Victor J Perez III
Thoughts, opinions, and stories
-
It was another classic day in Morgantown. Cold enough to require a jacket, and hot enough to sweat in one. As I awoke from my light nap, I felt the thick humidity of the air as my shirt stuck to parts of my chest. Groggily, I went over to the kitchen and started the tea kettle for my evening coffee. It was around six in the evening, and I was following the usual thursday routine: go to class, take a nap, and head over to my college’s radio station to prepare for the five hours of music. This time however, I was adding a step. Nick Flynn was doing a reading in the downtown library, and it just so happened that it fit perfectly into my schedule. The little exposure I had of Flynn’s work impressed me, and there was no real reason not to go.
READ MORE -
It was early October in the very recent year 2017, and I was standing at the PRT station thinking. The thoughts consumed me, sharply dulling all of my senses. Though the thoughts were focusing on a very bad thing, I strangely felt a neutral feeling while I unpacked each and every one of them.
READ MORE -
In modern American society, there’s always this notation of forward motion. As it stands, we as a country are always “pressing the gas” for better or for worse. If you aren’t moving forward, you are a waste of space. You are left behind. You are forgotten. My hometown is not exempt from these suffocating societal bindings. My hometown has never stopped growing and expanding. Every time I come back from a semester of college, another Starbucks has opened up. Commutes take an additional 5 minutes. Housing values rise by a huge factor. The closest grocery store has once again been bought out and remodeled.
READ MORE -
It was the late afternoon, a Tuesday if I recall. I was sitting down with a hot cup of coffee after a day of classes. I’ve done this routine many times before. Sit down, study a bit, maybe get a refill or two, leave. While working on whatever particularly needed to get done that day, a conversation or two might catch my attention. It is a coffee shop after all, and people either sit down to chat or to work. The conversation topics are mostly mundane, but two men caught my attention through the soft music and light mummering of conversation.
READ MORE -
The memory is faint, and very old. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with the very visceral senses and feelings. It’s an insignificant memory, mundane even. I am very young, living in the countryside of northern New York. The aroma of sawdust filled the room prominently, for reasons that are unknown and quite frankly not relevant. Lying down on my bed next to the sunny window, I have a book in hand. With the only source of light in the room being the window, I lean in, lazily reading a novel while a subtle, but relentless pounding fills my head. The pounding is restrictive, and only highlights my unfortunate situation: I am trapped in this room.
READ MORE -
NO MATTER THE INDUSTRY, technology has brought large changes to how things in our society function. The lightning fast pace of technology has hit the music industry in full force, and brought huge change with it. One of the biggest changes has been the introduction of web-based music streaming, where fans can access a huge and growing library of music for a small monthly fee, or even for free with advertisements. This is hugely different from how things worked in the past, where you would need to pay $10 per album in order to listen on demand. Now for around $10 a month, you can access a huge and ever-growing library of music. This is a huge boon for music enthusiasts and general consumers, but what about the artists? How do they make up for the lost revenue? Who eats the loss when it comes to the greatest deal in music? The answer is; eventually everyone. Music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music are a net negative on the music industry as a whole, and are not sustainable in the long term.
READ MORE
