[LANDLINE] The Least We Can Do
1. WHAT THIS IS
Landline is a free, to-the-point email, sent by me, irregularly, hopefully more regularly, to a list of around 3,800 subscribers. Ideas and nudges, hopefully forming a small bailiwick outside the unceasing current of cruddiness — irregular epistles intended for friends, colleagues, Arthur Magazine heads, Democratic Party phone bankers, herbalists, antifa streetfighters, pastoral people, plant people, rural country people, dharma people, gardeners, wild people and other curious sweetfolk.
2. LISTENING SESSIONWARE
Latest additions on my Spotify playlist include new Borzoi, minutemen, the Clash, Dr. John (under the influence of this Explorers Room), Delroy Wilson, new Van Morrison, new Kikagaku Moyo, new Kurt Vile, new Rosali, unbelievable deep Spirit cut (h/t Matt Valentine and The Avant Ghetto), Shakti, Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man, Marc Ribot, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Neil Hamburger (?), old Messages, lotsa Ramones and M.O.T.O., vintage Tony Allen, Keith Hudson, Joni Mitchell and 20 more hours of stuff I deem precious and share-worthy. Could be jarring at times but hopefully of use!
3. IT'S THE LEAST WE CAN DO
It's been rough lately. As purely personal consolation I've been thinking of how I'll likely be spending my twilight years: wandering the cemeteries of America, cheerfully urinating on the graves of Cheney, McConnell, Rumsfeld, Lindsay Graham, Roger Stone, Susan Collins, Dennis Hastert, Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Jesse Helms (already buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, North Carolina)... oh it's a long list.
But I'll be drinking lots of coffee.
And I might be up for leading a guided tour.
Nominees for piss aktions are welcome.
4. BURROUGHS HAD A PLAN
Well well well...
The Revised Boy Scout Manual was a work Burroughs revisited many times, but which has never before been published in its complete form. Based primarily on recordings of a performance of the complete piece found in the archives at the OSU libraries, as well as various incomplete versions of the typescript found at Arizona State University and the New York Public Library archives, this lost masterpiece of satiric subversion is finally available in its entirety.
“Here we have Bill Burroughs’ voice coming through loud and clear, like a conversation after his first large whiskey, London c1972. His preoccupations at the time: weaponry, viruses, tape recorder cut-ups, Scientology techniques, the Mayan calendar and Korzybski’s General Semantics are utilized as means to deal with ‘the shits.’ Never has a text been more apposite. As usual his ideas are developed into hilarious routines but at heart he is deadly serious: ‘I mean every word I say.’ It is wonderful to see this legendary text in print at last.”—Barry Miles
30% off cover price, free postage right now direct from publisher.
5. "CLIMATE CHANGE"? NO! CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
This is brilliant! George Monbiot writes:
4 reasons for using #climatebreakdown, not climate change:
1. It better conveys the extent of the problem
2. People don't say "So what? The climate's always breaking down"
3. It makes an implicit connection with the impact on our minds
4. It suggests that we can fix it.
6. MY KIND OF JEWS
As a religiously lapsed Jew, may I say: these are my kind of Jews. I wish they were still around. Bravo Molly Crabapple for this great piece at New York Review of Books blog:
The Bund was a sometimes-clandestine political party whose tenets were humane, socialist, secular, and defiantly Jewish. Bundists fought the Tsar, battled pogroms, educated shtetls, and ultimately helped lead the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Though the Bund was largely obliterated by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the group’s opposition to Zionism better explains their absence from current consciousness. Though the Bund celebrated Jews as a nation, they irreconcilably opposed the establishment of Israel as a separate Jewish homeland in Palestine. The diaspora was home, the Bund argued. Jews could never escape their problems by the dispossession of others. Instead, Bundists adhered to the doctrine of do’ikayt or 'Hereness.' Jews had the right to live in freedom and dignity wherever it was they stood. ...
7. ONE BOAT
One for all of us having to deal with Llibertarian/right-wing Republican dumbasses:
"Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai [noted] the case of men on a ship, one of whom took a borer and began boring beneath his own place. His shipmates asked him what he was doing. He replied that what he was doing would not matter to them, he was boring under his own place. And they replied that the water would come up and flood the ship for them all." (Wikipedia)
8. THE OLD WAYS ARE THE WISE WAYS
Old friend Eden Batki is doing a Kickstarter project worthy of our support. She writes:
After surviving the Holocaust, my father and his family came to the United States during the 1957 Hungarian revolution. I spent time in the summers with my grandparents eating stuffed cabbage and chicken soup with dumplings, watching my grandfather hang suitcase smuggled smoked sausages in the basement. My taste memory is strong and I strive to recreate the recipes my grandmother made, though she gave me no formal instruction. There are no longer Hungarian restaurants in Los Angeles and I fear the disappearance of this delicious food in modern society outside of Hungary.
I’m creating a Hungarian cookbook that dives into the stories of the land and its people. Hungarian food is fascinating because of its unique blend of influences from France, Italy, Serbia, The Roma, Austria, Germany, Transylvania, Ukraine, Slovakia, The Balkans, and Turkey. From the sour cherry growers, to the wine makers, to the paprika fields, and rooftop pickle makers, I want to explore it all.
This project is inspired by my Jewish Hungarian heritage, and is an homage to my grandmother whose cooking has created an everlasting impression on my life and love for the culinary arts.
This funding I receive from this Kickstarter campaign will allow me to travel back to Hungary to scour the seven regions of the country, hire a translator, collect recipes, interviews, and take beautiful photos capturing intimate experiences with home cooks, grandmothers, farmers, and restaurant owners. I will explore age-old traditions with herbalists and talk with young chefs creating new flavors. The book will be a compilation of known dishes, and my adaptations of these recipes for the modern International palate. Hungarian food is filled with rich savory and sweet dishes that I think everyone can and should enjoy in their home kitchens. I see this cookbook as a way to add my voice to the dialog of first generation Americans who want to reconnect with their heritage. ...
9. ERRATUM
Better link for Clay by Melissa Harrison, the fantastic post-anthropocentric novel I wrote about in the last Landline. ("Harrison captures what it's like, from radically different human points of view, to deeply experience the sensations and consciousnesses of the natural world in the most unlikely place: the 21st century urban environment.") --> https://amzn.to/2QHsIo3
10. THE LONG GAME
Til next time, remember —
"We will lose every battle except the last one."
- voiced by anarchist-feminist legend Emma Goldman in anarchist-feminist-theatre legend Judith Malina's 2011 play KORACH