Here’s issue 40 of my newsletter sent earlier this week. It contains notes on creativity, the body & sound, and more. Elements & Embodiment 040

Star Vehicle: On Translating Poetry - Los Angeles Review of Books

The translator is someone who carries goods across the border, someone who, despite even their greatest moral fairness, will, in the process, smuggle more than what is written on the page, who will participate — whether they mean to or not — in contraband activities.

Happy Ableton Live 11 Day 🔈💥💨

Reading

I finished Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. This is the third book of his I’ve read in the past few years (first was Sag Harbor and then The Nickle Boys). As I read more of his books, I find myself trusting him more. Like when a chapter starts and it’s about a whole new person we have yet to meet – and I’m a bit disoriented as a reader – I trust him that it will not only matter but will be worth it for me. I imagine all authors deserve this generosity from their readers, and we the readers are the ones who loose if we cannot muster such a gesture toward the author. So I’m hoping I can extend it toward other writers, too.

Teaching

We are taking our foot off the gas a bit in Readings in Young Adult Lit + Antiracist Teaching. The challenge in reading Ghost Boys was to understand how a novel written from the standpoint of a young Black protagonist could, at the same time, center whiteness. I think we got there without critiquing all goodness out of the novel. Now, we are onto an assignment that has students listen to, annotate, and draw insights from how they had been discussing the past three novels. This is possible because I had them audio recording their pod conversations, even though they didn’t know the exact purpose at the time. It’s a very different kind of assignment – one I’ve been thinking about for years and finally designed this semester while leaning on the excellent Letting Go of Literary Whiteness. I’m excited to see the results. I always tell myself: If I’m not excited grading and giving feedback, then how must students feel while actually completing it?

Listening

A whole bunch of beats on vinyl that I put together in this mix on my Soundcloud. It’s called “People Still Make Beats” because people still make beats! The standout track comes in 11:20 and is from one of my favorite Detroit producers, Illingsworth. His signature vocal chops are in there. Check it out.

Feeling this Tape Op interview with music engineer Piper Payne, where she hits on the body, feeling, and sound:

When I sit down to master, I’m trying not to think too hard about the process as much as I am trying to feel it. I’ll try to deal with the music somatically, to designate a body reaction to every sound. If a vocal has too much 900 Hz, my throat might tense up. If the kick drum feels like there is too much 110 or 120 Hz in the low end, my belly starts to tighten. Checking in with my whole body as I listen is invaluable.

I rolled out a heavy assignment sheet to my class yesterday. It’s 2.5 single spaces pages because, welll, this professor likes things done in a certain way. But I had students annotate the assignment sheet in class with commenting priviledges. Then I responded real time in writing to thier questions. I’m thinking about how to make assignments sheets themselves peripheral objects of study – to kind of destabilize them– even as students go about doing what is on them.

Deciding who to hang out with today. My big friend or little friend.

Here. Have it. All my money.

This new turntable makes your record float thevinylfactory.com/news/this…

Issue 039 of my newsletter went out Monday and included a dive into Soundscapes for Wellness. Check it out.

This unnarrated video wrecks me every time I watch it. Bree Newsome told that flag, “You come against me with hatred, oppression, and violence. I come against you in the name of God.”

Hey, buddy! 👋🏼

Oh, hey there!

Reading: I started The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It’s riveting. I can’t wait to see where it goes. By “it,” I mean both the book and the literal underground railroad train that Cora and Caesar took away from the Randall plantation in Georgia.

Writing: I’m working on an article with two colleagues about the rhythms, networks, and hierarchies of teacher-led organizing spaces. This one has stretched on for quite some time, but that’s fine. There’s no rush. One of the last wrinkles we are ironing out is making sure the earlier dichotomy between physical and digital space is no longer in the article. Because it’s just space.

Teaching: Up this week in Readings in Young Adult lit was All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. This novel has taken the place of To Kill a Mockingbird in some high school English classrooms, and for good reason. Here are some of the discussion prompts from the second half of the week, all through the course focus of anti-racist teaching: >*How is the basketball team and practices an extended metaphor for broader racial justice efforts?

*What do we learn about Rashad’s trauma, healing, identity, etc. through his art – woven through the novel?

*How does trauma and healing circulate through/among the members in his family?

*How does the guilt, loss, loneliness, etc. in his family relate to his letting go of whiteness?

Listening: I’ve been spending more time in the music studio these past few weeks hanging out with records. One result is a mix of vinyl releases – mostly all records pressed, made, or bought in Detroit – I posed on my Soundcloud. You’ll hear music by Kyle Hall, Norm Talley, DJ Holographic & Alex Wilcox, and more. But watch out for that Gustav Brovold techno heater at 33:20. Big ouch!

🎶 I hung out with records today. Here’s what happened: People Still Make Beats

This mix will have to be called “People Still Make Beats.”

No work this weekend. Only pleasure reading and making music. Heading back to the lab in a minute. Be back with something…

Somebody in the class GroupMe asked to see a picture of everyone’s pets. Positive vibes have ensued.

Working this morning? Here’s the mix of nature sounds I am working to. Made with the BBC Sound Effects archive and mixer!

My favorite episode of Rappin with the Rickster is when he and Dante Ross run into STAY HIGH 149 outside Fat Beats.

I’ve been slowly finding and bookmarking the interviews with James (Jimmy) Tyson, who was at the bottom of the flagpole when Bree Newsome climbed it to take down the confederate flag. It’s something for class, maybe. Either way, here’s one of them.

Writing: Some final, final edits on the Kairos pieces that are due this week. Publishing in web text form has certainly opened up new options. For example, the editors felt the issue would benefit from a kind of conclusion, so my buddy Todd Craig and I decided to record one, give it a light edit, and submit the audio in place of a written one.

Teaching: This past week I taught Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver. The graphic novel explores the author’s experience growing up as a white passing Latina in the 1960s racially segregated Alabama. In class, we are reading through the filter of anti-racist pedagogy, especially Thandeka’s ideas about learning to be white through white inter-communal abuse. Here are the discussion prompts we used in class:

What are the key instances in which Lila is disciplined, abused, or socialized into “becoming” white? Who or what is acting upon her (person, law, social arrangement)? What effect does this have on her?

What are the key instances in which Lila is participating in a process of “becoming” white? 

Listening: The new Madlib album Sound Ancestors, which starts slow but ends strong.

Bonus listening: A bunch of records made, pressed, or bought in Detroit — which I laid down into an hour+ mix and posted on my Soundcloud. Spiritual jazz, modern Detroit techno, funky house – all bases covered on this one while playing from the hip.

🎶 Making music all weekend. Here’s a mix of records all made, bought, or pressed in Detroit

Sound Field - Why Is Jersey Club Music Everywhere? - Season 2 - Episode 3 - PBS

I tried explaining to somebody this week that I don’t need to be on stage. But I do require the resources to build a stage for other people to stand on.

Frank A. Daniels, Jr. never read the report condemning his white supremacist grandfather. This story and others in my weekly newsletter that went out on Monday. It’s the year of the newsletter, didn’t you know?