While the whole article is worthwhile, I especially appreciate Mr. Friedersdorf’s vision in the final paragraph. After identifying Andrew Breitbart’s best qualities, he advises successors points to avoid. Most compelling is the first idea, “appeal to the best in people rather than intentionally eliciting their worst.”

Well, I’m not a journalist, and I don’t even blog enough to call myself a blogger, but this is a principle I wish to incorporate into my general discourse. It’s not one that comes easy to me. I reckon it’s not one that comes easy to anybody, or else a whole lot more people would be doing it, and not many are.

On that note, I wish to incorporate the inverse of that principle, to reject that which elicits the worst in me: paranoia, suspicion, arrogance, hatred, etc. This culture is increasingly given to strife, not only in political punditry, but in everything. Reversing that, and rejecting that which appeals to our worst, is a challenge that must be met with care and determination.

I’ve had a strange year with social media to the extent that my struggle therewith has been a thing that defines 2011 for me. I reckon the tension had been building for several years, but reading Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together helped me to clarify that tension. I blogged about it here, and reviewed it for an online journal specific to my profession. I made less noise about something else I read, a blog post by Freddie deBoer called “the resentment machine.” (I recommend reading it!) “the resentment machine” cast a new light on all my online activity, from my compulsion for viewing (and critiquing) other people’s metaphorical faux-vintage photos of cups of coffee to the very premise I’d set up for this blog. I stopped blogging, and found myself in the throes of a twitter crisis, which I negotiated my way through with a month’s worth of post-ironic meta-tweets that intrigued some and alienated others.

In the midst of this twitter crisis, I hoped never to get harsh or unkind, even though I felt something that felt like anger, or, I guess, angst. I didn’t want to come across as haughty, even though I felt haughty. I did think, and I still do, that I was too good to be tweeting and reading tweets, but I never wanted that to be misconstrued as thinking I was better than you, or anyone else who was also tweeting. I think we’re all better than this, or, at the very least: here is something to strive for.

A couple weeks ago, I stopped tweeting, and, just as importantly, I stopped reading tweets. I’ve probably missed out on a few good jokes and a few interesting articles, but those vacancies are filled with a greater sense of peace. My experience with twitter has never been marked by peace, even when it’s been the most fun and the most helpful.

I think there’s a fatalistic naiveté about social media that says that this is the way things are, must be, and will be, that this is progress, that this is a revolution. Funny thing about revolutions is that they aren’t subject to plans. I believe that the future doesn’t exist yet, and even if it did, it would remain unknown even to the savviest of web gurus until it stopped being “future.” All this stuff has been creeping in on us, and maybe we haven’t drawn enough lines. That doesn’t mean we’re powerless to claim them now. Because social media seems like it’s here to stay, and because it’s always growing and moving into our lives, we must continue to tend to our boundaries.

Twitter, as a company, comes across as pretty decent, especially compared to companies like Facebook and Google. It’s twitter-as-product that concerns me. I know that its functionality brings out the worst in me, and I think that it brings out the worst in most people I’ve followed or observed. I think that it’s one of the most efficient expressions of “the resentment machine.” Not to say that twitter is unambiguously bad. It’s not. The question is whether that which is good about twitter is worth that which is bad about it. I don’t think it is.

Then again, according to that same whatever, irreverence is just as essential. Four years ago, I might have said that, but I would’ve been cavalier and angry about it, maybe showy, and I wouldn’t have meant it, not really. My experience with the sick and dying has changed that. My experience with God has changed that. I believe in irreverence now, and in reverent irreverence (I also recognize, but do not respect, irreverent reverence, which I fear propels megachurches, etc., but that’s another topic). Reverent irreverence can be a healing spiritual exercise. If nothing else, it can heal anxiety. Better, it can address pride. Best, it can smash idols.

Not that I write about idols. Just, let’s not get too sanctimonious about iCarly, all righty? And, in that spirit, I rededicate my Tumblr.

I think I was too old to “get” Tumblr when I first heard of it. That’s unfortunate, because, my fondness for overwriting about [take your pick] notwithstanding, it seems like a better fit for my “social networking needs” than, say, Twitter or Facebook. In other words, I need a heavy dose of animated gifs of Gibby dancing and Pam Beesly feeling God in this Chili’s tonight. I need considerably fewer status updates, with all due respect to you and yours (love y’all!). I’m sure my desire for such depersonalized digital ephemera indicates something about me. Maybe I should write about it at length one of these days (current word count: 394). For now, I’ll just scratch the itch on Tumblr.

So, he went ahead and hired James Spader to play a man called Robert California. And he decided that Robert California, in spite of his revolting interview, is the kind of person Jim Halpert, et al., would hire, and furthermore, the kind of person who could talk his way from Regional Manager to C.E.O. in a few days. Mr. Lieberstein is brash enough to tell us over the summer, as if to taunt us, like, “What are you gonna do about it, cry like a little baby?”

Mr. Lieberstein got such a thrill, he had to keep it going. So he went to iTunes, checked out the “Top Charts” for the genre “N/A,” and contacted the top artist. Unfortunately, talks with Michael Bublé stalled. Mr. Lieberstein didn’t want to play games, so he got Josh Groban instead. You know Josh Groban, right? He sings that song your grandmother thinks is “just so pretty.” Tell granny there’s more good news! That nice man from The 7th Heaven was also cast to be on The Office! He’ll play A Continuity Error Of Andy’s Father.

In its salad days, The Office existed in this world, where Carol Burnett was Carol Burnett (she semi-famously requested to play Michael Scott’s mother, but Greg Daniels semi-famously passed) and Kathy Bates was Kathy Bates. That this-worldliness of it was special. It wasn’t just unique and fun, it reflected the cultural fascination with this-world. We obsess over reality TV, consume user-generated content, and demand all access all the time. The Office understood that fascination better than anyone. When Jim kissed Pam at the end of “Casino Night,” it wasn’t just exciting the way other TV kisses can be. It was thrilling, because they didn’t know that the cameras were rolling and we were watching. The implication is that they had the potential to know that. That’s a powerful implication. It was a powerful TV moment.

The Office is weaker now, because it’s other-worldly, TV-worldly. It will always be funny, at least to those of us who’ve lived with it for so many seasons, but we know the magic is gone. Maybe James Spader will prove to be a good addition. I’ve got my doubts, but The Office has been overcoming my doubts since I first scoffed at the idea of an American remake of the BBC original. Still, I know he can’t restore the magic. The spell is broken, and he helped break it. The Office will always be a funny TV show. It seems like it used to be more than that.

Essentially, I read the column with a lot of eye scrunching and head tilting. I’m almost with him, especially on his emotionally persuasive conclusion, but not quite. It seems like he’s longing for a second-best feeling. It seems like he’s leaving out that moment when a song, an album, or a sound is so immediate, so absorbing, that the music, itself, is the only thing that matters. The best feeling for me is musical rapture, when I’m caught up just as I am. That happened when I was 13, and it’s still happening, two decades later.

Cymabls Eat Guitars’ debut album, Why There Are Mountains (audio: Spotify) is a good example. In 2009, it was a semi-early indicator of ‘90s revivalism. It’s a throwback to “indie rock” (as opposed to “indie”) with obvious influences, and possibly the first “nostalgia” piece that points to and draws from something I actually lived through with conscious awareness. Maybe it’s my own fond familiarity for “this kind of music” that created a delay in recognizing what was going on, but I didn’t even think about Why There Are Mountains in terms of “revivalism” and “nostalgia” until I read the reviews and blogs.

I never had a chance to think about fashion and lifestyle trends. Even listening now, within the first second, I’m enthralled completely. All it takes is that blast of guitars, drums, bass, and the cry, “Whoa-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh! Whoa-oh, ho, oh, ah-ah,” and I’m in a different space. The album screams and whispers, stops and starts, and my body follows suit. My head nods or bangs in time with the beat and in agreement with lyrics that mostly become glossolalia, anyway. During the 45 minutes of Why There Are Mountains, I have no thoughts of getting something from the music beyond what it offers on its own terms, nor of any pop-cultural trends and their sociological implications. I’m all reflexes, all movement, and my headphones can’t turn up loud enough. Everything is visceral and mystical until the music stops and my ears are left ringing. I’m left wanting nothing.

Sammi can’t find stillness. For her, the kitchen is cold. It’s not where she wants to be, anyway, the shards of her heart pulling her to the magnetic force that is Ronnie, Ronnie with another person. Vinny, ever the truth teller, hasn’t the patience to listen and respond lovingly. Instead, his wisdom is drenched in sarcasm. To feign indifference, Sammi attempts to examine her fingernail, realizes that her hand is not in her line of vision, and readjusts accordingly. Her face, so near to her brain, reveals understanding of the need to leave alone and be left alone. Her thinly plucked eyebrows rise and come together, her blue eyelids stretch low, her cheeks contract, and her lips stay separate even while pursing into a frown of deep sadness. Below her neck, though, she is unsettled. Shoulders tense, she squeezes her thumb hard against her finger. Her other elbow is pointed to Ronnie’s room, that hand defiantly on her hip. What chance has understanding when blood hisses hotly through veins, when the belly slithers around itself, when the heart rattles louder and louder, when love’s venom drips from its fangs?

It happens in an instant, or rather no instant at all. She is moving, and she is there, as if movement, itself, were arrival. She is greeted with rejection. Ron roars aggressively, JWOWW pleads empathically, but their voices come out baritone and soprano in accidental harmony. Sammi’s face twists, tightens, twirls. She is a Picasso come to life. She fumbles for a response, rifling from one disposition to the next at the speed of sound. She confesses guilt, asks for forgiveness, pleads for change, expresses disgust, accuses, claims innocence, and attacks. She sails on a stream of semi-consciousness, the breeze of her own vituperation guiding her, she is moving, and she is there.

She is there, now. She is in her own darkened room. She is in her own empty bed. She is underneath the covers, lying sideways in a semi-fetal position. Her comforter looks soft and clean and warm, and she is buried underneath it. She is alone. Sitch and Pauly are gone. Vinny, Snooki, and Deena are out of sight. JWOWW has risen to her feet, nervously straightening her hair, her eyes gently mothering Ronnie. He slouches on his bed, silent, a defeated pile of muscle and jewelry. His eyes are unseen, but his face points to a cut on his right hand. He strokes his wound.

Sammi is alone. No one has followed her. No one else has spoken in seconds that feel like hours. No one can see her, and no one is looking for her. Unseen, her voice flies up and around. She is present to no one, and no one is present to her, but they are there, and she is there. She pauses for a second. Muffled but distinct, a scream fills the house, “Leave me the f*** alone.” To whom does this disembodied voice cry out? Dissatisfied, the voice tries again, “Leave me the f*** alone.”

Kendrick Lamar is from Compton, signed to a tiny indie imprint called Top Dawg Ent., and part of a rap posse called Black Hippy with Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Jay Rock (video: “Zip That, Chop That”). They’re talented, and they’re a little weird, familiar but new. There’s an air of modesty about them, especially Kendrick Lamar, or maybe that’s not modesty (video: “Monster Freestyle”). Maybe it’s security. He likes to tell a story about being visited in a dream by 2Pac who encouraged him, “Keep doing what you’re doing,” and, “Keep my music alive.” It’s clear, Kendrick Lamar perceives this as a calling.

Meanwhile, in nearby Los Angeles, “the Golf Wang hooligans is f***ing up the school again.” Odd Future has garnered fame, accolades, and notoriety for their style, skill, “devil may care attitude” and “rapey” lyrics (video: “Odd Future Gets Signed” on Funny or Die). From what I can tell, their foundation is nihilism, and their mantra serves as a kind of unholy trinity: “kill people, burn s***, f*** school.” If anyone doesn’t give a f***, it’s Odd Future.

Kendrick Lamar stands apart from this, though not necessarily above it. His lyrics demonstrate a peculiar equanimity, an open-minded curiosity, a willingness to live with self-contradiction, and he understands himself as seeking answers. One of Project.80’s standouts (video: “A.D.H.D”) uses a sample from “The Knight Hawk” by The Jet Age of Tomorrow, an Odd Future group (unfortunately, it seems that Top Dawg Ent. failed to clear and credit the sample). The spaced out sound swirls around Kendrick Lamar’s portrait of youth drug culture of the self-medicating variety…

I’m in the house party trippin’ off my generation sippin’ cough syrup like it’s water, never no pancakes in the kitchen. Man, no wonder our lives is caught up in the daily superstition that the world is about to end. Who gives a f***? We never do listen, unless it comes with an 808…

The portrait is painted by way of a mixed-up, stream of consciousness (or A.D.H.D. disturbed), dystopian love story. The first-person narrator pursues a a young woman at a house party. As he makes his advances, she’s distracted by getting drunk and high. She asserts that they’re both “crack babies,” and eventually explains, “You know why we crack babies? Because we born in the ‘80s.” It’s unclear whether she adds for emphasis, or the narrator balks: “That A.D.H.D. crazy.”

Section.80, as a whole, is a generational statement. It’s neither preachy, nor defensive, but it does angrily lament the crack epidemic and social injustice. “Ronald Reagan Era” understands gang culture this way: “Can’t detour when you at war with your city. Why run for? Just ride with me, just die with me, that gun store right there. When you fight, don’t fight fair, ’cause you’ll never win.” Kendrick Lamar’s consideration of the Ronald Reagan era reminds me of Kanye West’s ’05 song, “Crack Music,” when Mr. West said, “How we stop the Black Panthers? Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer.” That song was one of the artist’s finest moments. Maybe it was paranoid, but it looked outward beyond Mr. West’s own self.

Mr. West has become a fascinating character, an erratic celebrity, an eccentric millionaire. He exists in his own reality, and on Watch the Throne, comes across as more oblivious and narcissistic than ever. The hook for “Made in America,” sung by Odd Future’s Frank Ocean, namedrops Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and others, positioning Mr. West and Jay-Z as the fulfillment of the civil rights struggle. Before Jay-Z’s out of place crack slinging recap, Mr. West sums up his case as the realization of Rev. Dr. King’s dream with the forceful assertion, “This ain’t no fashion show, motherf***er, we live it.”

Section.80’s closer (video: “HiiiPower”) takes influence from Kanye West. It shares sonic and thematic similarities with “Crack Music,” as well as Mr. West’s guttural “hah?” It borrows directly from a My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy standout, “So Appalled,” recasting that song’s “five star dishes” as “food for thought, b****es.” Further, it uses “I mean this s*** is,” replacing “f***ing ridiculous” with “Huey Newton going stupid,” “Bobby Seale making mills,” and “Fred Hampton on your campus.” Kendrick Lamar cites “visions of Martin Luther staring at me,” mentions Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey, and challenges the listener to “get up off that slave ship, build your own pyramids, write your own hieroglyphs.” He closes the song, and the album, shouting, “Thug Life.”

What’s so striking about “HiiiPower” and Section.80 is that Kendrick Lamar does give a f***, and he gives a f*** about more than himself. What’s more, he does it in a messy way, in the thick of it. It’s funny how far that can go, by itself, but it’s not just that by itself. Kendrick Lamar has a good voice, an outstanding delivery, a good ear for beats, a traditionalist’s appreciation of history, and the youthful drive to bring it all together. For a few years, I’ve had an unreasonable hope for “hip-hop’s savior.” Maybe Kendrick Lamar isn’t that, and, even more likely, maybe there’s no such thing. Still, I’m eager to hear more from him. For now, Section.80 will stay in heavy rotation.

“All That,” “Kenan & Kel,” and “Doug,” the other shows in the block, lack the personal significance and the same generational peculiarity. Still, I’ve enjoyed watching them, and I’ve enjoyed the nostalgia of the whole thing. Promotional spots feature Kenan Thompson reminiscing, as it were, about Nick shows and characters from the era. Other spots work Nick references into infographics as “Vital Information” or feature tweets hash-tagged #ThingsClarissaDidntExplain. Best of all is a music video, “The ‘90s Are All That Anthem,” that samples shows and commercials (and the Kenan Thompson spots) into an era appropriate hip-hop piece. The whole block is fun, and it sparks nostalgia in a way other than direct reminiscence.

Nickelodeon has always had a double-barreled approach to nostalgia. By day, it was making memories with shows that secured places in people’s hearts as childhood favorites. Then, @ Nite, Nick went retro with old shows and campy commercials. It’s not such a defined dualism, though, as I can testify. For example, I hold “You Can’t Do That On Television” in the kind of irrational esteem that only nostalgia can render, and I know that younger adults are the same about later Nick shows. At the same time, even as a child in the late ‘80s, I longed to be a teenager again, in Brooklyn Heights, circa ’64. And, of course, shows like “The Patty Duke Show” are a part of my childhood memories (and subject to nostalgic subjectivity), even though they aren’t “of” my lifetime. A similar thing is happening, now, with The ‘90s Are All That. I’m feeling a very sloppy, indirect nostalgia. Is it for a time in history? An age in my life? The feelings and freedoms that go along with adolescence? Or is it for a style or something even more abstract? I’m not sure, and I’m not sure I really want to know.

I’m also not sure whether nostalgia is necessarily a signifier of anxiety, but I’m fairly confident that it is. During the Cold War, America was obsessed with Westerns and cowboy stories. The Old West may have been rough, even lawless, but the immediacy of the violence probably seemed idyllic to the paranoid kids subjected to Duck & Cover Drills. As other anxieties rose in the ‘70s, a nostalgia for the ‘50s was evident in movies like American Graffiti and Grease, in TV shows like “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley,” in music by artists ranging from Sha Na Na to John Lennon (e.g., the ’75 album Rock ‘n’ Roll), and, to some degree, in the punk aesthetic as made popular by the Ramones. Now we’re looking back to the general era of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., when Capitalism had won and Communism had been defeated. Those were our boom years, when our fears about Japan sputtered like the Yen, and China’s economic growth was kinda quaint. It’s not too hard to connect the dots.

More importantly, Clarissa was so quirky and totally cute, am I right?

Well, anyway, this marks the third consecutive year that Real Estate has released a song worthy of being played on “Repeat,” both in iTunes and in my consciousness. “Beach Comber,” from 2009, is the song that most often plays in my mind when life seems wonderful, and, when I’m not feeling wonderful, its opening tones always point me in that direction, and un-wonderful feelings stand little chance against the guitars of the last minute and a half. Last year’s “Out of Tune,” as the title suggests, exists on a different point on the emotional spectrum. It’s not a sad song, really, but an ennui song. I don’t go to it too often by choice, but it finds its way into my mind in those quiet, come-down moments. “It’s Real” occupies the expanse between those two songs and their corresponding emotional states, suited to the pace and rhythm of the mundane.

Real Estate’s music has a sense of ease that belies its counterculture nature. Counterculture in post-war America has been typified by an anti-establishment bent, and people have only disagreed on who or what constitutes the establishment. That disagreement became a competition. Politicians proclaim themselves to be outsiders while casting suspicion on their opponents as insiders, or worse, elites, who serve the agendas of special interest groups or corporations. The wealthiest, most powerful and influential people in America are adept at playing the underdog, if not the victim. We’ve reached a point of sheer absurdity: anti-establishment as establishment, non-conformity as conformity, division as solidarity, shock as pop, counterculture as culture.

It’s in this anxious milieu where Real Estate’s music stands apart. It’s sonically nostalgic, but in an unspecific way, and lyrically hopeful, but in a wistful way. With guitars at the forefront, it’s rarely experimental and never raucous. Vocal harmonies float along pop melodies, but the accessibility is something more (or other) than just that. This is music that is gentle, but not delicate, like sunshine on a pleasantly warm day, or the ocean at low-tide. I don’t think the ameliorating effect of Real Estate’s songs is limited to my experience.

“It’s Real” was released at a good time. It’s been a weird week or two for influential pastors, elected representatives, media moguls, Republican primary candidates and their spouses, powerful families in Afghanistan, and, of course, Nancy Grace. Anxieties are raised and rising. The opening verse to “It’s Real” is nothing sophisticated, maybe it’s even a little silly, but it scratches the itch: “I don’t know who’s behind the wheel. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know the deal. But when I tell you how I feel, believe me when I say it’s real.” There’s comfort in that, in knowing something real that endures even in the midst of uncertainty and chaos.