Tim Quirk

@tbquirk

I sing in Too Much Joy and Wonderlick and work in tech (Rhapsody/Google Play/Freeform/Zedge). I tend to post about music, movies, and the death throes of democracy.

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Tim Quirk@tbquirk· 2d

Wildly excited to see one of my favorite plays in a few minutes. And just found out Tatiana Maslany is in it, too! (I already knew it stars Paul Giammati and John Turturro.)

The poster, wearing a Rhinoceros t-shirt, standing next to a poster for the play, Rhinoceros

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Jul 21

Two young men in suits carrying briefcases walk down a beach.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Jul 4

"Less homicidal" is a wild thing to say. Does that mean Johnny Cash DID shoot a man, but it wasn't just to watch him die? Or that he never shot anybody, but really did want to watch them die?

A screenshot that says: Artistic License: Songwriters frequently adopt personas or write from the perspective of fictional characters. Johnny Cash sang about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die, but his actual personality was much more complex and less homicidal.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· May 9

This replacement-level bar band in Grover Beach had at least one genius idea.

Close up of a bar band's amazing invention: mic stand beer holders!

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· May 8

I don't know when or why GMail updated its grammar checker, but every email I compose now winds up full of underlined bits suggesting I could craft my sentences more perfectly. Needless to say, they are very wrong.

A scrteenshot of an email draft that reads, "This is an example of the ridiculousness I'm talking about.
No matter how well the sentence I write flows, GMail has a bunch of dumb ideas about how to "improve" it. GMail, please stop. You're not nearly as smart as you think you are." Iis an example of" and "a bunch of dumb ideas about" are both underlined. The latter is highlighted to show GMail's suggested change, which says, "Make concise: 'many suggestions on.'" Thank you for maiking my point, GMail, as your change removes the very necessary adjective describing the wisdom, or lack thereof, of your change ideas.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Feb 18

This is what it used to look like.

A picture of hell (the Stax marquee in disrepair)

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Feb 18

Hello from heaven

A picture of heaven (the Stax records marquee in Memphis)

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Dec 24

The perennial question:

A sign on a hiking trail that says, "Why Cows?" (There's also some explanatory text beneath that, but it's not as thought provoking/funny.)

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Dec 10

This is clearly the most accurate Best Of music list of 2025, because Wonderlick is on it. offshelf.net/2025/12/10/b...

Wonderlick is a side project of singer/lyricist Tim Quirk and multi-instrumentalist Jay Blumenfield of Too Much Joy. While Too Much Joy tries to make you laugh, Wonderlick wants you to think. And so we get a satiric and often allegorical look at the human condition, from how a children’s book feels waiting on a shelf until it fulfills its destiny in the hands of a child, to what our fascination with human cruelty says about us, or how we need to make the most of life with what we’re given. This is a soft-spoken album that manages to say a lot.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Oct 27

A photo showing boxes of CDs being packed for shipping.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Oct 18

Oakland No Kings March just getting started.

A sign at the Oakland No Kings March that reads: Unpaid Protestor. I hate fascism for free.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Oct 11

The person who makes Connections is apparently a Big Star fan.

A screenshot of today's Connections game, in which some of the tiles read Third Sister Lovers Magic Big Star

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Oct 4

Jeff Tweedy at HSB25. There are still compelling reasons to live in the Bay Area.

Jeff Tweedy performs on a gorgeous early-Autumn day at Golden Gate Park

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Oct 4

This title card from Abel Gance's Napoleon describes most of my favorite people.

Beautiful, if amoral, she was a woman of easy manners, and a talented musician.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 28

Hard to believe Fritz Lang made this in 1933, since it feels pretty damned timely:

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 26

Democracy in the U.S. may be under unprecedented assault today, but it's hard not to feel hopeful waiting for Big Thief to take the stage on a lovely Fall evening at Berkeley's Greek Theater.

The opening band plays at Berkeley's lovely Greek Theater as Big Thief fans filter in and the sun sets over the SF Bay.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 23

My favorite part:

This arrangement certainly risks some measure of injustice, inaccuracy, and overreach: a careless joke or comment here or there need not a bigot, much less a dyed-in-the-wool fascist, make. But admitting such possibilities, seeing this kind of basic social norm enforcement as fundamentally at odds with living in a free country is deeply delusional. Not everyone you go to school with is invited to your birthday party, not every coworker and neighbor to the cookout. Deciding the level of intimacy with which you will live with the people around you is an utterly mundane part of living in the world—yes, even a free world—and doing so on the basis of other people’s character and conduct informs those decisions for anyone with values that stretch beyond those of cynical self-protection and into the territory of things like “basic self-respect,” “respect for others,” and “basic integrity.” Russell was not infringing on Mosley’s freedom by deeming him unworthy of polite conversation—even if he had done so for questionable rather than principled reasons. He was simply exercising his own freedom, alongside a better set of values than Mosley had. A free world would expect as much: indeed, it would require it.

The point is that the possibility of overreach is a price worth paying exactly because shame serves as a robustly liberal alternative to the political violence that Klein and company rightly abhor. It is, quite literally, the least one can do to ensure rules of social conduct that upheld minimal levels of dignity for all involved. Most of the alternatives involve either subjugation, combat, or both. Put another way: designating disrespect and denigration as beyond the pale, as grounds for exclusion from polite company is “turning the temperature down.” Klein and others are helping to turn it up.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 21

Good riddance to the A's and Raiders. Oakland Ballers games are way more enjoyable, largely due to Scrappy, their mascot (who is an possum).

An Oakland Ballers prepares to swing at game 4 of their playoffs.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 20

Fascism+edibles+late stage capitalism leads me to this exchange, in which I can only hope the cog whispering agreement back to me is an actual human being rather than a robot designed to make me think so.

A chat exchange in which the poster pauses his subscription to Disney+ and wants the CEO to know why, and a possible bot seems to agree fascism is scary and to be avoided.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Sep 4

This is what the guitar soldier looks like:

A little green plastic soldier holding a guitar instead of a gun.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Aug 30

Small world. Wonderlick is performing tonight at a sex dungeon in Portland. This picture of our hostess is in our green room. I asked who painted it, and was surprised to hear it was done by my social media mutual @laurennmcc.bsky.social !

The poster, standing in front of a painting of Princess Natasha Strange, painted by the kind and talented Lauren McCubbin.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Jul 30

Email subject lines you like to see: "MMD Charts 7/29/25 - WONDERLICK "Wonderlick Goes to War" is #1 stream this week!" We don't really know what that means, but we assume it's a good thing.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· May 24

Watching Gang of Four say goodbye, and I've realized something that hadn't occurred to me despite 45 years of fandom: I love them for the same reason I love The Who. They're not musically similar, but both bands are great because each individual's contribution is equally interesting and necessary.

Gang of Four performing live at The Chapel in San Francisco, in front of a sign saying To Hell with Poverty

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· May 23

More shows added to what we're calling Stampede 2025 -- Wonderlick's house and club tour to promote Wonderlick Goes to War. Ticket links and most up-to-date itinerary at: www.wonderlick.com/?p=1114

A tour poster listing dates throughout the US in August for Wonderlick. The dates are

08/08 ATHENS, GA
08/09 KNOXVILLE, TN
08/11 BALTIMORE, MD
08/12 WASHINGTON, DC
8/13 NEW FREEDOM, PA
8/14 PHILADELPHIA, PA
8/15 SICKLERVILLE, NJ
8/16 WESTFIELD, NJ
8/17 HASTING-ON-HUDSON, NY
8/18 ROCHESTER, NY
8/20 YOUNGSTOWN, OH
8/21 COLUMBUS, OH
8/22 CINCINNATI, OH
8/23 CHICAGO, IL
8/26 BUTTE, MO
8/28 MERCER ISLAND, WA
8/29 PORTLAND, OR

The poster directs people to wonderlick.com for ticketing links.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· May 20

Me at a more dystopian demo, of the revived Google Glasses. They had me stare at an espresso machine and ask how to use it. The glasses told me. I asked if it could make beer. The glasses said no. Warby Parker will supposedly be making more contemporary frames for these.

A selfie of the poster, looking suave and unconcerned as he demos the latest version of Google Glasses, which are now called something else.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Apr 12

Been thinking about this bit from Phillip Pullman a lot, recently:

There are two great powers,” the man said, “and they’ve been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.
Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Apr 5

Love this Baldwin quote:

Protest sign with a picture of James Baldwin and this quote of his: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Feb 14

Up there with this all timer

The cover of a Green Lantern/Green Arrow paperback, in which an African-American says, "I been readin' about you...how you work for the Blue Skins...and how on a planet someplace you helped out the Orange Skins...only there's skins you never bothered with--! ...The Black Skins! I want to know...How come?! Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!"

To which our ashamed hero, head hung, replies, "I... can't..."

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Feb 7

I found this @heatherhav.bsky.social column especially helpful, today. My wife and I were just discussing how rare it's been to feel joy, lately, but also how powerful the moments when we do can be. So: seek it out, and spread it. Not instead of combatting fascism -- as part of it.

My job this year is to make sure that every single person who reads this column is reminded regularly that joy isn’t a crime against those who are suffering. You can’t let this belief seep into your subconscious mind without noticing it. Every opportunity to dance, to seek pleasure, to love with an open heart, to create freely, to show yourself without shame, and to celebrate what you are makes you stronger and more helpful to this struggling world. When you love, you create room for more love. When you give freely, you encourage generosity in others. When you speak honestly, you make space for more honesty.

Believing in your own joy and imagination, trusting and building on your huge dreams: these are good for the world, today and every day. Never let anyone tell you that you need to remain in a state of anxious mourning in order to take action for those who are suffering. Never let anyone confuse your enthusiasm for life with indifference or selfishness.

Tim Quirk@tbquirk· Feb 1

Visiting my daughter in Philly this weekend. Apparently City Hall is green in honor of the Eagles. Everyone keeps saying, "Go birds!" Since I'm in Rome: Go birds!