Related Recs

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Nashville Recs

gonna try not to repeat anything that lucius rec'd Coffee: Matryoshka: except this one i will repeat because it is that great. i'm a regular here because the folks there are lovely, the vibe is very cozy and fun, and the drinks are AMAZING. like the coffee alone is just solid but they also make the wildest specialty drinks. Retrograde: Shagbark latte>>> Weak Coffee: lil coffee cart hosted in a drum store in east, there's also All or Nothing Bagels in the parking lot which slaps IMO but east coasters may be underwhelmed Restaurants: Tempo: Texas style breakfast/lunch place with great coffee too Bill's Sandwich Palace: their french onion shroom sandwich i would do terrible things for Jerusalem Reebar Restaurant: slept on palestinian food place, great schwarma and best pita & hummus in town Hearts: gotta disagree with lucius here, this place has the best sprouts. Dicey's: fun pizza restaurant with a nice outdoor area Soy Cubano: mojo pork and plantains go crazy, also good coffee! Bars: Dino's: classic spot, good dive bar vibes with solid food as well. perf for after a night out since they're open late Bearded Iris Sylvan Supply: if you're into craft beer, they got nice draft cocktails too Bay 6: tiny lil microbar with excellent cocktails in east but they have good outside space so make sure to go when it's nice out Stores: East Nashville Antiques: antique mall with a great selection of vintage Starland Vintage: they got some wild stuff here Rooted: if you're into sneakers/streetwear Parks: Warner Parks: if you want a place to hike they got miles of trails twisting through here Shelby Bottoms: lovely park along the Cumberland, if you take the trail along the river there's a pedestrian bridge that crosses it Others: Belcourt Theater: for all your indie movie needs Play Dance Club: only place i've found with a decent DJ in town Howdywood/Soft Junk: if you're into punk/noise and there's a show on while you're here you GOTTA experience this place

@royallmonarch

Mar 25, 2024

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unhelpfully long list

FOOD Places I love: Nosferatu Pizza - such good pizza next to a cute beer and mezcal place you can order from Por Siempre Vegano - really fucking good vegan tacos and super cheap, go to the restaurant not the stand Orinoco - my favorite meat chicharron tacos  Expendio de Maiz Sin Nombre - very cool experimental mexican food with no menu Chilpa - good spot for chilaquiles Cafe Nin - sister to the very famous Rosetta Bakery - same pastries but is cuter Dr. Pizza  Chida la Arepa  MO+F Paramo - upstairs part of a two floor establishment. Choza - very hip food place with changing very small menu - only open friday, sunday and monday i think? Elly's Veguisima Yellow Monkey Cafes/Brunch: i have endless cafe recs, these are just a few i like  Rosetta Bakery - guyaba roll is the famous one Baveno Forte Cardinal Eno Bou Saint Freims - good brunch spot Lalo - also good brunch spot Quentin Cachi's - bagels Classics/Street Food you have to try: Rosetta Bakery - guyaba roll is the famous one Casa de Toño - mexican fast food that is actually so good. the pozole here is my fave El Autentico Pato Manila - really good duck tacos Los Parados - classic mexican street tacos but at a real place Churreria el Moro - churros Esquites - my favorite one is on Nuevo Leon and Vicente Suarez infront of the CircleK Chilaquiles Torta - chilaquiles but in a sandwich, there's a famous place on Alfonso Reyes but its a pop up so look it up Tacos Cocuyos - in the historic center, just a hole in the wall, but super good tacos Nicer places Lardo - mediterranean ish, good brucn also Maximo - balled out here for my birthday. its so good  Rosetta Restaurant - not super fancy but definitely lovely and really good food  Masala y Maiz - mexican indian fusion. really good wine pairings too Botanico - havent been but have heard really good things Contramar/ Entremar - very well known seafood places Bars/cantina La Feina - a very classic cantina Bosforo - hip mezcal bar  La Riviera del Sur - cantina with cheap classic mexican food and drinks Covadonga - cantina with classic mexican food Montejo - another cantina Handshake - speakeasy type bar with good cocktails (apparently one of the top bars in the world) **need a reservation Cafe Paraiso Tlecan Mezcaleria Pulqueria Insurgentes Club San Luis - salsa Mama Rumba - also salsa  Felina  Baltra Bar  Zuzu Casa Franca - a cool jazz bar Zinco Jazz Club Jardin Juarez - a fun outdoor bar with live music/djs some nights Hugo - cute wine bar with tapas style food Caiman - good cocktails Loup - wine bar La Chicha Clubs/Parties * in general the parties/events and their locations are found on instagram Departamento - standard bar/club Leonor - on thursday they have their gay night called BonBon El Mickey Bar Versaille 64 - on saturdays they have their gay night called Siq Funk  Yuyu Rico's - insane gay bar with many packed floors, lots of gay bars around it Sunday Sunday * day party only on sundays Cultura Subterannea * party that travels locations Salon Perreo Millennial Ext * travelling rave, check instagram Signal *travelling hip hop party, check instagram Diaspora * travelling party, check instagram Nochenegra club *check instagram for events ACTIVITIES Neighborhoods to explore: Escandon - where I live Roma  Condesa / hipodromo Juarez Centro Historico San Miguel Chapultepec Coyoacan/San Angel Museums/Galleries: Jumex - free, small but cool Frida Kahlo Museum - **needs to be booked in advance Diego Rivera murals in the Secretaría de Educación Pública Museo de Arte Popular Anthropology Museum - massive and very impressive Luis Barragán House  Other: Lagunilla Antique market Xochimilco Trajineras - old farming canals that are now recreationally used for these super cute little boat rides. its a very local activity. you rent by the hour and it doesnt matter how many people and you bring music, food and drinks and have a lil day party. its super fun Parque Chapultepec - beautiful huge park with a castle. worth walking around, threre's a cool castle you can go in and get a nice view of the city from Cineteca - old historic independent movie theatre. sometimes has cool  Parque Viveros  DAY TRIPS Teotihuacán - nearby ruins. it might be cheesy but you can do a hot air balloon ride to overlook the ruins that looks very cool Los Dinamos National Park Desierto de los Leones National Park Tepotzlan - 'magic' town about an hour and half away Puebla/Cholula - cute city near by

@boner

Dec 14, 2024

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Hmm

Don't stay around UT because that neighborhood is just so-so and kinda unwalkable, not much interesting stuff to check out. The Gayborhood rocks and is super central to good downtown bars/restaurants/coffeeshops, not a bad shout at all. Old City/Society Hill/Queen Village are all beautiful to walk around in, this might be my top suggestion. Otherwise, Fishtown would be nice for a stay, not too far of an Uber back and forth to UT and there's plenty of nightlife there. hmu if you need any additional recs! Union Transfer is also the best venue in the city!!

@jackmadden

Apr 11, 2024

Top Recs from @royallmonarch

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DETACH from the algo, become an active participant in your own curation, form relationships to music, track your patterns

I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that aren’t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to — which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since you’re listening to something really just because it’s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take what’s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order. so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, it’s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework that’s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether it’s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data. Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so i’m forced to consider its value (usually i’ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as i’ll buy a few releases i’ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they don’t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until i’m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isn’t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music. so how do you know what to order? for me, I’m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether it’s bandcamp daily, y’all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because it’s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences it’s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because there’s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now i’m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. LAST thing i’ll say — because in yappin about this i’m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of “vibes” and “aesthetics” and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship i’m forming with what i’ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didn’t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. that’s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now i’ve actually taken time to consider it, it’s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often i’ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason. aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume

@royallmonarch

Feb 29, 2024

25

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be the change you want to see

i’m not gonna go into the state of politics in this country, frankly I enjoy that this site has been a politics free space for the most part. with that being said, resigning to despair and the feeling of powerlessness serves only the status quo. inaction is not the solution, nor is waiting for the government to be what you want it to be. politics over: here’s the rec be the change you want to see as much of a cliche as this saying is, i’ve grown to believe in it with my full being as i’ve gotten older. for the things you have control over, for the practical needs that you can meet within your community, for the little things you can do every day to ease someone’s burden or generally be a pleasant interaction in someone’s life: bring to the world what you feel it lacks. where you live there are likely already communities that are arising to support each other and call for change. seek those out if that’s a motivating notion for you. participate as much as you are able and as little as you please, every bit counts. being a visible and tangible example of how the agency we all have can create something better will motivate others to find their voice. a lot of people feel like you, but even a few in action is better than multitudes in despair. community is so key, and the world we live in has created a situation where isolation is the default so that individuals are forced to rely on the market or the state to meet their needs. how much better would it be to have neighbors and friends as a support network, mutually exchanging their time and resources to strengthen the communtiy and invest in relationships that benefit the whole. the moment we all realize that we can do for each other what the world tells us we need to do ourselves, the stronger we will be and the more we can come together and enact real change from the bottom up, rather than being divided in pleading for a top down approach. this may sound revolutionary because we have become so detached from community that we cannot envision the changes in our model of living that would have to be made, but it’s sooo not that deep, and it feels more like investing in the good in others than sacrificing personal comforts. it can look like: - shopping at a local business vs a corporate chain, get to know the staff, get to know your fellow patrons - spending time with friends, there doesn't need to be a reason or occasion. make meals together, drive together to go do something, maybe literally just be in each others presence as you do daily life, share each others sacred presence amidst the mundane - give things you don’t need to a friend who does, exchange clothes, exchange favors, share knowledge and resources, lend a skill or a craft, donate things if you don’t know someone who can use it, exchange things and experiences without the need for monetary incentive - create things together, make art together, share and exchange media, try things for the joy of experiencing them without the need to be “good” at it, - grieve together, worry together, talk out negative feelings, commiserate, support, encourage, motivate, share your accomplishments, celebrate together - get to know your neighbors, why is everyone in isolation while in such proximity? - get off that damn phone if it makes you feel bad, you wont miss out, the world happens outside of it, unlearn FOMO - enjoy nature, go on walks, get outside, sweat and run and jump and see the sky - remind yourself that life is about what happens right now, don’t be concerned with what could be or what was if you are unable to affect it in the present. - go to a concert at a small venue for an artist you’ve never heard of, bring friends, don’t preclude experience for the perceived necessity of entertainment - unlearn grindset, but also unlearn bainrot. don’t fester in your down time. rest can be active, activity can be restorative. your time is precious and you will meet your need for purpose and direction by literally choosing to pursue a “meaningless” hobby in even what little time you may have vs scrolling and taking psychic damage. - learn to enjoy the abundance of freely available joy in this world, we have been tricked to believe that money is the sole provider of a happy life idk i’m just becoming mindful of what brings me life in this world and so much of it is available to me solely by seeking it out instead of idleness in my free time under the guise of “rest.” so much if it comes from seeing the divine in others and creating bonds and relationships and support networks. so much of it comes from enjoying beauty and art, and moderating and savoring that experience vs endless consumption and media gluttony. the world through a screen is bleak, the world in front of your eyes can be beautiful, the system is broken but you and everyone you know has some untapped agency. anyway imma get off my soapbox, go catch a firefly or sit around a campfire with the homies. you’ll be glad you did.

@royallmonarch

Jun 29, 2024

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deleting hinge

not because you met someone or anything but because you take psychic damage every time you doom swipe on there and you probably never liked being on there in the first place and why does everyone seem to have a wack helen keller take and feel the need to put that on their profile like it’s cute?? time to do it the old fashioned way and mix and mingle at the sock hop or however our grandparents did it. after all, you just being around and living life is gonna be a better pitch for why someone should date you than those same 5 photos and your two-truths-and-a-lie prompt.

@royallmonarch

Feb 22, 2024

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