March 7 2024
I prayed for the first time in ages. It worked, which reminded me that it almost always does. Prayer is one of the daily practices I have neglected, though I have kept up with my gratitude lists. Why do I abandon some rituals and keep up with others?
I wanted the spirit to catch again so I re-read Bassem Saad's essay on Palestinian martyrdom from January. Their sentences rang:
"A claim to martyrdom rejects the meaninglessness of death, insisting that an individual death is part of a collective movement towards liberation. Mourning can only take place after liberation: only then can there be public grief where before there were only the ululations of the bereaved."
In Abdaljawad Omar's "Can the Palestinian Mourn?" he writes that when "the work of mourning is prevented from beginning, and the object of loss is internalized in the collective psyche, the Palestinian subject’s relation to the world becomes indeed melancholic." Melancholic suspension feels like it is becoming universal, as has the corresponding need to escape that suspension. In her recent post about Aaron Bushnell, Charlotte Shane talked about something that feels like escape, not away from something but into it: "What Aaron did was holy. I can’t explain that to anyone, and I won’t argue about it. You either see it or you don’t." Erik Baker's piece on Bushnell ends here: "Perhaps this is why he did it: he was already burning. I guess we all are. God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time."
How far the flames go depends on if you let yourself believe that someone will be there to put you out. Will there be enough water? The "guns, glory, and God" crowd assumes that the water is all theirs. Some people shine flashlights through the windows of migrant centers so hungry mothers and children can't sleep. Others prepare meals and stand in the rain to say "Pomme ou banane?" to people they will never see again. Can you imagine the luxury of worrying that you are loved enough? How we approach death shows the limits we accept for life. To that end, I recommend reading Susan Abulhawa's report from Gaza, which is back up at The Electronic Intifada, or watch her on Democracy Now. If you are still looking away, there is no prayer that will return you to God.
Without realizing it, I have been returning to dub, one of my first religions. Drum and bass is one way to apply dub technique to music that is anything but reggae and anything but relaxing. Tom & Jerry, who became 4Hero, were one of the first and best to do it in the Nineties. Try this Tom & Jerry special that LDLDN put together last year, or this mix of Tom & Jerry records made in 2022. The latter is more record-record-record-fight-fight-fight and the LDLDN is more discursive. Both are two hours of the shit that made people think jungle was the second coming of Christ. (In this process, I learned that Bad Brains lifted the bassline for “Leaving Babylon” from The Royals's "Pick Up The Pieces." I had somehow gone forty years without knowing that.)
I did not know Lee Norris, who records as Nacht Plank. That discography is fairly huge and I only just found him through this new chonky boy on Neotantra, Friends Within The Darkness. This music seems to be almost certainly dub, though of what and why I could not say. If you imagine the millennial dread of Basinski or Caretaker applied to music that rarely uses big pink noise sweeps, this is sort of that but with more seaweed. And glitter. But lighter? It is very easy to disappear into.
This new album by Dip Friso (Scottish person Murray Collier) is wood soaked in rum, a kind of dubbed out Robert Wyatt. Collier was also smart enough to tap Jess from Still House Plants for some singing. This new Low End Activist album on Peak Oil is a bit like Tom & Jerry strained through Dip Friso: club music folded and unfolded until it becomes an echo of itself. A real triumph. Honestly, though, this common three-LP Trojan set of dub sustains me most reliably. Nothing new or obscure about it. Just the right balance of ghost and animal.
Nothing to do with dub, this Jaco and Herbie 1977 Chicago live set I found through Aquarium Drunkard is almost comically lively. I've also been listening to this oud playlist for months. The role of line in art is important. The oud is all line.
Twenty years ago, my first piece in The New Yorker was published. The column was, and is, about Arthur Russell. That piece has become the first chapter of Invisible Village, the third or fourth or fifth book in the queue. The second is a short book about Bob Dylan, for Yale University Press, due very soon.
That magazine gig is gone but this newsletter is here, more of a job than I imagined it would be. The other books on deck are the novel I began in 2018, Stripping Pitch Sets for Mahler, and a book of essays, Pistachios and the Frame. Accountability is one reason to mention the books, as it will now be more embarrassing to bail on them, having told you. It would be nonsensical to ask for help finishing my book about Space Ghost (two paragraphs written in 2014).
Reporting standards too low for a mid-tier sports blog and the incursions of private equity have neutered newspapers and legacy magazines. They are treading water, terrified their paymasters will send an office-wide email or, worse, take them out to lunch.
Before Vice 404s itself into full irrelevancy, though, read Gary Indiana's "Fuck Israel" from 2012. It is a more factually reliable piece than anything in The New York Times. It is never too late to wake up. Or just enter the word "Palestine" in the FOIA electronic reading room. The CIA has employed some pretty good writers over the years.
Damo Suzuki was the one of one fire spitter, a terrestrial pilot who clung to the flight of his bandmates like a shadow. He sang in English, quite clearly, while not seeming to sing in any language at all. Here is what I wrote about Damo and Can for Shfl and my interview with Irmin Schmidt, as well as what I said about krautrock. Joshua Minsoo Kim interviewed a gang of Damo's collaborators for Rolling Stone and Mojo just republished an interview with Damo from 2018.
Aquarium Drunkard posted a great free Can concert and Mute has issued a Paris show with Damo from 1973. It's one of the best. If you're tired of thinking about death, then just watch these b-boys popping to "Vitamin C."
