I should have written it up last week, but I’ve been struggling with a commission in uncharted technical territory and a victory garden being despoiled by an opossum. The opossum is so acclimated to people that she lumbered casually off the porch when I opened the door on my way to the studio; she had been picking through the compost for weeks (THAT’s how that mango pit got 5′ from the bin!) and more importantly, eating my seedlings. Point being, this post is too little too late for May Day, but I wanted to post these videos and a couple of comments.
I’m the only one at my office that I know of who took May Day off. Hell, of the folks I talked to I’m the only one who knew what it was—except for the Colombian custodial guy, who is a Union plumber that’s had to do custodial work for years because of the nationwide construction sag. His greeting was: “I know where you were yesterday!” Otherwise, the ignorance was depressing, but the march was more fun than usual because I met up with a large group of friends. The chatting made for poor observation…so this would have been a thin blog anyway.
This little girl was the highlight of the march for me, and one of the highlights of the whole OWS experience, though she mightn’t have been there with her mom in the coalition-building days of Liberty Plaza. She shouted with such poise and confidence, and incredibly, without appearing to be shouting. In the first video she’s saying “Tell me what you want tell me what you want! Tell me what you need tell me what you need!” to which the crowd responds “JUSTICE!” She was a bit shrill in person but really got your attention because hers was obviously not an adult voice. In the second she’s saying “They say cut back!” and the crowd responds “WE SAY FIGHT BACK!”
Accompanying illustrations: Revolutionary images in pointillized sepia imprecision.
My interest in Luxembourgish band Rome providentially coincided with my participation in early Occupy Wall Street. I was looking for cultural products that bore witness to, examined and problematized past revolutions. Rome’s latest release, “Die Aesthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit” (The Aesthetic of Anarchy), is a 3-album epic that opens with the statement: “Art Holds a Unity that History Does Not.” On the facing page is a pointillized image I suspect is from Spanish Civil War-era Barcelona. Like the image at left, the rendering hearkens to both newspaper-printing and the yellowing of time, while making indistinct the revolutionary image portrayed.
Though founder Jerome Reuter is from Luxembourg, Rome has been based out of Germany for some time. This changed recently, and I wonder if it had anything to do with Germany’s understandable sensitivity towards any talk straying beyond reformism. The music is very European: lyrics are in English but extensive samples and commentary are in German and French with the occasional Italian and Spanish. Reuter says English is “neutral.” As far as I can find, Rome is the only band in the European underground “neofolk” movement that is not crypto-/fascist in its iconography and lyrics, although it doesn’t shy away from confronting the ideological past and its legacies. (UPDATE: England’s Sieben is also clearly opposed to right wing use of “Blood and Soil” aesthetics, which I write about at this post.)
I recently ordered the European edition of 2011’s Die Aesthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit (3 CDs in three beautifully-bound booklets) to better understand and translate the lyrics; entire passages of this album are in German and my German is not strong enough to translate by ear. In the booklets, Rome credits its inspirations to “Bertolt Brecht, Peter Weiss, Pablo Neruda, Abel Paz, H-M Enzensberger, Georg Büchner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Reinaldo Arenas, Bertrand Russell, P-J Proudhon, Gustav Landauer, u.a. [und andere, and others]”.
The ballad “To Each His Storm” is a suitable introduction to this album. Though it uses the singer/songwriter format that Rome has increasingly used over its career, Die Aesthetik includes many fine examples of all styles and voices used by Rome across its prolific release calendar since 2006. Look for further translations and perhaps critiques as I proceed.
This is close, far too close
You just might
Be blinded by this crown’s golden light
You just might
Be putting yourself in the flame
Which can only burn and shame
Our lawless life
Just seems so compelling
Because you too
Could ennoble yourself through rebelling
But what good are they
Ideals soaked in blood
What good are they
Buried in the mud
To each his ground on which to flourish
To each his storm in which to perish
Now that we’ve shed our clothes and shared our oaths
There’s no way back for you
Don’t kid yourself
We’d rather be mad than delighted
You’d rather be entertained than enlightened
There’s no way back to you
(ref)
This is too close… (cont)
Die Keller versiegelt
Die Bücher eingestampft
Die Bibliotheken verriefelt
Die Schriften verbrannt
Die Zeitungen geschwärzt
Die Portraits gewechselt
Die Vorstellungen gestört
Die Theater geschlossen
Die Filme zerstört
Die Spiegel erblindet
(trans.:)
The cellar is sealed
The books are shredded
The libraries are locked
The newspapers are redacted
The portraits are swapped out
The beliefs are deranged
The theaters are closed
The films are destroyed
The mirrors go blind
UPDATE:
I thought I’d not cause offense in uploading “To Each…”, since many other Trisol releases of Rome are on Youtube with thousands of views and comments. It was a considered decision.
But within 12 hours of posting a link to the video I made of this image & song, copyright owner Trisol Music Group GmbH had it removed. Fair enough. I’m sure they’ve put some money into developing Rome as a talent and {shudder} brand and it’s their right to manage their “content.” If you’re interested in Rome after this post and the 30-second clip I linked to on Amazon, much of Rome’s work released on the redoubtable Swedish independent, Cold Meat Industry, can be heard in its entirety on Youtube. (See Querkraft, a more industrial early release, with this chilling fan video.) It’s easy enough to buy the individual tracks from eMusic and Amazon/Google Play (or, if you must, iTunes), and for “Die Aesthetik” be aware that the U.S. edition is almost as costly as the EU hardcopy, for what appears to be very little: 3 individual CDs, priced around $31 apiece.
UPDATE 2: After almost a year, someone else has uploaded this tune, scoring a noirish video. Finally this post can be complete, for posterity.
The bruited about death of OWS was greatly exaggerated. I never doubted it though I haven’t returned in almost a month. Despite the destruction of 5,000 books and all the accoutrements of outdoor survival in Liberty Park (since Brookfield Properties requested the purge, never mind “Zuccotti,” let’s revert to its prior name), the movement has only grown stronger. Events of November 17 #N17 bore this out, with unconfirmed estimates of 10,000 people having manifested.
I stopped by Jamaica, Queens to see if an Occupation of the major commuter hub had taken place, as planned. Forty-five minutes after it was supposed to have started, there was nothing unusual in this swarming station. Continuing to Foley Square, at 1700 I found unprecedented legions of people clogging everything within 3 blocks of the square across from City Hall. Unions and citizens alike stood shoulder to shoulder, and flyering was such that I needed a satchel for it all. PA system was permitted, and in addition to the usual exhortations (even one from a child) highlights included a choral rendition of the First Article of Occupation by the Church of Stop Shopping Choir and some flow from various hip hop performers (but damned if I didn’t hear that one was Fab Five Freddy?!). Treatments of James Brown’s “The Payback” were appreciated, as was PE’s “Fight the Power,” but that only made me wonder why Chuck D had not represented at OWS. Fortunately I left as Tears for Fears inexplicably came over the PA: Everybody may want to rule the world, but OWS is not about leaders.
At some point while I was listening to the PA, people began to filter out from Foley Square. There was a crawling procession towards the bridge, which I joined with some friends who’d intermittently visited OWS over its 2 months. The street was solid with people for several blocks, and clusters periodically broke into different chants.
On the bridge, I noticed a big difference from the “Arresting of the 700” march over a month earlier. Traffic on both sides was riotous with support. Motorcyclists revved their engines, cars honked, fists jabbed from windows and moon roofs. It was almost too easy to cross, casually discussing whether the breakup of the camp had been a net gain for the movement. After all, the rout had ended the administrative chore of the encampment, the internecine bickering, the cyclopean effort required to make the movement’s practical face reflect its ideals in the face of repression, infiltration and simple incivility.
Someone had requisitioned a huge projector and pointed it at one of the skyscrapers overlooking the bridge, facing towards Brooklyn so it was behind the waves of marchers. “99%” it read in scorching white. When I looked again the stencil font read “We Are Winning.”
I haven’t been at Occupy Wall Street much at all lately because I realized there’s certain studio work I need to get done before the weather worsens, not the least of which is making another waste oil-powered furnace to heat the uninsulated space. New York is expecting 2-4 inches of snow today, just as the NYPD and FD confiscated OWS’s generators. I’ve already worked out a personal solution that might work on their scale: heated vests. I’m not talking about the crazy-price ones either.
Hunters use battery-powered heated vests, gloves and socks so they can lounge in the snow until the perfect target shows up to plink off. Why shouldn’t protestors use them to hunker down in defense of free speech and a matrix of causes that all but the deliberately obtuse can discern?
Further to staying warm, I had my first successful lost-foam casting Thursday night, which was great because it kept me warm as well. The blast furnace is too smoky to go in the garage though, so to stay warm I might just rock the vest and gloves in the shop all winter. Why not? I only use NiMH rechargeables and condition them properly for maximum life. More on that, and hopefully the finished castings and OWS, shortly.
Art of Olive Green 