Phthursday Musings: Resilience and Unexpected Joy

There are a whole lot of things going down… you know that, I’m not going to rehash them all here.

I want to say a bit about resilience - about the idea of how to persist through difficult times. I’ve written about making stronger connections with one another, and I do think that’s the most important thing, but I also know that it’s one thing to say it and not always easy for people to affect it.

Resilience can come in a lot of forms. It occurred to me this week that somehow my families - all of whom at the time lived in rural areas - made it through the Great Depression. And we have so much more going for us today. We’ll find ways to persevere.

We need to be talking about it - about how to lift each other up, about how we can help each other handle all of the feelings of being overwhelmed. It’s not easy, but we’ve got a lot of resources available to us, and we need to use them. And we have each other.

For a number of reasons, I’ve been in semi-retreat from any kind of political engagement for quite a while. I was super involved for a long while, and I burned out, and I’ve long struggled to find a comfortable way to reengage. Well, I think I might have found something small but meaningful.

Our school district has a referendum on the ballot in April. It’s the first referendum the district has put on the ballot in over 20 years. The schools need a lot of maintenance, and although this is a solid district which offers a lot, there are some things which should be offered which aren’t, especially in STEM. This week I found out that a committee has been put together to advocate in favor of the referendum - and I wish I’d asked around before because it’s very much needed. Somehow I’m going to get over the malaise and the freaking winter and I’m going to go out and talk to people about our schools.

Our district is very white, but our particular school is about 40%-45% minority, with a significant Latino population and a smaller Black population. In my mind, it’s a tremendously meaningful statement in the face of so much of what’s going on if all of my neighbors vote strongly in favor of this referendum. So I’m going to be part of helping to get that to happen.

I write that, though the reality is, I feel like doing nothing. This is the dreggiest time of year even in the best of times. But I’m going to make it happen.

What might be happening around you which might feel at all similar, and what encouragement would get you out there to be a part of it?

Speaking of getting you to be a part of it:

Yes, we’re going to read Player Piano, and we’re going to do it as a one-hour Zoom session some weeknight in March. Anyone who’s excited about this prospect, please give me suggestions for dates and times. I am leaning toward a Tuesday or Wednesday at 8:00 Central, possible dates of March 18/19/25/26, but please speak up!

Now for the unexpected joy of the week:

Way back on April 8, 1997, Silkworm released their fifth album Developer. Over the preceding couple of years I’d managed to find In the West and Firewater in far flung used bins, and this sort of mysterious band which almost nobody talked about had dug itself deep into my brain. At the time Developer was released, I was perhaps at the peak of my enchantment with college radio. I was listening to dozens of new albums a week.

Over the summer, while living in a strange room in a strange “dorm” on the edge of campus, with a summer job in the school library that I think involved counting weird dusty donated books in an attempt to correct one of the bizarre metrics which dinged us in the eyes of U.S. News and World Reports, listening to Developer at some point, I realized: oh, this is actually my favorite band. It’s been 27+ years now. They’re still my favorite band.

They have of course been gone for a long time. Michael was killed in an absurd car crash in 2005 and the band immediately ceased. Tim and Andy went on to form Bottomless Pit, and then Tim formed Mint Mile, and Andy released an album with Light Coma, and they’ve not stopped being my guys. By virtue of living in the same city, I’ve now seen Tim on stage at a show in some form or another 29 times.

This week, Jon Solomon through his delightful label Comedy Minus One issued Developer anew on vinyl. Never you mind that, old school as I am, there’s no working turntable in this house. My copy arrived last week, and Tuesday night, Jon hosted a virtual listening party through Bandcamp. A lot of us who had been posters on the old Silkworm message board back in the day were on, along with Tim and Andy and Jon. The album sounds great, but of course it does. It was engineered by Steve Albini and Steve and the band loved each other.

At the end of the listening party, very unexpectedly, Tim announced three Silkworm shows in September, with Joel included, and with Jeff Panall on drums. Jeff is the drummer for Mint Mile, was the drummer for Songs: Ohia.

Joel… I have never seen. I’ve seen Tim 29 times, and I’ve never been in Joel’s presence. He left Silkworm in 1995, released a few outstanding albums of his own, but very rarely toured, and I’ve never even known about a show in advance closer to me than Seattle.

This was truly the most wonderful news I could have heard. A lot of things are bleak and I, like many of you, have felt very worn down. The uplift of these shows coming up is profound. These aren’t simply nights in a bar to me. This is like being with family that I never ever get to see.

Silkworm didn’t release any videos from Developer, probably related to not releasing any singles and Matador’s promotional budget seemingly being about $74. So I’ll share this, somebody who decided to make a video montage of their own artwork, set to “Ice Station Zebra”:

Part of staying resilient is that we can’t let the bastards keep us down. We can’t succumb to the feeling that we can’t or shouldn’t experience joy. I hope to see many of you in September.