The Counterforce No. 74

Resistance

Hello everybody. Been a while. I was horribly ill with that mystery flu right after I posted the last one. Slept right thru Xmas and New Year. Finally started feeling better a couple weeks ago. And Life has been pretty crazy, lots of changes, since then. I started this Substack to share the music, books, comics, and all forms of art that I love, but right now I don’t feel I can jump right back into doing that without at least saying something about what’s going on in the world. For all those things that I love and want to share are what make the world a better place for me. It’s frustrating to think how much of a bubble I live in, because most of the other people I know who love these things too are right-minded individuals who care about other people. Disheartening to realize how much of the world aren’t, that even this late in the game there’s so many who haven’t grown out of the territorial reptilian mindset. And of course almost all of this is the fault of inadequate, insecure men

After seeing the video of Alex Pretti being murdered - all those shots, every single one of them unnecessary, and then the lifeless body - I sat down and wept. I then checked Instagram and saw an Iranian friend’s post that the death toll of the protestors there is likely over 30,000. The Quietus ran a good piece recently by Welsh-Iranian artist Roshi Nasehi talking to Iranian artists about the protests.

And with the above pic of the young woman lighting a cigarette with the burning photo of Khamenei circulating (I’ve seen a bunch of posts stating that she’s in Canada not Iran, but so what?), I’m reminded of another photo that I’ve always loved, that of Ellen Wood wearing a Smiths shirt facing off against the police at the 2010 tuition fees protest in London. I was living there at the time and sickened as I heard the reports of police “kettling” protestors for up to ten hours. “It’s for your own good,” a phrase I’ve always despised for being a blatant lie. How much worse things have gotten. But these are two of the most badass defiant images I know. Young women with far more ‘balls’ than most men

Robin Ince posted this recently:

which really hits home for me, and I’m feeling a lot right now as I try to write something about all this. I’m not great at articulating this stuff cuz it seems so obvious to me that we’re all in this together and we win when we all win. Especially as I’ve always felt that one of the great things about America is that we are ‘a nation of immigrants’, as we were always told in school growing up. And yes, I know that this immigration crackdown is just the tip of a very evil iceberg, a cover for many more nefarious things, lots of which are coming to light. But I want to point out that some of the most beautiful music I know has been made by two women of Somali descent. Cold Specks, who was my favourite musical discovery of last year, and whose songs are so full of the soul’s ache and beauty that I feel blessed every time I listen to them

And of course Poly Styrene. Whose work with X-Ray Spex I’m sure is familiar to you all but let’s play this masterwork of defiance again anyway, shall we?

But it’s Dreaming from her 1980 solo album, Translucence, that is my favourite thing she did. Pure loveliness

Audrey Golden, who has written great books on the women of Factory Records and a history of The Raincoats, recently put a recording of her reading Red Music by Josef Skvorecky on Bandcamp, making it available for free, asking instead for donations to the Immigrant Law Center of MN. A very good autobiographical essay on ‘sonic resistance’ by the Czech writer, in part talking about how threatening European leaders found the rhythms of jazz

The night before Audrey posted this, I had once again taken down another Czech work from my bookshelf, Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk. Very funny but also deeply important in terms of subversive resistance. Švejk is drafted into the army for the First World War but does everything he can not to participate, while at the same time making sure he appears to be completely on board. Hašek himself was quite the prankster. He once checked himself into a Prague hotel, registering under a Russian name, and was soon suspected to be a spy. The police were called when someone noticed that the Russian-sounding name he gave read ‘Kiss my ass’ when read backwards in Czech. His excuse when arrested was that he ‘wanted to assure himself that the Austrian police were operating effectively’.

Seeing the reports of ‘ICE Fishing’ - folks flying foreign flags or bumper stickers on their cars just to waste ICE’s time - reminds me of this. Plus the pure poetry of Chicago using salt trucks to block out ICE, or groups of protestors buying salt at Target to immediately return it and hold up store operations (I haven’t shopped at Target since they first nixed DEI and have no plans to go back). And I love the protestors - like The Portland Frog - who are dressing up in animal costumes, highlighting the fucking absurdity of all this. If only it weren’t so horrendously heartbreaking as well

And fuck yeah to the people of Minnesota, out there freezing their asses off to make their voices heard, that THIS WILL NOT STAND. I love what the (now) Post-Modern Times diner is doing, making all meals free until the end of the occupation so that they don’t have to pay taxes to this administration on any income. Relying on tips and donations, which you can do here or Venmo @moderntimescafe . Of course money is such a big part of this, and I realize now that I haven’t used Amazon or set foot in a Whole Foods in three years. I don’t want to preach, just to say you can do it, it’s not as hard as you think

For years Minneapolis has been my number one city to visit due to its rich musical history - Prince, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, Amphetamine Reptile… Now appreciating it even more. Gonna leave you now with a clip of Robert Palmer - yes, that Robert Palmer - covering the Huskers’ New Day Rising. I was delighted to find this a few weeks ago. Apparently, he was a big fan and would play it as an encore