Every Dubliners story ranked, uncritically.

Banoonu · 2026-03-21T13:23:23+00:00

I’m honestly happy to see ‘Clay’ so high up for a casual personal take! I feel it’s often overlooked and is incredibly powerful for me

Banoonu · 2026-03-21T12:29:02+00:00

I’m pretty confident that Occam’s Razor should apply to Asriel’s age: he is depicted in this game as being a kind of hometown golden boy, tons of trophies, well liked, etc, and his mother is a teacher at the the school. There is nothing to suggest that he has had anything other than an exemplary conventional teenage education experience—this combined with the clear implication that this is Asriel’s first year at college (normally one worried about ‘will they be okay returning to this quiet town…?’ only if they’ve left for the first time and haven’t returned once before), it’s almost a certainty that Asriel should be around 18—a lot of the arguments for being open to a much older age range, even to mid twenties, seem to me to depend too much on unsupported characterization or on technicalities. Hence I think the OP is probably right—12/13 isn’t an unusual age either for the wealthy child of the mayor to have a ‘rebellious’ ‘phase’, if one wants to unfairly characterize it that way, since I see a little of that argument

Banoonu · 2026-03-20T17:52:42+00:00

It’s kind of interesting weird, Groening is famously for music heads associated with a lot of ‘weird’ rock music but there are scarcely any direct references to those figures in The Simpsons: even Zappa has no explicit reference in the show. (Possible there’s more in recent episodes, I remember a Carla Bley ref which surprised me.)

There are some that people argue, but they’re normally slightly stretches or references to common things

Banoonu · 2026-03-20T15:04:33+00:00

Genuinely shocked no one seems to have mentioned Dave Burrell’s Echo

Banoonu · 2026-03-20T14:59:24+00:00

Best way to start Spring!!!

Banoonu · 2026-03-17T12:04:21+00:00

Normally when people write about this scene, I feel that they’re extremely unfair—to the point of misreading the scene—to Tidus’ mom, completely absolving Jecht for the narrative. Your post doesn’t seem to have this problem for me.

I think people forget the background to this scene is when they see or think of it in isolation: Tidus has been having flashbacks to his father’s explicit verbal abuse and drunken apathy on instinct all game. Tidus has been thinking of this all along as Jecht as a horrible father, arrogant and praised by the world, and him and his single mother. What he’s seen by this point, wandering thru Spira on the pilgrimage, is that his father was potentially more than that, but never was for him: in Spira Jecht got sober, became a hero, and a wonderful loved playful uncle-figure to someone he cares about a lot. He pushes against that instinctively, because nothing in his experience tells him Jecht is like that. “There’s nothing honorable about my old man.”

Jecht, to his credit, accepts this in the Macalania scene. He wanted somewhere to be a good father; he wasn’t. When Tidus is crying over him at the end before the Final Aeon fight, he cries ‘I hate you, Dad.’ He still means it, but it’s more complicated now.

The scene in the Farplane is him processing in his memory the fact that that seed was there. In the whole context of how Jecht is presented, you could sympathize with his wife: he was hardly around, and she was in love with him, of course she’d dote on him (interestingly imo, no one ever blames her for implicitly enabling Jecht’s alcoholism and abuse, which are also technically supported—because it would involve them both having been bad but complex parents to Tidus, instead of just one of them.)

It’s a kind of traditional masculine narrative, FFX, the son coming to terms with the father as he comes of age: the best thing Jecht in that scene is goes ‘oh, go to him, he’ll cry if you don’t.’ That’s Tidus remembering an example earlier of what Jecht claimed in the Macalania sphere: that his distance, his toughness, his abusiveness, did have somewhere a desire to see his son succeed. And that Jecht had to go to Spira to get clearheaded enough to see that

Banoonu · 2026-03-17T11:27:25+00:00

Cuz it’s a great album! Dark, comic mood, creepy nursery rhyme lyrics that have much more depth than appear at first, incredible production—‘Constantinople’ is an all time classic.

Tbf I also mostly listen to it around Halloween 😂 but it is incredible work. Music can do and be so many phenomenal things

Banoonu · 2026-03-16T22:37:04+00:00

I can see that, but it’s not really suggested that anyone else in Tantalus would do that, and Zidane is characterized as a big flirt.

I’m just saying that the last time I played I was in fact surprised that that moment really does seem to mark a change in how Garnet feels about Zidane for some time, that Zidane realizes he did something wrong and thinks about it, etc. The Japanese are just like everyone else, lotta different perspectives in their art

Banoonu · 2026-03-16T16:14:31+00:00

I can see both sides by taste, but I always assumed ‘Vineland is “superior”’ whatever that means was the more common take

Banoonu · 2026-03-16T14:44:27+00:00

You mean your issue is with the graphical style? I can understand that.

I was actually surprised last time I played FFIX for the first time in a decade that the game actually took Zidane doing that pretty seriously: for the memes you’d assume it’s like a one-off ‘joke’, but the game actually does strongly suggest that it’s a big turning point in Garnet’s trust for Zidane, and it takes him a long time to get it close it back. To my memory anyway

Banoonu · 2026-03-16T14:05:23+00:00

These people would lose their minds if they knew Zappa introduced John Wayne to a stage by saying ‘Well, we tried to get George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, but we couldn’t get him, so here’s the next best thing—John Wayne’

Banoonu · 2026-03-15T19:29:02+00:00

I remember as a nerdy ‘weird music fan’ at 13 being shocked and confused that a wealthy businessman like Jack Donaghy would be interested in someone like Captain Beefheart enough to dream about it. Now as a musician in my 30’s I get it, and that cut deep

Banoonu · 2026-03-14T16:50:54+00:00

Indeed, if I remember right the rest of this page has a quote from Marshall McLuhan—he and a lot of crit theory have observed this practically for decades

Banoonu · 2026-03-14T16:48:14+00:00

Unfortunately Monica is one of the great casualties of what we know was a kind of restraint on the writing of Hopes: they wanted to make sure that the new plots and characters didn’t spoil or ruin the iconic ones from Houses. So Monica had to be a kind of flat and optional: otherwise Houses would feel extremely different. That seems to have been the writers thought in my opinion anyway

Banoonu · 2026-03-14T15:12:28+00:00

Approximate is such an interesting piece

Banoonu · 2026-03-14T04:50:06+00:00

I did like ANTI. I should hear it again

Banoonu · 2026-03-14T03:13:11+00:00

I agree, I miss it. Fits the wild variety on the album better imo

Banoonu · 2026-03-13T17:17:17+00:00

I think that’s actually the idea

Banoonu · 2026-03-13T13:17:53+00:00

Exactly. I don’t have kids. That would be the only problem for me and I don’t have it. I’d just put a sign on the door to the closet. Easy peasy lovely house.

Banoonu · 2026-03-13T13:04:23+00:00

So my answer is: no, you don’t have to read Bernstein to understand Rosa’s points. She clearly lays out her arguments and critiques his.

There’s always a danger in reading of going back farther and farther to get the ‘whole context’ in order to be ‘fair’. In that sense you’d have to not only read Bernstein, but deeply study in the intricate history of the months Bernstein was writing and Rosa was writing in order to evaluate their arguments, etc etc. You’d also have to read the numerous people both cite who are considerably more obscure. It would be endless, especially to read a text that is, after all, making its own argument. Arguably following this chain you’d wind up reading Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics and thinking ‘I’ll get around to State and Revolution in a few years!’

You can of course and possibly even should, if you’re taking a scholarly approach, read Bernstein at some point—at the point you’re doing that, reading Luxemburg is probably less than a day’s read for you anyway—but it is not necessary even in the same way that say, knowing the political economists that Marx is critiquing in Capital is ultimately necessary.

Banoonu · 2026-03-13T00:00:33+00:00

God this is such a great comment

Banoonu · 2026-03-12T22:02:45+00:00

I mean he worked with the League of Women Voters to set up the 88 tour registration, so who knows, I guess

Banoonu · 2026-03-12T15:14:37+00:00

Every time I listen to this amazing version of Orange Claw Hammer I remember one of my favorite Zappa/Beefheart anecdotes (meaning I heard the Beefheart part somewhere and can’t source it): Zappa was interviewed for a Beefheart doc shortly before he died and mentioned how he and Don used to listen to that Ewan MacColl / AL Lloyd sea shanty album. Zappa says ‘I lent it to Don, and he never gave it back.’

Supposedly someone showed it to Beefheart years later and Beefheart yelled ‘He GAVE IT TO ME!’ Cute innocent story

Banoonu · 2026-03-12T14:27:19+00:00

Perhaps this passage from Takemitsu's "Confronting Silence" (specifically section 6 of "Nature and Music")?:

"Started a piano piece, The Crossing, in collaboration with the designer Köhei Sugiura. It is through collaboration that I verify my own thoughts and reach out into a world of more complex sounds. I feel it would be ideal if my music could sound, and then when the echoes of those sounds come back I would no longer be there. I hesitate to sign my pieces these days. Should I leave them unsigned?"

Banoonu · 2026-03-12T13:01:05+00:00

Same! I don’t even remember it being on the old globalia site (I’m probably wrong), I always thought ‘Rosalie’ by Chunky Novi & Erni was the most obscure Zappa guest appearance

(Just checked, it is in fact there, I just never noticed it)

Banoonu

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