mashdownbabylon

Nuclear Sound Affects

 
During the late 1970s, I can't remember how many times my siblings and I would hear a song on the radio--most often English-language pop and disco--and try to sing along. We'd mimic the lyrics, switching back and forth between English and Hebrew as we unsuccessfully attempted to master particularly difficult American-sounding turns of phrase. Boney M's 1978 mega-hit "Rasputin," and Earth, Wind and Fire's 1979 smash "Boogie Wonderland" were particular sources of amusement, as friends and family would struggle to properly enunciate "R" and "W," sounding, in the case of "Vonderland," like Israeli caricatures of Bela Lugosi.

To read the rest of my review of Soul Messages From Dimona, click here.

Israel As a Vocation

Today, Israel commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of it's founding. Unlike the celebrations of the country's 50th birthday in 1998, today's events have a far more somber quality to them, as though they are observing the passing of something far more tentative and fragile than we imagined back then, just before the peace process ground to a halt. Predictably, this month has witnessed the publication of a number of controversial articles questioning whether Israel will survive, generating, in turn, the expected reactions. In other words, business as usual.

As an Israeli citizen, and as an American-born editor working in English-language news publishing, I've resisted the temptation to draft my own thoughts on the subject, if only because I'm loathe to indulge the cliches that inevitably accompany the ritual of commenting on any specific nation's annual observation of it's independence. Especially those penned by U.S. Jews, which I read all of the time, and inevitably drive me nuts. Whether its spreading the love, or demonstrating disappointment, more often than not, it all reads the same.

This isn't to say that I'm not using the date as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the state my friends and family continue to create. I am, just as I do every day, as someone who, for better or worse, always has Israel on his mind. If Israel has succeeded in establishing itself as it's own unmoved mover, to quote my divinity school training, it would make Aquinas proud. Nothing in my mind is not somehow related to or impacted by it. Israel is everywhere, and everything.

However, I don't feel the least bit sentimental about it, and there's something about recognizing this that I find relatively liberating. To wit, my wife and I will be going home to see my parents in a month's time, and the country will not feel any different than it did the same time last year I returned home, or, for that matter, this week, as I worried about the fact that I was not worried whether I'd write anything about this date at all. Israel, quite simply, exists, and feels more a part of my life than ever.

Of course, like the pundits I like to read, I could offer my own interpretation of the country's Italian-style political scene, and what I think the future holds in store for Israel under a coming Berlusconi-equivalent. Or I could offer it by way of talking about the remarkable films I saw this week at the San Francisco International Film Festival, such as Vasermil, Children of the Sun, or Under the Bombs, all of which offer rich insights into how Israelis and Arabs alike experience the country. At some point, I'm sure I will.

But, today, I guess, my point is far more mundane. For me, as it is for many Jews, Israel is something of a vocation. If that's what citizenship ultimately means, that's fine. I gladly accept it. As much as I'd like to find the identity somehow transformative or more involving, over the years, I've had to set certain instinctual limits to it because the psychic burden of being Israeli is traumatic enough. Adding anything else to the equation would be, for lack of a better of way of putting it, completely overwhelming.

(De)Programming the Middle East

If you live in the US and need to follow events in the Middle East closely, Mosaic is absolutely indispensable. A thirty-minute long aggregation of regional television news programming broadcast on Link TV, the show is the brainchild of award-winning producer Jamal Dajani.

A Jerusalem native, and a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I spoke to Dajani about his work on Mosaic for the March issue of Zeek. What transpires is a fascinating conversation about the state of Middle Eastern media today, and its increasing importance for Americans.

If you enjoy this piece, check out Covering the Coverage, and Left of the Middle East. Short excerpts from my book, they cover much of the same topical ground as my conversation with Dajani, but focus on US and otherwise progressive Western news media instead.

Conscientious Objections

France24 has launched The Observers, a new, bilingual citizen journalism initiative. At the behest of staff writer Roi Ben-Yehuda, I became an Observer last week, and gave my thoughts on a new Israeli government drive to encourage teens to do their obligatory military duty.

As someone who, when they came of age in 1985, did not do their service, I explain why, as well as criticize a new state-produced video designed to prevent kids from doing the same. Check it out. The following response, by the anonymous Yael, is worth the price of admission alone.

Later on this week, Roi will be running a piece on the first Tel Aviv Sex Festival, which was held a little over a week ago. I'll be reprising my Observer role as part of the proceedings.

Daniel Pearl as Metaphor

The killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 was of particular importance in reinforcing this understanding of Pakistan. A Jewish-American reporter engaged in a multiethnic marriage, Pearl's murder by Islamic militants was promoted as an iconographic instance of the clash of civilizations thesis, transposed to America’s relationship with Pakistan. The ideological tensions inherent in emphasizing Pearl as though he were the US - multicultural, liberal, interfaith - to Pakistan as uncivilized, violent, politically corrupt and religiously intolerant - ought to be clear.

Pearl represented America, and its actualization of the ideals it was promoting on the War on Terror, which Pakistan, with its tribes, its madrassas, and its fundamentalists was in conflict with. This made Pearl a martyr-equivalent to domestic neoconservatives. If Americans wanted more nuance in news coverage of the country than Pearl’s remembrance allowed, they had to seek it out from foreign news sources such as the BBC and The Guardian.

- From a report I recently wrote about south Asian news coverage in the US

Desert Sessions

It was a hard decision to make, but I had to do so. For the last twelve months, I desisted from doing any freelance work in order to reserve all of my energies for Israel vs Utopia.

Now that the book is in my editors' hands, today, my first article since last March was published by Zeek. And, on Tuesday, I conducted my first formal interview since I spoke to Jimmy Carter in December 2006.

Look forward to reading a conversation about Middle Eastern news media with Link TV's Jamal Dajani in Zeek next month. To call it informative would be an understatement.

An Editor's Whiteboard

The golden road to unlimited content. Beit Schalit, 2008.

On the Radio

Wednesday at noon, former Political Asylum singer and AK Press founder Ramsey Kanaan will be hosting an hour-long discussion about the political legacy of The Clash on Against the Grain, courtesy of Pacifica flagship station KPFA, 94.1 FM in the SF Bay Area, and everywhere else, online.

Ramsey's guests include yours truly and Craig O'Hara, the author of The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise, a new edition of which is scheduled to drop in the new year. If you're interested in the band, in punk, or in how music and politics collide, we pretty much cover it all.   

Year End Top Ten: Books

Despite the fact that this was a book writing year, I still managed to pack in a few titles that were distinctly off-topic. For regular MashDown readers, of course, that means, unsurprisingly, I read a lot about politics, music and the visual arts, though not necessarily of the gallery kind.

This was also the first time in almost a decade that I was able to read for pleasure, and not for the purpose of assigning books for review. That, in itself, was a welcome change. Instead of scanning a chapter or two and then sending them off, I was able to take in new books in their entirety.

In no specific order, here are the ten tomes that made the biggest impression on me in 2007:

Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land (Verso)

Gil Hochberg, In Spite of Partition (Princeton)

Jacqueline Rose, The Last Resistance (Verso)

Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country (FSG)

Judith Butler & Gayatri Spivak, Who Sings the Nation State? (Seagull)

Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union (Harper Collins)

Michael Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (U. New England Press)

Jeff Chang, Total Chaos: The Art And Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas)

Abby Banks and Thurston Moore, Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy (Harry N. Abrams)

Jennifer Baumgardner, Look Both Ways (FSG)

Liberation Theology

It's just about out, and the first reviews for Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, are starting to filter through.

Edited by my former Tikkun colleagues Jo Ellen Green Kaiser and Or Rose, and the Kavod House's Margie Klein, this inspired collection, documenting the new American Jewish social justice movement, is already receiving the recognition that it deserves. According to this week's edition of Publisher's Weekly,

While written for progressive Jews and their communities, anyone struggling with the age-old conundrum of "…but what can I do?" should sample this wonderful buffet of ideas, replete not just with tradition, but with innovative interpretations suited to a 21st-century approach toward social action and reform.

A slimmed down version of "Everything Falls Apart", the first chapter from my forthcoming book, Israel vs Utopia, has a home in Righteous Indignation's Israel section. A representative excerpt, The New Jewish Left, was posted to Mashdown last July.

Inside the Former Fortress

The acoustics in Akko's old city are something else. Next time I go home to Israel, I'm going to make a recording of a British friend with a thick cockney accent reciting T.S. Eliot poems, in Hebrew, inside.

The Mirror Stage

You know you're starting to feel old when, in the space of one month, three films about three dead musicians hit the theaters, and you can still remember when their very first records came out. Such was the case when, watching the previews before the new Anton Corbijn biopic about Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, I saw plugs for new feature films about The Clash's Joe Strummer and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

Two down, one to go, so far, Control is the winner. Casting Ian Curtis as the unstable, miserable genius that he was, the black and white feature debut by the famous Dutch photographer has a truly literary feel to it, eschewing Curtis' star quality for an up-close study of a talented young man totally falling apart. Julien Temple's homage to Strummer, The Future is Unwritten is Control's polar opposite.

A documentary portrait of an equally brilliant middle aged rock star burdened with enormous regrets, Future is best summed up in the highly critical words of my wife, who published her own terrific take on the film last night. Check it out. If you haven't read the Bionic Farmer blog yet, this is the perfect introduction.

Changing Channels

Speaking of Al Jazeera English, if you get the chance, check out  Roger Cohen's excellent op-ed on the Qatari broadcaster in today's New York Times.

Discussing the difficulties that the service has had trying to find national distribution from America's cable and satellite providers, the Times' International-Writer-at-Large extols the network's virtues, noting, in reference to the same polarized context invoked in Friday's posting, that Al Jazeera is carried (by Yes) in Israel, where it replaced the BBC last winter.

Incidentally (and much discussed as of late) Al Jazeera English was also slated to replace CNN on Israel's largest cable service, Hot, but was outbid at the last minute by Fox News.

Covering the Coverage

His curiosity piqued by a recent article in Haaretz discussing the relative merits of the New York Times' coverage of Israel, a colleague asked me if I could point him to what I think are the best studies of Western media reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict. For those who understand the subtext of such inquiries,  the editor couldn't have asked a more loaded question. To make such a request in today's environment means that you first have to ask why the question is important, and second, for whom.

Since September 11th, domestic coverage of the Middle East has obviously become more significant. Not just because the attacks on New York and Washington signaled the beginning of a conflict  between America and West Asian Islamists. But, also because of how it placed far more editorial requirements on a news media already struggling - and, in the US, largely failing - to meet the complex cultural demands already required of Mideast coverage by the country's Jewish and Muslim Diaspora communities.

US news agencies haven't done the best job of striking this balance yet either. However, there is more English-language, Mideast-based media to rely on than ever before to make up for it. Take for example, Israeli publications like the English edition of Haaretz on the one hand, and Al Jazeera's English broadcasting service on the other, not to mention all of the translated editions of regional sources in between. Americans now have every opportunity to read news that's potentially more informative.

Though "local" is not always a synonym for "better", irrespective of partisanship and the limitations international media inevitably find themselves subject to, in comparison, few domestic sources, including the ethnic press, deliver the same quality goods.  Does that mean that American periodicals should hang up their hats? No. Because of this country's obvious ties to the region - economic, cultural, and military, to name a few - US news outlets are morally obligated to continue reporting on the Mideast.

The question is how. Obviously, one answer would be to create content that was complementary with a foreign reporting that is better privileged for information. Another angle would be to concentrate on commissioning work on the numerous ways in which Americans deliberate about their involvement in a particular country's affairs. Thus, you emphasize domestic political discussions at, say the State Department, or, amongst Americans with cultural ties to said state, instead of the other way around.

As many editors at American news periodicals will tell you, the two biggest complaints about Mideast coverage are always that its either anti-Semitic, or similarly compromised by a desire to satisfy special interest groups. The problem with such criticisms is that they're not only frequently incorrect. But, most importantly, that they help divert editorial attention away from very real ethical problems, like learning how to properly tailor international news for a cosmopolitan, multicultural readership - during wartime.   

- From my notebook, Nov 1.

Cultural Imperialism That Works

By now, you'd think that a beats and Bollywood synthesis would be the stuff of nineties cliche. Indeed, it most certainly is. Witness all of the lazily titled 'Buddha Beat'-style anthologies issued by exotica imprints on the one hand, and the 'sitar and bass' records once the province of boutique ethno labels like Outcaste on the other.

Finding a copy of this new Madlib disc for only four bucks, I decided to make the plunge. When this kind of work is done right, absolutely nothing beats it. Luckily, my intuition proved correct. Sampling both film dialogue and music, with Beat Konducta India, the legendary Oxnard DJ takes the idiom in an entirely new direction.

What makes this record work is how it inverts the experience of world music. Instead of making the listener imagine they're somewhere else, it helps you figure out where you already are. Like my block, where sometimes I can hear Bollywood soundtracks blasting out of an Indian restaurant, while cars idling in front pump out loud hip-hop as they wait for the light to change.

Left of the Middle East

From an unpublished conversation with a Jewish magazine editor

We have a terrible disjuncture at present, where the critical coverage that we increasingly rely on in this country comes from progressive sources that aren’t as discriminating in their approach to the Middle East as they should be. Being rightly committed to criticizing imperialism and colonialism, they frequently make the mistake of seeing all of the disparate crises afflicting the region as being different versions of the same political problem. It’s like saying that all Jews or Arabs are identical.

Take a look at how the occupation of Iraq has impacted a lot of progressive reporting on Israel: As the occupation has worsened, it has increasingly conditioned a way of covering the country that has assimilated Israel's conflict with the Palestinians with the situation created by the Americans in Iraq. The problem is that if this is the general disposition of the left press in covering the region, it therefore makes it difficult to explain the very real differences that distinguish the Iraqi refugee crisis from the Palestinian, Kurdish, or Armenian refugee crises which preceded it.

The Middle East is a very big place. Even within the space of short distances, such as that which exists between Gaza and Ramallah, the cultural and political distinctions can be extraordinary. The irony is that this is partially a product of territorial divisions first introduced by Europeans to the area. We ought to encourage the journalists we work with to strike a better balance between understanding the Middle Eastern experience of the West with the domestic differences that the outside world seems so oblivious towards.

The Ice Age is Here

Speaking of the golden oldies, in today's Guardian, there's an absolutely terrific article on the continuing relevance of The Clash's 1979 LP, London Calling. Penned by Joe Queenan, this is the kind of exquisitely written, politically-charged music criticism glaringly absent from most US news periodicals.

Part of an ongoing series of articles commemorating the 30th anniversary of the first punk explosion, The Guardian's special focus on '77 contrasts sharply with the near-exclusive emphasis placed on remembering 1967's Summer of Love in the arts sections of numerous American dailies over the past few months.

None of this is to say that similarly high quality, big picture music writing can't be found here. I've worked with countless first class writers for whom this kind of journalism is second nature. The problem is a resistance to commissioning such pieces outside of indie music magazines and alternative weeklies.

From Here to Epitome

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

In July, we started to receive a complimentary 'subscription' to The San Francisco Examiner. By featuring musicians like Nick Cave and Yo La Tengo on its cover, this historically conservative (and now free) tabloid appears to be intent on capturing my specific demographic: post-punk professionals who came of age in the early 1990s. In other words, the Nirvana generation.

I find such explicit overtures annoying because American news periodicals always over-emphasize their music coverage when they don't know who their readership is. I can't tell you how many editorial meetings I've attended over the years where an editor has asked the staff to "up" the coverage of cool bands when they're worried that they're not reaching a younger audience.

Just look at the headlines above to see what I mean. Fifty-year old Nick Cave "Gets Rowdy", fourty something Yo La Tengo "Still Has It." Its the kind of self-conscious headline writing that speaks reams about what the editors are really worried about: the vitality and worth of their newspaper.

Metal Health

During my last year at Asphodel (2003-4), I spent most of my time helping the label's owners acquire new projects. From traveling to Europe to meet artists, to endlessly redrafting new recording and distribution contracts, I frequently forget how many CD and DVD deals we eventually landed.

By the end of 2007, with the exception of one DVD, nearly all of the projects we worked on signing during that period will have finally come out. Of special note are two album-length works by the Berlin-based, new music group, Zeitkratzer ("Timescratcher") due out in September.

Consisting of an orchestral cover of Lou Reed's legendary 1975 album Metal Machine Music (a 2xLP of guitar feedback), and an additional CD/DVD of Iannis Xenakis-inspired works (cheekily referencing a classic Kiss title,)  Xenakis [Alive], I feel particularly sentimental about the impending release of these recordings.

The product of bandleader Reinhold Friedl's playful imagination, I'll never forget the amazing dinner we had together in a restored Cologne rail depot in August 2003. I'm not sure whether it was the food (pasta) or the setting (subterranean). Needless to say, its nice to see the albums we discussed then finally seeing the light of day.

Terminal Preppies

The only known 'band' photo: Christal Methodists, SF Weekly cover pic, 1999. Found on an old hard drive yesterday evening.

Back to School Special

For the last three years, I've been the owner of a satellite radio. Early adopters, we both installed them in our cars because of the access it gave us to non-American news services and genre-based music channels.  (I was immediately sold on the idea of a 24/7 death metal station.) Given what poor reception the radio received in my twenty year-old Volvo, and how long my commute to work was (an hour and fifteen minutes either way) for the first few months, my new radio was an enormously refreshing change of pace.

Unfortunately, Sirius' allure ran out rather quickly. Each one of its channels - even when they weren't run by the host company, such as the BBC's World Service - sounded far too disciplined. Everything came across as being so thoroughly programmed that if an announcer so much as made a pronunciation error, you'd fear for their careers. (The word 'cautious' always came to mind.) The lack of ads was great, but the absence of spontaneity was even more noticeable.

Perhaps the worst aspect of our Sirius experience was the alternative music station, Left of Center. At times sounding like it was programmed by the editors of London music tabloid NME, the endless repetition of throwaway British bands like Starsailor seemed like a very curious choice given how ill-fitting such groups sound in domestic indie context. What about a band like Spoon? Totally beige, but less obvious. Equally awkward was the fratboy-friendly vibe of Sirius' reggae station.

Driving our new, satellite radio-free car home today (we couldn't afford the option), I turned on KUSF and heard an absolutely iconographic, mixed-genre set of electronica, post-punk and hip-hop. Sometimes the DJ spoke too softly. Sometimes he segued a little too quickly. Nevertheless, it sounded like manna had descended from radio heaven. Moving from the great new Zeph and Azeem record to the Slits' classic New Town, listening to our local college station was like running into a cherished old friend you'd mistakenly assumed dead or disappeared.

Goodbye to All That

Yesterday's announcement that Punk Planet was closing its doors did not come as a surprise. Still personally close to the magazine that I helped edit for over seven years (between 1997 and 2004 I served as the periodical's associate editor and books editor, in addition to writing a column), I was entirely clear about PP's situation. That does not mean, however, that the news was not upsetting. Yes, I was intellectually prepared for it. But emotionally, I was not. I've spent the better part of today dragging, going grocery shopping instead of writing. Coming home from Trader Joe's an hour ago, I even missed my exit, and had to drive several extra miles to rectify the error.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, press coverage of Punk Planet's closure has been intense. From an  SF Bay Guardian piece (GW Schulz waxing about the days when Annalee Newitz wrote for us) to the Village Voice (a critical overview of the magazine's history, by Tom Breihan) the entire alt.press world seems to have gone into mourning with us. It all very much reminds me of the fact that Punk Planet was really a writer's magazine - staffed by serious, young writers, and admired by left-of-center journalists in the rest of the U.S. press. As a young editor, that always meant an enormous amount to me. The journalistic focus on the magazine was a deep and lasting complement that helped us all get by under less than ideal economic circumstances.

But that's only half the story. Punk Planet was a cultural event as much as it was a magazine. Unlike other similar events associated with youth culture, it was a product of immense ingenuity and tireless, hard work too. Thus, when its talented writers started to get offers from other periodical and book publishers, and record labels saw Punk Planet as an important place to break artists, the reason was obvious: Because the work PP was commissioning was insightful, well-written and passionate. During an era in which every 'punk' career move was considered suspect, imagine what a wrench this threw in the so-called works. For once, or so we felt, our subculture was being recognized for non-musical achievements, like political writing, which there was no point in feeling conflicted about.

Punk Planet allowed us to live 'punk' lives without the fear - or the anxiety - of selling out. Sure, we might end up working for a New Times periodical, or sell in excess of 60,000 copies of a novel. But in the grand scheme of things, that's still chump change compared to the 'sinful' kinds of music-derived incomes that punks always complained about. What giving its staff such opportunities entailed was a right to be equally culturally influential without any of the ideological excess associated with the so-called culture of careerism. By itself, that is an absolutely immense achievement, particularly considering how we defined success. The proof is in the pudding: thirteen years of successive issues, a first class book imprint, and thousands of ex-contributors in every wing of publishing.

I could write more about PP, but I've done it before, and I think I've said enough. If you'd like to read an earlier piece about working at PP, which details a bit more about what I personally think about the magazine, check out Punk Planet Forever in Stylus. Written after the first IPA-induced storm clouds began to gather in late 2005, it does a much better job of saying what I've already said above, if not a bit more.

Ethnicity as Genre

Ben Gurion airport music shop, Tel Aviv.

A Nation of Metaphors

Absorbing it all with Haaretz.

Its been well over a week since my last post. As much as I'd like to say that I didn't want to write an Israel blog because:

A. I don't like reading them
B. I'm not a tourist, I'm a citizen
C. I've been insanely busy
D. The email connection at home has been bad

I just haven't decided yet. Though all of the above is true, the fact is that I've been pondering what it'd mean to write it all up on the way back to SF, much as I used to do on these trips before the advent of blogs.

Nonetheless, I've broken down because the photograph above was simply too precious to ignore: My favorite Middle Eastern daily being used to mop up the contents of a spilled Heineken.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

June 1967: The endless remix.

All About the Subtext

If you have the patience, the results are well worth it. Sitting in the exact same spot from where I listened to him lecture last year following the premier of Astra Taylor's Zizek, on Sunday night, I spent two and a half hours watching the same Slovenian philosopher explain why movies matter. 

A collaboration with filmmaker Sophie Fiennes, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema isn't as overtly transgressive as the title implies. What's radical (hence 'perverted') about it is how Pervert simplifies a decidedly complex, psychoanalytic approach to interpreting films for a non-academic audience.

Replete with footage of Zizek in San Francisco (on city streets, standing by the Golden Gate Bridge, etc.) Pervert is also a curious study in the intersection of his career with the Bay Area. A fan of the many Hitchcock and Coppola dramas shot here, most of Zizek's discussions of them ( The Birds, for example) were filmed in SF. 

Worth noting is Pervert's sixties-style editing and visual detail. At times resembling an avant-garde documentary - imagine a vintage public television feature on Jean-Luc Godard hosted by Marshall McLuhan - Pervert is as stylistically rich as it is intellectually stimulating. Or, to put it simply, dope.

Long Live Independent Publishing

Have you ever read The New York Review of Magazines? In the new issue, there's a great feature on the collapse of Indy Press Newsstand Services. Once the largest distributor of independent magazines in the US, ranging from Mother Jones, Harpers and ReadyMade to Punk Planet, Bitch and Tikkun, IPNS closed its doors at the end of 2006, leaving an enormous number of periodicals in serious financial crisis.

The article, Independent Publishing is Dead. Long Live Independent Publishing, covers an enormous amount of territory, talking to nearly all of the hardest-hit titles in the IPNS drama. My good friend, Punk Planet publisher Dan Sinker, is in brilliant form throughout, while former IPNS chief Richard Landry issues forth the expected. Tikkun's former editors - Jo Ellen Green Kaiser & myself - are also included.

To read my initial reaction to the closure of IPNS, click here.

This is the Modern World

For anyone who watches BBC America with any degree of regularity, I'm sure you've seen the New York Times ad that runs towards the end of every week. A pitch for The Weekender, a Friday-Sunday discount subscription package, the presentation is truly seductive. Featuring a multiethnic array of attractive, hip adults (ages 27-40, I'd wager), even though the background music is annoying, the commercial makes an excellent case for buying a three day subscription to the 'Times.  Despite the fact that I've seen it over a hundred times, it still leaves me feeling positively predisposed towards the newspaper.

That is, until I read the Saturday edition. As Jennifer has noted time and time again, its always a little too thin. Nine times out of ten, compared to the rest of the week,  there's rarely a feature story that holds our interest. Looking over today's paper, I had to agree with her. Even though there was one or two pieces that briefly caught my eye, nothing quite grabbed my attention as compared to the Sunday edition, which while like any news periodical, can be inconsistent, is always a bit more compelling.

Part of this I chalk up to the fact that there's only so many days in a week that a daily newspaper can be half-way reasonable. And, part of this I attribute to the fact that American news media tends to focus on Sunday as its "big" day, when, as someone who has lived a fair amount of their life abroad, I am used to Friday and Saturday newspapers being the Sunday-equivalent for said periodical mass. Thus, for example, if I could buy the print edition of Friday's Haaretz here in the US, I probably would. I'd read that well into Saturday, and likewise follow it up with Saturday's edition of The Guardian. Sunday would be 'Times day.

Though I could seek my fix out online every Saturday morning, my solution to this problem is to mix things up. Drinking my first cup of coffee, I watch a half-hour's broadcast of the BBC news, followed by another thirty minutes of Mosaic, the daily aggregation of Middle Eastern television news offered by Link TV. Then, I follow it up with an initial perusal of the new issue of The Economist, which we receive in the mail every Friday afternoon. Between these media, I get the equivalent of a foreign weekend paper, and, for all intents and purposes, a respectable alternative to Saturday's New York Times.

This is why, when fellow editors bemoan the falling circulation rates of established periodicals like the 'Times, ("They're all fleeing for the web!" or so the refrain goes) I tend to bristle. People aren't necessarily fleeing any specific medium. For one reason or another (think of my rather exaggerated example here), they're simply diversifying how they get their news and culture. With so many new choices, online, on TV, and in print (like the  increasing US availability of UK periodicals), can you blame them?

I Heart Ms. Dynamite: Illa State Records Presents A Little Darker

Back in Black

We're home. And already thinking about how we're going to get out of bed tomorrow morning. Brazilian espresso, anyone? Its absolutely wonderful, makes a first-class crema, and only costs eight dollars a pound.

Word up to my homey Ron, who shouted me out today about the WBAI show getting posted. For folks interested in listening, click here. An MP3 will load up immediately, courtesy of the always amazing Doug Henwood.

I just listened to the program over dinner, and was really surprised that the background noise didn't drown it the least bit out. Big up to the Bob Hope Airport intercom for being our friend.

On the Radio

On Thursday, May 3rd, I'll be a guest on Doug Henwood's weekly show on New York's WBAI, Behind the News. Christopher Hitchens is supposed to be on board too.

The subject will be the current fighting between right and left over Israel in the American Jewish community. If you're in the New York area, tune in between 5 and 6 PM.

Jerusalem Calling

CBS Records, 1967

With last week's news of Jennifer's grandmother's death, it seems as though all of the sudden, there's many places to travel. To LA on Wednesday, for Dorothy's funeral. And then to Manhattan, next Monday, for Jennifer to begin an impromptu six to eight week stay on behalf of her firm. If we can afford it, before the end of the month, I'll try and join her for a weekend.

All of this talk of traveling is also an important reminder that I am leaving for Israel at the end of this month, and have to start putting my own professional house in order. Flying out there together with Vance, we'll be spending two weeks conducting interviews and making field recordings for both my book, and our new album. My parents will, of course, be hosting us.

We'll be arriving a week before the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, and the ensuing occupation. That will of course add its own hue to the proceedings. I've been giving much thought to how we might commemorate this occasion in audio format, by reviewing numerous old documentary LPs I have, commemorating such things as Israel's capture of east Jerusalem.

Part of me thinks it would be an interesting exercise to simply "cover" one of these records, like one would an older musical recording. Another option, of course, would be to make a facsimile, only with slight differences to indicate the 40 year change in time, as refracted through our own distinct political orientations. We'll see. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do.

Local Press

San Francisco, April 27th, 2007.

Field Recordings

From an essay in progress

Turn to any progressive periodical in the United States today, and in all likelihood, you'll find at least one article about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. From large circulation monthlies such as Z Magazine, and the American Prospect, to weeklies like The Nation and online dailies such as Counterpunch and Salon, reporting on the region tends to reflexively match events on the ground, either in the form of investigative articles or opinion editorials. 

Coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by America’s left press has traditionally focused on the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule. This emphasis was sharpened during the course of the two intifadas (1987-1991 and 2000-2005) and the peace process of the 1990s, when settlement building actually increased, and the Israel Defense Forces inaugurated its policy of geographical bisections and closures in the 'territories.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, this area of coverage has expanded to include analyses of Israel’s relationship with the United States, with a specific emphasis on the role of the “Israel Lobby” in formulating US foreign policy towards the Islamic world. Reflecting ongoing concerns about Israel’s purported impact on the US decision to go to war with Iraq, in the eyes of many progressive magazine editors, Israel is no longer just an occupying power, but an inordinately influential, and frequently manipulative party to US efforts to dominate the Middle East.

When it comes to domestic Israeli politics, progressive periodicals pay little attention to it, except when it holds importance for the country’s peace prospects. Thus, when trade unionist Amir Peretz was elected head of Israel’s Labor Party in November 2005, progressive periodicals welcomed his appointment, hoping that, given Peretz’ leftwing background, he would reinvigorate the peace process. Similarly, when Israel Beitenu chief Avigdor Lieberman was appointed 'Minister of Strategic Threats' in 2006, given his ultra-nationalist politics, Lieberman's appointment was heralded as a threat to peace.

[For my outgoing editor's take on how Tikkun covered Israel, click here.]

Editorial Notes

From a conference paper I've been working on

The Crisis of Progressive Periodical Publishing

You've heard it all before. Print periodicals are in deep crisis. Whether they be newspapers, magazines or home-produced ‘zines, each year, the circulation for nearly all American print media continues to decline. With increasing self-righteousness, analysts predictably respond to this situation with an “I told you so” kind of smugness, proclaiming this change to be part of a larger, evolutionary process that publishers must either adapt to or die.

Thirteen years after the web first emerged as a viable publishing platform, no one questions this wisdom. In every sphere of the publishing industry, the question is not “when?” but “how?” Do we simply recreate our print editions online, or are we to innovate a wholly new form of periodical that commissions every kind of media for publication? If we do so, can we still call what we’re doing a magazine or a newspaper, or are we all now television stations like Justin.TV? No one quite knows yet.

Unfortunately, its uncertain as to whether there will ever be a comparable level of revenue generated online as there once was by print fulfillment and advertising charges. For example, the Internet’s flagship periodicals – Salon and Slate – despite increasingly successful ad policies, still struggle towards profitability, while only one newspaper – the Wall Street Journal – has generated a discernible profit offering online-only subscriptions.

Clearly, despite the immense number of schemes being toyed with to raise money, most are not working yet. So why do pundits continue to make such a convincing fuss about a medium that has yet to prove itself? Is it that we’re still in a ramp-up period prior to the emergence of a new set of mechanisms to accrue revenue? Or is all of the hope expressed by the move online a reflection of how publishing is losing its economic value, and that most periodicals are increasingly supported by patronage, not sales?

Lets assume the worst: that the push to move online is because it’s a cheaper and easier place to publish, which, under present circumstances requires less staff, less marketing, and thus less investment. Just a one time-set up fee for a technologist, a design team, the creation of a posting script, and enough capital to cover minor, ongoing design work and a small commission for authors. Like print, the test of the magazine’s success remains squarely on its content, and how it’s subsequently ranked and circulated.

Almost Free

Every weekend - or so we intend - Jennifer takes one day for herself. I assist by either working at cafes, seeing friends, or spending the day perusing the aisles of one of my favorite local record stores (or two). In either case, its a good weekend ritual for us. After an exhausting work week, we both need a break from our routines. Having a little personal downtime is always helpful.

Last weekend was no exception. On Sunday, a close friend who moved to Arizona several years ago was in town to see his family, who were out here visiting from New York. We met up for breakfast at the Pork Store Cafe on 16th street, and then made a beeline for Streetlight Records on 24th. Eager to take advantage of a sale, Joe indulged me while I worked the bargain bins.

I walked out with a number of gems: Nina Hagen's Nunsexmonkrock, the new 2.13.61  CD edition of Negative Trend's sole EP, a Homestead-era copy of Nick Cave's Kicking Against the Pricks, The Need's last two records (including the soundtrack for Nomy Lamm's rock opera, The Transfused), Le Tigre's Feminist Sweepstakes, and three other LPs, all for 16.95$

Thinking of myself as the champion discount music shopper, I said goodbye to Joe, and proceeded to walk home feeling absolutely triumphant. Delighted at the prospects of Jennifer's reaction to the purchases (for several years, she's expressed interest in owning nearly all of the records I'd bought), nothing prepared me for what I encountered three blocks from our house.

Standing near the corner of San Jose and 30th, a woman in her mid-thirties was hosting her own DIY music sale. In front of her stood two makeshift tables. One held gangsta and crunk CDs and DVDs, while the other sported piles of unsorted grime, electronica and indie rock discs. Tight on cash, I decided I'd still take a look to see if there were any absolute must-haves.

Low and behold, a number of records fit the bill: Lady Sovereign's Vertically Challenged EP, DJ Clever's Science Faction: Dubstep comp, Panjabi MC's Beware LP, and Rammstein's Reise Reise (featuring the hilarious 'Amerika') all caught my fancy. Looking over the 15 discs I ended up holding in my hands, the person selling the records sighed and said, "Take 'em, they're free. I'm having a hard enough time moving the hip hop as it is. Nobody likes music anymore."

Tanya Reinhart RIP

I just received word that Tanya Reinhart passed away this weekend in New York. She was sixty-three. What a terrible tragedy. My condolences go out to her family and friends. It was only today that I learned she'd moved to Manhattan towards the end of last year, in order to assume a teaching position at NYU.

Though I didn't agree with all of her positions, Reinhart's tireless efforts to end the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are worthy of the utmost respect. In the last issue of Tikkun that I edited (Jan/Feb 2007), Jerome Slater wrote an absolutely outstanding meditation on Reinhart's most recent book, The Road Map to Nowhere. You can read it here.

Aside from a brief email exchange we'd had in the Spring of 2005, the last time I talked to Reinhart was almost exactly three years ago, when I interviewed her for LiP Magazine. An eight hundred word excerpt ended up running in the Summer 2004 issue. I just found a copy of the unedited transcript, and thought these following words would be good to remember Reinhart by:

LiP: Is there an Israeli left at this point?

Reinhart: What’s been extremely encouraging – my ray of light in these bleak days – is to observe that in the young generation there is a movement of resistance that is completely new and courageous. It’s the same generation that got its roots in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle. You first noticed it with the draft resistance movement, which is now bigger than it ever was.

Another amazing new development is that there is a whole new popular resistance movement initiated by Palestinian farmers along the line of the new fence whose land is being stolen by Israelis for the fence. Along that line, in village after village, you’ll find the entire village sitting on the ground in front of the bulldozers. Together with them you’ll find young Israelis.

For the first time in the history of the Occupation, you’ll find the Israeli army facing Palestinians and Israelis together sitting together defending Palestinian land. For me, it’s a big source of hope.

This blog entry can also be found on Alternet.

Authors, Friends

The nicest thing about being an editor are the relationships you forge with authors. By no means the first time I was reminded of this, (but definitely the first since I left Tikkun,) my former film editor decided to pay me a visit on Monday. The first time we'd actually met (after nearly three years of exchanging email and phone calls), Shai Ginsburg was out here on a brief break, determined to finally get together.

One of the best critics of Israeli film writing in English (in fact, the top right now), Shai added the kind of depth to our Israel coverage at Tikkun, which, in the form of film reviews, helped me obviate the magazine's never-ending problems with being deemed too 'anti-colonialist' (to quote a right-wing friend of mine), in its historical emphasis on the occupation, to the exclusion of other forms of Israel analysis.

Much to my delight, as Shai and I walked down to San Francisco's best Middle Eastern joint, the Old Jerusalem Restaurant, we ran into one of my longtime contributors, Other publisher and Choir Boy author Charlie Anders, whose work I've printed in both Punk Planet and Tikkun, as well as The Anti-Capitalism Reader. Strolling quickly by on Mission Street in one of her signature outfits, we almost missed her.

Thankfully, Charlie noticed us, and flagged me down. Introducing her to Shai, I explained that Charlie was the author of one of the more controversial religious pieces I commissioned at Tikkun, an article on transgendered Jews. Long in the making, Charlie's piece was a terrific read, and had a kind of secular quality to it which is so lacking in most Jewish periodical coverage of the new queer spirituality scene.

Speaking of Tikkun, the magazine's webmasters were kind enough to consolidate my infrequent blog entries into one URL. Not exactly god's gift to the blogosphere, there's still some stuff of interest. My last entry was in late December, when, despite my crazy schedule, I attempted to jot down some final thoughts on our Israel/Palestine coverage. Check it out. I'm sure I'll be writing more on this greater subject in the future.

Bring the Noise: Drunks with Guns: Second Verses (Intellectual Convulsion, 1990)

On the Road

Reading flyer, Portland, Oregon, November 2002.

Instant Community

Yours truly with my old friend Eric Zassenhaus, at the Bitch mag going away party on Wednesday night. Eric is an editor of the terrific local literary journal, Instant City.

Photo courtesy of Bitch publisher Debbie Rasmussen. Really sad to see them leave the Bay Area, but their new home - Portland, Oregon - is about as good as it gets outside of these here parts.

Knowing Portland's publishing scene extremely well, Bitch is going to be an excellent addition to the community. Its been a while since PDX hosted a national magazine of Bitch's stature.

Today's work songs: Boxcutter, Oneiric (Planet Mu)

Turn on the News

Two years ago, I saw a colleague of mine on the German news program, Journal.  A frequent guest on the show, he always provided the Israeli view whenever there was an important event to comment on in the Middle East. After sending Robert an email to let him know I'd seen him on TV, surprised, he asked what I was doing watching German television. "Television news stinks here in the US," I remember writing back to him. "The offerings are nowhere near as good as what you get in Israel. We try and watch as many European news programs as we can."

Eating dinner last night, I recalled my conversation with Robert as I watched our latest local news import, Russia Today. Hosted by local public television station Channel 32, RT provides an amusing Russian take on international news. Viewing two segments - one on the debate about the establishment of US anti-missile bases in the Czech Republic, the other, the Venezuelan government's granting of sweeping new powers to President Hugo Chavez - I was immediately struck by how nostalgic RT was for the Cold War. Speaking to Czech opponents of the American initiative and Venezuelan supporters of Chavez, Russia Today's reporters made no bones about their biases. Anything that irritated the US was fine by them.

As someone who spent their teens in the US during the 1980s, to have imagined watching a Russian program on American television would have been unthinkable. Let alone, a Russian news broadcaster supportively reporting on the progress an arch-enemy was making in consolidating their revolution. By no means a politically progressive show, (witness RT's endless profiles of successful Russian entrepeneurs) it was still a hoot taking this aspect of Russia's political temperature as I switched back and forth between RT, Larry King Live, and yet another annoying Benny Hill rerun on the BBC.

"I hear that we're going to be getting better programming in the near future," I remember telling Robert in Tel Aviv as we sat together in his apartment watching live footage of Saddam Hussein's trial. " I sure hope so," he replied, pointing to his TV and laughing. "Imagine if you could watch events like this. Its totally unprecedented to see such things, even here, in Israel."

Given the eclecticism of contemporary Israeli media consumption, that, I'm sure of. For example, in December, the Guardian reported that Israel's largest sattelite TV provider, Yes, had dropped BBC World from its roster in favor of the new al-Jazeera English network. Say what? Despite all of the criticisms levelled at the BBC's Israeli coverage in recent years,  an Arab broadcaster beat out a longstanding British news outlet for sattelite television subscribers. How's that for counter-intuitive.

When asked to comment on this, an Israeli relative of mine told me, "All the right-wingers are saying its Arab Israelis who demanded this change. Honestly, I think it was Jews. How else would the Ashkenazim who don't speak Arabic know what the Arab world is thinking?"

Back on the home front in San Francisco, our viewing preference remains BBC World. Every morning, Jennifer and I sit in bed and watch a full hour's broadcast while we drink our coffee and read the newspaper. Even though its only an hour long (and only in the morning,) between this, Deutsche Welle, and even Russia Today, its still a hell of a lot better than relying solely on CNN. Nevertheless, we hear from our cable provider that they'll be adding a dedicated BBC World news channel very soon.

Pimping Product

One of the many responsibilities I ended up assuming at Tikkun was writing six 100 word book reviews which we always printed on the interior back page of each new issue. Titled Tikkun Recommends (my last TR can be found in the present edition - Jan/Feb 2007) the purpose of the section was to promote books and publishers that we felt ought to receive special consideration, above and beyond the publications we'd review in the Books section of the magazine.

I particularly enjoyed writing these reviews, because, as Tikkun's culture editor,  there were always books I wanted to cover which we neither had the room nor the writers to tackle. As one of those many editors who wished they had more time to write, penning these short pieces always gave me something of an outlet for this frustrated desire. Having written numerous book reviews over the years - for the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Lit supplement and Punk Planet - this also allowed me to keep my review writing chops somewhat fresh.

The reason I mention all of this is because yesterday I wrote my first TR-style reviews for Zeek, the periodical that I recently joined as a contributing editor. As burnt out as I still am, it was nice to re-inhabit this style of writing, and push a few books which deserve attention. If you were to ask me precisely why I like to do these things, that pretty much nails it. There is so much excellent culture being produced right now - by writers, musicians, film directors, software designers , the works - that it feels almost like a categorical imperative to continue to support it all somehow.

This was always the modus operandi we worked with in terms of the bands and writers we covered when I was Punk Planet's associate editor. As a culture magazine, we channelled this ideological sensibility religiously, to a point that we treated our cultural coverage as though it were a political endeavor. By pointing our readers to productions that we felt were important, like many punks, we genuinely believed that we were creating some kind of cultural front out of which a better politics would emerge.

Upon sending out my reviews late yesterday afternoon, I recalled this political impulse and asked myself whether, ten years later, I still believed in it.  "Yes," I muttered to myself, giggling. "If only because I'm still being asked to write the same things I've always written."  Wondering if I was talking to them (and not myself), our two dogs got up from the carpet and started nuzzling my knees with their small furry heads, thinking that I was telling them it was time for dinner.

Currently in Rotation: Various Artists, Tectonic Plates (Tectonic Recordings/Baked Goods)

My New Job(s)

Its been nine days since I left Tikkun. Unwinding has not been easy. As I imagined, there would be email and calls to answer, and loose ends to help the accountant and staff sew up. I'd wager that at least three days were devoted to helping the office out, which is actually less time than I anticipated would be the case. Having spent six weeks at the office after resigning on November 22nd, I dedicated myself to wrapping up as much as humanly possible. I'm sure that there will be more calls and emails in the future. But for now, until the magazine hires a new managing editor, its my assumption that my major post-Tikkun work is complete.

Every time I find myself growing impatient with my inability to get going on my next projects faster - a book, a record and two essays - I always look back at my "To Do" list for December to remind myself of why I'm so damn beat. (That does not include the fatigue accumulated from having worked six days a week for two and a half years.) Ranging from IT, distribution and general business tasks to editorial planning, writing, updating the website and employee training, the six week period during which I undertook my concluding work sums up everything that made my former job so draining. I'm really grateful for the experience, but I'm also extremely relieved to be moving on.

The best part about being home is how comfortable it is to write in. Ever since we moved into our new house in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood two years ago, unfortunately, given my work schedule, I've had a devil of a time finding any real occasion to spend time here. Every weekday morning, when I'd get up to make coffee before work, I'd stare into my beautiful office, wondering whether I'd ever get a chance to enjoy the space and take advantage of what it ideally could afford me. Lined with books and vinyl LPs, and a large desk bearing my home studio set-up, sitting in my decrepit Berkeley office, I'd frequently find myself daydreaming about importing old records bought at foreign flea markets into my rapidly aging computer.

Now that I'm truly here, I can't say enough good things about it. The sun shines through my window for the better part of the day, giving my room some of the best light of any spot in the house. Sitting in my father's old office chair, typing away while my favorite BBC shows stream through my Mac and my two dogs chill on the floor beside me, I can't quite recall a time that I felt so at home. Really, anywhere. Though this definitely will not last forever -  essentially five months from today - it feels like I won the lottery. And I don't feel the least bit guilty about this opportunity either.

As much as this all might seem like its about finally doing what one really wants to do, that's not quite it. It's about having a decent quality of life, and the time to take care of the kinds of things that we ignore, delay, or put off when we work sixty hours a week. Like spending time with one's family, paying bills promptly, returning phone calls from friends (the same day, as opposed to two weeks later), and doing laundry.  And, most importantly, cooking dinner for my wife.  Seeing the smile on Jennifer's face as she sat down to a freshly-grilled flank steak last night summed up exactly why this was one of the best decisions I've ever made. All I can say in response is "Sweetie, there's a lot more meat where that came from."

And We All Fall Down

By now, you've probably heard the news: America's biggest boutique magazine distributor closed its doors on December 27th. By no means a surprise, the closure of the Indy Press Newsstand Services (formerly known as Big Top) remains a big blow to independent periodicals in the US. A significant number of its former clients remain owed substantial sums of money - including my former magazine, Tikkun. While Tikkun will be fine (we left the IPA a year ago), it remains unclear whether many of its former clients are going to survive.

In the interim, the IPA's inability to pay its titles have resulted in the closure of a number of outstanding national magazines, including the award-winning Clamor, and the end of the print edition of one of America's best up-and-coming music publications, Grooves. (Interesting to note that in all of the online discussions of the IPA's closure, no one has said anything about this specific periodical's status.) One of the first  reported casualties of the IPA's financial misanthropy, Grooves stopped appearing on newsstands in 2005. In 2006, it relaunched as a web magazine.

As a publisher, the most important lesson I learned from the IPA debacle is how much it underlined the continuing crisis of professionalization in indie culture. For example, every time I'd go to the IPA's office to attend a sales meeting, I was continually reminded to be 'more professional' regarding design and editorial considerations. For a brief while, I found myself grateful for these talks. I already had a strong background in distribution, and had been hired in part to help shore up the business end of things.

But, as time wore on and the issue was increasingly invoked, I began to wonder whether the subject's continuous reappearance in our business discussions was symptomatic of something far more worrysome. When our regular sales statements and payments  eventually halted, and allegations of poor accounting and distro fee collections emerged, I finally understood what all of this talk about  being 'more professional' was all about. The IPA was failing to perform its most basic functions as a distributor. To put it bluntly, the company could barely tie its own shoelaces.

For any firm, administrative incompetence is always a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, such imperfections are common to many independent businesses, and have more often than not led to their downfall. What troubles me most is not the fact that the IPA was not an exception to the rule, but the cultural consequences of its failings. Through its mismanagement, the IPA put an entire wing of the American periodical business in crisis. Some would even go so far as to say that the IPA killed it. I'm not just talking about any community either. I'm speaking about the countless number of publications which grew up in the turn of the century indie publishing scene.

For the past thirty plus years, America has witnessed the growth of one of the most creative periodical industries in its history. Despite the fact that this business has weathered numerous ups and downs, it was not until the 'zine explosion of the 1990s that independent periodical publishing in the US fully flowered, creating numerous special interest political and cultural titles expressing the enormous ingenuity and literary talent of an entire generation of artists, writers and designers. Not only did this milieu produce something culturally valid; it also created a market, which despite its small size, was sustainable, significant, and most importantly, politically influential.

And that is precisely the problem. The IPA's ultimate crime was that it never took this milieu seriously enough to understand what it was putting at risk through its administrative incompetence. By failing to live up to its mandate to be a responsible "antidote to media monopoly," the IPA helped irreperably damage a counterculture that was a proven platform for distributing alternative information and ideas. That is a horrible legacy to be responsible for. But it is one which ought to serve as a burning reminder of why the left still has to learn how to do business properly.