“In Chill’s limited experience with the music industry, she’d learned that being heavily armed and highly insane were more common than she’d ever realized.” – OF Cieri, ‘BACKMASK’
The New York Knickerbockers are blessed in the light of Heaven. The New York Knickerbockers are the team of destiny. The New Yorker Knickerbockers are on an all-time heater, the greatest playoff win streak ever interrupted only by an agent of Satan temporarily infiltrating Madison Square Garden. Hey, even Jesus had to face temptation in the desert. Even Jesus had to falsely accused, whipped, and hung on the cross. Jalen Brunson is on his way to Knicks immortality, Karl-Anthony Towns has completely redeemed his career, Mikal Bridges finally looks like the shooting guard the Knicks thought they were trading for, Josh Hart is like if Taj Gibson was a guard, and OG Anunoby looks like a role player version of Kawhi Leonard. The bench mob of hometown hero Jose Alvarado, Deuce McBride, Mitch Robinson, Landry Shamet, and Jordan Clarkson has been awesome. Even Jeremy Sochan got some key minutes in Game Four, fulfilling a Shipwrecked Sailor Blog prediction (I of course made it while he was still on the Spurs but whatever). This has been a wildly competitive series, despite the 3-1 lead. Honestly, it could be 4-0 Knicks rn, or 2-2, or 3-1 Spurs. That’s how close these games have been. But the Knicks are anointed.
Hey, Lazy & Entitled news: we got a new podcast—just Brendan and me talking about practice like Allen Iverson. Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud. We also got a reading coming up! This should be a fun one, with Chicago luminaries Sara Matson, Bridget Gordon, and Julián Martinez reading. I’ll read a few poems to open the night, and Brendan will provide some music. Rivers & Roads’ espresso bar will be available—try the vanilla beet latte and tip yr baristas, homies. See you Wednesday.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
A book that fits into “the theme of this year is supposed to be music,” even if punk rock doesn’t make an appearance. A book with two main characters named “Hush” and “Chill,” which is endlessly funny. A book that makes you have to remember a time before Black Sabbath and conspiracy theories about Satanic messages in music, a book that asks you to forget about hair metal and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s just because it takes place in the 1960s. A little background on MKULTRA would be instructive, if you want, but isn’t necessary. This book is of the 1960s without being an insufferably Boomer book about the 1960s. It’s very cool and fun. I’m talking, of course, about BACKMASK by O.F. Cieri.
BACKMASK by O.F. Cieri: cool, unself-consciously pulpy, and set in 1960s Greenwich Village. This is not necessarily Bob Dylan’s Greenwich, though. A lot of music history, it seems, hasn’t happened quite yet. Greenwich is neighborhood of immigrants and homosexuals, and our main character, Valerie Chill, is latter. She works as an office manager1for Hush Productions, a small-time record label run by Nicholas Hush, a man who might have future-seeing abilities. At the very least, the book opens with him having a vision of a pop music taking a demonic turn. He’s not exactly setting out to invent black metal here, frankly, it sounds like he’s trying to invent The Cure (not a bad thing, but I’ve never been scared of The Cure). The vision comes to Hush in a dream. Then Chill, two occult researchers named Richard and Sophia, and a Masonic FBI Agent set about making Hush’s vision a reality. They conscript a surf-pop group from Long Island and a first-wave ska group, change their names and sounds, and make a couple records.
It’s art in the 60s, so the CIA gets involved. More than following the bands’ journey, we see Hush and Chill fall victim to MKULTRA after voluntarily signing up for LSD trials. Chill abandons the drug after a bad trip, but Hush sinks deeper into paranoia. It’s heavily implied that he is dosed without his knowledge or consent on more occasions than just his trials. Richard and Sophia’s weirdo spiritual organization gets weirder, and everything spirals out of control. Luckily, Valerie and Sophia get to have some fun together along the way. If you’re looking for a very cool ride through the 60s New York (no LA in this novel), acid, and what it might have been like to hang out with Phil Spector? Check out this novel.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Look, it’s not very Pride Month, but I’m on a Black Sabbath kick. BACKMASK opens with a music producer’s quest to find a poppy sound of evil, and—well.
- This week in ICE: Prisoners At Private ICE Jail In New Jersey Collectively Refuse Conditions Of Death by Sohini Desai in Defector, The Delaney Hall Strike Is Exposing a Massive Thirteenth Amendment Crisis by Madiba K. Dennie in Balls and Strikes, How 5 Broadview Protesters Are Picking Up The Pieces After Traumatizing Legal Battle by Madison Savedra, Read The Full Transcripts From The Controversial ‘Broadview 6’ Grand Jury Proceedings by Kelly Bauer and Madison Savedra in Block Club, Immigrant Committee Approves Resolution Demanding Protections For DACA Recipients by Aydali Campa and Illinois Immigrant Advocates Call for ‘No ICE in the Cup’ by Tara Mobasher in Borderless, 25 Babies and Toddlers Are in ICE Custody on an Average Day by Anna Flagg, Shannon Heffernan, Kay Guerrero, and Jacob Soboroff in The Marshall Project
- This belongs in the “This week in ICE” section but I want to highlight this pull quote from Security Theater Looks The Same Every Time by Sara Borus in Defector: “I have never seen a community like the one that existed at the Columbia encampment, nor have I seen New York as united in hope as during this Knicks run. Then the barricades go up, the streets are shut down, and what’s left is a police force in spaces where that community was being built. Trump and the horde of billionaires and White House officials who accompanied him are not scared of Knicks fans as much as they’re scared of people coalescing in joy that they cannot wield in service of their own strength.“
- A Legacy of Class: The Parallel Worlds of Literary and Genre Magazine Publishing by Jennifer Pullen in Lit Mag News
- “Autogas Ferryman” by Champ Wongsatayanont by Nightmare
- “My addiction to Death’s attention” and “Grief showed up at my house one day with a bouquet of white carnations” by Niesha Okere in hex
- Great obit of the late great Stacey King from Kelly Dwyer. Stacey was the color commentator for the local broadcasts of Bulls games, and his enthusiasm for the game was a delight. You’re likely to read a bunch of stuff gushing about what a great announcer Stacey was. Maybe say a few slogans—”gimme the hot sauce, Kyle Korver” or “that’s-a spicy-a meat-a ball, Marco Bellinelli” or “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DRAGIC.” Kelly’s column is great because he remembers the ups and downs of Stacey’s actual playing career.
What’re you still doing here? Hey, listen. I am not sorry for what I’m about to do to your emotions. Music, as BACKMASK shows us, is often about emotional manipulation. Basically everything from this album is emotional manipulation.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Uh, don’t put up with your boss pulling a gun on you. You don’t need Phil Spector in your life. Also, if your boss says he wants to change your company into an entity that summons demons—well, it’s your choice if you want to stay at work.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
- the term they used back then was “secretary,” but as is made abundantly clear in the book, Valerie does a lot more than answer phones and keep books. ↩︎