Culturewatch
Liner Notes
A folklore professor from the Ivy League was scowling when he came up to me at the 1969 meeting of the American Folklore Society. He stabbed a finger in my direction and, without a hello, said, “There’s one thing I can never forgive you for.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You wrote the liner notes for Phil Ochs’ album.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s not authentic folk music,” he said.
“Who cares?” I said.
Sad Memes and the Limits of Radical Brokenness
r/2meirl4meirl is a “subreddit”[1] devoted to sad memes. People commiserate there in short blasts of image and text on how lonely and shitty life as a Millennial is.
Fuck Jeffrey Epstein (Varieties of Necro Leftism)
I was living in a devil town/I didn’t know it was a devil town
Sympathy for BeYelzebub
The best line from Jesus is King, Kanye’s new gospel album, comes halfway though its brief 28 minutes. “I thought the book of Job was a job.” It’s classic Ye—self-deprecating, stupid-corny (in a fun way), and a little sad. It’s honest about the cause of his recent hard times: himself. Five years ago he was claiming celebrities are the new slaves. I think processing that in good faith made us all a little stupider. His candor now is refreshing.
Days of Beer and Daisies (Meltzer Remembers Nick Tosches)
Richard Meltzer’s comrade-in-words (and bars) Nick Tosches died last Sunday. What follows is a chapter from Meltzer’s novel, The Night (Alone), which is, per the author, “a spot-on take on my life with Nick in New York (1970-75).” Meltzer told your editor he tried to “‘fictionalize’ it as much as possible, so the Allman Brothers are called ‘British band Grudge.’” And he went on: “You could also throw in that Nick was THE ONLY BROTHER (AND TRUEST COLLEAGUE) I’VE EVER HAD.”
Several Levels At High Decibels (Joni Mitchell sings “Coyote”)
“What do you think?” says Joni, an hour and a half into Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. “I think you gotta come on the stage right now,” says Bob, sexy and imposing. “OK, I’m coming.”
Big Thief: Not Another Brooklyn Band
Big Thief is an alt-folk band from Brooklyn, but their spirit isn’t tied to that place. Usually, “Brooklyn band,” scares me off.
Fires in the Night (A Sequence from “Candy Mountain”)
Robert Frank’s magnificent picture of kids with sparklers on the beach reminded your editor of night scenes near the end of Candy Mountain–the 1987 road movie directed by Frank along with Rudy Wurlitzer. (Forgive the German subtitles!) Click “Read more” to see a bigger screen. [P.S. THE EMBED HAS BEEN IFFY – IF THE MOVIE STARTS AT THE BEGINNING, CLICK ON AROUND 1:22.50 TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE NIGHT.] B.D.
Armacord (From Nabokov’s “Speak Memory”)
Vladimir Nabokov—another exile on Main Street like Robert Frank—left us with visions of childhood worthy of Frank’s. Here’s the final passages from the last great pages of Speak Memory where Nabokov—speaking directly to his wife Vera—evokes their son’s European childhood under “the shadow of fool-made history…”
A World Without Borders
I just wanna feel myself, you want me to kill myself