So I guess my motivation for doing these is that I can feel myself growing dumber and I'm getting sick of saying nothing but "Oh, hell yeah dude" anytime I encounter a piece of art I enjoy. There's only one guy who can get away with that.
This week we'll look at a film, a book, a friend's manuscript and an online music event. Lets goooo!
Two Days, One Night: I feel like I forgot about films for maybe five years of the last decade, and only really started watching them again in 2019 or thereabouts. There was just something so depressing about wading through American superhero blockbusters to find anything worthwhile. I think it had to do with leaving Halifax, where Video Difference (since closed, RIP) made it easy to keep up with stuff outside of the Empire Theatres mainstream (now also defunct, lmao).
Anyway, I really like the Dardennes brothers but put off watching this for a long time cause it looked like a gimmicky romcom, but it's not that at all. I should have known better.. It's a working class film, and a great one at that. Marion Cotillard does pretty much everything right (except for that one little suicide attempt halfway through): hold firm against the bosses, don't let them play you off against your co-workers, don't be a rat, count your votes.
Two Days, One Night captures that dread, the knot that ties itself in your stomach on the worst days when you don't want to go into work, when you zone out on the bus trying not to think about it, but at the same time it examines where that pressure comes from and how it's wielded against you.
Saxon Identities, AD 150-900 by Robert Flierman: this was an interesting book, not so much a history of the Saxons but an investigation into how people wrote about them. It was really useful for helping me get my head around Charlemagne's conquest of Saxony, a conflict that lasted for almost thirty years.
You remember that thing Trump used to do where he'd just accuse all crime of being perpetrated by MS-13? While for a while the Romans used to do the same thing, calling all coastal raiders Saxons.
The book looks at ethnic identity formation through 4 groups of writings about the Saxons: from the Romans, from the Franks (Merovingian and Carolingian) and lastly from the Saxons themselves. The Romans used Saxons in panegyric speeches essentially as noble savages, sent by the Christian god to punish humanity for their sins or to test an emperor. The Merovingians don't 'other' the Saxons, seeing them as neighbours fully intertwined with Frankish affairs.
The Carolingian perception of the Saxons might be most interesting because they spent 33 years campaigning in Saxony and bringing the Saxon under Frankish domination and into Christendom, so Carolingian writers both had to justify this invasion as well as explain why it was taking so long. Would've liked to see more on Widukind but there just aren't that many sources.
As the author explains, Charlemagne beat the Saxons essentially by unifying them. They kept slipping from Frankish grasp because they weren't a unified people but a broad group of tribes. So when one leader surrenders, the other would rebel. Charlemagne essentially had to co-opt their ruling class by granting privileges, generally bishoprics, monasteries and counties.
This leads to Saxon self-perception. They saw themselves as Frank-like because they were being educated and ruled by the the Franks, but they were still their own people. Early Saxon writers acknowledged Charlemagne's conquest but explained away the defeat by thinking of it in religious terms, with Charlemagne as a missionary delivering them paganism. As the author writes, "They actively reworked the Frankish discourse so as to make it more acceptable for a Saxon audience. In Saxon hagiography, the Saxons were transformed from a gens perfidia to a gens nobilis. The length of the Saxon Wars became a sign of Saxon military valour as well as an indication of Saxon steadfastness and loyalty to ancient customs. The humiliation of defeat was mitigated by interpreting this defeat as part of a divine plan."
All in all, a fascinating book
Forest Swords vs Geldingadalir: On Monday I stumbled upon an interesting music event on Youtube: Forest Swords was improvising over a livestream of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. The music was haunting and foreboding, if not quite as lively and impressive as some of his other work. Still, I found myself pleasantly distracted for ninety minutes, daydreaming of going stealth mode on Mordor. The event doesn't seem to have been archived online, which is a real shame. The broadcast wasn't archived, but a second one a day later was and you can listen to it on the Forest Swords youtube channel.
Pizzagate/Qanon Manuscript: Remember a while back––I guess it must've been in Summer 2019 after Epstein died in prison, though it might've started earlier, when he was arrested––when the big thing on Twitter was forming Epstein group chats to have a place for going over all the weird connections in that case? Well, I'm pleased to say the group I was invited to ("The Lone Gundam") is still going strong, looking at all the weird shit it's not polite to talk about in the mainstream.
One of our members, I'm not sure if he's ready to be named yet, has recently decided to share with us a manuscript he's hoping to have published. It looks at the Pizzagate and Qanon phenomena from a left wing perspective. Tagline: Most people are currently asking themselves, “What the fuck is wrong with Qanon people?” This book asks, “What the fuck is right with them?” The book digs into these two (presumably astroturf) movements to look for the kernels of truth that were used to seed the lunacy of the Trump years. A big focus is on the idea of limited hangouts and controlled opposition, but topics range from Trump and Epstein to Aleister Crowley to MKULTRA to Project Monarch to UFOs.
This is maybe the third manuscript that's been shared with me through twitter. I've also looked at a memoir and a pulpy noir novel set in Vancouver. I'm always amazed at what great writers my twitter friends are, and the only real downside is that I worry I'm not contributing anything when I agree to read through these things.
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