Short Cuts

15 Years Ago: Ryan Adams Releases ‘Heartbreaker’ ↬

Adams’ ambivalent relationship with his home state is captured beautifully in “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” featuring guest turns from Emmylou Harris and Pat Sansone from Wilco, but it’s more than that. The song captures the restless nature of young adulthood, when the desire to roam and the pull of deep roots battle for supremacy. “I was trying to find me something / But I wasn’t sure just what / Man I ended up with pockets full of dust,” he sings. We’ve all been there, and even if we haven’t Miss Emmylou’s harmonies are enough to make us feel like we have been.

Ambivalent, indeed.

O&F
Sync

The First NC City to get 10 Gigabit Internet is … Salisbury?

Forget Google Fiber (or is it Alphabet Fiber?), Calix is the new1 potential disruptor in North Carolina’s burgeoning competitive broadband market. Calix, working closely with the city of Salisbury, is slowly rolling out its next next generation broadband service that promises up to 10 gigabit service. Catawba College students are the first to experience the blistering speeds, with other areas to follow over the next few months and years.

  1. If you can call a 5 year build out “new”. ↩

Quoted

Clown

“I didn’t even make it to class clown. I had nowhere near that amount of notoriety.”

— Bruce Springsteen
Recap

‘Born to Run’ and the Decline of the American Dream ↬

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release, Joshua Zeitz, writing for The Atlantic, reflects on Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough Born to Run in the context of the era in which it was released:

But the story of the ‘70s is much more complicated. Far from being an era of complacency and narcissism, the decade gave rise to social, political, and cultural debates that built on and even surpassed the era of Kennedy and King. Some issues, like civil rights, the sexual revolution, and Vietnam, belonged as much to the ‘70s as to the ‘60s. Others, like feminism, abortion, gay rights, busing, the tax revolt, and Christian Right politics, seemed altogether new.

Considered in this context, Bruce Springsteen’s phenomenal breakthrough in 1975 can only be understood against a backdrop of profound dislocation and urgent activism, particularly in the working-class communities that absorbed so many of the decade’s economic and cultural shocks.

See also: Rolling Stone’s heretofore unreleased transcript of a 2005 interview with Springsteen on the making of Born to Run. (via Shawn King from The Loop)

O&F
Quoted

Emotional Reservoir

“That process of filling up your emotional reservoir has always been a mystery to me. I don’t know how it works.”

— John Roderick
Duly Noted

Water From This, Water From That

Hot on the heels of that asparagus water brouhaha, the man behind Bulletproof coffee gives us FATwater. Food Republic gives us the rundown:

For almost $4, a bottle of FATwater contains water, two grams of fat and the sweetener xylitol, according to Time. Flavors include berry, lemon, orange and, well, just plain water. The product also comes in water form or as a concentrated gel that you mix into water. You know, for all you DIYers out there.

Food Republic also previously provided a nice rundown of WTRMLN WTR cold-pressed watermelon, which at first sounded like something I would hate myself for loving.

Quoted

Transference

“We’re not wanting to build a program with a lot of transfers. But if it’s a guy in the right spot, it has become a good thing for us.”

— Mark Gottfried
Locally Notable

The Heritage Flag Company

Large scale manufacturing and retailing might still rule the economy these days, but the maker and shop local movements are growing leaps and bounds every second that passes. The Heritage Flag Company is masterfully crafting beautiful wood flag art pieces, and it’s just down the road in Southern Pines, NC:

All of our flags are hand made in North Carolina. No two flags that leave the shop are identical. We take pride in maintaining the character of the original wood, so colors and finishes may vary.

Their flags are called The Full Barrel, The Half Barrel, and The Small Batch. I’ll give you two guesses where the wood comes from.

TIDNTKIL

Cool Off with a Nice Cold Glass of Asparagus Water

Already battling a pricing scandal, sliding sales, and decreased investor confidence, Whole Foods had to deal with a mini-controversy last week when a customer posted a picture of a product on the shelf that many thought had to be a joke: asparagus water.

If the mere thought of that grosses you out (me too, and I actually like asparagus), then stop reading now because it gets worse. This so-called asparagus water was a bottle of water with three stalks of asparagus in it and it was priced at $6! Maybe that’s fair market price (how much is a bundle of asparagus these days?), but that just doesn’t sit well with me. I can’t imagine in a million years that I would like that – and thankfully, the whole things appears to be a “misunderstanding” – but if happened to try it and I did like it, I think I would hate myself and I would go broke. And that’s why asparagus water qualified for this installment of #TIDNTKIL.