this is what love is for

Shark skin feels exactly like sandpaper. It is made up of tiny teeth-like structures called placoid scales, also known as dermal denticles. These scales point towards the tail and help to reduce friction from surrounding water when the shark swims. … In the opposite direction, it feels very rough like sandpaper.

1. A hero story always gets huge coverage. It’s guaranteed to sell papers and get clicks.

2. The girls are underage and only one has given a press statement and released her name.

3. (AND MOST IMPORTANT) These two girls were literally targeted for their skin color and for one girl’s religion by a white supremacist who wished to do them harm. Why would they, and their families, want to put themselves out there, their names and faces, to be targeted again because that white supremacist isn’t the only one in Portland?

https://www.launchgood.com/project/muslims_united_for_portland_heroes#/

https://www.gofundme.com/tri-met-hero-recovery

https://www.youcaring.com/survivorsofthemaxattack-833557

The first is for families of the victims.

The second is for Micah Fletcher, the surviving man.

The third is specifically for the two underage girls who were victimized.

It depends entirely on the album, there’s no overarching strategy. I do try to save some of the best stuff for side two so that I can complain when nobody notices, because I am a child. (It’s perfectly natural that the first four or five songs are what people hear best & tend to respond to/write about.) Otherwise the question is: “These songs, the ones that seem to go together of the ones we recorded: what’s the best order for them?” I usually try to resist the sort of market-research solutions that the industry favors (“lead off with all the big hits, consign the slow songs to the back half”) ; I’m proud that “No Children” is the 7th song on Tallahassee. At the same time, if a person starts listening to an album by an unfamiliar artist, the album has four songs max to gain that listener’s trust: most listeners aren’t going to listen to something they’re not sure about three or four times to see what they think. “Start strong, end strong, try to tell an engrossing story along the way” is as close to an governing method as I have.