"We have to get to tomorrow no matter what. And when tomorrow comes, we'll have to get to tomorrow's tomorrow."
Timelessness in the music of Fishmans
"Stripping music of its extra components in such a way is a feat most people desire and appreciate yet one which few people can accomplish. But Fishmans seem to do it at many turns of their career, crafting singular compositions that I probably would have been able to learn in my beginner piano classes and combining them to make cohesive, long tracks that feel like they go by in seconds."
Focus
... at some point, the things that eat at your brain are perfectly distracted by the things you distract yourself with, and the things you distract yourself with are perfectly ignored by the things you can't stop focusing on.
Before I can accept the errors of my conceit
Dear guy with the deep voice talking loudly in the coffee shop, I get it, you’re a social guy. You love telling stories and having people listen. Or perhaps you’re just lonely. But whatever your story, I’d prefer not to contemplate it instead of doing the work I came here for, which likely is the … Continue reading Before I can accept the errors of my conceit
Read This On Your Bad Week
Originally written on four sheets of stapled paper Mirrors and planes always play a huge role in lots of my writing. Everything is a self-portrait, and life is always in motion. I had a moment last week looking in the mirror, feverish, coming off of two weeks of fasting for Ramadan with fatigue so intense … Continue reading Read This On Your Bad Week
The moments of clarity in ‘Ramy’
"... those moments, though our confusing lives continue after them, live in us as a reminder of who we are. At those moments we rate ourselves a 5, when in all other moments we might rate ourselves a 3. Yet we remember what the 5 felt like so we can strive to reach it again."
The time Rosalía sounded like my mother’s cleaning music
"Somehow, while having to balance all of these ambiguities, Rosalía does not fail to leave out any aspect of her new identity that she’s embracing, that of a powerful, self-realizing woman, a pioneer of the emerging genre of flamenco pop, and a product of cultural eclecticism and diaspora."
Mac Miller’s resiliency through change
"Through the paradoxical way that the song and video operate, the cynical image of a man rising out of the ashes only to get blown to the ground again and again represents an optimistic and mature outlook ... the outlook that one can be reborn but still encounter the worst hardships in his/her life afterwards."
Chala Vahi Des (Preface)
I can attribute Texas's setbacks to the many negative experiences I've had my entire life: bullying, Islamophobia, drought, isolation. Yet it would be wrong to discredit the places and people in Texas that have put a genuine smile across my face the past 18 years. I find being Texan to be a challenge every day, but I find that every day I complete that challenge it brings me closer to claiming the place as my own.
Ali Haider 