While leaving antisocial media and boycotting AI you might also consider getting a Fairphone. We really don’t have to destroy the world in order to enjoy it. Check it out:
Your next phone?
A worthy cause
Alison Luthmers has written to say that Friday’s concert with the Bellevue String Quartet and special guests Antoine Torunczyk and Antina Hugosson will be a benefit for Sweden’s oldest environmental organization, The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen).
So there’s one more reason to join us on Friday. Check out “Bookstore events” for details.
The mobilization of tradition
Hearing Bruce Springsteen’s song brings back memories of a book I once wrote with Ron Eyerman, Music and Social Movements. We argued and tried to show that the interaction of music and social movements in the 20th century, in the 1960s in particular, represented a mobilization of cultural traditions that affected both politics and music and contributed to what we termed cultural transformations. I used to talk about it at academic conferences by asking the audience to stand up and sing “We Shall Overcome” with me to help bring the points all back home, so to speak. Let’s just hope that Springsteen’s song can inspire other music-makers to join him in doing something useful with their talents and mobilize their own musical traditions for a good cause. Who knows: if enough of them start writing and singing meaningful songs at their concerts it might actually help us overcome the horrors that have been brought upon us. Anyway, here’s a link to a preview of our book. And then sing along with Joan.
Words of wisdom
I posted an interview with Rebecca Solnit some months back and continue to be impressed and inspired by how well she manages to combine emotion and intelligence in her writing, a fine example of what I once termed a “hybrid imagination”. Here’s her latest piece in the Guardian:
The Boss sings
The hole is fixed
Yes, indeed. While the bathroom in the apartment upstairs has been identified as the source of the leakage in the store the ceiling in our art-music-nature etc room has been fixed, dear Liza. Oh, and speaking of Liza, or actually Eliza, here’s a little history lesson about artificial intelligence for all you AI boycotters out there.
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Anyway, to celebrate that not just the hole in the ceiling but also the lights have been fixed Andy’s Corner will be open today from 2 to 5. Now that’s what I call loverly.
On trial
Finally! Antisocial media on trial. Could this be the start of something big?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/27/social-media-trial-meta-tiktok-youtube
A worthy winner
On Martin Luther King Day let us remember that there once lived among us a man who was truly worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, which has recently become an object of ridicule as the latest prize-winner has tried to give hers away to the conman-in-chief. I had the honor of seeing King speak at the March on Washington in August 1963 and, as the years have passed and the US has sunk lower and lower, I have often thought of that day and King’s speech as representing America at its best. Here he is accepting the prize in 1964, less than four years before he was killed at the age of 39.
Inside the gates of eden
Amidst all the nonsense and horror stories that fill the media and our heads these days I saw this inspiring piece in the Guardian about a garden of eden that really exists. I will definitely be visiting this place on one of my next trips to Spain. How about one of you out there arranging group tours?
There’s a hole in the ceiling
Never a dull moment at Andy’s Corner! When I opened the shop after the holidays on January 2 one of the rooms was covered with water that had leaked through the ceiling from the apartment above. Luckily, there was almost no damage to the books below, but there is now a big hole in the ceiling where the water leaked through. It will be quite a while before the room is back to normal and in the meantime there are books that have been moved to a storage room that were once on the shelves. Just ask if there’s something you can’t find that used to be there. Sorry for the inconvenience. Anyway, it brings to mind that wonderful old song:
AndrewJamison 