7.22.2016

"Propaganda"

I wrote this story based on the first fifty or so images on Google after searching for "Propaganda." Enjoy!

The man in the white hat is pointing his long finger in my face; the man with the mustache keeps his back turned the whole time. Accusations automatically become truth when they're said with enough conviction. A third man in a mask is begging, pleading: is he on my side? I look to her, to her wrists cuffed together like mine, to her brown eyes for reassurance. The finger continues to point as if unattached to any body.

I am aware of the reality, of the gravity of this situation. Mockery is boring but only one of our sides can be right. My enemy loses power when he expresses doubt. But that finger continues to hold steady as if it emanated molecules of doubt that attach to any being at which it aims. Are good and evil relative terms? No. But how did I end up here, with her, in a state of compliance, in a state of surrender?

“Shut up,” the man attached to the finger says. I never said anything out loud. Yet here I am, willing to, eager even, to believe everything he says. And her and I aren't the only ones. The alarms were sounding; we panicked; we fell in line. We surrendered identity. We submitted possessions. We abandoned thought and listened without discourse. We barely ate.

But were we afraid?

7.21.2016

Pitchfork Music Festival 2016

Another edition of random notes I took during Pitchfork: 

The connection between ONO and Jenny Hval. Removing layers, physically and sonically.

Anderson Paak! Shamir!

Cartwheels at Sun Ra Arkestra and 92 years old!?

Twin Peaks, from Young Camelot to here. Regret I never saw them more in DIY spots.

Mick Jenkins: "Drink more water."

Crazy inflatable etc...

So why are we here? Why do we go to music festivals? Why do we listen to music? I always have a crises of faith at these things. I wonder what's the point.

Aren't there more important things than listening to music in a park, many of the neighbors can hardly even afford to go to so they settle for hawking dollar water bottles and ponchos on Ashland Ave? But are only greeted with another instance of being ignored.

Being thanked for saving the earth as I parked my bike then participating in an event that trashes a park and having to use Instagram and deplete the energy on my cell phone which I will surely have to charge again at some point.

Do we need these festivals more than ever in a world so full of pain, confusion and anxiety? The world is exploding from Nice to Baton Rouge, do we take advantage of joy at every possible moment, because we never know what will be our last? Or is that a huge cop out?