Ars Nihil

Based on a 1/15/26 article from Alexis Petridis at The Guardian, here are six unexpected live albums he considers as some of the Greatest Live Albums of All Time.

Some Tumblr posts from 2013 about writing that have aged decently for 2026.

A selection of 7 albums for you all to hear during January-February 2026.

A relevant find from Reddit, "Men at Forty" by Donald Justice.

This post is just reposting 9 animated shorts found on Tumblr during 2013.

Introducing a new subcategory of the Micro-posts, due to feeling nostalgic about (and wanting to save just in case) some of the posts I had over there.

A short personal reflection as I become 40.

An explanation about how patische works, using a popular 80s franchise as a good example.

New Year's Day also means Public Domain Day 2026 and there's a treasure trove available this year.

Saying good bye (and mostly good riddance) to 2025 with some Instagram photos I took!

Today's National Bacon Day, which is pretty self-explanatory. Here's some videos from Epicurious and Babish about bacon to get you in the right sizzling mood.

Nothing major: just several videos of Fugazi playing live 37 years ago today.

A bullet-point quasi-review about a so-so documentary on a kind of music I actually like.

A quick and totally personal review of the recent Richard Linklater movie about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (liked it but didn't love it for a couple reasons...).

Christmas this year has been a muted one for me, mostly watching dogs and catching up on much-needed sleep, but I also watched a couple fun videos. The first one is from Extra History about the various weird Christmas creatures and the tales associated with them. The second is a brief history provided by the Victoria & Albert Museum about the wonderfully weird Victorian origins of the Christmas card. Hope you all are having a Happy Holidays and that the new year might be a be

Not really in a blogging mood due to a whole lot of private life stuff going this month but in time for the holidays. Yet here's a couple interesting posts I found when running through my Reddit saves explaining about why there were all sorts of weird food trends (think Jello molds and meat-and-pineapple combos) that were recommended by cookbooks during the 1950s to 1970s. Also adding an hour-long video from Vintage Lifestyle USA that surveys this very peculiar genre of cook

Despite growing up loving electronic music, techno is a blind spot for me. In the '90s, it was normally conflated with distinct genres like house or jungle or just as a synonym for "Electronica" but techno is its own world with different characteristics and customs. In honor of World Techno Day, I'm embedding a Reddit post that leads to a good thread on which albums to start off with if new to techno (like me!). I'm also posting some of the albums recommended, some relevan

New issues are now up on my itch.io account and can be downloaded in both full-color PDF and printable PDF versions. Here are the links to all of the new ones:

This one's a little more of a shock since Malo was only 60. I don't have a lot to add for noting his passing other than The Mavericks were a staple in my house growing up, especially What A Crying Shame ( which was posted here back in June ). He was a talented singer and it's sad that he's now gone. If you've never heard them before, I recommend checking them out. They were a unqiue band within country music due to picking up a number of Mexican and rock influences they infu

While I firmly believe war is never a thing to celebrate, I do find reading about important battles interesting and today I was reminded is the 220th anniversary of a very important one: the battle of Austerlitz between Napoleon's forces and the coalition put together to stop his advances into Eastern Europe. The Napoleonic Wars aren't a common subject here in the United States since we weren't as affected by them but they were a huge deal for how later events occurred throug