Emery Marc Petchauer

Emery Marc Petchauer

What I'm up to this week: 04/19/21

Reading

I read Adam Mansbach’s memoir + poem I Had a Brother Once in a single sitting: on the front stoop, next to the mailbox, with the shipping envelope torn open lying next to me. It’s a book about Adam’s brother’s suicide. Adam is a friend, and I was with him 10 years ago the night he received the news. We were at a lounge DJing together in a small booth, and he got the call from his father. I can say the experience of reading this book was unlike any other I’ve had – not simply because of my proximity to the tragedy and some of the people it shattered, but because the book starts on that day, in that DJ booth, and with that call. It’s a stunning book/poem about grief, loss, and ritual. And it has me thinking about times I’ve felt entirely inadequate to comfort people and how entering into that suffering with them is perhaps the most one can offer.

Teaching

We’re closing out the semester of YA Lit + Anti-Racist Teaching with some creative projects. I launched students into them by having a gripes + dreams session and then turning each gripe/dream into a How Might We challenge question. We then did some sharing about which HMW questions were most compelling, and that sharing was good enough to show who had common interests to move forward together, and who should go it alone. Oh, and project charters: I have students working together fill out a project charter document so the focus and roles for everyone are clear from the start.

Listening

This new album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, & London Symphony Orchestra. Brass, strings, and ambients carry that opening refrain through the entire album – a full, complete, compelling thesis. Mastery.

Haram by Armand Hammer & The Alchemist. More incredible digs and loops from The Alchemist in the now Griselda era. I like what this Pitchfork review said:

On their collaboration with the Alchemist, ELUCID and billy woods drag postcolonial wounds onto the examination table. They don’t just embrace the darkness; they wear it as a protective cloak.

Fun boogie R&B from New York art kids group Michelle with the endearing lyric I don’t want your Instagram / Just want you to hold my hand on the song “Get Off Ur Phone.” And listen for the MJ “I Can’t Help It” nod in the melody of “Mango.” This is summer time fun time music, good people.