The Goon Line 019: The Westworld soundtrack

I spent most of my day yesterday at the library, working on a freelance project and this newsletter and my resume and pen spinning. I used to be able to listen to music with words while I “worked,” but as I age and my attention span worsens, I have found that I’m better off with white noise or instrumental music.

And since I don’t want my Spotify Wrapped to be 100 different static tracks, I have identified several albums that are inoffensive but still interesting enough to stimulate my auditory center while I open and close the same three Chrome tabs for 45 minutes straight. One of those albums is the soundtrack to Westworld.

I am profoundly uninterested in all things sci-fi/fantasy flavored, but I was enraptured by this show when it premiered. (Then it got really weird and I stopped watching, but man, that first season was something.) And the music, often contemporary songs played on a tinny saloon piano, was a lovely detail that added more texture to the episodes. Big Vitamin String Quartet vibes, but creepier.

AN ASIDE: Jeffrey Wright was extraordinary in that show. I love him, and have since his appearance in HBO’s 2003 adaptation of Angels in America, another cultural artifact that deserves its own WEEK on The Goon Line because of how much I love it (I will not subject you to this. I will save it for my iVillage blog.)

Anyway, I was rooting very hard for Jeffrey Wright to win an Academy Award for his performance in American Fiction, the best film I have seen in quite a long time. I also believe Sterling K. Brown turned in the greatest (male) acting job I saw in a movie last year. I will watch his Bash Brothers appearance 30 times in a row to soothe myself from this Oppenheimer-related injustice.*

A SECOND ASIDE: As I mentioned, I am now a frequent library visitor so I can “work on my resume” and also on job applications, an odious and tedious chore. One final internet I’ll share with you today, vainly (like this whole project isn’t the absolute most Stuart Smalley exercise ALREADY), is a lil website I whipped up for and about myself. If you have, or know of, any pressing content or communications needs, hot leads or projects, let me know! Otherwise this is the only kind of writing I will keep doing all day, and these emails are simply not supposed to be this long. SEE HOW WELL LISTENING TO THE MUSIC FROM WESTWORLD WORKS?

^{*I watched this entire thing in the middle of the library. I was wearing headphones but my screen brightness was at 100%.}