Curry Chandler is a writer, researcher, and independent scholar working in the field of communication and media studies. His writing on media theory and policy has been published in the popular press as well as academic journals. Curry approaches the study of communication from a distinctly critical perspective, and with a commitment to addressing inequality in power relations. The scope of his research activity includes media ecology, political economy, and the critique of ideology.
Curry is a graduate student in the Communication Department at the University of Pittsburgh, having previously earned degrees from Pepperdine University and the University of Central Florida.
To cap off 2022 here’s a montage of cycling videos I shot this year, mostly from this past Fall. The footage includes rides from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto. Special thanks to Ben McSpadden who wrote and recorded original music for the montage!
Jerry’s Records has been on my Pittsburgh to-do list ever since I first arrived in the city many years ago. My personal preferences in urban media spaces tend toward film venues, bookstores, and art galleries. Record stores typically don’t make it on my itinerary. When I was still buying CDs I would make it a point to peruse music shop shelves, but that seems like a previous life now and I never got into collecting vinyl. But Jerry’s is a local institution: a longtime independent shop and neighborhood fixture that was renowned for its enormous collection.
As is so often the case with the people and places that are so near-at-hand that they become taken for granted, I kept putting off a visit to Jerry’s until some indeterminate point in the future. Even when I moved to Squirrel Hill, and was living just down the street from Jerry’s, my appointment with the shop was relegated to “someday.” Proximity and familiarity tend to produce indifference, as that which is right in front of us is so easily overlooked. So when my musically-inclined sister and brother-in-law visited this summer it provided a perfect opportunity for finally ascending to record heaven.
The shop is an expansive space that nearly overwhelms with its sprawling assortment and towering stacks. Musical genres and themed sections are helpfully and whimsically designated with colorful decor.
Oh, and did I mention the milk crates? As I’ve reported previously, these polyethylene receptacles have recently become somewhat of a personal obsession. The portable, versatile, and stackable storage containers are put to good use throughout the record shop.
My developing milk crate connoisseurship has inculcated an appreciation for varieties of color and form, but I’m also keen on the different legal warnings against misuse that adorn the objects. The nooks and crannies of Jerry’s offered a veritable milk crate menagerie.
A couple of weeks back I was in California for a brief getaway. I hadn’t been in the Los Angeles area (or even on the West coast) in six years, and much has changed in my life during the interval. So this return visit was both a reprieve from my current cloistered existence researching in (mostly) solitude, as well as a welcome reconnection with personal history and past assemblages of self. A sense of homecoming kicked in while riding along Pacific Coast Highway from LAX and was exponentially amplified when I took the wheel to traverse Malibu Canyon later that night. I learned to drive on Malibu Canyon road: it was the first non-residential route I ever piloted solo, and by the time of that inaugural excursion I was intimately familiar with the warp and woof of that winding way.
Anyway, all this to say that I was inspired to put together another playlist drawn from the emotional, physical, and topographical memories stirred up by this recent trip. Some of the selected songs are from my brief but brightly recalled high school heyday of licensed driving, many are from my college career of canyon carving and cruising the coast, and others are anachronistic add-ons chosen for their thematic resonance with driving SoCal canyons. The finalization of this playlist involved the killing of many “canyon carving” darlings (i.e. Should I have included the Emerson, Lake & Palmer or Death From Above 1979 songs that my college roommate would blare during our weekly trips to Pat’s Topanga Grill? Does the playlist accurately reflect my fixation with both Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush and the Manson murders during the year that I lived on Topanga Canyon Blvd?).
Here is the set as a YouTube playlist, and the tracklist is below:
A Canyon Carving playlist:
1. The Crystal Method (ft. Teflon Sega), “Chapter One”
2. Booka Shade, “Night Falls”
3. Simian Mobile Disco, “Clock”
4. Röyksopp, “Eple”
5. Fischerspooner, “A Kick in the Teeth”
6. The Chemical Brothers, “We Are The Night”
7. Kavinsky (ft. Havoc), “Suburbia”
8. Momma, “Speeding 72”
9. Rostam, “4Runner”
10. The Mamas & The Papas, “Twelve Thirty”
11. John Phillips, “Topanga Canyon”
12. Rusty Truck, “Malibu Canyon”
13. Lissie, “Carving Canyons”
14. Lo Moon, “Dream Never Dies”
15. Death Cab for Cutie, “Passenger Seat”
Today is Labor Day, a holiday that commemorates workers’ movements and serves as a reference point for when it is fashionable to wear white clothing. The date is also considered the unofficial end of summer. This summer flew by. Aside from a couple of quick excursions I stayed local, having one of my most Pittsburgh summers ever. Ballgames, lots of trail time, and more local events in a season than I’d done in entire years in the city. I also got my CitiParks pool tag for the first time ever (although a planned pool-a-palooza will have to wait until next summer). This playlist features a selection of summer-centric songs, some of my earworms from this summer, and some songs that are just good for summer vibes. Here is the set as a YouTube playlist, and the tracklist is below:
1. The Fiery Furnaces, “Here Comes the Summer”
2. Yacht, “That Summer Song”
3. Sylvan Esso, “Ferris Wheel”
4. Ratatat, “Sunblocks”
5. Pinback, “Loro”
6. Neon Indian, “Should Have Taken Acid With You”
7. Animal Collective, “Summertime Clothes”
8. Nine, “Hit Em Like Dis”
9. Booker T. & The M.G.’s, “Time is Tight”
10. Matt Pond PA, “Summer is Coming”
11. Orville Peck, “Summertime”
12. The Flaming Lips, “It’s Summertime”
13. American Football, “The Summer Ends”
14. Agnes Obel, “September Song”
To commemorate the start of the summer school session, here’s a playlist of songs. I’m deeply indebted to my much-more-musically-inclined-brother-in-law Ben for sharing so much great new music during our time in the mountains this past week (not to mention his generous sharing of his family’s cabin, his inherited collection of audiocassettes, and his love of 90s Kevin Costner movies). I also want to offer apologies and appreciation for Mark Fisher’s KPUNK playlists. The result of this inaugural effort is an experimental earsore: some autobiographical navelgazing, some lame gestures toward a topical time capsule, a few efforts at thematic resonance, and some shameless incorporation of recent earworms. Here is the set as a YouTube playlist, and the tracklist is below:
1. Billy Bragg, “To Have and to Have Not”
2. Pedro the Lion, “Indian Summer”
3. Built to Spill, “Rearrange”
4. Jimmy Cliff, “The Harder They Come”
5. Kae Tempest, “More Pressure”
6. Digable Planets, “La Femme Fetal”
7. Brooklyn Funk Essentials, “The Revolution Was Postponed Because of Rain”
8. Jimmy Driftwood, “He Had a Long Chain On”
9. Dakh Daughters, “When I Was Thirty Six”
10. Pussy Riot, “Police State”
11. Randy Newman, “It’s Money That I Love”
12. Stereolab, “Ping Pong”
13. NOFX, “The Marxist Brothers”
14. Le Tigre, “Get Off the Internet”
15. Jeff Rosenstock, “Polar Bear or Africa”