Now that we’ve moved to monthly “volumes” of this newsletter (or whenever something interesting enough happens), Brian will put together a list of some of the best music released in the past 30 days, which for June includes Sleater-Kinney, the Nat Turner Rebellion, Valerie June and Little Dragon, SAULT, Charles Mingus, Leon Bridges, k.d. lang and Orville Peck, Angelique Kidjo, Joan Armatrading, the Grateful Dead, Lucy Dacus, Etta James, and many more.
Joni Mitchells Blue, perhaps the best solo album of the 70s (What’s Going On comes very close), turned 50 a few days ago. Graham Nash, Gregory Porter, KT Tunstall, and many others broke it down track-by-track for the Guardian.
Books & Writing
“In Octavia E. Butler’s novel ‘Parable of the Sower’ (1993), a climate-change Book of Exodus set in a scorched mid-twenty-twenties California, a preacher’s daughter named Lauren Oya Olamina tries to convince a friend that their world has veered off course. Disaster surrounds their fortified suburb of Los Angeles: water shortages, a measles epidemic, fires set by drug-addicted pyromaniacs, and bandits who prey on the unhoused multitudes that roam the lawless highways. Outsiders throw severed limbs over the walls of their neighborhood, “gifts of envy and hate.” Lauren knows it’s time to get out.” [the New Yorker]
“Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story ‘I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter’ drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next.” [Vox]
Film
“An interview with Amy Heckerling about how her sleeper hit [Fast Times at Ridgemont High] survived a studio that barely knew what it had.” [Slate]
The search continues for the lost, original cut of Orson Welles’ classic The Magnificient Ambersons, although some believe they may be close to the jackpot. [The Lost Print]
History
“I’m Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world,” the boxer says (via a voiceover actor) on a choice Miles Davis cut. “I’m black— they never let me forget it. I’m black all right; I never let them forget it.” [The Conversation]
Politics
Maybe it’s okay to spend more money on Chiptole burritos in New York City and elsewhere, and not just because it leads to higher wages (sometimes.) [Working Life]
And on a similar note, “Employers are becoming much more cognizant that yes, it’s about money, but also about quality of life.” [NYT]
And finally, above, the new Mayor-elect of Buffalo gave an incredible victory speech— incredible because you simply won’t believe we have someone this bold and revolutionary in 2021. (Speech starts just before the 2-minute mark.)