THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness."-William Godwin
Neville O'Riley Livingston OM…better known as Bunny Wailer…has passed away.
Bunny was the last surviving original Wailer. Childhood friends with Bob Marley who…with Peter Tosh…rose to fame as The Wailers in Jamaica’s ska/rocksteady era. Soon, the trio gravitated to the Jamaican religion and social movement known as Rastafarianism. It was then that mentor Ras Michael, who Bob had known since a child, exposed the trio to Nyabinghi music…the slower, more tribal religious music of the Rastafari. Bunny, Bob and Peter channeled the Nyabinghi groove, slowed their own music down and the modern Reggae sound was born.
Bunny recorded two incredible records with the Wailers, Catch a Fire and Burnin’. He also is featured on the quintessential recordings the band made after getting thrown off the Sly and the Family Stone tour and flown to San Francisco to perform at the legendary KSAN. Those recordings, strangely edited with not proper mixes, were released on the Talkin’ Blues record, and represents the last recording the band made before breaking up. Bunny left the band when Chris Blackwell decided to focus on Marley’s rising star…although he might have been gone regardless, since his Rastafarian beliefs did not jive with the relentless touring schedule The Wailers were faced with.
Bunny walked his own path for the rest of his career…beginning with his departure from the Wailers and deciding to record and release his first solo record himself. Think about that for a minute: he was a superstar in Jamaica…and left a band that was becoming known throughout the world…and decided to take complete ownership of his career, going completely DIY. The resultant record was a killer: Blackheart Man.
My late friend Mick Cater was the Wailers’ European tour manager throughout their existence. He once told me about the first time that he met the band and went on tour with them around the release of Catch a Fire. He recalls being crammed in a van with a bunch of Rastas…him being the only non-band member except for the driver. There was alot of silence, everyone looking at one another…taking in their first big tour…still relatively known…and uncertain of the future. He told me that the first person who opened up to him was Bunny Wailer. He sat right next to Mick and and just started talking…he was just a nice, outgoing guy.
Long live the memory of Bunny Wailer. Jah Rastafari. Ever living. Ever breathing.
No drone unturned: tracing the sound that unites ancient and modern
For those who are fans of drones…of ambient audio destined to elevate your day…this book looks INCREDIBLE. And what is more…this article is filled with such amazing artists to take deeper dives into…..your soul will thank you.
Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton
“The horrifying story of the 1969 police murder of Fred Hampton is now well known. But there’s still much to be revealed about the case — like the information in bureau files newly obtained by Jacobin showing the FBI awarded Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell, the handler of informant William O’Neal who was key to the raid that killed Hampton, a $200 bonus for work well done.”
New World Record for Houdini-Signed Book at Potter & Potter
The Villain Never Dies: Jason Jägel Honors MF Doom
An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe, from 1750
“English astronomer Thomas Wright is best known as the man who first hypothesized that clusters of stars in the sky might actually be other galaxies, and that the luminous blur of the Milky Way was an optical illusion that could be used to prove our place within that galaxy…An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe is a series of 9 letters written by Wright to a nameless friend, in which he expands upon his theories of creation and the universe.”
from The Changing Light at Sandover
by James Merrill
Zero hour. Waiting yet again
For someone to fix the furnace. Zero week
Of the year’s end. Bed that keeps restlessly
Making itself anew from lamé drifts.
Mercury dropping. Cost of living high.
Night has fallen in the glass studio
Upstairs. The fire we huddle with our drinks by
Pops and snaps. Throughout the empty house
(Tenants away until the New Year) taps
Glumly trickling keep the pipes from freezing.
Summers ago this whole room was a garden—
Orange tree, plumbago, fuschia, palm;
One of us at the piano playing his
Gymnopédie, the other entering
Stunned by hot news from the sundeck. Now
The plants, the sorry few that linger, scatter
Leaflets advocating euthanasia.
Windows and sliding doors are wadded shut.
A blind raised here and there, what walls us in
Trembles with dim slides, transparencies
Of our least motion foisted on a thereby
Realer—falser?—night. Whichever term
Adds its note of tension and relief.
Downstairs, doors are locked against the thief:
Night before last, returning from a dinner,
We found my bedroom ransacked, lights on, loud
Tick of alarm, the mirror off its hook
Looking daggers at the ceiling fixture.
A burglar here in the Enchanted Village—
Unheard of! Not that he took anything.
We had no television, he no taste
For Siamese bronze or Greek embroidery.
Except perhaps some loose change on the bureau
Nothing we can recollect is missing.
“Lucky boys,” declared the chief of police
Risking a wise look at our curios.
The threat remains, though, of there still being
A presence in our midst, unknown, unseen,
Unscrupulous to take what he can get.
Next morning in my study—stranger yet—
I found a dusty carton out of place.
Had it been rummaged through? What could he fancy
Lay buried here among these—oh my dear,
Letters scrawled by my own hand unable
To keep pace with the tempest in the cup—
These old love-letters from the other world.
We’ve set them down at last beside the fire.
Are they for burning, now that the affair
Has ended? (Has it ended?) Any day
It’s them or the piano, says DJ.
Who’ll ever read them over? Take this one.
Limp, chill, it shivers in the glow, as when
The tenor having braved orchestral fog
First sees Brünnhilde sleeping like a log.
Laid on the fire, it would hesitate,
Trying to think, to feel—then the elate
Burst of satori, plucking final sense
Boldly from inconclusive evidence.
And that (unless it floated, spangled ash,
Outward, upward, one lone carp aflash
Languorously through its habitat
For crumbs that once upon a . . .) would be that.
So, do we burn the— Wait the phone is ringing:
Bad connection; babble of distant talk;
No getting through. We must improve the line
In every sense, for life. Again at nine
Sharp above the village clock, ring-ring.
It’s Bob the furnace man. He’s on his way.
Will find, if not an easy-to-repair
Short circuit, then the failure long foreseen
As total, of our period machine.
Let’s be downstairs, leave all this, put the light out.
Fix a screen to the proscenium
Still flickering. Let that carton be. Too much
Already, here below, has met its match.
Yet nothing’s gone, or nothing we recall.
And look, the stars have wound in filigree.
The ancient, ageless woman of the world.
She’s seen us. She is not particular—
Everyone gets her injured, musical
“Why do you no longer come to me?”
To which there’s no reply. For here we are.
