💾 #2 Put it into Speed Drive
On background noise, David Foster Wallace, matchday vlogs and Charli XCX
Welcome to Issue 2 of Save Point, my holistic web journal on the stuff I'm consuming and the manmade horrors of The Online World. The first edition, On Reviewing, is available here.
The background noise dilemma
I’m currently trying to experiment with what I use as background noise while I work, which is an unusually important consideration when you’re a freelance writer. I currently use DJ sets, a habit I adopted during COVID that is hard to shake. Porter Robinson’s 2020 Secret Sky set has 4 million views on YouTube, and I’m pretty confident I can claim a couple thousand of them. It’s not the only set I use, but I’ve heard this one so many times now that I’ve tricked my brain into thinking it’s comfort food. I mean, have you heard this remix of the opening theme to Nagi no Asukara?
The familiarity means I can dip into mindful singalong enjoyment whenever I like, but my familiarity with the mixes and drops allows me to enter a flow state and get shit done while listening, even if the individual song is wordy or intense. It sounds calculated when I write it down, but it wasn’t an intentional process. Though, it does make me wonder whether I’m harming my enjoyment of this delicious content for my own professional gain. Am I reducing the artistry to TV static?
Before the DJ sets, I religiously used Persona 5 Beneath the Mask Rainy Mood 10 Hours to get through pretty much all of my university essays, including my undergraduate and master’s dissertation. I began to associate the song with crunching in the early hours of the morning in the library… and then eventually at my desk at home when coursework was replaced with freelance commissions. I’ll probably hear Lyn’s voice rattling around in my skull when I’m old and senile as a result.
I chose Beneath the Mask because of how much it comforted me with its Satie-esque lowkey ambience across 100+ hours of Persona 5. But now I’m wondering, would I ever listen to the original song just to listen to it anymore? I just tried - and it’s not offputting to do so, but it definitely feels weird. Firstly, it feels incomplete without the rain. I also feel disengaged from the lyrics, like they’re a made-up ephemeral language, Cocteau style. I also can’t help but feel fidgety, like I should be doing something while it plays.
A cautionary tale, to be sure, about loving a piece of art so much that it becomes a tool rather than a friend. With that in mind, I’ve been trying to diversify my background noise content. I recently added a second screen to my setup and stumbled onto a no-commentary longplay of Animal Crossing: Wild World from this dude called Jeff. I love Wild World, and I played it so much as a kid that I don’t find its abrasive wobbly gibberish sound effects grating while I write. Previously I have tried working with Animal Crossing music (I had a Chrome extension that would naturally switch songs as the hours pass like a living record). But knowing that Jeff is, like, actively trying to pay his debt - adds a weirdly comforting dynamic to the whole affair. I’m getting kind of invested. Let’s see how this goes.
“The emotionally Hobbesian meat market of the dating scene”
I’m reading Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace at the minute, who I consider to be the most acerbic, arguably-prophetic writer about the malaise of modern life. ‘The Depressed Person’ is only eight pages long, but if you have any experience with the horrors of mental health, the sheer honesty of his prose will get under your skin in myriad uncomfortable ways. Check it out. Also, did you know BIWHM was adapted by John Krasinski (That guy with the smile from The Office) as his directorial debut? Also, Ben Gibbard (lead singer of Death Cab) is in it. I need to watch this movie! When I’m done reading, that is.
Put it into Speed Drive
Bee-beep! Charli XCX has revealed the song she’s made for the cinematic event of the year, Barbenheimer, on July 21. At a breezy 1 minute and 58 seconds long, and with its interpolation of ‘Hey Mickey’ by Toni Basil, it is primed to stun every algorithm in sight. But I also think it’s a genuinely catchy, good song and the highlight of the album (at least so far). It was produced by EASYFUN, who, as well as working on Fade Away by Hannah Diamond (which I think is one of the best PC Music songs ever), has a bunch of credits on Number 1 Angel and Pop 2, so you could say they’ve been hyper-influential on Charli’s new sound.
What I can’t divorce it from, though, is how well it fits with the 2021 laura les song, Haunted, which I first heard at a virtual concert during lockdown. The similarity between them is mainly in the synthetic arpeggio that dances around your brain like popping candy. Haunted felt like an exercise in mastery over hyperpop or digicore, or whatever you want to call it, when it dropped, so to hear its echoes in this mass-market movie song is interesting, to say the least.
Either way, they sound pretty cool together. I’m not a DJ, although, to be honest, I’ve always wished that I was, so I should probably learn, maybe, with that TRIBE XR DJ school thing. Anyway, as evidence of my claims, here’s a hastily put-together RaveDJ that kind of rules in pockets.
When matchday vlogs collide with reality
I dunno if you know this, but I’m a Geordie. I was born in the RVI, in Newcastle. I speak with a difficult-to-understand Geordie accent, tempered softly by my experience at Newcastle University, where I was, most of the time, the only Geordie in the room. All my family are Geordies. Therefore, I support Newcastle United Football Club, my local club, and they’ve just started getting good again after being shit for, like, my whole conscious life. There’s been a Saudi takeover, and they’re in the Champions League now, signing Italian midfielders dubbed ‘Pirlo’s Heir’ among other exuberances.
As anyone who grew up around these governmentally-deprived parts (unless you’re deed posh or something), I was massively into football as a kid, almost by (Dane)law. One of my most cherished pictures is of me, as a baby in a pram, with Alan Shearer in his prime. I’ll find that for you all someday. It felt unavoidable at school, even though I was much more interested in other stuff, so I played for a few local teams as a half-decent winger, solid goalkeeper and shit defender until the Xbox 360 and Halo 3 happened to me.
Nowadays, as an adult, I’ve maintained an arms-length interest in football and, by extension, NUFC. It is the most exciting sport to watch, in my opinion, and I play FIFA every year, which has been an unlikely boon for my career. Turns out that not many games writers play or even care about sports, never mind sports games, even though they’re like, bonkers COD-level popular. I’m always there to swoop in and fill your reviews with black-and-white, if necessary (see the below IGN review I wrote, which ends with footage of me scoring a late winner against the Mackems).
I don’t have a season ticket to Newcastle, but I have a membership, and I like to go to games every so often and follow Newcastle’s performance week by week. It’s a lot more fun when they’re actually competing, turns out, and I’ve found that it’s almost necessary to have some understanding of the club’s narrative at all times so that you can easily have conversations with your uncles.
Anyway! Something that has appeared as a result of the club’s success is an entire industry of YouTube creators covering NUFC-related news and recording matchday vlogs. It took a while for the algorithm to send me down that particular rabbit hole, but for about 12 months, I’ve been watching Adam P’s videos religiously, and very much enjoy watching him interview club folk and talk about transfer deals and redevelopment plans. Mainly, he covers the matches I can’t make, and it’s nice to feel like you’re there. It’s good fun and lets me connect to my roots.
HOWEVER! At the end of last season, I did make it to one of the final matches, the nail-biting Brighton game that pretty much decided our fate in Europe. I was in the East Stand, right at the back, with a great view. I sat a row ahead at first and got the whole ‘I’ve been coming here 48 years, longer than yee were born sern’ (jovial) patter from the seat’s true occupant.
On the way out, buzzing after watching us systematically unravel a very dangerous team, I was walking home in my appropriately-coloured ACRONYM jacket, and sure enough, there he was, in real life, standing outside of the club shop filming reactions. The fourth wall came tumbling down, and you can watch the timestamped video below to see what happened next.
I’ll be showing the grandkids this if they ever question my heritage. See you next week!