Mr. Bubis in 2666 & Perry Farrell's pull-quote
plus: co-reading Tove Jansson & my assistant's favorite book
Good evening,
I’ve been on the move. After L.A. and Dallas, I went to Florida with my sister to visit my dad, then to Vegas for a show at the Sphere. Home between trips, the day-to-day is exceptionally mellow, thank the gods.
I’ve got two ‘stacks sitting in drafts with photos and captions, one from Florida and one from Cabana 301 at the Winn. I’ll get them done and out soon. In the meantime, a noteworthy docuseries and three favorite reads this month are below.
Many subscribers to this newsletter also read Little Engines. One of the best pieces of writing the magazine has published to date goes live over there tomorrow morning. If you haven’t subscribed yet, jump on in.
🖤AV
LOLLA: The Story of Lollapalooza 📺
Perry presides, with snippets of a present-day interview spread across the three episodes. He says the best shit, and he knows he’s saying the best shit. He’s pleased with himself. He smirks sometimes. My favorite:
We were creating culture.
But I didn’t know that.
But that’s where culture always...
Culture always comes from that place.
It is not a trickle down.
- Our guy Perry
Episode 1 rules, Episode 2 has good stuff, and some of Episode 3 is worth a looksie. You feel the stretch when they try and say the festival's current iteration with 100K+ people in downtown Chicago is still part of some revolution, but I'mnot offended by the thing's success or its evolution, and I'm still moved by the origin story, more now than when it was happening. I never went to Lolla when it toured. It came to Deer Creek in Noblesville many times, but I didn't go to big-ass shows back then. What a dummy.
I'm shocked by the terrible live sound accompanying much of the performance footage. It's like they took one earmuff from an old set of headphones, blasted a side musician's esoteric monitor mix through it, and captured that with a shitty microphone. What happened? How do you make a documentary about a legendary live music festival without access to good audio? Of course, the visuals are fun to watch even if it sounds like shit, but we've all seen these images a bunch.
The interviews are where it's at since it's not about the gigs. Getting to see Marc Geiger & Don Muller over the years is a treat, and Stewart Ross, tour director for the original iteration, gives a dry-humored look at Lolla from angles I'd not seen before.
Three highlights in reading 📖
Mr. Bubis at the end of Bolaño’s 2666
It took me several months across paper, kindle, and audiobook, but I finally finished this fatty. I was very annoyed deep in the part about the murders. Like walking through mud, part of the point and the power of the story, no doubt, but I was bummed.
The payoff in the last part is worth it. Particularly the character of Mr. Bubis, a weird-ass publisher committed to releasing Archimboldi’s books, which sold in the 10s, not the 100s or 1000s. Incredible dude.
I recommend reading the five parts of this book as normal-sized, loosely connected novels in whatever order and on whatever schedule you like. The heirs’ explanation in the endnote for publishing 2666 as one volume is not all that satisfactory, especially if Bolaño’s intent at the time of his death was to break it up.
Co-reading The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
I asked my Scandinavian friend to read this with me. He claims to never read books, but knows all the Jansson children’s books and artwork otherwise.
After finishing the book, he wrote me and said:
“From the northern territories. I can sense those lonely lights mid-winter. The spring. So wonderfully described that I can smell it. Read a book. Thank you for suggesting Adam. I’ve run out of ideas lately. I hope it will turn out to be like a cleansing. Erasing everything on the board. I lost my landscaping job.”
I’m always trying to get people to read the same thing I’m reading. I always hope it leads to talking about other things.
My ex-assistant’s favorite book: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
My ex-assistant, who has been promoted and should be taken seriously, gave me Meditations as a gift. He said it’s his favorite book and that he re-reads it most years.
I would have struggled if asked what Stoics thought before reading this book and its introduction. I’m sure we learned a little bit in school, but it didn’t stick. I often wonder what makes my ex-assistant tick and why he’s so solid so early. I wonder if his parents gave him this book. This king of the world is high-minded. Zero talk of golf handicaps.
Here are some meditations I marked while reading. Helpful to remember that the “you” Marcus is talking to in Meditations 10.36 is himself, not your sorry un-Stoic ass.
from Meditation 2.14:
Remember two things:i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period;
ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.
from Meditation 4.32
Survey the records of other eras. And see how many others gave their all and soon died and decomposed into the elements that formed them.from Meditation 9.1:
Some things nature is indifferent to; if it privileged one over the other it would hardly have created both. And if we want to follow nature, to be of one mind with it, we need to share its indifference. To privilege pleasure over pain — life over death, fame over anonymity — is clearly blasphemous. Nature certainly doesn't.from Meditation 10.18
Bear in mind that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges, and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot.Or that everything was born to die.
from Meditations 10.36
It doesn’t matter how good a life you’ve led. There’ll still be people standing around the bed who will welcome the sad event.from Meditations 11.2
And with everything — except virtue and what springs from it. Look at the individual parts and move from analysis to indifference.Apply this to life as a whole.