The Standard Blues

The Standard Blues

n.
the dispiriting awareness that the twists and turns of your life feel new and profound but are not unique—marked by the same coming-of-age struggles as millions of others, the same career setbacks, the same family strife, the same learning curve of parenting—which makes even your toughest challenges feel harmless and predictable, just another remake of the same old story.

A riff on blues standards, the catalog of the most popular songs in the blues genre, which is itself famous for chord progressions that cycle through variations on a theme.

The Standard Blues

Desanté

Addleworth

Candling

Punt Kick

Maugry

Rubatosis

Vaucasy

Indosentia

Elsing

Nighthawk

Solysium

Tarrion

Altschmerz

Ioia

Nementia

Flichtish

Sayfish

Scabulous

Kinchy

Hem-Jawed

an abstract image of someone touching their face

Fellchaser

a blurred shadow of a person in a dark room

Scrough

a person working on the sidewalk

Kadot

a person looking at an abstract spiral

Lyssamania

Malotype

Eftless

a person with hands pressed on a window