1
Among the headlines about oil blockades, missile strikes, and the perils of artificial intelligence, the New York Times offers "3 Salad Dressings You Should Memorize". Good information in a crisis, I suppose, although I was taught it’s poor form to begin a title with a numeral. It should be "Three Salad Dressings".
The rules continue to fade away.
2
The other day a friend called to tell me he saw a ghost and my first instinct was to deny it, to say it must have been a shift in the light. Why?
In 1928, Paul Valéry had a vision of the future: "Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign."
“The days of pilgrimage are over," said John Berger in 1972. "It is the image which travels now."
And now we can invite the entire world—and everybody's opinions about it—into our heads with a flick of the finger. The day's outrages and humiliations seem to bleed through the walls no matter how vigilantly I practice my information hygiene. Sometimes my mind lands on an awful thought: the screen is now reality and the physical world exists only to serve its needs.
Might as well invite the ghosts inside too.
3
Artificial intelligence is taking us into a strange new religious age and I think this is good. I’ve had more conversations about the human soul in the past six months than the rest of my life combined.
Nobody understands how artificial intelligence works, so maybe it's like god.
Last week at Men's Spirituality Book Club, we discussed Matthew's account of when Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days, Jesus is hungry. Just turn these rocks into bread, says the devil. You know how. But Jesus refuses because the word of god is sustenance enough. So the devil takes him to the top of a temple. If you trust your god so much, then jump. But Jesus refuses to test god. And so on.
"Go into the desert to seek god, and who do you find instead?" asked M. "The devil."
As I pondered this, my head began to hurt. If the Spirit led Jesus to the devil, we're back to an ancient and perhaps more truthful theology—Shiva as creator and destroyer, yin and yang—in which the devil is doing the work of God, issuing tests not much different than the story of Job. Like that scene in the movies when the husband drives into oncoming traffic while screaming do you love me?! at his frightened wife. I cannot understand the upshot of envisioning a god like this.
But I was looking at it backwards. Focusing on the wrong side of the equation. God does not matter. Neither does the nature of artificial intelligence. Only my relationship with the concept matters. My reading of Matthew's gospel can lead me towards a god who is a basketcase, but a gentler reading is also possible: Ignore the tests of your faith and simply abide.
4
I should give the last word to my mother-in-law. While discussing the day's headlines over dim sum, she said, "It doesn't matter because we'll be dead soon and someday the world will end." So that's another point of view.
5
But if that's too strong, we have a springtime tonic served by tonight's very special guest, Stephen Baker.
I met Steve a hundred years ago at college orientation. A Canadian flag was stitched to his backpack and he turned me on to crucial sounds from Flying Saucer Attack and Windy & Carl because he played in a band called Tomorrowland that released spacey records on cool labels like Kranky and Darla. In the years to come, we would start our own record label, run a decent design studio in NYC with an office on Broadway, and play a show in France with C. He also created this righteously serene soundtrack for an art project C. and I installed at a cemetery. And when we traveled into the desert a couple of years ago, we found only big rocks and stillness. No devils. Today I call him whenever I need good advice.
These days, Steve makes incredible music under too many aliases—but this set on NTS Radio should help you process the Stephen Baker experience. And he's with us tonight, ready to answer the official Midnight Radio interview question:
Do you believe in god or any spiritual dimension to the universe?
"I've never been religious. I do believe there's some kind of higher order as a force, a structure, or an intelligence that underlies existence in a way we can't fully grasp or articulate."
"Whether that's the intricate complexity of the universe, laws of nature that seem impossibly fine-tuned, or something science hasn't yet explained, I find it hard to believe that everything simply is without a greater framework behind it."
"Some may call that god."
6
For tonight's episode, Steve sent me a file with selections from some of his favorite songs. He wanted to put together something that would be ideal for a warm afternoon because he's a contrarian who must test the limits of Midnight Radio. Fair enough. Here are the changes I made:
- Swapped the Topdown Dialectic track he selected for one I like better.
- Because he's the least self-aggrandizing person I know, it probably didn’t occur to him to include his own music. I’ve fixed this. A song from his Minor Hexachords project appears midway, and I love how the high-gloss majesty of a Burger & Ink classic gives way to "Radians," which shatters the dub techno template into glittery shards.
- Slowed down the last two songs by 39% and 210% because they sound fantastic this way.
And of course, the usual reverb and static. This 44th episode is exactly 44 minutes long, which pleases me. Thank you for listening.
- Topdown Dialectic - 20170804-2
20170804 • Aught, 2017 • Bandcamp - Foote/Dickow - Volcano Snail
High Cube • Geographic North, 2026 • Bandcamp - Sa Pa - Ride High
Ambeesh • Short Span, 2025 • Bandcamp - Burger & Ink - Elvism
Las Vegas • Harvest, 1996 • Boomkat - Minor Hexachords - Radians
Brinkmanship • 2025 • Bandcamp - Paperclip Minimiser - B2
II • Peak Oil, 2026 • Bandcamp - Gramm - Legends/Nugroove™
Personal Rock • Source, 1999 • Bandcamp - Vehicular - Vehicular 02 (39% slower)
False 5 • False Aralia, 2025 • Bandcamp - Koen Holtkamp - Atmos 01 (210% slower)
Atmosfera • Love All Day, 2021 • Bandcamp
