June 21 seems a long way off to wait for the premiere of the second season of True Detective. I’m not one to blog about television very often, but, as fans of the show know, True Detective is no regular television show. The first season featured a tour-de-force acting clinic by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson inhabiting a pair of detectives tracking down a murderer in a series of super-creepy Satanic ritual homicides. The show’s atmosphere is pumped-up with literary references that introduce ideas from authors like William S. Burroughs, Robert Chambers and H.P. Lovecraft, and Rust Cohle’s references to existential philosophers seem cherry-picked to reinforce the stereotypical bleakness that’s popularly associated with that school of thought. It all adds up to chilling, riveting television, but what if it was true?

This piece from VICE explores the ritual child abuse case at a Louisiana church that series creator Nic Pizzolatto has cited as one real-life inspiration for the events in the first season of True Detective. The video is definitely NSFW and is full of real life monsters that even the King in Yellow might cower from. I often devote these posts to looking-back a the Satanic Panic of a few decades ago, pointing at the wrongheadedness of religious fundamentalists and advocating for the wrongly-convicted “satanists” the scares uncovered. But this story and the True Detective television show remind us that sometimes the Devil really is in the details…

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Here at Insomnia we’re anticipating a great summer celebration this Saturday, June 21st — no doubt many regular readers are planning revels of their own. With that in mind, check out this amazing 24 hour broadcast of live Indian ragas courtesy of WKCR in New York. The music started last night at midnight and will run straight through until the solstice at midnight tonight, Friday, June 20.

Here’s the skinny from the site…

On Friday, June 20, over 40 world-class musicians will perform Indian classical music live on New York City radio station WKCR (89.9 FM-NY, HD1, and streaming on www.wkcr.org). Join us, beginning at midnight at the end of Thursday June 19 and ending at midnight at the end of Friday June 20th, for 24 sets of Indian Classical music over the course of 24 hours.

The raga is not a tune, melody, scale, mode, or any concept for which an English word exists. Instead, a raag functions both as description and prescription; it describes a general melodic practice, while it prescribes rules on how to build a certain melody. Compositions in Indian classical music are built on the rules of a raag.

I can’t imagine a better soundtrack for the season. Grab the Mp3 stream here to catch the sun as it fills the sky.

This post was inspired by the great photographer John Rogers. The best of summer to you, my brother.

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Music posts