Why We Can’t Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the mid-1980s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” was required reading in a required Rhetoric course for first year University students in Winnipeg. An excellent choice: in the letter the “how” of King’s appeal cannot be separated from the “what” — it is a raw, elegant, and forceful demand for the listener not just to take action but to join King and his allies in their particular fight for freedom.

King situates the letter at the centre of his book. The first third of the book lays out the social context that eventually imprisoned King and inspired his letter. The final third points a way forward to freedom in America — here it is striking to note how vigorously King argues on behalf of collective labour.

In the main, King writes to set down his side of the story in this particular civil rights conflict, not just for posterity but to persuade the moderates urging caution and arguing against his radicalism. In his efforts to persuade, King does not often name his moderate opponents — a charitable move that leaves the door open for conversion, but which also slackens the force of the narrative.

It would be a mistake for the reader to expect the entire book to speak as powerfully as the letter does. King’s choices are pragmatic, even virtuous, standing as an example to emulate. King’s letter demands response; King’s book requires consideration.

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Whither “Transgressive Art”?

In the summer of '90 I took a third-year Uni course in 20th Century Canadian Literature. Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers was required reading.

Suitable for framing — or wrapping fish.

Let’s see: misogyny, pedophilia, perpetual gas-lighting among the protagonists (to say nothing of the author’s stance toward the reader). And “cultural appropriation” is almost too gentle a term for what that novel does with Mohawk Catholic Saint and icon Catherine Tekakwitha. Other trigger warnings apply, but you get the idea. If there is a university on the continent which has this book on a current undergraduate syllabus, I will eat Werner Herzog’s other shoe.

As for the work itself my appetite for this sort of thing is not much whetter than it is for Herzog’s shoe. But I’ve some appreciation for the attitude that insists on granting the permission to transgress. Over at Paul’s place we mutually puzzled over Kurt Vonnegut’s willing forgiveness of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, a transgressive writer who never troubled himself to apologize or in any way atone for his earlier enthusiastic embrace of Nazism. My suspicion was that Céline’s transgressive art was atonement enough for the likes of Vonnegut, who viewed human willingness to wage war as the greater transgression by far. For Vonnegut, Ginsberg, Bukowski, Reed and many other “fans” of Céline it was Céline’s eagerness to speak the unspeakable that recommended him. Céline’s transgressiveness serves, in this view, to highlight human frailty — even human preciousness.

I will grudgingly sign on with that POV, though I’ll also be grateful to never read Céline — or Beautiful Losers — ever again.

But it is worth noting, yet again, that transgression sure ain’t what it used to be. Cohen’s novel remains, for the moment, in print. But it goes without saying that no prestige press would touch its like today. Currently Bruce Wagner — a midlist author from my generation whose subtle compassion for his grotesquely flawed characters and their entwined fates has earned him a secure readership — has had his most recent novel dropped for containing a protagonist who refers to herself as “fat,” even aspirationally so. (cf., Air Mail; interview.)

I closed my John Wayne/Gina Carano post with, “This doesn’t feel necessary.” I could append that to this, but instead will direct you to Laura Kipnis’ Transgression: An Elegy — a long-read I cannot recommend too highly. Her capacity for indulging the transgressive work of others is much greater than mine, and her meditation on what has changed, and why, makes for truly excellent reading.

Oh, and also this: transgression, for kids, is catnip. They're drawn to it — always have been, always will be. Here in Canada there aren’t many places for college kids to indulge in Spring Breakers levels of bacchanalia, but Whistler, British Columbia certainly qualifies (NSFW, possibly) — so much so that even Americans come up en masse to get their Break on. And I am struck by an observation made by a Canadian in Whistler’s service industry — “I very much doubt this bunch voted for Hillary.”

Who knows but that a future “Céline” does not currently reside within “this bunch”?

What accounts for the change? The “fitness” edition.

“Fitness” is a relative term. My physical condition could certainly be better — my doctor would like me to lose about 30 lbs, so I’ve agreed not to consult her again until absolutely necessary. And to be fair, my physical condition could also be a whole lot worse.

My COVID exercise routine has been a tad more disciplined than it was prior to lockdown, particularly in the winter months. I have a resistance trainer clamped to the bicycle, and I do not at all mind heading into the basement, donning the shorts and cleats, then opening the window and pedaling myself into a dripping sweat.

"Pedal into the light!"

The ritual of it actually reminds me of my hockey playing days, which I miss terribly. The play, the change-room bonhomie — all a receding memory. But again — to be fair — I do not miss the back pain, which after a Sunday night game was extending further and further into the week. My stationary bicycle may be a lonlier variant, but I still get the workout, a bit of aerobic catharsis, and the coveted endorphin rush.

I also try to adhere to a resistance routine — bodyweight and light free-weights. But my motivation for this workout is somewhere well below zero.

This is a change I never expected. From 16 years old until some point in my early 40s working out with weights was an actual passion. I loved it. The 90s introduced the “Split routine” — I could work out with weights every day of the week (except for the mandatory recovery day, boo!). Aerobic exercise was the motivational challenge back then. Bike to work, walk to the grocer’s. That was about it.

For all this, I was never a particularly “strong” or muscular guy. I had tone, but couldn’t bulk up to save my life. Not that I didn’t try. I had my creatine and powdered protein phase. And at 38 I adhered to a draconian regimen that finally nudged me into the 200lb Bench Press Club.

At that point I realized there was nowhere to go but down. In subsequent years I swapped around various push-pull routines and kept at it. But the days of the One Rep Max were over. Eventually a couple of minor injuries brought another reality to bear — I was now required to apply awareness and care to these routines, lest a workout injury sideline me permanently.

Pedaling is still a relatively carefree pleasure. Headphones permit me to listen to music as loud as I like. And I try to nudge my aging bod through a limited push-pull session at least once a week. But finding motivation for the latter is the real workout.

Retreating from the sands of Iwo Jima

I’ve been thinking about John Wayne, lately. Or thinking about how my thinking about John Wayne has shifted over the years.

Had you asked me, when I was 18 years old, what I thought of the man I’d likely have said, “He’s a joke,” or if I was feeling ornery, “A sick joke.”

That was 1983, and I was watching Ronald Reagan play nuclear brinksmanship with the U.S.S.R. The POTUS was CLEARLY doing a bad impression of the late actor, and the people who’d voted him in were licking it up with a spoon. I was still a kid. It didn’t seem right. I wanted a more reasonable world than the one I was just developing a picture of. This was politics as B-grade cinema. Wayne was emblematic of the problem — hence, I felt hostility to the man himself.

As I and the world survived a few years longer I read several short accounts of the man, written by people whose politics were fairly similar to my own — Roger Ebert and Joan Didion. I expected a savaging. I read two singular accounts of two very smart and erudite individuals who’d been thoroughly charmed by The Duke.

Reading Ebert and Didion I had to conclude that had I been present at the same table there was a real possibility I too might have swooned. More, it was impressed upon me that this was a possibility not to be ruthlessly quashed, even with people whose politics I considered abhorrent — it’s not like Ebert and Didion left the table having changed their minds about Vietnam.

Ebert and Didion’s affection for the man nudged me toward a more generous stance. Wayne’s work was worthy of consideration and even respect, as was the man himself. Be critical, but take care with it. There may be an element of humanity in all this that catches you by surprise.

John Wayne would not do well in the current environment. Hell, he didn’t do well in his own environment. His convictions re: Vietnam and “Women’s Lib” were wildly out-of-step with the broader culture even in an era as saturated in pitiless violence and reflexive misogyny as 1970s America. But his movies got made, and even lefties could admit to the emotional sway in a send-off flick like The Shootist.

*****

John Wayne’s grandson, Brendan Wayne, works on The Mandalorian. To nearly all intents and purposes he IS the Mandalorian. He has a lovely story about a moment when Billy Dee Williams, curiously enough, channeled the Duke and got the boy moving the way he was meant to.

I haven’t seen so much as a Mandalorian GIF (true say). But everything I’ve read about the show indicates it’s right in my wheelhouse. From '77 to the present I’ve maintained the most compelling elements in the SWU are, in descending order:

1. The cynical pirate and his trusty, hairy mate
2. The bounty hunters
3. The Empire
4. The Rebels
5. The Jedi
6. The Ewoks

It very much sounds like Jon Favreau and company came to a similar conclusion and got the mix right.

It also sounds like Gina Carano was a significant element in this mix.

To be clear, Gina Carano is no John Wayne.

Though I've no doubt she'd be every bit as fetching in this outfit.

For all his political grandstanding and incorrect opinion-spouting, at the end of the day Wayne made it clear he was finally an actor, and if you needed an actor, of all people, to reassure you of your own political convictions you were that much the lesser for it.

Carano on the other hand is a fighter first, and an actor ... well, being an actor is somewhat further down her list of priorities. Indications point to her spoiling for a fight with the Mouse. And the Mouse don’t fight — the Mouse makes situations disappear.

So Carano has had a short and limited role in a show I will never see. And still I’m sad. It sounded like a good role with real potential. The only thing I’ve seen her act in is Haywire, and I thought she was terrific. It sounds like she was terrific in this. From here on out her projects are likely to be on the same level as the Baldwin Brothers. I think we’ve all lost something here. And it doesn’t feel necessary.

What accounts for the change? Late mid-life torpor? COVID? Or...? The music edition

I had a two-hour round-trip car ride yesterday. Normally I would commit that time to a podcast or two. But I am currently mulling over a particular problem — additional mental churn seemed likely to distract, confuse, or worse. Instead I switched to music, set the Infernal Device to “Random Play” and put the car in gear.

Fifteen-thousand, one-hundred tracks — give or take one or two-dozen that are chapters from unfinished audio books. Apple’s randomizer can be a bit lazy — it settled on two tracks from Quincy Jones’ Big Band Bossa Nova in fairly short order. Still, I was mildly impressed with the variety on offer, even if I do say so myself. It wasn’t all just my Grade 9 soundtrack, not by a long shot.

And there is need for culling. I am not adding tracks as vigorously as I used to, but I am still exploring new music. And the Infernal Device is dangerously close to full. Surely not all 15,000 tracks need to be so readily accessible?

It’s not an easy call, however. When Matthew Ryan came up I initially thought, “My Matthew Ryan phase has come and gone.” That rasp — just how much can such a limited vehicle communicate?

Quite a bit, it turns out. By song’s end Ryan’s place in the Device’s Pantheon was solidly re-secured.

“Everything Is Awesome,” on the other hand...

Another matter was troubling me — I was listening critically. This song has potential, that one “remains  interesting,” the next is catchy enough to stick around. My 56th spin around Ol’ Sol’ is nearly complete. Was any other listening mode still available? Do I still have the inner sensitivity to respond viscerally to a song? Or am I over-saturated into a state of indifference, like an ancient Roman Senator? Can anything reach across this intellectual-emotional distance?

“Well I never will forget that floating bridge...”

Suddenly the volume was up, and I was trying to ape Gregg Allman’s tenor — an impossibility, as even baritone is too difficult a stretch for these basso cords of mine. I didn’t wake up with the awareness that I needed Allman yesterday — but need him I did.

The song probably won’t hit you the way it does me. But that’s the beauty of being human — we have these distinctives, and it’s more than a little cool to keep exploring them to see what still hits the sweet-spot.

Live performance, with band:

Songs For The Apocalypse: Jason Bieler and the Baron Von Bielski Orchestra

New (to me) Music I'm Digging: JASON BIELER, formerly of Saigon Kick (also new to me).

Heard about it via: Devin Townsend's Twitter-feed — Townsend plays guitar on the first single, “Bring Out Your Dead.”

Genre: Prog Metal, albeit unlike anything I've heard in the category.

Sounds Like: Toto and Tool dropped into a Yahtzee cup with Dylan, then shaken and cast onstage.

“But will I like it?”: You just might! Here is Bieler's link to streaming platforms. “Bring Out Your Dead” (track 3) and “Beyond Hope” (track 9) should help you with your cardio intervals, while “Very Fine People” (track 14) is weirdly, deeply moving. If you enjoy those three tracks you too will have no difficulty digging the entire album.

Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years by Michael Posner

Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years by Michael Posner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Let the man watching me know, that this is not entirely devoid of the con.” — Leonard Cohen, Ladies & Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen

“Leonard was probably the most seductive man I’ve ever met. Seductive not just to women but to men.” — Aviva Layton

Leonard Cohen’s legacy seems perched at an unusually perilous moment.

When he was alive he traded in adeptly crafted confessions that withheld just enough blood-and-guts messiness to cast doubt on the veracity of their integral claims. He posed as a holy man while pointing directly to the sheer lunacy of any such posture. Leonard Cohen’s public image was, indeed, “not entirely devoid of the con.” But the beauty of the con lies in the willingness of the mark to invest confidence in a patent scam.

Thus far the biographies written about Leonard Cohen have partaken of the con and, paradoxically, sludged the legacy. When in his more frayed states, Cohen would mutter darkly about being an ape amongst apes, but this is rarely an acknowledged reality for most biographers (anywhere). The demand for narrative structure compels the biographer to surrender to The Great Man Of History template.

But Cohen was indeed an ape amongst apes — the beauty of Michael Posner’s “oral biography” lies in its chorus of voices from the tribal collectives Cohen moved through. The reader gets a sense not just of the man but of the enormous haptic feedback chamber he steeped in, as he graduated from Old Montreal, to Jewish summer camps in the Laurentians, to the university poetry scene, to the unfettered bacchanalia on Hydra Island, backstage and on the road.

Accounts are, as Posner immediately points out, often not just contradictory but also maddening. The generosity embedded in Posner’s scrupulous method is his faith in a reader’s ability and willingness to apply their own intelligence and skepticism to what is on offer — to read between the lines and flesh-in some of the spaces with reasonably informed conjecture.

Just one example (which reviewers are getting stuck on): debate over who introduced Marianne Ihlen’s then-adolescent son, Axel, to LSD — was it Cohen? Ihlen and Cohen together? Axel’s father alone? Did this happen on Hydra, or in Mexico? The matter occupies less than two pages in a book that reaches nearly 500, and the only element anyone can agree on is the trauma this inflicted on an already traumatized kid. This of course does nothing to determine who did what to whom, and where. But a page-and-a-half can say volumes about the group mentality on Hydra — where particular attitudes, explorations and behaviours were expected and encouraged.

In this scene Cohen sold himself, most persuasively, as a troubador who’d graduated to social and spiritual expectations that were revolutionary — expectations that, via Media’s Massage, were on the verge of penetrating and saturating the collective consciousness in the suburbs of the West.

All in all, this makes for a truly unique approach to Leonard Cohen. I eagerly await the next two volumes.

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Mennonite mischief, of the on-line variety

"Brace yourself..."

Over behind the blue-and-white velvet rope I posted this picture of the late Christopher Plummer, with the following text:

An interesting, if seldom discussed bigraphical footnote: after divorcing Patricia Lewis in '67 Plummer was having some difficulty with whipsawing emotions. At the time he was doing a number of plays at Stratford, ON, and took up with one of the local Mennonite communities. For a brief summer ('68) he actually considered converting. He was discouraged by an elder, however, who informed him he would from here on out be referred to as “Kristoff-fa-Pluma-Moos.” They parted ways shortly thereafter.

A loose translation of the Plautdietsch employed here would be “Kristoff-likes-Plum-Soup.” My apologies, dear reader, if you’ve just sprayed your morning coffee.

This painstakingly staged bit of punnery is of a piece with the sort of wordplay our tribe engages in, in our better moments. It’s not to everyone’s taste, of course, and some friends asked for further details of this supposedly historical moment. I finally issued a disclaimer that at no point in his life was this most highly esteemed of thespians ever in danger of being called “Kristoff-fa-Pluma-Moos.”

At this, a friend regaled me of a similar misunderstanding he’d experienced: 

“A few years ago some loose bar room talk about the lack of distinctive dress for contemporary Mennonite men resulted in the verbal hallucination of the Mennonite kilt, spelled quilt [sic]. Some days later, someone, and I've never confirmed who (wasn't me), posted a draft Wikipedia article on Mennonite men's quilts, complete with a picture and a description featuring dried pieces of sausage stitched into the garment. A chuckle or two and the draft page was taken down. Months later the page reappeared with reverential seriousness about a forgotten element of Mennonite history.”

Another friend posted visual evidence of the on-line mishap. The first Google page for “quilte Mennonite men’s wear” turns up one Pin and nothing else. I could search further, but what would be the point? For my own archives, then — and your edification! — here are the screensaves of the original (fake) Wiki.

The concert meme

Darko once wondered if I wouldn’t indulge him a list like this. I can’t recall how or why I fended off his advances on this matter, but I know I resisted. Oh well, better late than never — 

First concert — I was born into the Mennonite Church. I imagine I was present for at least three Christmas concerts before I performed in my first. But the first concert I bought tickets for with my own money was a Christian band from Kelowna called Quickflight, in the fall of '80. It was a crazy good show, actually — very of-the-moment New Wave. Gary Numan was clearly an influence, as was DEVO and Rick Ocasek. It can’t have been an expensive show to put on, but they found ways to juice up the drama with back-lighting and judicious use of the fogger. Just before the concert ended, one of the singers took the mic, paused, then sighed deeply and said, “You know we’re Christian, right?” Audience cheers. “Well, I’m not really sure what I could possibly add to that.” Two more songs and done. For the next five or six years I went to every Christian rock show that came to town. Nobody touched Quickflight. Fun fact: Quickflight founder Ric deGroot (who I suspect offered the reluctant “testimony”) later joined Strange Advance.

Last concert — Los Lobos at Koerner Hall, February 22, 2020. Cesar Rosas was MIA, and another band member was in questionable condition. But boy howdy, drummer Enrique “Bugs” González hit the kit like he couldn’t believe he was getting paid for it. By evening’s end the band brought the house down. My wife and I still talk about it.

Worst concert — a difficult category to pin down. I’ve seen performers show up in a bad mood and leave in the same condition or worse; performers and audiences misunderstand each other; performers fight a losing battle with gremlins, etc . . . and most of these shows still rate as something I’m glad I attended. I’ve only left one concert early, though, and that was Steven Wilson at Toronto Opera House, November 26, 2018. No fault of Wilson and Co. — it was I who had arrived in a bad mood, and left in worse.

Loudest concert — no idea. When ear-plugs became easily obtainable in the early 90s I used them without exception, later switching up to these fine and affordable sonic filters. I’ll go with Meshuggah, though, just to reinforce their rep.

Seen the most — David Lindley, with or without El Rayo-Ex. Through the mid-80s into the 90s Lindley enjoyed playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival and could even be financially enticed to mid-winter concerts in the drafty Playhouse Theatre.

Most surprising — my first John Prine concert.

Best concert — again, how am I supposed to call this one? But I am most grateful I caught Steely Dan in '14, particularly since Walter died a mere three years later.

Next concert — I still wonder if I mightn’t enjoy the Festival International du Blues de Tremblant. Or Rammstein.

Wish I coulda seen — Devin Townsend, in his perpetual state of “Honesty Tourette’s Syndrome,” admitted in a recentish interview that over the years backing tracks and click-tracks had reduced his show to “pantomime . . . a karaoke version of what [I was] doing.” The post-Empath concerts were going to be different, and the second leg of the journey would include Strapping Young Lad material and other early stuff, all live, with improvisations from a rotating cast that included band members from Haken, who were warming up the show for him. Basically he out-and-out acknowledged every single misgiving I felt after the very first DTP concert I attended. There was no earthly way I could make it to the February 27 show, and honestly the concert setlist isn’t quite what I envisioned it might be, so I have no regrets — except that everything shut down two weeks later. And now here we are.

Patiently waiting.

Once Removed, by Andrew Unger

Once Removed by Andrew Unger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Andrew Unger’s Once Removed is concerned with the eager accommodation our tribe makes for “progress” and “modernization” — a tricky balancing act for us all, to be sure. 

Unger’s young characters brew beer in the garage, put on rock shows in the housebarn, cover themselves with tattoos of Anabaptist martyrs, even earn graduate degrees in post-modern feminism — activities that would have earned immediate excommunication from our forebears. Yet Timothy Heppner and his millennial coterie are ill-at-ease about a history being physically swept away before their very eyes.

Once Removed unfurls and explores an expanse of prairie surrealism unique to Unger. Buildings and people disappear, seemingly overnight. When a mysterious influencer wants to strike fear in the heart of an erstwhile historian, they leave hardened loaves of bread on the front stoop — and it works!

If the satire spectrum runs from merciless laceration (Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain) to humorous-if-discomfiting massage (Stephen Leacock, Mark Twain) Unger tilts toward the latter. He makes sure his characters all receive a good ribbing, and no-one moreso than the hapless narrator. But there is also a maternal care at work — the story finally takes place in environs where an ominous future can be withheld by slow and careful negotiation. Once Removed reads a bit like early Douglas Coupland (a good thing, IMO) if DC had had a passing familiarity with Plautdietsch and an abiding affection for the films of Guy Maddin and MB Duggan.

SLKlassen, our resident Drunken Mennonite, suggests Once Removed may likely have been as gifted a book among the Mennonite set as the recently re-released Mennonite Hymnal. Could be, could be . . . but Unger’s book is the one most likely to get passed around and talked about. And sure, there’s a fair bit of “inside baseball” being played, but anyone with a passing interest in our not-so-humble tribe will find a great deal to enjoy in this novel. Highly recommended.

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