Michael McCurdy

@mightyrobots.bsky.social

535 Followers 1283 Following

Percussioner. Publisher. Parenter. I’m a ballet dad, drummer, and music publisher in NYC. ISO: music geeks, science nerds, law dorks. www.mantrapercussion.org www.redpoppymusic.com www.bangonacansound.com www.michaelmccurdy.net

Close-up of a hand holding Jonathan Gienapp’s book Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique at a youth baseball game. The book fills the center of the frame, with a chain-link fence, baseball diamond, green grass, and spectators seated in folding chairs visible behind it. The background is intentionally out of focus, emphasizing the book against the scene of an outdoor summer ballgame.
image of ticket site for goat (JP) at Roulette in Brooklyn on April 29.
A screenshot of the Space Resources section on the Artemis Accords: The ability to extract and utilize resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids is critical to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development. The Artemis Accords reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities.
Friday’s press gaggle. Barely exaggerated: at 12:03 PM, President Trump told reporters he wanted a ceasefire with Iran. At 12:05 he declared victory. At 12:07 he announced he was sending Marines. At 12:08 he said no boots on the ground. At 12:11 he said he did not want a ceasefire. At 12:16 he declared victory again. At 12:17 he asked for a ceasefire. At 12:23 he told NATO they were cowards. At 12:29 he said Iran was begging for a ceasefire. At 12:31 he said everything was perfect. At 12:36 he said $500 oil was a good thing. At 12:37 he demanded Iran open Hormuz. At 12:39 he said Hormuz was never closed. At 12:41 he said the US was not at war with Iran. At 12:42 he declared victory in Iran. By 3:43 PM he told CBS he doesn’t want a ceasefire. By 5:13 PM - 13 minutes after futures markets closed for the weekend, in a coincidence that should be studied in every securities fraud textbook - he posted on Truth Social that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts”. The S&P reversed more than 1% in seconds. QQQ had already surged 1.1% in the 80 minutes before the announcement,a
A brightly colored cartoon character named “Whiskey Pete” stands grinning beneath bold, arched yellow-and-red letters spelling his name. He is short and stout with a large rounded nose and an oversized orange mustache that curls outward. He wears a vivid purple, green, and pink business suit with a red tie and a wide-brimmed hat. In one hand he holds up a bottle labeled “Whiskey,” and with the other he points outward confidently. The illustration has thick black outlines, exaggerated proportions, and a classic mid-century animated style on a clean white background.
A loaf of sourdough bread sits partially sliced on a cutting board. Two slices are in front of the loaf facing up. The crumb of the bread reveals decent internal structure and the crust looks pretty decent, too. The loaf looks like it was proved well enough, but the slight density of the crumb likely means it was a bit under proved. The relative stoutness of the loaf for sure means there was little to no oven-spring. However! what’s not revealed in the image is the well-balanced flavor of the bread…. not too tangy, not too mild. I vote this bread Good Enough!
A residential street in Sunnyside, Queens during the east coast blizzard. Parked cars line both sides of the road, heavily covered in snow. Bare trees arch overhead with branches coated in white, and a single streetlight casts a warm yellow glow through the falling snow. Brick row houses with lit windows frame the quiet, snow-blanketed scene.
screenshot that shows NYC temperature to be -17C and Regina, Saskatchewan to be -2C.
The moon hovers, balances, over the Empire State Building in Manhattan. Its glow of light from what (impossibly) seems to be from the city, rather than the sun, illuminates a crescent reflection on the moon — while bleeding across it to highlight almost the whole moon.
black and white picture of a snowy winterland treescape in Queens, NYC. A snow-flecked grove of trees stand a bit separated across the white ground, with a backdrop of snowy branches and trunks fading into the distance.
quote from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American, December 5: “it could have been written in just 14 words. White supremacists use 88 to refer to Adolf Hitler and “fourteen words” to refer to a popular white supremacist slogan.”
a picture of 4 stacks of large, gooey, yummy chocolate chip cookies on a wooden cutting board atop a larger cutting board where one cookie is broken open in the foreground showing its gooey, yummy innards.
google streetview image of the defunct location of Slug’s Saloon (1963-1972). Now it is a bakery. During the mid-1960s Slug’s slowly started attracting regular jazz performances, developing a reputation as a musician's bar. In this period it became closely associated with free-jazz musician Sun Ra: from March 1966 through late 1967, Sun Ra and his Arkestra (billed as "Sun Ra and His Astro-Infinity Music") played regular gigs every Monday, and continued to play the venue irregularly thereafter. By the late 1960s the club had grown a vibrant scene in its out-of-the-way location, with performances from prominent jazz musicians including Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, among many others. Some of these performances were recorded, often surreptitiously, and appear on officially released or on bootleg albums. Audiences included a number of well-known artists and musicians, ranging from Larry Rivers to Paul H. Brown to Bob Thompson and Salvador Dalí. The venue saw the death of Lee Morgan on February 19, 1972, when he was shot at the bar by his common-law wife Helen Moore. The general demise of the neighborhood and his hard lifestyle as a club owner led Jerry Schulz to leave, and the club shut down in late 1972.
image of my vote for Zohran Mamdani!
screenshot of inbox zero.
screenshot of content warning: This user is suspected of being part of a terrorist organization called Antifa. Please report any suspicious behavior.
screenshot of transcript — Ezra Klein: “And I feel like me and the people who believe what I believe — not narrowly speaking, but the whole broad coalition — have failed in a really consequential way.”
Screenshot of transcript — Ezra Klein to Ta-Nehisi Coates: “I think that I am a person — and I think that you are a person, whether you admit it or not — who is on of the people with a voice in shaping what our political culture is….”
screenshot of Joyce White Vance post: Important thing to know: Grand juries only hear one side of the story. The defense doesn’t cross examine witnesses or present a case. Good prosecutors are committed to the truth & doing justice. They don’t indict cases when the defendant can contradict their case.
screenshot of text from JAMA website: “Conclusions and Relevance Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analysis. This suggests that associations observed in other models may have been attributable to familial confounding.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates: We are in a moment right now where people are asking themselves, ‘Why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy?’” Coates said. “However you take the state of democracy in America to be, and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, if you can’t fight for something that is so blatantly and obviously unjust, if you can’t oppose the 2,000 bombs dropped on schools and on hospitals, what does everything else mean?”
a screenshot of a confirmation page for cancelling a Disney+ subscription. The confirmation text says: “Ok, your subscription has been cancelled”
pic of outdoor bar advertising “Free Beer” at Sunnyside Gardens Park in the NYC borough of Queens… the greatest borough and the greatest neighborhood park.
a picture of an early September sunset over Manhattan — seen from Sunnyside, Queens. The sky is covered in a multicolored palette of pastels as the sun sets behind skyscrapers in the distance.
video of Brandon Nimmo’s walk-off hit to beat Phillies 6-5 and sweep a 3 game series in queens!
A picture of the first Resavoir album sitting on its recently unboxed cardboard packaging. Resavoir, based in Chicago, plays a mix of jazz, hip-hop, avant garde, electronica, and rock influenced excellent music.
A picture of an LP that was shipped by the friendly people at the USPS, from the even friendlier people at the International Anthem label in Chicago.
a picture of homemade peanut butter, on a countertop, in a recycled “Teddy’s” PB jar. Food processor sits to left of full jar, taking a much needed break.
The top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB. It took place while Kryuchkov was seeking to improve the KGB's operational techniques in one particular and sensitive area. The spy chief wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans.
an image of the medieval Guidonean Hand.
a picture of truly no knead bread that tastes pretty, pretty good. The mis-en-place in this image features my old, trusty bread knife, one slice of buttered, toasted bread, cut in half; room temp butter (necessity); and a partial loaf of homemade sourdough bread. yum.
image of British avant-pop band Stereolab’s LP, Dots and Loops. One of the GOATest albums of all time. imho.
After the invasion of the late 1230s, the economy shattered, and its population were either slaughtered or sold into slavery; while skilled laborers and artisans were sent to the Mongol's steppe regions.
a screenshot image from an NPR article about a judge striking down illegal DOE regulations against schools teaching or implementing DEI policies. The highlighted quote in this image is from Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department's Office for Civil Rights, wherein he states as false the well-documented fact that the US is literally built on both systemic racism (see slavery) and structural racism (see mortgage restrictions in mid 20th C. keeping black people from obtaining mortgages to buy homes)
a screenshot image of Judge Dale E. Ho’s ruling to immediately release Carlos Lopez Benitez from ICE custody after he was kidnapped by agents outside court after his Lopez Benitez’s scheduled immigration hearing.
An image of the San Francisco duo, Matmos’ newly released LP Metallic Life Review. Their singular compositional approach resembles the creation of sculpture. The incredibly detailed pieces that make up each album are created with carefully selected sounds that adhere to a specific conceptual framework. In the case of Metallic Life Review, what may be possible with the sound that metal objects make? Metallic Life Review continues to take a seemingly impossible premise like making an album only with select, often commonplace objects by entirely sourcing its sound from the sound of metallic objects: bronze, copper, steel, aluminium, and various alloys. In this case, they have collected field recordings of metal objects from around the world, sourced from moments across the entirety of their years as a band. This life review documents their lives together, their curious collecting, and collages their magpie hoard into rhythmic patterns, sometimes writing melodies and basslines, but sometimes just letting sound be sound. Patient gathering yields to ADHD editing. Painstakingly made, but blink and you’ll miss the finer details. By employing the strong contrast between a harsh industrial clatter and a sweet melodic dimension, a deliberate counterforce, Matmos arrive at paradox: exceptionally beautiful music wrought from metal detritus.
Brooklyn-based, instrumental rock outfit, Thee Reps, new release Cryptocartography. The cover art, in contrasting colors and patterns, by Woody Leslie and Sam Morrison, gives the impression of a map on the veins of a leaf.
An image of Editrix’s new album The Big E playing on a home stereo system.
a pic of an LP of the Deerhoof’s classic album Apple-O
Ozzy Osbourne. One of the most massive GOATs.
a picture of the early morning sun rising through a thin veil of forest fire smoke over mountains behind Paull Lake in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada — taken through a grove of spruce trees growing out of mossy topsoil. Two boats sit separated on the shoreline.
A screenshot of JD Vance’s new Bluesky account blocked by me.
a quote from Heather Cox Richardson’s May 24 “Letters from an American”
a screenshot of a recent article that describes a fossil quarry in NJ that tells the story of the dinosaur extinction.