1
Last month I dreamt the houseplant by the television began to move. It's a snake plant, also known as mother-in-law’s tongue, and it rocked itself until it fell to the floor. It began to crawl towards me, dragging itself onward by its leaves. I knew it wanted to kill me.
Last week I dreamt I was standing before a hostile crowd, trying to convince everyone that the prophets and gurus of the past would not survive our digital age. They'd be just as brainwormed by technology as the rest of us and probably rely upon artificial intelligence for their revelations. When we only had three TV channels and a handful of films, our screens united us but now they divide and isolate us. The crowd jeered and threw green caterpillars at me.
Last night I dreamt of hammerhead sharks. As I swam away from a burning airplane and they swarmed around me, chewing off pieces of my belly and arms until I woke up. C. says it’s because I’m afraid of hammers, which is true. I need to close my eyes whenever there’s a bludgeoning on television. "Dreams don’t lie," she says.
In 1913, Carl Jung believed his dreams about an Arctic frost across Europe anticipated the psychosocial weather that led to the first world war. I wonder if more of us are having destructive dreams these days.
2
I'm writing this at the airport while I wait for a night flight from Ohio to Minneapolis to visit A. My thoughts are scattered, ratfucked by the frillion demands that add up to a life in the 21st century even though I’ve silenced all notifications. I'm surrounded by monsters who watch cooking videos, play gumdrop games, and crow about quarterly projections. None of them are using their inside voices or headphones.
More and more, I'm interested in my dreams because this is where I can hear myself think.
3
I still have vivid dreams that my mother is alive; I often find her sitting at a kitchen table in a small house by the sea, living under an assumed name. The house is always made of freshly chopped wood, and it's the wood that sticks with me most, this minor detail that points to an entire world.
4
Sometimes a dream can feel like an invitation. But it can also feel like a taunt.
5
Yesterday I jotted down the phrase “neglected utopian energy” and I have no idea what it means, but I enjoy the way it natters at my mind.
Maybe it's because I've been listening to utopian music from the past, specifically the middle 1990s when we earnestly said things like “trip hop” and “acid jazz” and “dub techno” and thought new hybrids of music would lead us to a polyglot paradise rather than flattening everything into a sheet of liquid crystal gloss. The synthesizers were shameless, the chimes crisp, and every other song required a tabla.
From the vantage point of 2026, is my affection for this music a form of nostalgia, camp, or kitsch? Let's look at some of the album covers from tonight's selections.
Jesus Christ. But I feel affection for these images, for this is the visual culture of a generation coming into its own with Netscape and Earthlink, entirely liberated by zip drives, CD-Rs, and most of all, the radial filters of Photoshop 2.8.
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Susan Sontag believed camp rejects the binary of "good" and "bad" by placing its ideas in quotation marks—but the ambient-techno excursions of the 1990s believed in a technological paradise. So perhaps it's kitsch, which requires a degree of earnestness.
Kitsch is tricky to pin down, but I've always admired Milan Kundera's definition: "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."
Can a dream be kitschy? I don't think so. Dreams are inherently future-facing because they are often emblems of anxiety and desire. To escape the sharks. To convince a crowd or make peace with a demonic houseplant because better things are ahead. Dreams are proof of life.
7
Nostalgia is a form of death.
8
In its common form, nostalgia is a taunt because it fetishes a time that can never be reclaimed. But when dealing with mid-1990s electronica, perhaps it can also be an invitation. To reclaim the energy from a time inspired by Koyaanisqatsi and the incense-soaked rhythms of Kingsuk Biswas's Bedouin Ascent project. It was a time of creating for its own sake without an eye on any marketplace or notion of virality. Of making things simply because new tools were there.
So maybe I’ll just sink into this plush couch with cigarette burns in the cushions while Strange Days plays on mute and somebody tells me all about the benefits of globalization and the Information Superhighway.
- Introduction: Stonecirclesampler, Air Liquide, Mojave 3, assorted radio static, etc.
- Dr. Atmos & Oliver Lieb - Music to Films Movement V
Music to Films • Fax, 1994 - Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin - Silent Intelligence V
From Within III • Fax, 1997 - Bedouin Ascent - Mammon [Midnight Radio Edit]
Science, Art, and Ritual • Rising High, 1994 • Bandcamp - Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor - Protection (Radiation Ruling the Nation)
No Protection • Wild Bunch Records, 1995 - B12 - Radiophonic Workshop
Time Tourist • Warp, 1996 • Bandcamp - Photek - T’raenon Version
T’raenon • Op-Art, 1996 - Bedouin Ascent - Transition R
Science, Art, and Ritual • Rising High, 1994 • Bandcamp - Makyo - Devabandha
Rasa Bhava • Silent Records, 1996 • Bandcamp - Epilogue: Stonecirclesampler, Patsy Cline, assorted radio static, etc.
Download • Podcast
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Now I'm in Minneapolis after a viciously turbulent flight because a snowstorm is on the way. They're talking about 8 to 12 inches. I mention this because Midnight Radio seems to be the only deadline I honor and I'm pressing the button at 11:53pm Central Time. It counts.
More importantly, the latest version of Spite is now available in your local App Store or you can learn more and download it directly here.
Thank you for listening.
