Poisson d'Avril
“The sum of a million facts is not the truth.”―William Manchester
In a world of fake news and you-never-know-what-is-really-happening-next realities, this whole April Fools thing either seems cruel…impossible to pull off without causing unneeded anxiety…or like shooting fish in a barrel: how believable is this day-to-day reality we have found ourselves in, anyway? Life is but a dream. My daughter walked into the living room this morning at sunrise and smiled, wishing me a happy April fools…and I just sat there wondering what it meant, to just come out and acknowledge a day of deception without a prank attached. So I called down to my son Asher and told him school had been canceled (it felt easy: quick foolery) and he seemed really non-plussed about it: doesn’t school get canceled randomly all the time?
So I called my mom…who usually gets to me first on April Fool’s Day to say that something strange is going on near my house or what not. I tell her that Kaya’s play had been canceled this weekend because members of the cast had a strange case of feeling fine, but turning blue and red. I thought it was a softball of a gag, during these times when again: who needs the extra anxiety? She immediately started relating a story a friend told her of the pandemic being back on the rise (no fooling involved) because the truth is, there are no fools errands right now that are shocking or unrealistic.
Or maybe it is just the fact that my imagination is not what it used to be. I couldn’t even think of a good scam to write on this newsletter this morning
Thank you Geoffrey Chaucer who I think was our introducer to this whole April Fool’s thing in the Nun’s Priest Tale chapter of The Canterbury Tales. Or maybe that was just my English Lit professor fucking with me, so many decades ago.
I guess I am just going to forget the whole thing and go listen to my Robert Johnson 78 that I found at Goodwill last week….
Shabbes.
Mighty Diamonds lead singer among two killed in drive-by shooting
Devastating news in the reggae community with Donald 'Tabby Diamond' Shaw shot and killed on the streets of Jamaica. There is an investigation as to if it was because of a feud, but regardless: this is a huge loss from a mighty band that has been together since the early days of the classic reggae era up until now. The Guardian ran a great pice on him yesterday following the news. What a loss.
While he is celebrated in many different writing circles (he writes nonfiction, fiction, essays, and is a beloved by the LGBT community as well as fantasy/fiction world)…it is his science fiction writing that I am most fond of. Today is his 80th birthday and he is still going strong (just check out a recent review of a book of essays in the Los Angeles Review of Books). This New York Times article is from a few years ago, but very much worth reading again….or discovering for the first time.
How Artist Marcia Resnick, Long Underknown, Pushed Photography to Its Conceptual Boundaries
I did not know about the work of Marcia Resnick until reading this article. And then I went to her website and saw more of her work. Her photos of Stiv Bators…of Belushi, Chuck Berry, a young Anthony Bourdain, and the rest of the late 70s/early 80s scene that she chronicled…are great to come in contact with. And her more artful, abstract pictures are amazing as well.
Robert Eggers’s Historical Visions Go Mainstream
So I guess Robert Eggers has a new film, The Northman…a viking film. I loved The Witch. Dug the Lighthouse. The trailer looks nothing short of amazing, and I am so ready for this. I think Eggers is one of the few directors today who might just save the movie industry with his brilliant, iconic productions.
WEEKEND LISTEN: RIGHT TIME by The Mighty Diamonds
This record brings me right back to high school. The Mighty Diamonds were one of the first reggae bands I was turned onto…seeing them with Toots and the Maytals and Yellowman at the Warfield in 1985. Their debut record Right Time is a classic-roots-reggae-era classic (classic x2) with Tabby Diamond demonstrating why his singing is talked about in the same breath as Bunny Wailer (damn, he is gone, too!). While this album does not have their best known song Pass The Kutchie (made famous in the US by Musical Youth with their slightly changed version Pass The Dutchie), it has incredible numbers like Why Me Black Brother Why? and Have Mercy. With an incredible backing band featuring Sly and Robbie, Skatalites legend Tommy McCook on sax and Ansel Collins on Keys, this album set the standard. So good. And so sad.
Anthropocene Blues
By: Anne Waldman
sound de-territorializes
weather
and my love clings to you
sings to you
in the “new weathers”
within a tragedy
of the Anthropocene
nothing
not
held hostage
by the hand
of Man
can we resist?
will we fail?
to save our world?
we dream replicas of ourselves
fragile, broken
robotic thought-bubbles
inside the shadow
a looming possibility
this new year
to wake up
could it be?
an anthropoid scared
from the forest
slow in development
now infantilized
much like us
stressed yet
perhaps
ready to resist
this scenario?
the forest made the monkey
& the cave & steppe: the human
and now
what makes us suppler
more human?
climate grief?
a fierce tenderness toward
the destruction of our world?
questions
or actions?
[my love for you
sings for you, world
I’ve got those Anthropocene….
Anthropocene….
blues…..]
