As if reality were some kind of football match I have a considerable dislike for ‘Antifa’. Just now, a video was posted on Threads showing a man of color being beaten up by several white men because he was wearing a T-shirt with ‘SS’ on it. That, apparently, should be reason enough to justify violence…
Month: May 2025
Stop Spewing Toxic Nonsense: A Call for Rational Thought and Cultural Clarity
Stop Spewing Toxic Nonsense If you enter your email address here, the album will be automatically added to your Spotify account as soon as it’s released in six weeks (I already have your emails, so this isn’t a scheme to start spamming you): https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/kroesdenbock/the-rascal-from-alaska?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=Email+&utm_source=SendGrid Yesterday we went to Bad Salzdetfurth. All those place names with…
Why Modern Music Sounds Worse: Compression, Conformity, and the Lost Art of Sound
Why Music Used To Sound Better Can he handle his manleys? The downside of not watching tutorials is that it takes longer to figure things out by yourself. But this is outweighed by the upside: if all you ever do is copy other people’s tricks, you’ll never develop a sound of your own. The reason…
How a Dutch Poet Made the Best Country Album—and Wonders How to Win a Grammy Without Flying to America
Who Should I Submit to for the Grammy? This is what I’ve been working on the past few years: the best country album ever made in the Netherlands. I’ve put no less effort into it than I would into a poetry collection—in fact, probably a lot more. Kroes didn’t exactly have an easy time with…
**HTTP Error 503**
**HTML Error 503** The light on the vending machine blinks rheumily— as if remembering something it regrets. Above, fluorescents hum like lawsuits, relentless but impersonal, and the sky, chrome with pending updates, stalls. There’s a form for longing, somewhere inside the cough of the printer; my name misfiled again beneath “User.” A pause stretches between…
Conditions and Disservices
**Terms and Disservices** The hum buzz croons from the ceiling tiles, flickering light like a thought half-retracted. Sandra in Accounts receives her eleventh phishing email— its subject line: Re: URGENT – God. We walk past vending machines offering “serotonin boosts” next to chips that taste of beachfront insecurities; each selection a sacred contract with sodium…
*Conditions and Terms Apply*
*Terms & Conditions Apply* The algorithm sighs at 2 a.m., its breath made of late returns and half-bought lives— screens still glowing like modest suns in living rooms where no one speaks, only scrolls—a digital votive flickering beside the sink of undone dishes. Somewhere, a mother mistakes the click of a drop-down menu for salvation….
The Priest
In the fluorescent hush of the 24-hour pharmacy —where toothpaste dreams and razors hum quietly behind greasy glass—Mrs. Anders folds her loyalty points like origami grief. A voice over the intercom insists on salvation through seasonal markdowns. Elsewhere, an app tongues the air for my vitals, measuring dopamine in likes per click. Each notification: a…
Answer to a Corrupted Song Contest
There are essentially two ways to view the modern world. 1. The misanthropic lens Through this lens, roughly half of humanity consists of ruthless, selfish bastards. Anyone who, during one of the largest genocides in history, still manages to vote the perpetrators into second place fits seamlessly into that worldview. It’s tempting to conclude, from…
Epiphany at the Self-Checkout
**Self-Checkout Epiphany** The scanner beeps like a bird with performance anxiety, each barcode a hymn in a faithless temple of squash. Behind me, a teen swipes nicotine gum, eyes slick with algorithms and Sleep Token lyrics. Nothing here breathes except the credit card terminal, which stutters like a prophet mid-seizure. I pretend not to know…