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Thirty Years Ago in Kashgar
Look at what’s going in Xinjiang? John Oliver discusses it here. In 1990, a friend and I went to Kashgar (قەشقەر, 喀什). We were students. It took three days on a bus to travel from Urumqi to Kashgar. We (my friend and I) were really young. 20! There wasn’t internet. I don’t think we knew…
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Not on Spotify – Boots Randolph “Sweet Talk”
I took Boots Randolph for a spin. Boots is the “Yakety Sax” guy. I guess I never thought that “Yakety Sax” came from somewhere but rather assumed it was just there to be plucked from the aether and slapped into Benny Hill shows / the hackiest videos of the “America’s Funniest X” type. But there…
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Not on Spotify — Nina Hagen, Fearless
I spun this vinyl — which I bought in the ’80s, I guess, for reasons unknown and unknowable. It’s different. I appreciate it. I appreciate that an East German woman in the ’80s could perform of unholy marriage of Yoko Ono, Louis Armstrong, and the Tom Tom Club. It’s what freedom sounded like back in…
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Bondarchuk’s Tolstoy’s War and Peace (Parts I and II)
Notes on Parts 1 and 2 of Bondarchuk’s Tolstoy’s War and Peace Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace rests in the TCM portion of HBO Max, like a sleeping leviathan. It’s a dream you haven’t had yet. The perspective is omniscient: you are the horse driving the buggy, the woman at the fancy ball, the soldier…
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What’s My Lane?
This morning, I read a great, instructive Twitter thread by @writingtheother about white authors writing BIPOC characters. FWIW, a few stray thoughts: I’m sympathetic to the argument that artists should be able to write, draw, sing, sculpt any old thing they want to, the only limit being their desire to do so. This doesn’t mean…
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The Other Virus is Capital
It’s May 8, 2020. Italy is opening up — to levels of lock-down that resemble the strictest rules in the US. Here in the US, we did not close all restaurants, factories, and construction sites. All over the world, countries are pausing, freezing, and/or putting the economy in an induced coma. In Denmark, this means…
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Things You Can Have: Three Books of Poetry
Out of a desire for mental nesting or isolation-related nostalgia, I bought three books of poetry by my classmates at Iowa in the mid-90s. After all, I had read through the first inklings of their style. I had watched them work out the kinks in their lines. Then I lost touch. With them. With poetry.…
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Wisconsin Camping Tips
Reminders for the next camping trip: Coffee mug. You deserve a proper mug. Fires are all about kindling. Love is about the little things too. Tend to your love. Let it breathe. jk. jk. The cooler has shifted its category in your mind: it is now a chair. Still, you must secure the cooler/chair before…