Friday Links: May Day Edition

“Once, you told me / you’re governed by the moon—“ – Belle Ling, “THIS YEAR THE SKY”

Happy May Day! I hope you’re participating in some action today. There’s a rally in Rogers Park that I’m planning on being at if I’m not sick. As I’m writing this Thursday, I’m on Day Two of an illness that’s kept my kid out of school and me lounging around and worthless. Then again, our worth is not determined by how much we work. Even the “lowest” or “least” amongst us has intrinsic worth and value. The bosses never remember that, which is why we strike, which is why we take care of each other, which is why organize.

Oh and hey, the podcast about labor and creativity had an episode come out the day before May Day. This week’s Lazy & Entitled Podcast doesn’t feature much labor discussion, but we do have another edition of “guess the writer by their jobs” and a reading from Studs Terkel. Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

Two books that come directly from Bob reading poems on The Line Break. Hey, speaking of, we have a new episode this week, talking to Mckendy Fils-Aimé (Apple | Spotify | SoundCloud). It’s a fun episode! Pick up Mckendy’s book when it comes out. These two books? That I read this week? Great stuff. Both deeply rooted in places far from where I live and experiences wildly different from my own. Both displaying a command of the art form that is absolutely aspirational. I’m talking, of course, about Nebulous Vertigo by Belle Ling and […] by Fady Joudah.

Nebulous Vertigo by Belle Ling: the world of this book is a place I want to spend a lot of time in. It’s imaginative and a touch ethereal, but still firmly rooted in the world. These poems remind me a touch of Wallace Stevens, though I probably haven’t read enough Wallace Stevens to honestly make that comparison. This is an inventive book, a book that reminds me of what really creative writing looks like. The words splay across the page, the lines break at surprising time, there is constant music. There’s also a lot I don’t get simply by virtue of not being able to read Chinese characters, but it’s a welcome feeling of unfamiliarity. I’m ready to go on whatever journey Belle Ling wants to take me on, you know?

[…] by Fady Joudah: there’s that old bit, usually gets attributed to David Foster Wallace, about two fish swimming. An older fish swims by, says “hey fellas, how’s the water?” and then swims off. One of the fish looks to the other and says “what the hell is water.” The water, for these poems by a Palestinian-American poet, is having your people be subjected to unending existential threats—including bombing campaigns, deliberate efforts to starve people, and wishy-washy politicians and media who “gotta hear both sides” about genocide. These poems, though, are not all blood and trauma. These are poems. Real life is lived in these poems, real pain is felt, and those who survive keep on doing, y’know, the things that living entails. The end of the world is never quite as final as it feels in the moment. How do you persist? Well, Fady—or Dr. Joudah, I should say—has written six collections of poetry while also practicing internal medicine and raising a family in Texas. A person does not emerge unscathed from having such a target on their back, though, and the way that pain emerges in these poems is only shocking if you’ve lived in the relative comfort of never being at risk for being bombed. This collection is incredibly moving while also being really, really good poetry.

LINKS!

Something to listen to while you browse? Seems appropriate to listen to FUPU on May Day. Yeah, it’s age-restricted on this site. It seems like every video of them is. Is it the fuck word? Or is it YouTube suppressing a Marxist band composed entirely of Black women?

• This week in ICE: Ruling On Whether To Appoint Special Prosecutor To Probe ICE Abuses Expected In May by Molly DeVore, Hearing Features ‘Horrifying’ Video, Testimony Documenting Operation Midway Blitz by Madison Savedra, White House Encouraged Agents To Act Recklessly During Operation Midway Blitz, State Panel Finds
  by Francia Garcia Hernandez, and Feds Dropping Conspiracy Charges Against 4 Broadview Protesters, Attorneys Say by Madison Savedra and Colin Boyle in Block Club, How Casa Cafe Became the Defiant Heart of Chicago’s South Side DIY by Amaris Edwards in South Side Weekly, ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good in Minneapolis Gets Cushy New Job by Malcolm Ferguson and Kids Forced to Appear Alone in Court as Trump Ramps Up Deportations by Edith Olmsted in The New Republic, More than 70 Minnesota children detained in Operation Metro Surge, data show by Becky Z. Dernbach in Sahan Journal
• Really enjoyed this translation of a report of Victor Wembanyama’s time in a Shaolin monastery, via Reddit. Strip away the externalities and get in touch with yourself and your environment, my dudes.
• Not sure if “the death of Spotify” is as imminent as some say. I’m not one to pay attention to industry trends. I like Apple Music, but wish it paid artists more. If Spotify were to keel over and die tomorrow, though, that would be an absolute net positive for everybody (except Bill Simmons, so…net positive for everybody). Here’s The Death Of Spotify by Joel Gouveia in The Artist Economy
• Last weekend was Independent Bookstore Day, which means I hope you’ve been reading this week. Here’s Radical Booksellers Do More Than Just Retail by J. Patrick Patterson in In These Times
• Someone broke into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with a gun. Here’s Everyone Survives White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner by Albert Burneko in Defector. A pull quote, because Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “No one was shot and killed at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night at Washington, D.C.’s Hilton Hotel. President Donald Trump—who is presently waging an illegal war of aggression against the nation of Iran and aiding and abetting a genocide in Palestine; who is responsible for the killing of at least 180 people in military strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world due to the targeted withdrawal of humanitarian aid; who is orchestrating a campaign of domestic terror and brutality against immigrant and minority communities in the U.S.; who is weaponizing the Justice Department against his personal enemies; who is running the most nakedly corrupt and lawless administration in U.S. history; who a few weeks ago threatened to jail a journalist who reported on the downing and rescue of an American pilot in Iran if they didn’t reveal their sources—was unharmed.“

What’re you still doing here? Here’s another May Day song. I heard this in high school and was like “damn corporations are fucked up” and then my adult life has proven they are more callous than I could have ever imagined.

If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Especially if you have one of those jobs where you can’t really afford to Wildcat Strike on a random Friday. None of my jobs were ever unionized. If you’re generating shareholder value today, I feel for you. I gotta be at work on Saturday.

Sorry you got an email,

Chris