ 2021 recording “Esperanza”
to be an engrossing passage in Dave Porter’s instrumental score. The image above is a screenshot of its animated music video as created by Maria Medem. [2:52]
“Esperanza” is available in a longer version as a single and on Hermanos Gutiérrez’ compilation Eternamente as well as on the Pluribus soundtrack album that is bereft of “Aquarius” dangit. The single and first album can be purchased on Bandcamp. All can be found in the Apple Music store, which also has the Marcin / Hayato Sumino
“I Wish” gem via Sony Masterworks.
Related: Mad Mix • 43 Favorites: #13 • Vuelvo
My Brain in Wayne
A recent dream that found me in the heart of lovely Wayne, PA, where I resided for a couple of years much longer ago than it seems, reminded me that I’d jotted down another one set there several months back.
The newer one: I’m walking on a side road that feeds into Main Street when I hear Dido singing “Thank You” during an outdoor photoshoot. I approach her because she’s an old friend and we catch up a little but she’s busy working — so after confirming that she still lives nearby I tell her that Em and I have a place in Manayunk now and we should meet for lunch.
Zero idea who Em’s supposed to be.
The older dream: I’ve gone to Minella’s Diner with someone whom, per my notes, I couldn’t place upon waking and in hindsight I would very much like to believe was the mysterious Em. Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band, and their entire touring entourage are there and have taken up several tables. I hear another patron tell his server that any drinks they order under $55 are on him and, dear reader, I’m at least as curious about how my subconscious came up with that cutoff point as you are. Once my friend and I have been seated, Lex Luthor turns around from the next booth to speak to us — not a generic version, but Lex Luthor as voiced by Clancy Brown in the DCAU Superman and Justice League animated series, fleshed out in real life and threatening us with something I can’t recall.
Related: Of Was and When • REM Brands • HIVE Minded • Fight and Flight