8.19.25

8.19.25

KCMO

Dear all you wiggly weasels, vivacious voles, and dirty rats,

Summer colds are yucky, but a few pale yellow habanero, the first of dozens, ripened to a rich orange while we were away. The salsa squad just got a late season call up.

I snagged a triple Jan Garbarek CD at the library and gave it a couple of spins yesterday. It is called Dansere, from the early 70s, on the ECM label. I am a big fan of ECM, always interested in their epic discography and the culture around it.  I wonder if there is a release-by-release ECM podcast similar to the You Don’t Know Mojack SST podcast? That would be a lot of work.

I’m still reading Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I’m in a section that focuses on historical/generational trauma and the scrubbing of history and culture by a totalitarian state. It would be foolish to compare the intellectual attacks on the Smithsonian to bombs falling on Kiev.  But when the history-scrubbing starts--and the arbitrary arrests, and violence--we’re in the danger zone, and I don’t mean the Kenny Loggins song with the gated drums. 

If attacks on democracy have you frozen in the headlights, see also: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzalez.

Don’t forget this show!