I looked up the book The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill after I found out Devonte Hynes composed the score for the new series coming to BBC…I’ve never been a huge reader…writer… or been that great with grammar and I definitely have my own unique train of thought…so deciding to write this about why I listened to an audiobook seemed like a good idea at the time and is a testament to the effect of Dev’s posts on me…technology is cool…the reason for this website in the first place was to create a space to show my clients who Dev was while I was doing their hair…I would be speaking to them about something new Dev was doing as small talk during the service…the latest Blood Orange event I saw or had tickets to…Devonte scoring this show or that movie…Dev doing a Q and A somewhere in the city…I mean we are talking all the way back starting in 2011 when I first discovered Hynes…he truly makes music for my ears like no other…I’ve taken every opportunity that comes up to see Dev …btw..did you ever wonder about the origin story of Janet Mock ended up on Negro Swan?…I started gushing about the then new Solange and Blood Orange collaboration shows…Janet went and saw Solange in LA…met Dev and was asked to be on the album…I begged her to consider it at the time…if only for me…I’m still not sure if all those dots would have connected without my help…if she would have done it on her own free will…she later told me afterwards that he asked her to write down whatever came to mind while they listened to tracks from the upcoming album…the rest is history and I may have had the tiniest part in it…I still have the New York Times fact checking corespondence confirming to the world my Dev obsession…when you look up Dev on the internet…each time different websites and images come up…I couldn’t find certain pictures I saw before and wanted to see again…this website is my version of putting posters on my bedroom walls if my bedroom walls had screens…it lets me geek out as a fan in a whole new level…I started out posting here every day for 3 years as a project now I do it at my whim…Dev has a way of referencing things that I end up eminently enjoying…case in point…The audiobook The Listeners…I found out Dev was scoring the series and decided to read the book…I couldn’t make it to TIFF for the first 2 episodes and I’m not a UK resident…so the next best thing was to read the book and try to anticipate the music until it arrives on my BritBox way to many months from now…this book is damn good…and to have some vacation time to complete The Listeners in two days was cathartic for me…I’m not sure if it was the waves from the ocean as background noise along with the vibration of the plane as the book was ending that induced this epic story effect…maybe it was just the way it unraveled and came together…who knows?…I typically listen to audiobooks on my commute and it ends up taking me weeks to finish…I didn’t want to stop listening to The Listeners and I’m glad I didn’t have to…I thought Jordan should know that my fandom for his book originated from my fandom of Hynes though…I just wouldn’t have experienced this book if it wasn’t for Dev…just like I wouldn’t have read Passing by Nella Larsen…or gone to Swarthmore College to hear Third Coast Percussion…or Washington DC to see Phillip Glass’s debut at the Kennedy Center…let’s just say Dev has ever expanding my world with his posts online…I know it…even with Dev off Instagram at this moment…I’m looking up Lorde’s tour dates and listening to her live footage in anticipation of Dev producing L4…I’m literally discovering her now…she wasn’t on my radar before…now she is…another aspect of Dev peaking my curiosity…I contemplate the nature in which I consume digital data and the spectrum of what it means to be offline partially or entirely…like is Dev just offline socially and still looking up things online or absolutely offline and letting friends post on his behalf now…during my vacation I took a break with the fan page as a lesson in being offline…but to find a place to eat in a new town left to chance seems questionable and impractical in my reality…so…the storytelling of The Listeners passed down orally to me like ancient times on the Audiobooks app during my rainy last day in Barbados and the flight home made my gasp in disbelief that I read something so captivating…when it finished…I wasn’t finished thinking about it and oblivious still hasn’t…it makes me wonder when is the BBC series going to be available to me and specifically why all this cool technology can’t deliver in this situation…good thing I have some patience…I’m sure we’ll find out what Dev is up to somehow…someway or another…I’m definitely getting back online to find out more about the Marni show recently…I’m pretty sure when Blood Orange or Devonte Hynes releases something new I’ll hear about it from being online…to anyone following the fan page…I hope everyone is lucky enough to witness Hynes in action online and off…
Let me type in Dev Hynes and see what comes up.
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