Various Authors

Nation Time

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In his novel To Asmara, Thomas Keneally — the author best known for Schindler’s List — offered a compelling portrait of Eritrean caregivers amid an agonizing armed struggle for independence. I flashed on his fiction as I watched the short film (below) made by Times reporters embedded in a Ukrainian medical unit close to the front lines. The film is less romantic than To Asmara. Unlike the Eritrean heroes of Keneally’s novel, the Ukrainian doctors are not paragons. When they must care for a Russian prisoner of war, they do the job but…well, you’ll see. For now, let’s just stipulate the Ukrainians are not saints like Keneally’s fighters and healers. (Or, saying it another way that might speak to longtime First readers, there’s nobody like Fr. Frechette in this unit.)

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Labor History Happening Now

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Your editor forwarded on the following passages from an informative piece by Michael Tomasky to First‘s…labor caucus:

Nobody seems to have noticed this, but over the course of the spring, the country’s four leading freight rail carriers agreed to grant the vast majority of their workers paid sick days.

Everybody remembers what happened last December. The workers threatened to strike over such days, among other issues. President Biden, generally very friendly toward labor, made it illegal for the workers to strike. He was criticized by unions and workers and fellow Democrats and liberal media outlets, this one included.

None of that criticism was wrong at the time. But it wasn’t the end of the story.

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“Structuring Participation”: Class Matters Podcast with Jane McAlevey

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Forget Succession. If you want drama (and spicy talk), listen in to the latest Class Matters podcast. Episode 12 (link below) features Jane McAlevey who is prompted by Katherine Isaac, Gordon Lafer, and Adolph Reed Jr. to explain (1) how the work of organizing jumps off in earnest AFTER a union wins a certification election. (Getting to a first union contract is hard.) (2) how the health of any union depends on constant engagement with workers as a collective body, not as atomized figures in one-on-one grievance proceedings (3) how real democracy in a union or anywhere rests on “structuring participation.”

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“Love…Thy Will Be Done” (& Jody is a Preacher)

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C. Liegh McIness commended a lovely track by Prince that wasn’t released until after his death, Baby You’re a Trip, and that, in turn, led your editor to another amazement on Prince’s posthumous Originals collection. A version of this song, with the Cuban American pop singer, Martika, doing the vocal, was a hit in Australia. Here’s Prince’s version…

Love… Thy Will Be Done – YouTube

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Nobody Knows His Name: A Note on Adam Scheffler’s “Heartworm” (& “Googling Myself”)

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“Piss expressively.”

The onomatopoeic first line of Adam Scheffler’s poem, “Advice From a Dog,” hints at his virtuosity and his modesty. This guy ain’t too proud to pet and be petted. Another one of his openers make you wonder if he’s about to give himself too much credit: “She said my butt was a piece of art…” Not to worry:

…my greatest asset, if
you will, although come to think of
it she didn’t say it was good art
only a “piece” of it, as if it’s
not complete without her hands
on it…

Scheffler is careful about intimacies. I doubt he’ll ever go Lowell. There won’t be lines from a begging (or pegging) partner’s correspondence in his poems. Nor does this nice Jewish boy suffer from Maileria. He’s no wannabe macho.

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Standards (& Stadiums)

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Stanley Corngold’s evocation of his first time in Yankee Stadium reminded your editor of a Q&A with another Brooklyn boy (and friend of First). When the late Jules Chametzky was in hospice last year his son, Rob, asked him if he’d ever seen Willie Mays play when Mays was in the minor leagues. Rob recalled their exchange at his father’s Memorial…

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Tool of The People: Q&A with Ladj Ly

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Les Miserables

Sight and Sound‘s Elena Lazic interviewed Ladj Ly soon after the UK release of Les Miserables in 2020.

Most people discovered you through Les Misérables, but you’ve been making films for a long time. Can you tell me about your work with the collective Kourtrajmé?

Kourtrajmé is, before anything else, a group of friends. We all grew up together. We’ve known each other since kindergarten or primary school.

The collective was formed in 1994 with the ambition to make our own films. I joined in 1996. I was close friends with Kim Chapiron as a kid. I started as an actor in his films, and then at 17, I bought my first video camera and began filming my neighbourhood.

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“Baraye Azadi” (Iran’s Freedom Song)

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The single best way to understand Iran’s uprising is not any book or essay, but Shervin Hajipour’s 2m anthem ‘Baraye’ which garnered over 40m views in 48 hours (before he was imprisoned). Its profundity requires multiple views. (Translation by @BBCArdalan)

The lyrics are a compilation of tweets for #MahsaAmini that evoke felt life among the young in a modern society ruled by a geriatric religious dictatorship. The tweets speak “to the yearning for ‘a normal life,’ instead of the ‘forced paradise’ of an Islamist police state.”  [Per Karim Sadjadpour. More adapted tweets from him below the song.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0De6Asvzuso&ab_channel=iWind%21

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Killer Storm

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What’s above is the entry on Jerry Lee Lewis from Greil Marcus’s annotated discography to the collection of essays he edited: Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island.

 

“I said her name!”: Roya Hakakian’s Statement on Mahsa Amini & #IranRevolution2022

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“Here’s my testimony [in English] before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a few days ago.

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