Indeterminacy

The last few weeks I’ve been going to see some Clas­si­cal on Sun­day morn­ings. Sort of. The group who puts it on, Sun­day Chat­ter, fea­tures a poet, and at the start of the month, my boy J.W. Basillo fea­tured. And wouldn’t you know it: they’re doing a Steve Reich cel­e­bra­tion. I love Steve Reich; I’ve been jam­ming to “Proverb” and “Piano Phase” for years. “Marimba Phase” live was sick. So what an awe­some sur­prise last Sun­day to see a hand­ful of John Cage pieces in the mix. If you know any­thing about Cage, it’s prob­a­bly that he’s the lov­able ass­hole who gave us 4’33″. If you’re not famil­iar, the piece was first per­formed like this: pianist…

X-Men: The Anim… oh, nevermind

I’ve been indulging the hell out of my mostly-​​quiet inner 9-​​year-​​old with a 2-​​week marathon of that clas­sic 90s Sat­ur­day morn­ing toon. This is only sort of like my Star Trek: TNG Obses­sion of 2010; I watched TNG reli­giously, with my fam­ily, every Sat­ur­day night. For seven years. But X-​​Men was mine and mine alone.

They Told Us Their Names

Oh, Gen­e­sis. You’re kinda ridicu­lous, but so embed­ded in our cul­tural DNA, you make an odd, dis­turb­ing kind of sense. At least you did, until last Feb­ru­ary, when Daniel Quinn (white dude) made quick work of you, and last week­end, when Dan Long­boat (Mohawk) fin­ished the job.

Continua

I make it no secret that my book is pow­ered by con­tinua. Though as a pos­ses­sor of opin­ions, and a left-​​of-​​leftist when pol­i­tics come up, I’m invested in con­clu­sions – when I’m work­ing with process, I’m much more inter­ested in ques­tions. And con­tinua – gra­di­ents – turn ques­tions into lit­er­ary mechanics.

Cradle Will Capsize

Did you know “Rock-​​a-​​bye Baby” was a Native Amer­i­can song? Not only was the song poorly trans­lated, but lacks a few crit­i­cal details of the orig­i­nal, and all its atten­dant cul­tural sym­bol­ism. Damn it, Puri­tans. Again, with the bed of lies.

We Are Not Children

A lot of rad­i­cals talk about a deeper eye-​​opening than the stan­dard lib­eral affair. My whole life, I’ve been a dyed-​​in-​​the-​​wool left­ist. But, now, as this research takes me just past the sur­face, and into first-​​hand accounts of US gov­ern­men­tal bru­tal­ity, I… well, I don’t know what to do.

Stylized Speak

After three weeks of Bill Comp­ton stammer-​​blathering about lady­like pro­pri­ety, I’m some­how still inter­ested in styl­ized speech. Rather, how prob­lem­atic it is in the his­tory books. This isn’t exactly a com­plaint – more a lament. And one with­out a tidy answer.

Settling

Heavy read­ing lately is mak­ing me lose some of my taste for pon­tif­i­cat­ing. So today, I’m going to point at these two (pos­si­bly) unre­lated moments from late in Roots of Sur­vival. The first on Indi­ans and Chris­tian­ity, the lat­ter on time, two top­ics you know I’m kinda pas­sion­ate about.

The Purpose of Stories, 2

I’ve had an amal­gam of texts at a rolling boil in the back of my head lately. They all deal with a spe­cial cul­tural dis­tinc­tion between between Taker (colo­nial) and Leaver (indige­nous) cul­tures: the strange insis­tance on his­tory over stories.

The Search for Maugus

I grew up on Mau­gus Avenue. When peo­ple (from a few blocks, towns, or states over) vis­ited, they asked my par­ents the same ques­tion: “What’s a Mau­gus?” I’ve spent most of my life won­der­ing, “Who was Mau­gus?” The time’s almost here I get to start really tear­ing into that question.