You Glow in the Dark (2024) by Liliana Colanzi

 Book Review

You Glow in the Dark (2024)

by Liliana Colanzi

Translated by Chris Andrews

    I was intrigued with the New York Times book review that described this book by Bolivian author Liliana Colanzi as being suffused with an "Andean Cyber Punk" ethos and read its 144 pages on the Kindle app on my phone over the weekend.  It's a set of connected short stories based around the Goiania accident in Brazil, which happened in 1987.   The Goiania accident happened when radioactive materials were stolen from an abandoned Brazilian hospital by a couple of local hoodlums who wanted the encasing metal unit for perceived scrap value, they dismantled the machine and then pulled out the radioactive material and passed it around the neighborhood like a real bunch of ignorant slum dwellers.  People died before it got all sorted out.

  Anyway, this isn't spelled out in the book till the end and the characters certainly don't know what is going on, so it does have a cyber-punkish air for sure.  The fact that Colanzi doesn't provide a birds-eye overview of the sequence of events and keeps to the understandings of the characters gives each story an air of mystery. 

Foxfire 5 (1979) by Eliot Wigginton

 Book Review

Foxfire 5 (1979)

by Eliot Wigginton

   There is an elaborate scene in Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy where the Glanton gang is being pursued by Native Americans in the desert.  They are out of gunpowder and facing certain doom.  The character of the Judge leads the group to a nearby dormant volcano, where he creates gunpowder with the help of guano (bat poop) and human urine, leading the gang to surprise the attacking Native Americans.  In Notes on Blood Meridian by John Sepich, references this book, Foxfire 5 as the source for the recipe the Judge uses to manufacture the gunpowder.

 

 I was intrigued- Foxfire 5 doesn't sound like an academic journal.  I looked up the Wikipedia entry and found a copy in the LAPL system.  Foxfire was a journal put together by high school students(!) and their advisor, Eliot Wigginton.  The first issue came out in 1966.  The subject was documenting back-woods life in Northern Georgia.  A book version was published in 1972 and Foxfire became a national sensation.  Unfortunately, in 1992 founder/teacher Eliot Wigginton was convicted of some pretty horrific child sex allegations going back decades, and amazingly, got a sentence of one year in jail and twenty years of probation.  

  I surmise that was it for the national profile of Foxfire, though the Wikipedia page notes that it has continued under new leadership.  Anyway, Foxfire volume 5 is largely about iron making and gun making, which are both pretty interesting subjects but not seven hundred pages long interesting, at least to me.  The portion that relates to Blood Meridian is maybe ten pages long- it's actually a letter they receive from a certified Mountain Man living in far northern California about he makes gunpowder with his own urine and going into the different ingredients and such.  It seems clear that this, was, indeed McCarthy's source.

  The rest of the book are these hundred page long oral histories where these old coots are talking about the post-Indian removal settling of northern Georgia, and it turns out that manufacturing iron and gun-making were pretty important to the white settlers of this area.  It was/is extremely specialized knowledge and kind of incredible to visualize this process of building the first iron foundry in a given geographic area.

Show Review: Angie McMahon @ The Crocodile Seattle, WA

 Show Review:

Angie McMahon

@ The Crocodile 
Seattle, WA

3/11/24

  It used to be there was lots of mystery about the path from local band obscurity to stadium headliner.  Most artists started by playing local shows in local venues, then you would record a "demo," then you would look for a label or manager or both, then hopefully a booking agent, put out an album, do a van tour of the US, maybe a van tour of UK/Europe, then another record, professionally done, with a record label that has pr and def a booking agent, a second van tour as a headliner, hopefully a festival or two, then by the third record hopefully you were on a bus and playing theater size venues (1000+) and selling them out.  You would be judged by actual record sales of physical cds or records, the crowds you drew at your shows, and the press you got.  Obviously, the vast majority of bands/acts never made it past the first or second step, but plenty of artists fall off at each point, and the most succesful acts skipped one or many steps.

  Now, that has all changed.  Artists are essentially measured by two numbers: 1) their monthly Spotify streaming number, which updates daily 2) tickets they can sell to their concerts.   If you are low by the measurement of (1) you have to show that you have the power to sell concert tickets.  If you have great streaming numbers but can't sell tickets you can play festivals, but ultimately it is the live show on a big stage that is the only check on streaming era artists who have demonstrated their worth by (1).  These days, few if any artists start by playing live, rather they will record music and publish it themselves, either on bandcamp or, straight to Spotify and the other big DSP's.  I couldn't even tell you the last time I went to a local level show and saw an artist who didn't have a Spotify monthly streaming number already.

   This shift has certainly taken much of the mystery out of the lengthy process I described in the first paragraph at this post.  Now, every label, from the lowliest indie to the biggest major knows how many monthly streams you get and most of them know how many tickets you have sold (or whether you have sold any).  The biggest loser in this shift has been the press/music critics.  They used to play an important/critical role in helping artists get from the bottom to the top.  Today, literally no one gives a shit and if you have good streaming numbers and sell tickets to your shows, you don't need critics to pay attention.

  Take Angie McMahon.  I just got back from the first show of her sold-out US tour- in Seattle.  Angie put out her record last fall.  People said nice things about the record but she isn't a Pitchfork artist, and generally speaking, not much was said about her or the record, even though it was amazing.   Her streaming numbers are fine but essentially flat.   BUT- there I am watching her sell out a Monday night show at an 800 cap venue in Seattle, watching her evoke the kind of Audience response that most artists never obtain and hearing second hand about her being seriously considered for arena/stadium/big theater tours on three continents.  

  It was an astonishing performance and the crowd was incredibly diverse and enthusiastic. Truly a dream start to a US tour that promises to be the first step on a path that promises to follow that older path in an era of an obsession with streaming figures.  I think this summer is going to be interesting for many acts who built up their streaming figures over the past four years of pandemic-time with no pressure or opportunity to build up their live show.  I'm fully expecting some festival level disasters as these artists take the stage in front of big audiences for the first time, but that won't be Angie McMahon- she is going to be out there on the road slitting throats. Watch out!