#24 It's Not The Song, It Is The Singing

magic magic magic magic

Mar 08, 2024

Happy Wednesday (It’s Thursday),

Something I hadn’t really anticipated at the back end of my twenties was how many conversations I would have with my friends about magic — how this word would become a through line for us to describe feelings that haven’t found their homes in English yet. As a kid, of course, magic was about wizards. And as I grow up and into myself, magic becomes more about alchemy: making something powerful out of fear, something beautiful out of pain, something gentle and tender out of violence and chaos.

I have a friendship bracelet I made for myself in October. It’s red, green, white, and black with little flowers, and it says “Nina” very simply. The beads are losing their colors as they grate against each other, the string is stained with ink from too many journal entries. There’s not a day I haven’t worn it or remember why I made it. It’s a reference to a Hozier song called “Nina Cried Power” recorded with Mavis Staples, and it reminds me of what is important as genocide, war, and unspeakable violence rage throughout the world. It’s the alchemy of love in action.

“It’s not the waking’, it’s the risin’. It is the groudin’ of a foot uncompromising’ It’s not forgoin’ of the lie, It’s not the openin’ of eyes. It’s not the waking’ it’s the risin’”

In an interview about the song, Hozier shares that the song was born out of a feeling of “hopelessness” and then a question: “well what can we do?” This was five years ago when Mavis spoke of living in “crazy times” and drew parallels to the sixties. Now, in a time where people in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Atlanta(!!) (the list of places impacted by the violence of colonization goes on and on) are not asking for people to fall into hopelessness, they are asking for people to come together for collective liberation and community care, this song orients me north in the same way many protest songs do. The power is in the people, even when it seems hopeless. The power is in the people. And that feels like magic.

“It’s a time where we need to kind of remind ourselves of what it is that we…what we have to lose as people with regards to caring for each other and respecting one another…And these aren’t something we can take for granted and they can be pulled back and eroded away quite easily and quite quickly and they’re not something that was ever granted freely. They were always something that was fought for.”

Nina cried power
Billie cried power
Mavis cried power
And I could cry power

In the past few years, with the guidance of incredible Black womanist professors, trans activists, and indigenous writers, I’ve moved further away from a need to understand as some sort of pre-requisite to connection, to love, to freedom. I was taught to prioritize neck-up experiences because intellectualism is valuable currency in white, western societies. There is a focus, an emphasis, a value placed on thinking over being, talking over listening, owning over sharing. This isn’t to say learning isn’t important — it’s so important. It’s what the goal of learning is that matters, however. Because there are experiences in this life that are incomprehensible. Someone could explain something to me a thousand different ways, and I may never really understand how it could have happened or the depth to which someone with a different life was impacted by it. And these big, horrible, awful things like war and starvation and abuse remain un-understood, just as giant, powerful, transcendent things like love, reunion, and forgiveness remain mysterious.

In my experience, predominantly white universities compound this division between the mind and the body, the individual and the collective. I left university thinking that the goal was to understand these big concepts and that if enough people succeeded, we could change them. But I don’t think change comes from understanding as much as it comes from compassion, empathy, and love. And most of us don’t learn any of that in school, unfortunately. We learn it by being with one another.

Alok Vaid-Menon did an interview a few years ago about the need for compassion and how understanding is not a pre-requisite of compassion. We don’t need full understanding of someone to believe they are undeserving of violence.

I used to wish hardest for understanding, hoped that someone would —through various degrees of effort on my part — learn how to know me completely. I felt that if they loved me enough, paid close enough attention, I could become as familiar to them as their own hands. I think I thought that with their understanding would come a sense of connection or peace, some freedom or acceptance within myself, some comfort that I would never be alone if at least one person understood. The equation in my head also probably suggested that if they understood me, they wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t wish for this as much anymore.

Taylor Ashton has a lyric that I’ve referenced before that says, “If you need something, be something” and so, in all my previous years of needing someone else to understand me, I’ve recalibrated toward trying to understand myself. And to, without trying to contort myself into something more digestible, let myself be as understood in my complexity to the extent people are able. People do not need to understand everything about me to show me care. Those that love me do not need to understand every one of my intricacies. How can they, when I am only now becoming familiar to myself. Lifelong endeavor I reckon.

My friend (which often seems too casual a word, but I can’t bloody well go around calling her my soulmate, can I?) Lana often speaks of this feeling that has no name and if you are her or me, this feeling comes about during certain lyrics of Hozier or Florence and the Machine, arrives on certain starry nights when you can see your breath and the moon at the same time, thrums through your muscles when you march alongside people singing for an end to violence, washes over you when you read lines of such absolute beauty, pain, wonder and hope, that you’re stopped short. And you feel so very here, connected to a melody or to a memory or to the person standing in front of you or to the ground beneath your feet and (for you never know how long it will last) you let yourself be magic.

Some get it with romantic or family love. Some find it early with a passion and talent in athletics or the arts. For me, I see magic in words and people and in music and images. And I really do believe that that magic, the kind that connects someone to something outside of themselves which can be both ephemeral and everlasting, can change someone’s world.

I hope you find some magic this week. It’s alright if your understanding of it lasts a second or if clarity never comes. But I hope you feel it anyways.

XO,
M

🎧 The Osage Murders (American Scandal Season 28, Wondery+)

If you have read David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon or watched the most recent Scorsese adaptation (up for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards), you may be familiar with Mollie Kyle and how she survived the systematic murder of (officially 24 but estimated at over 60 according to the Osage Nation) Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1920s.

I haven’t read the book yet but came to learn of this horrific tragedy through this podcast. American Scandal famously does re-enactments and voiceovers, but I do not find them to be cheesy for the most part. I think it does a good job of conveying the information and putting Osage people at the center of the story (as opposed to the film where Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro seem to be the main characters).

Devery Jacobs (‘Reservoir Dogs’) put words to the hesitation I felt in applauding this film, or even finding it compelling while watching. The actual history is so important to learn (especially for white settlers and their descendants) when engaging in ongoing liberation efforts, but the movie itself unnecessarily centers the white men responsible for some of the most insidious and unspeakable violence against Native people (specifically women) in the 1920s. And yet…hearing Lily Gladstone talk about the ways in which this film has not only been received by Osage folks, but how integral they were in the creative and historical aspects of the film make me think it is worth seeing, if only to take yourself down 15 rabbit holes of interviews and articles afterwards. Personally, I wasn’t crazy about the film, though I could watch Lily Gladstone talk to a wall—they’re so talented.

I really recommend reading both Devery’s take (Vanity Fair) and Lily Gladstone’s response (Variety).
Read an excerpt of Killer of the Flower Moon in The New Yorker
Watch Zane Lowe’s interview with Lily Gladstone about 'Killers of the Flower Moon' & Indigenous Representation. It’s over an hour long, so treat it as a podcast on a hot girl walk :)

🎧 Into the Fic of It

Lana and I and our friend Erin were guests on this podcast a few weeks back, and it was saur fun. We chat about fanfiction and friendship!

🎵 Deira by Saint Levant and MC Abdul ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎵 Fédon by Kaia Kater and Taj Mahal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎵 Lonesome by The Brother Brothers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

She’s baaaaack. Three shows in a week type back. Personally, I couldn’t be more thrilled nor more exhausted.

🎵Briscoe with Nathaniel Riley at Cafe du Nord ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another Austin band for ya, nasties! You know that scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen (gross) tries to re-create the magic of a lobster dinner with a different person at a different time, and it falls so heartbreakingly flat? This Briscoe show was the original lobster dinner. Anyone could listen to Briscoe’s music, could catch them on the road in a different venue at a different time, but not everyone will know what it felt like to be in San Francisco on the lead singer’s 23rd birthday, swaying and dancing with people who loved listening to the music as much as the band loved playing it.

About three quarters of the way into the show (not long because their discography is slim) Truett and Philip asked if it would be okay to play the next couple of songs without the band and if they could play them in the middle of the audience. Naturally, we parted and formed a spacious circle around them. Facing Truett with just one guitar between them, Philip dedicated the next song to his fiancé who had surprised him on the road for his birthday. The song that followed had some of the audience in tears. I recommend the whole album, but this and '“Feelin’ It Again” are my favorites. “Hooped Earrings” is ya feelin’ dancey.

🎵Van Morrison at The Fox ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There has never been a tinier, more irritable multi-instrumentalist, and I’m so happy I got to see him live. Were we the youngest people in the seats by 40 years? Yes. But we also got to see 2,000 septuagenarians live their best life, which made me so happy. Don’t even get me started on the hot dog carts outside the show. 10/10 per usual.

🎵The Wood Brothers with Rainbow Girls at The Fillmore ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s been almost a year to the day since I first saw The Wood Brothers with my dad at The Fox, which was the show that started my absolute obsession with live music. I’ve already waxed poetic about The Wood Brothers on several occasions, so I’ll use this blurb to amp up some local talent: Rainbow Girls are from the North Bay, and I loved their vibe. Their merch is also so cool? Go see them!

🎬The Holdovers (Dramady, 2023)⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pareesa and I have been making our way through all the movies nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. We freakin’ loved this one. It’s slow in the first third but the last two thirds are perfect.

“This is the sleeper hit!” - Pareesa Ashabi

🎬Oppenheimer (Drama, 2023)⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I know…I’m really late to the game. But when your birthday is the day of Barbenheimer, your priorities are…different. Again, the history here is incomprehensibly devastating, but Cillian Murphy acting is next level. I believe he is everyone he ever plays. Also, a fun drinking game to die from is drink whenever a MOVIE STAR enters the scene. There are approximately seven hundred in the cast of this 180-minute movie.

I haven’t read a damn thing in weeks, but there are seventeen books on my nightstand. Lord help us all.

🧁 Sicilian Escarole & Sausage Pasta by Back Pocket Pasta ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another pasta introduced by Chef Devon. I feel like typing out the recipe here is a semi-legal reproduction at best and a heinous copyright violation at worst, so just click the link. It’s delicious.

📱 Mychal The Librarian

"Having fun isn’t hard, when you’ve got a library card!"

Mychal broke the internet with his TikTok account speaking so passionately about the library during his ten-year tenure as a librarian at Solano County Libraries. Haters on the internet bullied him ruthlessly, and he ended up opening up about his mental health struggles and also stated he was leaving his job as a the managing librarian at the Fairfield Civic branch. His followers continued to tag PBS letting them know how perfect he would be for a bigger platform and now…he’s the newest resident librarian at PBS! I just LOVE Mychal. And I LOVE the library. The library is for everybody exactly as they are!

📱 Trans/gressive Writers’ Workshop

My friend Josie, fellow former teacher and talented writer, is hosting really awesome workshops in LA! Deets below :)

Trans/gressive Writers’ Workshop is a poetry space for trans and gender non-conforming individuals of all backgrounds and experience levels, facilitated by writer/educator Josie Defaye (she/her). TWW is cost-free, and meets in Silverlake, LA on Sundays. Follow and DM @transgressivewritersworkshop or @josiedefaye for further details on the workshop, or just to say hi and support transgender poetry.