Add posts

content/blog/blog-questions-challenge.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+title: "The Blog Questions Challenge"
+description: Why I do this whole blogging thing.
+date: 2025-03-12
+tags:
+  - Meta
+synopsis: Why I do this whole blogging thing.
+---
+If you haven't seen this going around the internet, you might be spending too little time on [the indieweb](https://indieweb.org/)! The blog questions challenge asks bloggers to talk about how and why they do what they do. Here's mine.
+
+## Why did you start blogging in the first place?
+As is common among those with ADHD, I've long felt that I have quite a lot to say and not enough people in my life who have the patience and willingness to sit through endless lengthy monologues; I have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things! Years ago I had a website where I published some of my ghastly teenage poetry—I think I write now for the same reason I did then: sometimes it just feels like I'll burst if I don't.
+
+## What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
+I'm using [Eleventy, AKA 11ty](https://www.11ty.dev/), which is a static site generator. A static site generator is a program that lets you code templates for your website, describe how it should work, and then it spits out pages based on your setup so that you don't have to code each new page or post. Static sites don't rely on a server running a content management system; they're literally just a bunch of files that you can host anywhere. They're fast and unhackable.
+
+I chose Eleventy specifically because it's very flexible, and because I'm comfortable with JavaScript.
+
+## Have you blogged on other platforms before?
+I've used WordPress in the past, and I use it at work. It makes the editing experience nice and simple (something that is not true with Eleventy), but it also feels fragile and unwieldy to me so I try to avoid it where I can.
+
+## How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?
+I am a big fan of [KDE](https://kde.org/)'s [Kate](https://kate-editor.org/) text editor. No Electron bloat or Microsoft spyware, lots of great tools and plugins, and it's fast as all get out. Honestly, I'm a bit of a Kate evangelist, because I want to see more people working on plugins and language support for it rather than VS Code.
+
+I must admit, I don't always want to use a code editor for blog posts, especially for longer, more involved posts and essays. So when this mood takes me, I'll use [Ghostwriter](https://ghostwriter.kde.org/). Another fabulous KDE project, Ghostwriter is a simple Markdown editor with neat features like distraction-free and fullscreen modes, and writing statistics like word-count and reading-ease.
+
+## When do you feel most inspired to write?
+Honestly, I can never predict when the urge will take me, or when hyperfocus will drive me onwards into the wee hours. Sometimes I'll have something cooking for a while, and I'll get swept away with it when I happen upon a text file where I've outlined the idea. Historically, I'm more productive in every way in the evening, but as I've been fiercely battling my circadian rhythm now for several years in the hopes of adapting to a more workplace friendly schedule, I'm occasionally raring to go in the morning provided I've had a good 9-12 hours of sleep.
+
+## Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
+Usually, finishing a post has me feeling like I've just run the gauntlet, so I'm itching to upload as soon as possible. If it's a longer piece or I've noticed my focus failing, I'll sometimes either have my partner give it a read or I'll sleep on it and re-read before running my `update-website` Zsh alias.
+
+## What are you generally interested in writing about?
+Lately mostly incense and computer stuff, but I'd also like to write some longer pieces on some of my core beliefs and opinions. For instance, I'm working on an essay about my feelings toward religion and spirituality. These types of posts are long, involved, and have to be done with some delicacy as they always carry the possibility of upsetting people, so it's going to take some time to get them out.
+
+## Who are you writing for?
+In general, I don't think I'm writing for any person or group in particular, including myself. With some posts, I'm just trying to put out a viewpoint that I haven't seen others write about, such as my [post on a tool that allows people to strip the storytelling from recipe blogs](https://nathanupchurch.com/blog/let-us-waffle/). When I write things like that, I'm writing to add what I think is a unique view to an ongoing conversation. For other things, I'm writing because [I think it's important that the information is made available](https://nathanupchurch.com/blog/making-incense/), or to [show support to a project or cause](https://nathanupchurch.com/blog/scribus-1-7-0-from-strength-to-strength/).
+
+I think that writing [incense reviews](https://nathanupchurch.com/blog/maroma-incense-of-auroville-sandalwood-cedarwood/), however, is mostly for myself. I was once [a cocktail bartender](https://makertube.net/w/boNV8AQcufwtaZVg9vUh1Q). When I started out at a high-end Chicago cocktail lounge, the beverage director would ask the bar-back to bring us two Glencairn glasses, each containing a pour of one of the 500+ spirits on the wall behind the bar. He'd then ask me to write down what the spirit was, how long it had been aged, the proof, and five tasting notes. Once you've tasted enough spirits it's not terribly hard to do, so I became quite good at it, but I always found the process quite stressful nonetheless. I worked in coffee for some time after that, and I found coffee cuppings even more anxiety-inducing[^1] because the strong fragrances would burn my nose out almost immediately. When swishing spirits around in my mouth, I don't ever feel that my ability to distinguish flavor notes diminishes, but fragrance can be fleeting as the brain compensates for the presence of whatever aromatics are floating into your sniffer. For the same reasons, I find reviewing incense quite difficult. Posting reviews gives me a reason to keep at it, to keep learning and expanding my 'olfactory library,' and to improve at picking out and identifying notes. It also helps me to be more objective and analytical when testing my own incense.
+
+## What's your favourite blog post?
+I'm quite proud of *[What Do We Expect from Fragrance? Natural Incense in an Unnatural World ](../what-do-we-expect-from-fragrance/)*. It sums up my views on how fragrance is used and abused in our time, and where incense fits into all of this.
+
+## Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
+I never actually sat down and planned out a design for my website; I just started writing code, so I'm forever self-conscious of the design of my site. At some point I may sit down and actually put together a concept and execute on it. Will that satisfy me? Who knows.
+
+## Who's next?
+To avoid unduly burdening anyone individually, I'm going to do as [Alistair Shepherd](https://alistairshepherd.uk/writing/blog-questions-challenge/) did and say that if you haven't done one of these yet and you'd like to: you're up!
+
+[^1]: Coffee is harder than cocktails full stop. Once you've got the hang of the basic cocktail categories and their builds, you're singing, whereas coffee is temperamental, and more technically difficult on every level. I promise you that the job of your favorite barista at any decent shop is much more difficult than that of any fancy cocktail bartender.

content/blog/till-lindemann-has-finally-done-it.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+---
+title: "Meine Welt: It May be Time For Till&nbspLindemann to Retire"
+description: "You always hope that your favorite musicians will retire before they do anything too embarrassing."
+date: 2025-03-28
+tags:
+  - Music
+  - "TW: SA"
+synopsis: "You always hope that your favorite musicians will retire before they do anything too embarrassing."
+imageURL: /img/till.webp
+imageAlt: A black and white photo of Till Lindemann looking sad.
+---
+Over his storied career, Till Lindemann has been given a lot of grace. Both he, as a lyricist, and the Neue Deutsche Härte powerhouse he fronts, have made some questionable decisions over the years. Many of these missteps might perhaps be chalked up to the era, such as the unfortunate fat-suits in Rammstein's *Keine Lust* music video. We might also see the red-face in *Amerika* as ignorance rather than malice, given it was donned by a group some 5,000 miles away from the peoples being insulted, and in 2004,  no less. Likewise, as a queer Rammstein fan I always saw *Mann gegen Mann* as a statement on the ridiculousness inherent in the rabid homophobia that was common at the time. The trouble with satire, however, is that you can never be perfectly sure whose side is being satirized, and Lindemann's later work threatens to cast an unflattering light upon lyrics written decades ago.
+
+In 2015, you didn't have to be on the bleeding edge of contemporary thought on matters of social justice to recognize that *Ladyboy* and *Fat* of Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren's *Skills in Pills* was, to put it mildly, problematic. Still, Rammstein has never taken itself too seriously; it didn't seem terribly incongruent or damning that Till would opt to play the clown in an ill-advised politically-incorrect shock-rock album that, let us admit, did contain the odd banger. Till's attempts at a contemporary *Leah Sublime[^1]*  certainly ring hollow compared to much his lyrics for Rammstein—which, while also often juvenile and shocking, explore themes of love, lust, obsession, gender, and the body in interesting and compelling ways—but never have I felt that they betray anything more insidious than a blurry view of the boundaries of poor taste. Further, Rammstein detractors have so long 'spent spouting the tide'[^2] of satanic-panic style criticism and speculation as to the group's messaging and politics, that it was eventually forced to be quite frank on the matter. As Lewis Twilby reported in Edinburgh University's history, classics, and archaeology magazine, *[Retrospect Journal](https://retrospectjournal.com/2019/10/20/deutschland-by-rammstein-a-look-at-cultural-memory-in-germany/)*:
+> in a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone Lindemann said that he is a socialist and that ‘We used to be either punks or goths – We hate Nazis!’. This is highlighted by their song ‘Links 2,3,4,’ which is a direct reference to the labour movement song Einheitsfrontlied.
+
+Famously refusing to provide almost any detail whatsoever on the meaning of Rammstein's lyrics, it's hard to glean much about the mind behind them unless they are quite explicit. For this, Lindemann's *Meine Welt* was all the more shocking. The video, released hours ago, opens with a gagged Lindemann, wearing a cross and being pushed in a wheelchair by an angry mob of women wielding signs featuring slogans such as "Kill Till," "Toxic Masculinity," and "Female Revenge." A melancholy piano solo plays as the camera closes in on the women's scowling faces as they yell and chant. Particular focus is placed on those in the crowd with piercings, or shaven heads. As the beat picks up, the video transitions to AI generated slop: gory and alien-looking childbirth imagery. The first verse begins[^3]:
+
+> Naughty, unabashed<br />
+Unknown and unshaven<br />
+Unteachable, clueless<br />
+Insatiable, unpunished<br />
+Immovable, so unspeakable<br />
+Shameless and unbearable<br />
+Useless, uncovered<br />
+Unaesthetic, unlicked
+
+The chorus follows:
+> Somehow, someday<br />
+We'll start over from scratch<br />
+Somehow and somewhere<br />
+Life laughing, senses happy<br />
+I'll show you my world<br />
+A place for lost souls<br />
+When a person falls from heaven<br />
+They won't count the stars
+
+Knowing the history of Till's work with Rammstein, you *might* argue that this is a *Mann gegen Mann*-esque parody of the embarrassing "men's rights" crowd who seriously argue that women attempting to protect themselves from sexual assault and lift impunity from the men who commit it is a mysandrist witch-hunt, if it were not for the  mewling chorus and, oh yes, the fact that Till [was himself accused of sexual misconduct a couple of years ago](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66646096). Due to a lack of evidence, the investigation was dropped, and while this says nothing about whether or not Till committed the acts he was accused of, when these sorts of accusations occur, we have a unique opportunity to learn something about the individual to whom they are directed. Of course a range of emotions might be expected under the circumstances, but I think it's fair to say that releasing a music video two years later portraying oneself as a Christ-like figure while characterizing women as an angry, "unaesthetic," "unshaven," "unteachable," and "unlicked," mob is neither a decent nor reasonable response—even if allegations were false, or indeed, malicious.
+
+This is a deeply embarrassing moment for Till Lindemann, or at least it ought to be. If we were to stretch the benefit of the doubt to encircle the earth, it would be difficult to believe that this release is parody, and it would remain in egregious taste in any case. In addition, the martyr act from these famous figures accused of god-knows-what is consistently pathetic—are we to feel sorry for these multimillionaires who suffer no legal consequences and fail to miss a single wayward drop of revenue following the release of the shocking allegations leveled toward them? While we don't tend to expect better from public figures, when they are known to espouse leftist beliefs, we certainly hope for it, and it's a tremendous disappointment every time. As lyricist for Rammstein, Till's behavior also threatens to cast aspersions on the band's entire body of work, potentially eroding the good faith that gave the writing an air of irony, exploration, and at times a sense of literary value as it straddled the line bordering outright vulgarity. A poetic exploration of sexual violence can sometimes be useful and cathartic for those affected—Rammstein fans have been known to write in to the band to say as much—but the work takes on a different tone entirely when its author is accused of sexual misconduct and uses the experience as an excuse to express outright misogyny *via music video* while playing the martyr.
+
+The release also says something about where Till is (or rather, isn't) artistically. Rammstein songs have historically been replete with references to classic literature, German culture, and wordplay, their videos visually arresting and multifaceted in their storytelling—barring the odd *Pussy* affair, but the lyrics, message, and egregious quantities of AI slop in *Meine Welt* indicate to me that either Till is losing touch with both the zeitgeist and his eye for quality simultaneously, or that perhaps someone else had been reigning him in all along. In either case, the man is sprinting towards self-parody, and the teenager in me desperately wishes he had retired first.
+
+[^1]: If you don't get this reference, count yourself lucky and don't investigate further.
+[^2]: Forgive me.
+[^3]: Lyrics via [genius.com](https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-till-lindemann-meine-welt-english-translation-lyrics).