Just For Us All
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”― George Orwell
A quick one on this Monday morning as I am in New York today running a little crazed. The media company I run, Reboot Studios1 is celebrating its Broadway debut as a Co-Producer of the Alex Edelman show Just For Us; tonight is the big opening. Alex is a Jewish comedian who was mistakenly invited to a white supremacist function and wrote a hilarious and poignant one-person show about it. The show debuted off-Broadway, having to be extended multiple times due to sell-out audiences, becoming a toast of the town, toured America and beyond, and is starting a limited Summer Broadway run tonight at one of the oldest theaters, the Hudson (built in the turn of the last century, recently redone).
It is an incredible turn of events to be hitting the red carpet tonight, a place this music industry vet never thought he would venture. Yet it makes sense: the role of Reboot is to support emerging (and emerged) storytellers across media and artistic (and beyond) practices who are telling Jewish stories that have universalist appeal. As discussed in last week’s Signal about Neil Hagerty, art has the power to change the world more quickly than anything else. With the case of Just For Us, and with the rise of anti-semitism fueled by America’s horrific white supremacy movement, a story like Alex’s, which is biting and pointed yet hilarious is exactly the kind of art that is needed to help define the current situation and help combat it.
But to say the show is JUST about anti-semitism would be inaccurate and giving it a short shrift. There is a hilarious bit about when Edelman’s orthodox family attempts to throw a Christmas experience for a non-Jewish family friend—with (maybe to be expected but) unimaginable consequences . Edelman goes over the story with Ira Glass on This American Life, but it is during the show that it truly comes alive. Then, at the white supremacy rally Alex attends…the one that is the root story at play here…he finds himself in a mutual attraction moment with a cute…racist: a crazed classic take on finding common bonds amid diametrically opposed realities. Yes, the world we live in is a strange place and presents itself with grey amid the harsh black and whites that are defining our era.
I am off to the Hudson to get my tickets for tonight’s show that are at the box office, trying to hit it early before the lines (it’s pretty much sold out this evening). If you want to take a deeper dive into Alex’s world and history and the show, there was a great New York Times piece that was published a few days ago and it you are in The Big Apple over the Summer, Just For Us will be playing until August 19th. Oh yeah!
Happy Monday!
Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle. Jason Williams interviews Foxtrot Echo
For anyone interested in The Coum Transmissions Collective (or anyone interested in revelatory artistic moments and movements), the subversive UK art group from the late sixties to the mid-seventies, most famous probably for “birthing” Throbbing Gristle…this interview with member Foxtrot Echo is jaw dropping. I had no idea that catastrophe theorist Tom Poston was a member of the group or about the early live performances of “Coum.” Such an important….truly dangerous and revolutionary group. Wow.
“Obviously some of the things we did were very provocative. Members of the group went into jail but not normally for artistic reasons … well I don't know. You could say part of their art was their crime.”
Melvins' new album is a tribute to Throbbing Gristle
The interview with Foxtrot Echo was so incredible that I had to share it with my dear friend (and mutual friend of Gen P) futurist David Pescovitz. He immediately forwarded to me a piece he just published on boingboing about the new Melvins record with is a tribute to TG. The Melvins are celebrating 40 years together, Dale and King Buzzo..with current bassist and all around great guy Redd Kross’ Steve McDonald.
Emily Carrington's 'Our Little Secret' wins 2023 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize
Lynd Ward, whose birthday is today (he would have been 118) was an illustrator who was also one of the first to introduce the graphic novel with his tremendous wordless epic, God’s Man in 1929. His importance to the field is remembered yearly, with a prize given in his honor, this year to Emily Carrington. In her raw memoir about sexual abuse Carrington tells her “secret” story, and how as an adult she comes face to face with her abuser…and how she finds her voice in her art.
Teresa Taylor, Butthole Surfers Drummer and Slacker Star, Dies at 60
Teresa Nervosa, probably best remembered in popular culture in her appearance in the Gen X classic Slacker, passed away last week of cancer (#fuckcancer). Teresa was the Mo Tucker of the 1980s alternative music scene, providing part of the tribal beat for the fabulous Butthole Surfers, playing on their greatest records. The Butthole Surfers, especially during Nervosa’s tenure, recorded music that was the most innovative, challenging, crazed and epic of its day, combining all sorts of genres and an unabashed daring that knew no boundaries. RIP.
Banksy's Autobiographical Path to "Cut and Run"
“…you get the Banksy origin story, why he chose to work on the street, how his most famous works were sketched and how they evolved from those notebooks to the street. You see his hand, that actual part of the Banksy story that really hasn’t been apparent in the last 25 years. Banksy always felt like an enigma to a detriment; and the end of Cut and Run that begins to dissipate a bit; it's all about the hand, the personality, something more honest and human than we have ever got from him in the past. This is why, even if you are a bit of a skeptic of his work, this final room will make him seem more of an artist than ever before.”
What causes the strange green flash at sunset and sunrise on Earth?
My friend Kevin Arnold was the first to hip me to the green flash…and yet, it is still so hard to come by. Great article looking into its causes…
suitcases of the insane
By: Patricia Smith
In 1995, an employee of the Willard Asylum for the Insane, a mental hospital in upstate New York, discovered 400 suitcases left by patients between 1910 and 1960. The average stay was 30 years; most people who entered never left.
In her brown valise, gently aligned—a spurting
pen, shuttered throat, shreds of rose-rhythmed
lace, one blue important shoe pointed north.
A rusted canister of talcum had opened, and flat
redolence sugar-howled. Behind an unsnapped
lock cowered the sound wife—yes, the last time
she had giggled was the only reason for the lace.
He had carefully chosen dull medals, god-edged
and boastful, earned in the service of murder,
and photo booth snaps of rollicking hi-town gals
with Hair-Repped crowns and mouths rumored
violent. Just there, barely secured in a yawning
silk pocket, was his young son, crisply folded
and screaming. The packing had gone well.
Following directives from the light in their hands,
they prepared for holiday, for pledged sun and river
edge, while men in blooded coats barely squirreled
away scalpels, aching for quick path into the head’s
looping lyric. Lashed to beds, back-floating down
shimmering headwaters, our travelers spit-shined
brass latches, sniffed sachet, and never wearied
of yesterday’s faint explode, just there, just ahead.
