For what it's worth the local second-hand record shops near me have big offers on and instore performances and it's a big, fun celebration, but for the big-name independents it's basically an excuse to get folk into the shop and sell them some over-priced novelties.

It perhaps doesn't quite count here as it's a piece of bilingual wordplay instead of a straight up euphemism , but it is apparently a Yiddish word meaning a catamite.

Drums!

Aww man, Bad Machinery just gets better. The end to the last arc was so well-done, I was kinda worried that it was meant to be the end of the strip, but apparently it'll be back later in the year after a Lotte solo story which should be fun.

BRUUUUUUCE

"A comedic masterstroke" would have sufficed…

Nope:

This idea that a contact is more important than someone's mental and physical health is just disgusting.

Aw man, you were supposed to reply EVERYONE and it would have been like a reference thing.

Watchman is more of an ancillary text - it's interesting to read after Mockingbird to get a different perspective and a look at the origins of the novel, but it shouldn't be your introduction to the thing. It is a decent read, though, no matter what everyone says.

Who had to wear the suit?

I think their drummer became Father John Misty, I don't know about the rest.

On the other hand we are pretty much already there with the rampant poverty and a world mostly controlled by a number if large corporations.

Not to mention that a major thematic point is the fact that Rick has become so jaded and hardened that he is no more "human" than the supposedly soulless androids he is hunting.

This is great, although if it were the real Sun Kill Moon it would have more weird, misogynistic comments about female journalists.

Yeah, you can still form a dependency even if it is non-addictive. Human brains are weird.

I read somewhere that Beaver went extinct in Britain because medieval Bishops declared them to be fish (as they spent time in water) so people could exploit the loophole in the 'no meat on Fridays' rule…

This is one of my favourite quotes from that letter, still sadly pertinent:

This is why the 'breakthrough act' award that some other organisations give out makes more sense. It still wouldn't fit for Trainor whose Bass song came out a few years back, but at least it wouldn't be so baffling when the award in constantly given to acts a number of albums (and often hits) into their career.

Yeah, that drove home to me how disconnected I was from how bands I liked were viewed in the wider public consciousness. Like Arcade Fire had headlines arenas and performed with Davids Bowie and Byrne by that point - I'd assumed they were one of the biggest bands in the world, so the "who the hell are The Suburbs"…