joshua chamberlain

Category: life

  • epic times

    As film critics and Internet users do their annual retrospective on the films released in the last year, I’ve noticed a common theme: complaint about runtimes. There seems to be a consensus that many movies these days are entirely too long (Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon).  But for stories…

  • the water we swim in

    A few months back, Fall Out Boy dropped a cover of the Billy Joel classic, “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” but with verses rewritten to describe news events from the past thirty years. Detailing everything from the Kurt Cobain’s suicide to Trumps dual impeachments, the song is sprawling in its…

  • …if it kills me

    Years and years ago, a dear friend told me The Mountain Goats “This Year” was his favorite New Year’s song. “Nah, man,” I told him. “That’s not a New Year’s song. That’s a song for November, when you’ve been beaten down by the year and you’re crawling towards the end…

  • gotta have a LinkedIn

    I hate social media. For many, many reasons. I think by this point, most of us do. But of every social network though, I think LinkedIn is the most hilarious. Because let’s be honest — it’s useless. I built a LinkedIn page in college. I was told I had to.…

  • brushes with nonexistence and performing vulnerability

    There are times I worry the things I say aren’t all that deep. This almost always stems from comparison of some kind, which is, of course, unhealthy. Comparison is the thief of joy, as the old saying goes. But in a late-stage capitalist hellscape like this one, comparing ourselves to…

  • a letter to my past self

    Almost seven years ago, I wrote a letter to my past self. This is what it said: dear josh, What to tell you? You don’t know shit, but you’re learning. I remember the time you’re going through well. In many ways, it will shape the rest of your life. It’s…

  • what is art?

    I’ve always loved Seth Godin’s definition: “Art is a human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen.” To me, this almost perfectly summarizes what constitutes art, the five key components being…

  • find yourself a “scenius”

    Austin Kleon doesn’t believe in the term “genius.” He makes the argument that no great work of art it born from isolation. “If you believe in the lone genius myth,” Kleon states in his book, Show Your Work, “creativity is an antisocial act, performed only by a few great figures–mostly…

  • hoarding

    I’m a hoarder, but probably not the way you think. I don’t hoard clothes or magazines or collectibles or senseless junk. I hoard the things I create. Let me explain. A few years back, while working at a theater company, the Artistic Director told me about a critical inflection point…

  • times like these

    I was ruminating this morning on which Bayside record is my favorite. If you’re a regular around these parts, you know I have difficulty trying to define “favorite.” Most emotionally resonate? Best technically? Worth returning to? Ultimately, I realized comparing one Bayside record to another is a fruitless task. Despite…