Virginia Trioli | Read Write Collect

Bookmarked Between Goblincore and Taylor Swift, I’m baffled and embarrassed by my Spotify Wrapped by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

I was intrigued to see what data Spotify had wrapped up for me. Would I again be grouped with those in Hobart, like I was last year? Well, no (as Spotify seemed to realise that grouping people by location was … weird.) Like Virginia Trioli, I was left wishing Spotify would some how see me through all the noise:

The pitfalls of refusing to buy a separate Spotify account for a 12-year-old…

Just once, I wish my Wrapped actually wrapped up me.

Between Goblincore and Taylor Swift, I’m baffled by my Spotify Wrapped by Virginia Trioli

My top songs were those I played for my children (Please, Please, Please by Sabrina Carpenter.) I was left thinking about the artists that I thought I had on high-rotation, but did not make the list, such as Ibibio Sound Machine or Fanning Dempsey National Park (although I think this one suffered as there were no standout tracks that were placed on high rotations?) In the end, I think what taints some of this is that there is some much that I listen to outside of Spotify (on vinyl) that does not make the count?

Trioli also highlighted the amount an artist receives per play:

The American UMAW has been needling Spotify with irrefutably uncomfortable data of their own, showing that Spotify pays a maximum of 0.003 cents per stream and has fired most of their curatorial staff, instead relying on AI for the $2.5 billion salary the union says Spotify founder, Daniel Ek, makes.

Between Goblincore and Taylor Swift, I’m baffled by my Spotify Wrapped by Virginia Trioli

I was left feeling guilty at only paying only $1 for Twinkle Digitz. However, I am now left thinking that clearly is not so bad, because at 0.003 per play I’d have to play Blackmail Boogie 33333 times, which on my rough estimates would involve playing the track for 2425 minutes. I like Twinkle Digitz a lot, but I am not sure I have played any track or artist for 2425 minutes, so maybe Trioli is onto something?

Liked

‘The memoir isn’t about you, Harry. It’s more about what you leave out than what you leave in. It’s a story constructed with the history of you, and what you select are the pieces that have the greater resonance for the greater number of people.’

Source: Virginia Trioli: ‘I had to go through a lot of life to be confident to write about me’By Jane Rocca

Liked The most independent generation of all is largely denying their kids the same experience by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

There are two important questions confronting any parents with young kids: are you giving them autonomy and have you equipped them with the competence to be truly and safely independent?

Traffic accidents have decreased compared to the years when I played on the road, and street surveillance has proliferated — CCTV cameras are everywhere — so why has our mistrust and anxiety increased along with it? Random but rare kidnapping attempts and knife attacks like the recent one in London don’t help: they feed into a primal fear about the lost child, the child taken by wolves, by witches — and it seems our fears beat back the logic of our own experiences and also the deep, abiding wish that our kids get to have some of the fun of our own childhoods.

A mum being reported to social services for letting her teen travel Europe is a sad sign of today’s risk-averse parenting by Virginia Trioli

Liked Is Martha Stewart’s turn on the cover of Sports Illustrated really about the male gaze, or is she chasing something else? (abc.net.au)

When we get fit and put on good clothes, even sexy clothes, we’re hoping our girlfriends greet us with shrieks of delight at our well-toned arms and how well our jeans fit. Martha may have been on the cover of a men’s magazine, but almost all the discussion since her appearance has been by women.

Bookmarked When a mum breastfeeding her baby sparks outrage, we’re focusing on the wrong things by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

What confused me was all this deeply felt concern for children, when I really hadn’t seen much anxiety similarly expressed for all the thousands of Australian kids who live in dangerous, damaging, high-risk circumstances and whose lives are being compromised and even cut short, all with our full understanding of their problems.

I guess I might take all the outrage a bit more seriously if I heard wails of anguish about the more than 15,000 children in Lyle Shelton’s state who need foster homes and can’t live safely with parents who I assume are mostly still the gender they were assigned at birth; the criticism would be easier to take if it came from people who daily expressed horror at the 1.3 million Australian children who went without enough food every day, or the more than 50,000 kids who don’t get to go to school.

State and territory child protection services responded to more than 178,800 children in 2020–21 — an increase from about 168,300 in previous years — and the issues ranged from child abuse or neglect through to care and protection orders, or placement in out-of-home care.

Virginia Trioli’s reflection on focusing on the wrong thing to me is another highlight to the challenges of having conversations in the modern world? This again has me thinking about Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens’ discussion of contempt. For me, this is all nicely captured in Tony Martin’s Sizzletown, a podcast that is hilariously funny, until you realise the truth associated with so much of the commentary. I guess here I fall back on my oft repeated quote from Peter Goldsworthy ‘Maestro’:

Cartoon descriptions? How else to describe a cartoon world?

Liked Relationships are being torn apart by COVID conspiracies — once it passes, will our loved ones come back? by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

My love for our friendship has not died. But I do not know how to talk to my friend. Like the miners’ wives, I’ll wait. I hope I don’t have to dig us out.

Liked When kids cave under the pressure of COVID lockdowns, it turns out skateboarding can help by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

As far as I can tell, no jurisdiction has yet put proper thought and effort into ventilation, air filtration, and priority teacher vaccination at our schools not only to mitigate against future outbreaks but to find a way to keep schools open safely during lockdown and protect our children’s mental health and educational future.

There was important, challenging but not impossible engineering and construction work to be done to make schools safer for students, teachers and the families they go home to, but we haven’t done it. And we still refuse to see it as a high priority.

Replied to Looking at Victoria’s fourth COVID lockdown from behind is maddening by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

As the boom is lowered on yet another lockdown, how are we still having the same conversations? Fully 15 months on, how are so many issues unchanged, uncorrected and wildly off-track, Virginia Trioli writes.

Having gone out to catch up with friends only the weekend before Melbourne was again thrown into lockdown, I was amazed. Firstly, at the amount of people on public transport without masks and secondly at the man on the door of the bar who thanked me when I signed in. Is this where we have gotten to? It would seem that it is?

Liked Victoria’s coronavirus lockdown might be finally be over, but we are still deeply divided by Virginia Trioli (ABC News)

It’s a bit of a paradox, because at the same time we have banded together strongly like never before. We wait to see whether what happens next, our recovery and the help we get along the way, will bind some of the wounds as well.

Replied to Just like Phillip Island’s little penguins, we can get up and keep going in these uncertain times by Virginia Trioli (ABC)

hopelessness and endurance from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

The suffering of so many in this lockdown is real and not to be easily dismissed. So many days home again with small children or with out of work partners or with no-one at all, and the feeling is overpowering: I can’t go on. But then — I’ll go on.

Being in lockdown has felt like something between Waiting for Godot and Groundhog Day. I try to find solace in the fact that we are all in this together.

Liked We try to eat well, exercise and do the right things, but sometimes you just need a piece of cake by Virginia Trioli (ABC)

We try to eat well, and exercise and meditate and do all the right things, but as the infection numbers stubbornly bump the ceiling of triple figures, sometimes — well, we just need a piece of cake. And a cuddle, if we can. And a bit of joy.

Liked Coronavirus anger and disappointment hides moments of care and compassion by Virginia Trioli (ABC)

I am these days a rather godless type — but thank you has become my daily prayer.

Replied to Despite these strange times, we’re all still connected through music (abc.net.au)

I’ve mentioned before that the loss of performed music is probably my greatest sorrow through all this, and I was wondering: what music was everyone else turning on, to find some solace, joy, escape, refuge?

Some days I turn to The Cure for solace, other days I dance with my daughters to Dua Lipa and Carly Rae Jepsen. Some days I retreat into the worlds painted by people like Joesph Shabason. However, when all else fails, Damian Cowell serves as a reminder of the absurdity of it all.

Bookmarked An arts degree has long been the butt of predictable joke but there’s another side (abc.net.au)

The late essayist and quicksilver intellectual Christopher Hitchens once argued that “above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment … and this Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person”.

For many, the universality of the humanities degree is the most democratic expression of this ambition.

Virginia Trioli reflects on the democratic values associated with a humanities degree.

Liked A tale of fried onions, Thomas the Tank Engine and a little boy lost — and then found (abc.net.au)

People with autism don’t often get that much understanding. It takes so much effort, concentration, emotional strength and focus just to get by in the neurotypical world that an autistic person can often start their day already in the kind of deficit the rest of us experience at the end of it. The world can be overwhelming. And dispiriting.

If on those few, terrifying days we can come together as a community in full understanding of what Will’s needs would be, might we not be able to do that for other autistics in our life on any given day? A little more patience, a little more consideration, flexibility and accommodation that means they don’t have to be lost before they can be found?

If you want your heartfelt celebration of Will’s discovery to have meaning and effect beyond this week, cross the road to ask if families with kids on the spectrum are doing OK, or if they are lonely or if they need some help. If you work with an autistic person, shift your perspective so as to make a little more room for theirs. If you don’t understand, ask.

Liked I thought life was back to normal. Then a text message from a listener shut me up (abc.net.au)

“Not everyone can afford to go out to eat. I now have to manage my kids’ disappointment when they want take away or to eat out and we can’t afford it.

Declining offers to go out to eat by making excuses because I’m embarrassed. I enjoyed ISO. It made me feel ok about not having money to spend.”

Replied to ABC Weekend Reads (view.mail-list.abc.net.au)

Sarah aside – and you go, girlfriend – what have you learnt?

That you’re a little more prone to anxiety than you thought you were? That being an extrovert doesn’t shield you from loneliness? That being an introvert doesn’t shield you from loneliness?

I have learnt that there is no ‘deep work’ without a wife, especially when you are working in a shared space.

Replied to Weeknote 14/2020 (Open Educational Thinkering)

Although I’ve got enough done, I haven’t felt so productive this week. I think that’s because I’ve had to slow my brain down to stop it racing ahead and thinking of possible futures in which everything I’m currently doing fades into insignificance.

I’m taking a lot of solace in long walks with my family, in nursing a single malt and talking to my wife, and in hanging out with my parents on video chat. I even, with the help of our children, painted the garden fence this morning!

I am guessing no alcohol for Lent has long gone Doug?

I really like your point about turning to comedy or tragedy:

The rationale behind this is that, I think that in times of crisis it’s better to go for either end of the spectrum. Either comedy and light-hearted stuff to raise my spirits, or tragedy and dark content to make me realise that things aren’t really so bad after all.

I have been left thinking about some of the stories that Cory Doctorow has been sharing. Trying to find some hope in the tragedy.

This is how Virginia Trioli tried to make sense of things in her newsletter:

But every now and again the mists are clearing. When the household settles into a rhythm of energetic morning work and then quiet family reading; when the daily cycle around the park becomes the highlight of the day.

Not sure what the Stoicism says about hope.