Friday Links: Area Man Releases EP Edition
"I adore the work. It's very comforting...Books are things that keep us going. Books—I haven't got much feeling about many other things. I adore the work." - Donna Murray to Studs Terkel, 'Working'
“Area Man” in this instance is not me, but my good friend Pat Nolan, who plays music as Area Man, plays basketball like Pau Gasol, and sings like Bruce Springsteen. Here’s the Area Man Bandcamp.
Your Friday Vine update: the podcast is live! We’re only on Soundcloud at the moment, the other apps soon. Here’s episode one (chapters 1-6 of Vine) and here’s episode two (chapters 7-11) Thursday was Chapter 10: “The Burials,” today is Chapter 11: “Hunt.” More stories on Monday, don’t forget to sign up for the weekly Vine newsletter!
What I’ve Been Reading Lately
Sometimes, I think to myself: “Chris, you’re incurably Protestant. You can’t escape it. Just look at the book you chose this week. You were excited about this book.” Well, hell. Some of the best writing advice I ever got was “don’t go to grad school, go work in the real world for a while.” Not to romanticize it (work sucks, after all), but I’m glad I did—I’ve been a deckhand, a bartender, a server, a parking office assistant, a bookseller, a warehouse guy, a copywriter, The Guy In The Drive Thru at Taco Bell, and The Guy Who Unloads The Delivery Truck at Taco Bell. These experiences have shaped me—made me more empathetic (read: completely unable to say a word if a restaurant gets my order wrong), made me more Marxist, made me more well-rounded than an MFA and PhD ever could. So hell yeah, I was stoked to read this book, and Max Weber can suck it. This week, of course, I read Working by Studs Terkel.
I’ll be upfront and say I didn’t read the whole thing—it’s 600 goddamn pages of people from 1972 talking about their jobs, after all—mostly because I already know this is going to be a reference book for me. Every USian should be required to reading it, just like every USian should be conscripted into a service worker job for two years at some point. All the vignettes are 1-5 pages, conversational. Today’s epigraph comes from a bookbinder. I enjoyed chapters from Roberto Acuna, a farm worker; Frances Swenson, a hotel switchboard operator; Roberta Victor, a ‘hooker’ (shoutout Sin In The Second City); Dolores Dante, a waitress; Hots Michaels, a bar pianist; and Jesusita Novarro, ‘just a housewife.’ Plenty of others, too, but those stuck out. There are plenty more for me to get to. I won’t sum it up with some pithy “aren’t people amazing” or “underneath it all, we have so much in common” schlock. I will simply say it is good to spend time learning about other people, listening to them “talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do.” This is a very good book for the soul.
LINKS!
Something to listen to? Why this set from Alfa Mist? It’s a cool watch, too!
Great piece from Paris Marx,
here on Substack, about how Generative AI closes off a better future. It’s an interesting companion piece to Working—lots of jobs in Working are obsolete thanks to technology, and that’s not necessarily the worst thing. But Paris—appropriately invoking Ursula Le Guin—warns that AI will trap us in the past. As always, this blog remains firmly anti-AI.Wrenching story by Evan Urquhart over at Assigned of how New York Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi screwed over the parents of trans kids by reporting a bunch of lies from a disgruntled clinic employee. These anti-trans freaks sure are good at blowing up people’s lives and not caring about the harm they leave in their wake.
Loved this Defector article on dead animal art from Brigid Christison. Or “Vulture Culture,” I should say, an art movement dedicated to making use of dead animals. It’s driven primarily by women and queer people, with an emphasis on subverting trophy hunting impulses. A pull quote, since Defector is subscription-based (and worth it): “People have always used animal parts to decorate themselves and their surroundings. But the keyword here is ‘Vulture’: a reference to the practice of finding or scavenging for these remains, or using ethically sourced materials from animals that otherwise would have gone to waste. Vultures don’t kill; they make use of what’s already dead.”
Very cool retrospective in WBEZ Chicago from Joe DeCeault on The Fireside Bowl, the legendary Chicago punk venue I didn’t move here in time to see. All the great details of the punk scene are here: all-ages shows, threatening violence against Nazis while being kind to each other in the mosh pit, a bartender named Hammer who doesn’t know how to make drinks. God, this made me wistful.
The epigraph of this Danny Cherry Jr. piece in Antigravity about preachers being “a terrible damn problem” could be an epigraph for Vine. Instead, Danny is investigating the very real threat of Christian Nationalists, specially their obsession with trans kids. Christian Nationalists are the rare group in this country that has the ear of the very rich and the very poor, and they use this far-reaching influence to be the absolute worst people. It’s bad stuff! Protect trans kids!
One more proper link to the Area Man EP. These songs really rip, and it’s only 15 minutes long. Go check it out!
Alright, alright—what’re you still doing here? Go read Vine! Sign up for the newsletter! Listen to the podcast!
If you’re a service worker, may you clean up in tips this weekend, and may all your customers be as interesting and understanding as Studs Terkel.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris