March 12: I hold my peace and watch the day go by
Hey it’s been a minute.
The past few weeks have been a lot of moving around - heading out west, coordinating around conferences, figuring my way around flight delays and red eyes. Despite all the movement, I tried to make it a time of holding still, or at least, of pulling in. We all have our own centers of gravity, we all each other along with the responsibilities and dependencies that demand our attention. It’s easy to lose track of your own weight in the rippling wells of influence we all find ourselves in. That’s what I was trying to do. Sit on an airplane and pull things toward me for a while. Drink a cheap cocktail and reject the opportunity to describe it to someone else. Inputs not outputs. Sink into the space I’m filling up for a while.
It’s an indulgence but an important one. My inbox is a rush of productivity recommendations on any given day, advertising ever more avenues toward "making it" in whatever hustle seems most attractive at the moment. Pomodoro timers and smart spreadsheets, second brains and revenue streams. Had to press pause for a bit. Not that this here is a hustle, but it is a push. And so like I said, I paused to pull for a bit instead.
But we’re back. And I’m excited to be sharing with you some good things again. This week a couple books (I read better on planes than anywhere else int he world), a fresh new musical voice, and a surprising video game that you can play on just about any system available. I hope you enjoy them and that you find something here to take your own pause.
Luster by Raven Leilani
Raven Leilani’s debut novel took me by surprise. Press and marketing for Luster puts it squarely in that contemporary literary romance space, maybe with the implication of some erotic-ish thriller material. And, to an extent it is that - and it excels in that capacity too. Its central character, Edie, is a razor sharp heroine. A young Black woman working on the bottom rungs of the publishing industry who gets involved with an older white man playing outside the parameters of his marriage. She’s a train wreck, but she’s a self-possessed one and her convincing mix of self-destruction and capacious wit makes for compelling company. But Luster is also a surprisingly dark and weird book that takes a sharp turn into the psychological and social rifts produced by racialized capital, exploring the shifting alliances and enmities that emerge at the margins of those rifts. It’s a story about living in full knowledge of your own precarity and the awful performances that this precarity requires of you if you’re going to live any kind of life at all.
Duality by Luna Li
Luna Li’s new record - her full length debut - is the kind of record that immediately has a place to slot into the broader music landscape. Bits of alt 90s influence married to woozy aesthetics and beguiling, lush instrumentals make Duality a delicious entry into the the current crop of indie pop/rock women who have been exploring and pushing the boundaries of this territory for the past decade and a half. Luna Li’s bona fides are written right there in the guest list, with Jay Som and beebadoobee lending their own burgeoning credentials to the record’s misty-eyed track list. Duality is one of those exciting debuts that makes the case for how a sound still hasn’t been fully explored yet. It’s not on the hunt for a fresh new sound - it’s a confident excavation of the contemporary indie rock scene in the service of Luna Li’s own considerable songwriting talents. If I had to put a pin in what she’s doing here, I’d say she’s set up somewhere in between Soccer Mommy and Half Waif, telling her stories in the languages of alternative rock and bedroom pop. But Luna Li has shown here that she deserves to be encountered on her own terms - Duality is a bracing, original listen that has the most important thing you want out of a rising voice on the indie rock circuit: a signature.
The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly by Kate Lebo
This slow burn essay collection is one of my favorites in recent memory. It’s an attentive, detailed exploration of food and agriculture supported by Lebo’s deft memoir-like reflections which results in a slowly-unfurling narrative fabric that sutures dandelions to family estrangement, durian to failed romances, and pomegranate to personal histories. Lebo is a compassionate writer, but she is at times ruthless in her self-reflection, seeing in her difficult subjects many of her own rough edges. As a collection of essays, it’s a bit difficult itself, resisting quick comprehension as it tucks thematic arcs behind the leaves of cookbook recipes and natural history. But The Book of Difficult Fruit is much like the titular treats, ultimately worth the effort.
Olli Olli World by Roll7
Take the butter smooth satisfaction of classic Tony Hawk Pro Skater games and mix in the euphoric platforming of titles like Celeste or Ori and the Blind Forest and you’ll get this amazing kickflip of a video game, Olli Olli World. The third entry into this side scrolling skateboard series, Olli Olli World represents a massive jump in ambition and execution from the two previous games, offering five biomes to explore and an enormous trick catalog to deploy in the service of reaching ever higher scores and finding the game’s staggering number of branching paths through its levels. It’s also a game that understands how to structure arcade style communities - is there someone just a few points higher than you on the scoreboard and you just can’t imagine how they squeezed a few more points of that run than you? Just press a button to watch their replay. Looking for a quick hit of competition? Just run the daily challenge and see your star rise in real time. It’s a masterclass in creating the friction you need to make a challenging game rewarding while making it as easy as possible to find yourself stuck in a never ending loop of ecstatic play. Truly one of the best games I’ve played in a long time.
That's it this week - thanks for taking the time to catch up with me. Look forward to seeing you again next week.
Jordan Cassidy
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