On Bill Callahan and Grimes. Letting the hero die might mean opening yourself to new experiences. Finding more to identify with. Noticing the commonalities that point to the one, along with the differences point to the many, and identifying with songs from the inside and outside at the same time.

On one hand, it’s great that she’s this new hot blog thing, because she is a woman who creates her own beats in a space that historically is not that friendly to non-males. On the other hand, her elevation been a case study in the values people consign to the music they love — in this case, thin representations of ideas, that people have praised her for her “naive” and “elf-like” qualities, as though by filtering her voice into wispiness to the point that she’s almost a specter (as she does), she becomes more admirable, a negation of herself.

‘In terms of its America-sized grandeur and its fixation with the emptiness of dreams, Born to Die attempts to serve as Del Rey's own beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, but there's no spark and nothing at stake.’

‘1. Go through your piece and flip the gender of your descriptive phrases' subjects. Are there any that sound ludicrous as a result? 2. Are you essentially making shit up about the artist in order to sexualize her? 3. Are you comparing the artist you're writing about to other female artists only? If so, why? 4. Are you writing about a moment where your subject flirts with you and you respond in kind?’

‘Exploring “what a woman should be” is boring and cliche in the 21st century, and perhaps that is why Lana Del Rey seems to many to be so bored and sad on stage. So let’s take Lana Del Rey for what she is—a pop star playing a role, a woman whose real life we know nothing about—and learn from what she’s taught us about our own insufferable addiction to a vapid version of femininity. In the future, I’m hoping we’ll accept more female artists who are interested in mining the depths of who they really are.’

Interview with author Sumie Kawakami about sexless marriages and the falling birth rate in Japan. Covers a lot of interesting ground, if lightly.