Of course I’m obsessed with next week’s Presidential election; of course I’m obsessed with the new Chopin song; also, a city that does not totally regret life
I’m All Lost In …
The 3 things I’m obsessing over THIS week …
#55
But first, this week’s Recommended Listening: Scientist, the early 1980s King Tubby protégé whose own slow-electronics dub swept me up at Analog Coffee this past Saturday morning; the shop’s music nerd baristas were playing it over the sound system. I subsequently made a playlist of Scientist’s three defining albums: Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires; Scientist Meets the Space Invaders; and Scientist Meets the Roots Radics.
Second, this week’s Recommended Viewing: my great pal Glenn’s slow-media reel, a quiet video novella about autumn in Seattle.
Now, onto this week’s obsessions:
1) A new Chopin waltz, circa 1830
According to last year’s Spotify Wrapped, coming in ahead of Blondie, the Clash, and DJ Spooky, my No. 1 2023 Artist was Romantic composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849).
My Spotify Wrapped, 11/29/23
Having all my adolescent punk and new wave favorites from the early 1980s on a contemporary list was embarrassing, but …
19th Century salon composer Frédéric Chopin? Tres chic.
(Having DJ Spooky on my list was pretty cool as well, though, he too is an old favorite.)
It turns out, there’s even more Chopin to like now. This spring, a curator at Manhattan’s Morgan Library & Museum discovered a signed manuscript in their vault of a previously unknown Chopin waltz. And last week, the New York Times ran a dramatic story about this awesome find. The article also includes video of piano star Lang Lang in a state of utter delight playing the piece exclusively for the NYT web page.
I’ve been basking in the flow of shimmering new Chopin phrases all week. Additionally, the story itself is a joy to read. It’s not only the riveting tale of the museum’s detective work (determining the authenticity of the score) that hooked me. Nearly every paragraph in the article ends with a hyper eloquent crescendo about Chopin.
NYT music writer Javier C. Hernández was apparently just as moved to write about the new Chopin waltz as pianist Lang was to play it.
From Hernández’s bewitching article:
The jarring opening, he said, evokes the harsh winters of the Polish countryside. …
He settled in Paris, quickly establishing himself as a poet at the keyboard whose music conjured new realms of emotion. …
In the early 1830s, Poland was in armed rebellion against the Russian Empire, which had occupied parts of the country. Chopin never returned to his homeland. …
..he wrote in a diary while traveling in Germany in 1831. “And here I stand by idly — and here I stand with empty hands. I only moan, expressing my pain from time to time at the piano.” …
Chopin invoked the Polish word “zal,” meaning nostalgia or regret. …
Waltzes had been a cheery staple of ballrooms. But Chopin’s were never meant for dancing. …
Still others are morose meditation, like the Waltz in B Minor. …
Chopin detested what he called the “flying trapeze school” of pianism.
2) The Historic 2024 Presidential Election
With less than a week to go before Election Day, the word “obsession” doesn’t begin to capture my state of mind. There’s also anxiety, fear, frustration, and hopelessness.
[Note, if you can’t abide by my gloomy outlook, scroll down to some of my hopeful thoughts at the end.]
It seems Trump is more likely to win than Harris. The polls are just too close in the supposed “Blue Wall” states.
There’s also high prices and the pathological mass appeal of Trump’s scapegoat rhetoric.
And despite A) the initial Kamalanomenon, B) August’s grand-finale Chicago convention, and C) her winning debate, Harris’ star power appears to have subsided.
It was there. But we needed more of it.
10/24/24, Clarkston, GA
I believe that beyond her pro-choice stump speech, Harris has not articulated any other clear-cut reason for Americans to vote for her. Choice is a paramount and historic issue, and she’s eloquent AF on it; it certainly made for her best moment at the September 10 debate. But that issue—and the pro-choice ballot initiatives in key states like Arizona—is not enough. As I’ve been saying all year, and as the NYT and the Washington Post are now finally figuring out, MAGA voters are pro-choice too and will simply vote yay on choice and yay on Trump.
I’m scared there’s a true realignment taking place and that Trump is forging an actual populist party (call it Right Wing Marxism, a sort of reactionary redistribution of power for working class white men only), which logically includes some progressive overlap. For example, while Trump’s America First isolationism is toxic, it’s also openly anti-war. A conversation I had with a cranky lefty at a Brooklyn bar last winter still haunts me: They glibly said they liked Trump’s anti-establishment messaging.
Ultimately, it’s not a good sign that Harris’ closing argument has focused on Trump and has not gone full bore on her own vision. Believe me, I agree with her that Trump is an authoritarian and a neo-Nazi, as we saw on display at his Madison Square Garden hate rally this week. But voters need to feel a sense of excitement about a candidate, not just fear of her opponent.
Yes, I did like Harris’ mic-drop line Tuesday at the Ellipse about her “To Do List” (versus his “Enemies List”), including her top agenda item to build affordable housing. But it still feels like her narrative is about him; the site of her closing argument rally itself was literally framed by Trump’s infamous Jan. 6 speech. That’s not a winning script. She needs to be the star of the story.
Maybe…hopefully… by November 5, she will be?
To stay hopeful, I hold on to these things:
• Perhaps this summer’s excitement about Harris reflected deep sentiment (there were, after all, 75,000 people at her Ellipse rally this week, and there is a surge in female voting right now, plus there’s a big, early exit poll lead for Harris as well);
• The media hype about the supposedly ascendant U.K. and French ultra-nationalists this past July, subsequently belied by actual election day failures (tears of joy), may presage a similar MAGA loss out in our own election;
• And most important, there are our own previous elections, particularly 2022’s phony “Red Wave,” which seem like convincing polls in and of themselves. That is to say: the succession of Democratic victories and Trump losses in 2018, 2020, and 2022 seem to indicate that MAGA is not as popular as the media continues to say it is.
10/30/24
On Wednesday night, I voted for Kamala Harris. Obviously.
3) Vlogger Yzabel Nievanne’s Instagram account.
Last June, I came across an Instagram reel posted by Yzabel Nievanne, a Seattle transplant from San Francisco (Yes, please, and welcome!) who was rightly complaining that everything closes too early here.
“Is it just in my area?” she asked hopefully…
Sensing I’d found a Frank O’Hara comrade in my campaign to constantly nudge Seattle (into a city “that does not totally regret life,”) I hearted her reel and of course left a link to my first book of poems: Shops Close Too Early.
Rather than making a book sale, though, I’m the one who became her fan; I now religiously follow Nievanne’s account (project.fulltimetraveler, née project.lovingme) as one of her 80,000 fans.
It turns out, she’s not a city policy crank. This square young woman and her understated sidekick husband provide a daily dose of uncomplicated glee—hers—that offers a different kind of urbanism.
Uncomplicated urbanist Yzabel Nievanne checks out Pioneer Square’s coffee shops.
Unlike scripted TED-talk YIMBYs or upzone activists, Nievanne’s energized pro-city POV just means she’s constantly out and about, unfettered and living her best city life as she discovers Seattle. Usually taking light rail, she’s off to: Pioneer Square and Chinatown/International District coffee shops (Umbria, Saigon Drip, Hood Famous, Zeitgeist); Seattle’s farmers markets; the Rem Koolhaas Central Library; the pretty walk around Green Lake; the Seattle Opera; and the U. District … “we found the quirkiest vintage trinket store” …
Her consistently upbeat posts also give her license to be critical, which she often is. “I’m processing…” she’ll note playfully and then…
She reports: the coffee at Umbria needed lots of extra milk and brown sugar; Pioneer Square was “kinda quiet, there’s not a lot of things going on in the Square;” and Zeitgeist’s blueberry muffin “wasn’t as moist as I would like it to be … maybe, it’s the cornmeal that I don’t like.”
I have to admit, it’s fun to watch an incorrigibly effusive newcomer—and an unapologetic normie, at that—quietly puzzle over Seattle’s strangely lackluster city life. It makes me feel like less of a demanding jerk.
She also inspired me to document some city action myself this week, such as the line around the block at Monday night’s Artemas show. It’s always a public policy win when the youth line up at the club.