A society can’t be said to have fully embraced a new way of living until it has also embraced that new way of living while drunk. Good job welcoming change, everyone!

Oh what. Also doesn’t this Prokofiev-Tchaikovsky opera double-header sound great? Tonight and tomorrow only.

★★ All the cool and dry interludes were gone for certain now; August had assumed the normal character of August. The sky was blue if anyone could look at it, which was easier to do facing uptown than down-. The haze was less golden than yellowish, an unwashed window on everything. Pedestrians weren’t suffering yet, but dishevelment was starting to show. At the end of the work day, the stairs were hot and stuffy at the top, where the outside air came through the windows. Descent was a gradient into the accumulated stray air conditioning — creating a false anticipation, dispelled when the door opened into the renewed stuffiness of the street.

Were you old enough to catch the Very Special “Diff’rent Strokes” when it originally aired?

“Are You Using the Wrong Knife to Slice Tomatoes?”

Like the guy in the comments says, “If it helps T&S; record sales and radio air plays I can get with this!!” And like the other person in the comments says, “Seriously, I don’t get why people hate Tegan and Sara, or even Taylor.” Both of those thoughts are correct: Get with this, and don’t hate. Here endeth the lesson.

“Here is an album so severe, so hopelessly ambitious in scope, that I began to imagine it as an idealized sonic incarnation of all the wi-fi signals invisibly enveloping, intersecting and overlapping a modern city…. It’s both heartening and heartbreaking at the same time.”
 — Sondre Lerche really likes Julia Holter’s Loud City Song. So do we! Maybe you want to pick it up.

“Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider’s perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music — jazz improvisation — died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95. For more than 40 years, she hosted Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, an NPR program pairing conversation and duet performances that reached an audience of millions, connecting with jazz fans and the curious alike. She interviewed practically every major jazz musician of the post-WWII era. McPartland’s soft English accent wasn’t the only thing that made her a good radio personality. She was an accomplished jazz pianist herself, which was readily evident on her program.”

by Eric Spiegelman

1. “Song for Edward Snowden” by Joe Fox. Best line: “Braaaave, or stupid? Braaaave, or stupid?”

2. “You Can’t Slip A Chip Into My Brain, NSA” by (the perfectly named) Grant William Brad Gerver. Best line: uh, “You Can’t Slip A Chip Into My Brain, NSA”?

3. “Prism” by David Rovics. Best line: “One government came down and burned in repetition of this fact / the next government passed the Freedom of Information Act.”

4. “Talking Edward Snowden’s Next Move” by Michel Montecrossa. Best line: “prosecute the charge / which is espionage / and theft.”

5. “Scoundrel Today, Hero Tomorrow” by Carol Forsloff. The Edward Snowden part starts around the 5 minute mark. This is a very legit folk song.

6. “Hello, NSA” by Roy Zimmerman. Best line: “I know you’ll take my call / because you care enough to take them all.”

7. “NSA is Watching You and Me” by justplainfred. Best line: “Welcome to the wasteland of the free / the NSA is watching you and me.”

8. “Song for Edward Snowden” by Fredrik Hardenborg. Best line: “When this plane hits the ground I’ll be gone / That’s when the shit hits the fan.”

9. “The NSA is Listening” by Jonathan Mann. Best line: “It’s not tinfoil conjecture now / our President admits it / he just comes right out dismissive / as if the world didn’t just change / as if everything’s all right.”

10. “NSA Prism Edward Snowden Song” by Rob Vegas. Okay, this isn’t so much a folk song. It’s also in German. But just watch. You won’t be able to stop, and you’ll thank me.

Eric Spiegelman is a web producer in Los Angeles and the proprietor of Awl Music.

Have we reached consensus on the most important question of the age? Maybe we have! Maybe we have.