Alina Simone - "Glitterati". It went on until she gave him his eyes. The insults, the slaps, plates full of ash. Then one day she knocked gently on his study door, pushed it open, and as he looked up over reading glasses she extended her open palm. Two eyes, like white and grey marbles. He assumed at first that they were her own. But he gazed at her face, remembered the brown of those irises. He looked again at the eyes in her palms. This time he recognized them. His own pupils, certain and fixed. There was admonishment in them, wrath, hatred. He understood that they would never blink. [Make Your Own Danger, as well as Alina Simone's first book, You Must Go And Win, are both out today. She will be reading tomorrow at Brooklyn's Word bookstore, as part of Largehearted Lit]

Car Seat Headrest - "Happy News for Sadness". This song is like the arrival of reinforcements. A legion of legionnaires, cresting the hill, flying your banner. They will stand with you, advise you, lean into their shields and take the arrow-fire. When the smoke comes, they will not buckle; they will not shift. They will flick their lighters and crank the electric lanterns, they will kick on their fizz-boxes and listen to that hopeful zzzzzz. Your reinforcements are safe bets. They are close to friends. [download at a price of your choosing]

(photo is of an embryonic penguin - source)