@motherslug.bsky.social
Detroit writer. Books, jazz, records, eclectic music, bleak sci-fi, depressing and upsetting fiction and films, the works. Read me in print media (Uncut Magazine & Maggot Brain), plus motherslug.substack.com and some other places when they will have me!
I‘m at a show about Làslo Krasznahorkai in Vienna and saw this letter from Thomas Pynchon to Krasznahorkai. I was reminded of this brilliant feature about Pynchon by @motherslug.bsky.social
This piece from @motherslug.bsky.social on Thomas Pynchon and our current predicament is superb
I re-read VINELAND ahead of the release of ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER and it not only held up, it resonated more with me than when I first encountered it in the '90s
www.currentaffairs.org/news/thomas-...
Original & reissue #vinyl I’m very happy to see him finally getting the recognition he deserves. Hopefully Listening Position will reissue his other albums. I’m planning a special edition of my radio show devoted to his art.
Totally agreed!
Extremely jealous!
Dig the music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFQ...
Latest from me: on Listening Position's reissue of Kelan Phil Cohran's 1993 album African Skies, one of the deepest post-1970s spiritual jazz records. Features two double basses, two harps, lots of percussion, cornet, voice and the Frankiphone, an electrified kalimba that Cohran built himself.
A grip of Vintage Contemporaries as I’m sorting books.
I shared bits of Shadow Ticket while reading it but saved most of my thoughts for this piece. It might technically be "lesser" yet it's dense as hell, both funny and a blast to read, makes for interesting bedfellows with Vineland, and is clearly connected to Against the Day, too.
You can read the first page here if you zoom in and should you be interested in subscribing to the magazine, you can use code FRIENDSOFCA for 25% off: www.currentaffairs.org/membership
I love John Biggs' illustration accompanying my Thomas Pynchon piece in @currentaffairs.bsky.social. I wrote a bunch of stuff about how he predicted it was going to get worse like a month before everything got so much worse.
Alice Coltrane describing the difference between the piano and harp vis-à-vis the sun: "The piano is the sunrise and the harp is the sunset ... But the sun is always the sun and a person is always who he or she will be.”
No matter how much you listen to John Coltrane, it is impossible to overstate the depth of his art. The beauty is out of control, whether it’s a beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein melody or irrepressible free jazz.
Really interesting to read in Alice Coltrane's own words how she characterized her approach to playing avant-garde music as journeying through a park and stopping to consider the beauty of its different areas: “Sometimes your moment is there like an eternity.”
Jennifer Kelly (@aquariumdrunkard.com, Dusted) needs our help. Underground music heads, please join me in chipping in.
It is! A new biography is coming soon too, keep an eye out for that.
Alice Coltrane on John: “But he would sit there and the quiet was strong. It didn't make you feel isolated, but part of. I identified with it right away. And it was a kind of silence that you don't want to disturb. You don't interrupt with, ‘Oh, would you like some tea?’ You respect it.”
Fascinating to read Virginia Woolf's first novel and an Alice Coltrane biography at the same time, having an inadvertent conversation about genius women entering creative and artistic spaces typically reserved for men.
No, and I'm very curious about what his book will reveal of this part of her life!! This is from Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane by Franya Berkman.
You are beyond worthy of this heavy pile! ❤️🔥
Detroit jazz: Bennie Maupin reflecting on Alice Coltrane being a PERCUSSIONIST in high school concert band!
Miscellaneous reading plans for the year:
• Mason & Dixon
• Underworld
• The works of Virginia Woolf
• Music books & memoirs
Yes! He was wonderful.
Loved Jim Jarmusch's new film, Father Mother Sister Brother. It's a quiet, charming, well-constructed family triptych of unconnected stories with thematic resonance. Awkward, tense, reflective, and sad in that "life is so fucking weird and full" type of way. I cried a good bit through the final act!
That means so much to me! Sharing good music is one of life's greatest pleasures and it's wonderful to hear from people who've found stuff through my work.
Hell yeah, that rules. This album is top tier!
Watched THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME & somebody (maybe me?) needs to write an essay about how in the SAME DAMN YEAR Benicio del Toro played polar yet twinned opposites in one actually Pynchon-inspired film & another spiritually so, w/shades of doubling & anti-colonialism/anti-capitalism of AGAINST THE DAY.
#nowplaying Rafael Toral - Traveling Light
Found this record through @motherslug.bsky.social’s best of 2025 list and picked it up at the record shop yesterday. One of my favourites of 2025 already. Beautiful stuff!
Joy Guidry’s Amen
“a mesmerizing blend of spiritual jazz, ambient soundscapes, and the communal spirit of gospel, shot through with the power of Guidry’s transcendent vision. Come for the Max Roach-inspired “Members Don’t Get Weary,” stay for absolutely everything else” - @motherslug.bsky.social