Hello and welcome to this week’s Melendy Avenue Review! We have a pretty jam-packed issue this week. The first three-review issue in some time! I cover a book on antifascism, a popular scifi novel, and a beloved play. I also dabble my toes in the waters of discussing hip hop and have another spicy Birthday Lecture recording. Finally, some pictures I took around! I think this is a good one to share with friends, so please do so, and enjoy!
CONTENTS
VIDEO CONTENT
“The Long March Through the HR Department”
DISCOGRAPHIES
The Coup
REVIEWS
Hilary Moore and James Tracy, No Fascist USA!
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Salomé
James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes
LAGNIAPPE
The Observed Life, with Peter: Found on Walks
VIDEO CONTENT
I’m still putting up Birthday Lectures. This is my 2014 lecture, about the relationship between the law, social justice organizing, and institutional human resources procedures. Doesn’t exactly make it sound scintillating, but I was a bit worried it would come off as “SJW-bashing.” I think it’s critical without being overly harsh or conspiratorial. Enjoy!
DISCOGRAPHIES
The Coup! Is there still a moral panic going around about hip hop? There was when I was a kid, though everyone (especially everyone white) involved just called it “rap.”
I don’t remember The Coup from that period; I (like many white lefties, I’m guessing) first encountered them in 2011 or so. But they were around- their first album, Kill My Landlord, came out in 1993, with Genocide & Juice coming hot on its heels in 1994, well within rap-panic time. Had they gotten more attention at that time, one can only imagine the dimension that the nineties moral panic around rap might have taken on. Not because The Coup glamorized the “gangsta lifestyle” that people were up in arms (in a distinctly unhelpful way) about. Far from it! They abjured their fellow rappers for using the n-word, appeared to be pretty anti-weed from what I can tell, and in general wanted people to stay away from gang stuff. But Boots Riley, E-Roc, the late lamented Pam the Funkstress and the rest of the Coup were and are unapologetic communists. They call for revolution by any means necessary, for worker’s control of the means of production, for the end of policing and prisons, and show solidarity with communist and third world movements the world over. And they aren’t shy about it.
What’s more, they’re damned funky. My description may conjure up images of “backpack rap,” earnest, not notably funky music where the “conscious” themes tail sometimes wags the “enjoyable music” dog. This is not that. I’m not a music expert and even less a hip hop expert, but it seems to me that The Coup mastered and made their own the sounds of the time, from the West Coast g-funk vibes of their early records to the more club-ish (“house?” Is that the word I’m looking for?) and trap-inflected sounds of their most recent album, the soundtrack to Sorry To Bother You, a great movie the multi-talented Boots Riley wrote and directed. And always, there’s funk- funky bass, funky guitar, funky brass, funky samples. It’s damned hard to not tap your foot or dance while listening. One of their albums is called Party Music and while it’s a double entendre, you can, indeed, play it at a party.
Boots’s lyrics and delivery are top-notch, too. The lyrics are sly but not coy (a hard needle to thread, for many). The lessons they impart, about capitalism and communism, war and feminism, liberation more broadly, are clear and never didactic but at the same time never dumbed down- as a former teacher, I can tell you that’s not easy. Boots is a talented storyteller, on top of it all, especially in songs like “Me and Jesus the Pimp in the ‘79 Granada Last Night” and “Fat Cats, Bigga Fish,” weaving together tales of ghetto life with ribald wit and incisive social analysis. I can’t tell whether “flow” is good or bad unless it’s really bad but Boots’s and E-Roc’s seem pretty good to me. The Coup, in keeping with its ideology, is also a collective endeavor and has worked with people ranging from Dead Prez to Janelle Monae to Tom Morello.
Best and worst album? Hard to say. Maybe I shouldn’t have made best/worst part of my thing! None of the albums are bad. Maybe Party Music is the least good, because they seemed to have been trying some stuff out they only perfected later? Or the Sorry To Bother You soundtrack, because its short and hence has less fun? But both are also good and have some great songs. I’m gonna be annoying and say my favorite is Sorry To Bother You, not the soundtrack (it’s a little confusing), their 2012 album and the first one I heard. It includes “The Magic Clap,” “You Are Not A Riot,” and “Strange Arithmetic,” all “bangers” that will get anyone’s blood up, especially radicals, and of course it includes the anthemic “The Guillotine.” The only problem with that song is we haven’t actually got the guillotine, as the refrain says… yet.
Next up on discographies: a multifaceted band recommended me by brain people, art people, and people into both!
REVIEWS
Hilary Moore and James Tracy, “No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements” (2020) - A comrade recommended this book to me. I do love a good movement history, and this one is pretty good indeed. It details the doings of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, which fought the good fight against the resurgent KKK and other white supremacist groups in a period one could call “the long eighties” — formed in 1978, the JBAKC disbanded amicably in 1992.
I had vaguely heard of the group — had seen images of their broadsheet, “DEATH TO THE KLAN!” — but what I didn’t know is that it was mostly made up of SDS and often Weather Underground veterans. I kind of assumed that the ones who didn’t wind up in jail for robbing armored cars all married Jane Fonda and became Democrats, but that’s where assuming gets you. These movement vets looked for ways to get involved during the doldrums of the late seventies. You could say they turned the sort of desperation to prove themselves “good whites” to better use than ill-conceived armed robberies. Namely, when a few of them got a letter from a Black Panther incarcerated in an upstate New York prison that many of the guards and officials at the prison were Klansmen, they got together with other organizers to do something about it. Thus was the JBAKC born.
The Klan (both the actual Klan and Klan-as-metonym-for-open-violent-white-supremacist-organizing) grew considerably in the late seventies and early eighties, fueled by post-Vietnam angst and the general rightward drift that brought Ronald Reagan into office. They got involved in stuff as diverse as “patrolling” the US-Mexico border for migrants, intimidation campaigns aimed at refugee Vietnamese fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, attempting to pretty up their bullshit and go mainstream, etc. Many of them were emboldened by the Greensboro massacre in 1979, where a coalition of Klansmen and Neo-Nazis gunned down five communist organizers who had come out (mostly unarmed) to protest against them… and everyone involved walked free.
JBAKC was mostly a handful of aging radicals. What could they do against this? Well, they could do what radicals are supposed to do- they could organize. They linked up with other groups, often local PoC organizations and some national ones, like the Republic of New Afrika. The New Afrikans, in some respects, provided a conceptual bridge for the former Weather Underground people. New Afrikans, as black/“Third World people” (that’s a phrase you don’t hear nowadays) anti-imperialist organizers, could call upon those who held to the old WUO line (that the role of white radicals was to follow what third world radicals were up to) to follow their lead in fighting the Klan. Kind of weird the white radicals were that programmatic about things, but that’s still a thing you see today, sometimes. Either way, these radicals meant it. They had every opportunity to sell out and get into real estate or supplements or something and didn’t do it.
The coalitions JBAKC helped build did different things in different places. They outed Klansmen and other white supremacists, getting them fired from positions like the ones at the prison they were first warned about. They counter-demonstrated when the Klan or Nazis put on rallies, mostly sticking to signs and derisive chanting but unafraid to throw the occasional brick. They “no-platformed,” with the same unhelpful arguments on the left dogging their heels that we hear today, and Moore and Tracy argue reasonably persuasively that Nazi skinhead appearances on “Oprah” and “Geraldo” helped popularize Nazi skins (and marginalize anti-racist ones). They got involved with the punk scene and helped fend off Nazis there. They did what they could, where they could, and always linked up the struggles on the ground to broader struggles- anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and towards the end, fighting homophobia and AIDS stigma alongside ACT-UP.
The authors let the JBAKC organizers speak for themselves a lot, and it is stirring to hear the voice of experience, even (especially?) when they’re admitting to their faults. The writing in the book is pretty decent with some odd editing glitches (people, often referred to only by their first name, written about as though they’ve been introduced when they haven’t been- that recurs at least twice). More conclusions about what JBAKC accomplished, as opposed to their lessons — be humble, be persistent in the face of fascists, build coalitions, have strategy — for today’s organizers, valuable though the latter are, would have been cool.
JBAKC didn’t overthrow capitalism or even get Reagan out of office. The Klan and the various Nazi groups still, mostly, exist, joined by many others, now. For some (mostly armchair) leftists, that alone would discredit them. Moore and Tracy, who are organizers along with being historians, admit the group's faults: self-righteousness, occasional dips into a dogmatism that made them turn off potential allies. But to me, that’s more or less the point. Antifascists, then or now, aren’t superheroes. We’re regular people working together to do what we can against a pressing problem. We are part of broader movements for justice and, for most of us, against capitalism. Antifascism is a part of that movement. For all the antifa theatrics you can summon up, I understand what we do as maintenance work for the movement- protecting our organizing and that of organizers and people more generally from marginalized groups under threat. If we manage that, we’ve done something good for the movement. If we prefigure a better world where people protect each other- well, that’s good too. JBAKC did that, and we can all follow their example. ****’
Oscar Wilde, “Salomé” (1894) and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895) - Oscar Wilde! I’ve known about him forever but this is my first time reading him. I got a book of his plays at a used place when I was briefly dating a woman who liked his work. One of the Melendy Avenue Review Citizens (become a Citizen, come on, it’s cool) indicated he wanted me to read Wilde so I’d reveal details of said relationship. There’s not a lot to reveal. We had fun for about two months and then something stupid and shitty happened and we both said and did dumb shit and then it was over and we haven’t spoken for years. The end.
I’m not sure Wilde is really relevant there, except maybe in being a libertine, which I guess the lady in question also was, but not really more than most people our age. Being a libertine was riskier in Victorian days- Wilde went to jail for a couple of years for sodomy, which ruined his health and probably prematurely ended his life. He had fun encounters with censors, too, including having “Salomé” banned from the London stage because it depicted biblical characters. But he was a rich, educated, Anglo-Irish libertine, and you could say he got the last laugh as he’s still beloved to this day.
I get the idea people probably love the image of Wilde more than they do his actual written work, but the latter holds up ok too. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is an amusing farce wherein two cynical dudes get with two idealistic-but-wily ladies, both of whom really want to be with men named Ernest because of the romantical sound of the name? And so they need to both be Ernest and a little bit earnest, despite being cynical and owning each other all the time with witty ripostes and generally not taking things seriously, and despite neither having been bestowed with the handle in question. One of the characters also discovers his paternity! Normally, a cynic getting all misty-eyed about love and paternity after however long acting above it all makes me mad, but it’s hard to do with Wilde, I guess because of his writing chops and the fact it was all so long ago. I will say the tropes -- contrasts between London and country behavior, dronish young men, dreamy young women, battleaxe aunts, confusion and duplicity leading to love -- were done better by Wodehouse in my opinion, but would there be a Wodehouse without a Wilde? That’s for historians of British comedy to say, I guess.
After finishing “The Importance of Being Earnest” I gave “Salomé” a try as a dessert. It’s a one-act fever dream about Christianity and paganism in the key of Orientalism. I don’t mean this to make it “problematic” though I guess it is, if you care- I mean to indicate that it partakes of a tradition of immoralists like Wilde looking to a fabulous (in many senses of the word) East. Say what you want about Orientalism as a topos but it was meant to entertain, provide a sensuousness conspicuously lacking in the coal-damp European modernity that developed alongside it. Salomé is sex as a certain kind of Victorian understood it, in all of its naivete and knowingness. Chivalry destroys itself for her, venality in the form of her mother and step-father try to contain her whilst despoiling her, pedants ignore her to fight each other, above all the crude misogynist prophet John the Baptist, representative of what’s coming next (SOME motherfuckers are going to be vexed to nightmare by the rocking of a cradle, to quote the most abused poem in the English language, by Wilde’s fellow Anglo-Irish weirdo lit guy), defies her, spits on her, gets got by her (well, her slaves, but on her command), and ultimately has the last grim, tight-lipped non-laugh at her expense. It’s weird. Part of me wants to do a table read of it over Discord or something but, as they say, it is “problematic.” But short! DM me? ****
James Corey, “Leviathan Wakes” (2011) (narrated by Jefferson Mays) - I figured I’d give the Expanse series a try. People recommend the tv show to me but I wanted to try the books first, and I do make some cursory efforts to “keep up” with what’s big in scifi. At this rate it’ll be years before I get to the show, especially if my work tasks change again and I can’t do audiobooks, but we’ll see. I haven’t got much time for hour-long tv shows these days anyway.
In any event, this wasn’t great but it was good. It’s written by two dudes (“James Corey” is a “house name”), one of whom was George R.R. Martin’s personal assistant. It appears they learned much from Martin: short chapters alternating viewpoints (with the viewpoint character’s name right up top), idealists becoming more worldly and cynics learning to believe in something, blood splashed liberally around, detailed and interesting (if not mind-blowingly original) worldbuilding.
The two main characters are Miller, a world weary cop on a habitat in the Asteroid Belt, and Holden, an idealistic officer on a merchant spaceship (truth be told, the authors kind of slather the idealism on heavy towards the end to give their duller character a personal crisis). A cluster of murders, crises, and general fuckery set the Solar System on a collision course towards war, unearth ancient evils, and of course bring the two characters together to fix things.
The Expanse takes place a few centuries from now, when Mars, much of the Asteroid Belt, various moons are settled by people (but not terraformed). There’s no “faster than light” technology propelling us to the stars- everything takes place with the good ol’ solar system. It resembles, in many ways, the workaday space setting of the “Alien” movies: megacorporations, polyglot proletarian communities of spacers, confined utilitarian environments, etc. I like that sort of thing, though I do think the authors could have mixed it up a little more. Maybe it’s just the historian in me but I’m a little irked that they depict the community feeling of “Belters” (residents of Asteroid Belt stations) as basically the sort of nationalism we see on Earth, just cut and pasted onto outer space. Especially given the ways they distinguish Belters from “Inners” (people who live on the inner planets) — they’re physically different in some ways, speak their own patois, developed a culture around the harsh necessities of space habitation — you’d think there’d be a good opportunity to see how different ideas of community might develop…
This pattern repeats itself in a few places. There’s some (rather pro forma) invocation of the wonders of space travel, but this is no final frontier and there’s nothing really that imaginative, in either the world or the plot. The closest is an ancient evil non-human intelligence that “infects” a space station and gives it an eldritch consciousness. But in the end, that mostly amounts to an opportunity for some creepy H.R. Giger-inspired body horror and a very human-scale redemption narrative. The characters are also pretty by-the-numbers. Space cop is “in love” with a dead (conventionally attractive, natch) girl he’s meant to find. Space officer/dad of misfit space family has to learn to be more flexible but not give up his moral compass. Gruff space men are gruff. But the book hits the old beats enjoyably enough, like a well-practiced barroom rock band. I’m willing to try out the next one. ****
LAGNIAPPE
The Observed Life, with Peter: Found on Walks
Most of my walks these days are to Allston/Brighton. I’ve regaled you before with pics of the footbridge with a lot of confusing graffiti. Walking towards the footbridge from the Allston side, you’ll encounter this exhortation to “gnothi seauton”- what would Foucault say??
You also pass by the “Arsenal Street Historic Area” in Watertown. The Arsenal was indeed an arsenal for the US military, and there’s still an Army materials laboratory there, along with the HMO headquarters and the shopping center opening up. There’s also a lot of what you might call light industry, or industry supply: small lumber yards, tile suppliers, etc., anonymous little places you barely notice. My understanding is that the Arsenal area has been a “mixed-use” district going back to the nineteenth century, and there are still family homes a stone’s throw away from the industrial places. I like that the historical marker has these workaday places for a backdrop. Seems appropriate, and it’s nice to see public history honor production instead of destruction and self-dealing.
Ok, Mithra says to put down the phone! See you next week!