There Will Be No Armageddon

Yesterday, one of my students turned me on to a delightful bit of Japanese slang from the Meiji era: tsundoku, the phenomenon of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them. I’m glad there’s a name for this hobby of mine. It’s heartening to know this was also an issue in nineteenth-century Japan.

But these days, I’m only reading about crosstabs and herding. This habit has become so compulsive that I’ve needed to create a situation that physically prevents me from checking the latest election news by pairing a keyboard with a tiny screen no less than 36” away. It’s an embarrassing yet effective solution: keep the internet out of arm’s reach.

Why am I so hopelessly addicted to the latest news? Because the mind craves certainty—and this is the crux of so many of my troubles: the inability to live in the grey.

For years, casting a vote has felt like choosing between murder and suicide, and for most of this election, I was enjoying this season finale of America as bizarro entertainment. But in September, I found myself experiencing something I hadn’t felt in years: hope. I’ve never felt as connected to a candidate as I do with Kamala Harris. She seems like a genuinely happy, recognizable, consensus-driven person operating in good faith. She seems like somebody who’s been in a supermarket before.

I don’t agree with Harris on everything, but only a child expects the world to conform to their will. Besides, policy is a speck in the rearview mirror these days. Right now, Americans must choose between living in a shared reality or the hallucinations of a vicious game show host. I don’t know what we’ll decide.

Which brings me to tonight's playlist. As we teeter on the edge of several unpleasant possible futures, I thought it might be nice to stitch together five of the most reassuring songs I know, starting with these lyrics from Union Jack’s There Will Be No Armageddon:

There will be no Armageddon. There will be no sudden ending. We will see our children grow, and theirs grow after them.

For fifty years, we have awaited the future with a mounting sense of fear. Our path to the next millennium seemed certain to be lit by the bright lights of a nuclear conflagration. But now, as we raise our arms, we see that we have almost made it to the year 2000 and beyond.

These vocals come from The Lathe of Heaven, a 1980 film adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1971 novel. Union Jack released this song thirty years ago, back when many of us had faith in technology, and it’s very 1995. It noodles around in ambient-trance mode for a while, and I clipped out the bits that haven’t aged well—but I implore you, wait until the bass kicks in at five minutes and thirty-three seconds. It’s one of my favorite moments in the world, and I'd like to have it played at my funeral.

Next up is the song I tattooed on my arm thirteen years ago: “Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating in Space” by Spiritualized. The tattoo has grown blurry over the years, and I’ve blurred the song tonight, fusing it with the original Elvis Presley version (which was based on a French melody from 1784!) and lacing it through the mix.

Union Jack - There Will Be No Armageddon
(1995 | More)
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, We’re Floating in Space
(1997 | More)
T. Rex - Cosmic Dancer
(Electric Warrior | Reprise, 1971 | More)
Air - Le Soleil Est Près de Moi
(Premiers Symptômes | Source, 1997 | More)
Gyeongsu & June - Lead to Curse
(All to None | Dear Dogs, 2024 | More)

Also features The Paris Sisters, Elvis, and more. Listen below or download a state-of-the-art mp3. Or here’s a boring unmixed, unreverberated Spotify playlist. Whichever route you choose, I hope these songs help smooth out the next 90 hours or so.

Meanwhile, let’s celebrate the end of Daylight Savings Time, my favorite day of the year because it brings the night closer. And if you’re staying at a motel, you get a free hour. Changing the clocks should be the year’s biggest celebration with fireworks, parades, and gift-giving. Because if we can rearrange time, we can do anything we want. Invent new colors. Add more days to the week. Reset the internet to 2009.

Please take moody portraits of your desk in the six o’clock dusk and send them to me.

Thank you for tuning in. The request lines are open.