Earlier this week Mark Linkous, better known by his performance moniker Sparklehorse, stood in an alleyway and shot himself in the chest. A craftsman of indie-Americana, the 47-year old Virginian musician left behind his wife Teresa and four complete studio albums.

His music was hauntingly delicate, robust overtures of lo-fi crackle and pop. Singing with pulpy earnestness, Sparklehorse felt as melancholy as the last day of summer camp, an idyllic crunch between wafers of drugs, booze and happenstance. Linkous was the band's only permanent member, a multi-instrumentalist that marinated each measure with enigmatic personality, but without the usual weighty despondence.

Now that "Smooth Criminal" has stopped playing in every bar in America at least once per week, I'm left to find solace in carnal violence. Something about the screeching of fingernails against the cold steel of a harpoon gun puts me right back; to before the hierarchy collapsed and the king ascended to his private theme park and petting zoo in the heavens.

Michael adored fauna, to be sure, but without his care and guidance the world's animals are little more than flesh-hungry demons, ready to rip your grandparents into kibbles and feed your toes, individually and without condiments, to a scrawking nest of young. Even as you read this their horde builds in number beneath your windows, burrowing deep into the foundation of your home and the cockles of your witless heart.

It's as if they've all been robbed of their very purpose. Lost and ravenous, the beasts' only objective is destruction. But I have trained for this day. For detailed instructions on how to handle a listless horde, one needn't look further than zombie horror.

Public television, on the other hand, spent every last breath insisting that each and every kid was special, intoxicating young minds with a bloated entitlement complex, so that when they came of age and the global economy lay burning before them, they could point stoically and swear, "You bastard, you said it wouldn't be this way. You told me I was special."

Thankfully we've come a long way in how we regard race and entitlement in this country, and our television has mostly followed suit. So much so that a rerun of Star Trek, television's harbinger of our uniformed, proto-chromatic future, seemed wildly offensive.

There's something about the clacking that's carnally satisfying. Each letter pops into existence still unblemished and spatting with editorial afterbirth. Suddenly it has to live up to your expectations, you've already wasted the ink. It's too painful to take back such omnipotent spew, so you're left unrestrained by concerns for spelling or conventions. 

This particular dusty concluder was built in the image of Baal, lord of fertility and destruction, by Smith Corona sometime just before owning one made no sense. Whichever era of wunderkin managed to put white out and black ink on the same typewriter ribbon must have also acted like such delinquent, counter-culture potheads as to drive their parents, American employees of Smith Corona, into such madness they denied the existence of the number 1. The closet this typewriter gets is l- as in "liquidation."

One of my favorite bands, Icelandic ambient quartet Sigur Ros, appear to have split. The band has described it as "taking it easy" and cited falsetto Jonsi Birgission's solo project as the reason for the hiatus. But after a scrapped record and growing creative disparity amongst the band's members, it sounds more like a breakup. 

Senior year of high school I saw them play Benaroya Hall in Seattle. Their sweepingly-involving instrumentation mixed with some pretty stellar (if shoddily photographed) visual imagery. I remember, there was a woman sitting a few seats down, tan and in her late 40s, telling us about their show in Denver. She had followed them west into California and up the Pacific coast. It was that sort of transformative experience.

Yea fine hipsters, insult the iPad all you want. Apple even went for broke and called Stephen Colbert on the red telephone in the corner office. That's the hipster-marketing nuclear option! At this point we're all supposed to be sitting in a puddle of our own piss, wishing we had the gonads to pinch to zoom as well as Jobso.

It brings us one step closer to Star Trek, and frankly, that's enough for me goddammit. Because once the iPad has ascended to the throne of tech majesty and you're all living in the flash-ridden dark ages, hell's fury you hath feel, my friend. I'm 90% sure I'm completely screwing up the ole' english, but you get the fucking point.   

Did you see him swiping throw photos? DID YOU SEE HIM?! Imagine how many skinny tech-hipster wenches will orgasm instantly upon seeing it on your coffee table next to the Camel Lites. Tell me you're not suddenly in line to pre-order. They're at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, right next to the Urban Outfitters. 

Pride and all, the Hancock's been rejected by its architect, shed its skin all over the taxpayers and made them vomit. The top floor observation desk was closed after September 11th, and remains closed citing safety concerns. Worries cast aside for catered, private functions.

Plenty of business still gets done inside the Hancock, but its not immune to a bad market. Many of the upper floors are silent, gutted and resting. The office space is meticulously clean and polished, like new cars in a showroom. Pump masquerading as elegance, or maybe the reverse.

"Home" opens with a whistle hook reminiscent of "Young Folks," the Peter Bjorn and John single that took over the radio, mall intercoms and WB programming in 2007. If you don't remember the track (you were born after 2007 or you live in a place without shit-tons of Apple stores), here's what Pitchfork thought of it: 

The song was ranked #5 on Pitchfork Media's "Top 100 Tracks of 2006" list. Pitchfork reviewed the song on 19 July 2006, giving it three out of five stars.[1]

Leave it to Pitchfork to hate on the popular stuff. It's a sharp track on an album these eighteen folks really seem to like but Rolling Stone called "an art-college thesis." Wherever your alliance may lay, there's an interesting unofficial music video of it on YouTube: 

Like every youth movement before it, we're supposed to be the generation of the change, the folks who finally turn their backs on the self-indulgent practices that drove us into economic despair. Propped up behind another idealized politician, we're tasked to build something better for our children and theirs. It's the same sort of message that drove empires, just democratized and marketed to be consumable.  

For Rent, the first record from hip-hop duo Black Hoodie Rap, emerged from the crowd of hope-tired, liberal youth late last year. It begs the question at the forefront of our minds as we all inch back towards the status quo: What about us?

Put this song on your iPod for when the snow begins to fall heavy, and you're stuck waiting for the last bus home.   

Jeff was born the son of musician Tim Buckley in Anaheim, CA in 1966. After a long stint gigging in Los Angeles, he found popularity playing covers in Manhattan clubs. He released his only studio album in August of 1994, titled Grace. Three years later, Buckley was waiting for his band to arrive in Memphis, TN, to lay down tracks for his second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, when he drowned in the Wolf River.

//Grace has gone on to sell more than two million copies.