Mixtape: Each Day
I haven't been sleeping. The world is so much. But now is not the time to look away. I've been reading — history and news mostly — and trying not to despair about Israel and Palestine. This is when I turn to art, in order to make sense of grief.
Our copy of Maman & Me, an Iranian American cookbook by Roya Shariat and Gita Sadeh, came in the mail yesterday. My dear friend Farrah Skeiky took the beautiful photos that accompany these heartfelt recipes — I've known Farrah long enough to know which ones were the most fun for her to style, and which felt most like home.
Two poems about borders and waters:
"A Grammar for Fleeing" by Zeina Azzam (shared by Diana Bass Butler)
You know, when an emigrant needs something to hold on to, a spider web looks like a wooden beam. –Rafik Schami, Damascus Nights
Hudood, the word for border,
looms in her mind’s vocabulary
like a passive voice, a noun for longing.
Maybe the undulating line runs in water
or in sand, splays on the imagined cover
of a passport, map for a new home.
She has vowed to cross it, daughter on her hip,
two legs doggedly moving apace,
two legs suspended, bare.
She plans to learn the other side
like a foreign language:
first the stones as single utterances,
then the houses and hills, sentences.
The scenes will warm in the light of the sun.
Now it’s dark and the little girl
is ensconced in her arms, eyes closed,
but a lulling breeze could spell betrayal
if they aren’t careful. She reaches
between her breasts for the pendant
inscribed with amal, hope, rubs it
like a magic lamp. The din of conversation
starts to rise as light gathers at the horizon,
where the singular message of true East
has grounded her since childhood.
Lay low, look west, wait for the boat.
She understands the grammar for fleeing,
unspoken rules that decide how
the journey will end, when words
like harb, war, and joo`, hunger,
might ebb and not flow.
Her toddler wakes asking for water
while the sea responds with crashing waves.
"The Prison Cell" by Mahmoud Darwish (shared by adrienne maree brown)
It is possible…
It is possible at least sometimes…
It is possible especially now
To ride a horse
Inside a prison cell
And run away…
It is possible for prison walls
To disappear,
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers:
What did you do with the walls?
I gave them back to the rocks.
And what did you do with the ceiling?
I turned it into a saddle.
And your chain?
I turned it into a pencil.
The prison guard got angry.
He put an end to my dialogue.
He said he didn't care for poetry,
And bolted the door of my cell.
He came back to see me
In the morning,
He shouted at me:
Where did all this water come from?
I brought it from the Nile.
And the trees?
From the orchards of Damascus.
And the music?
From my heartbeat.
The prison guard got mad;
He put an end to my dialogue.
He said he didn't like my poetry,
And bolted the door of my cell.
But he returned in the evening:
Where did this moon come from?
From the nights of Baghdad.
And the wine?
From the vineyards of Algiers.
And this freedom?
From the chain you tied me with last night.
The prison guard grew so sad…
He begged me to give him back
His freedom.
Music, too, can be a grief counselor. Or a sound that meets your rage. These are some songs that have gotten me through crashing waves. —Lars Gotrich
Stream the Viking's Choice mixtape via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below:
Gary Peters, "Relent Less"
Angelica Garcia, "El Que"
Charlène Darling, "Tout s'efface"
Sleater-Kinney, "Hell"
Canary Room, "Orange Cat"
Chris Forsyth, "Long Warm Afternoon"
Ben Quad, "Would You Tell Picasso to Sell His Guitars?"
Milad Mardakheh, "Random Walk"
Golpe, "Diritto Di Obbedire"
Popular Music, "Sad Songs"
Sam Prekop and John McEntire, "A Yellow Robe (The Soft Pink Truth Dawn Mix)"
Judgitzu, "Sator Arepo"
Extol, "Labyrinth of Ill"
Memorrhage (feat. Architeuthis & Vanessa Funke), "Of Horrid Ache & Perfect Ascension II"
Watt, "Band Contest"
Dorothy Carter, "Tree of Life"
The Veldt, "Aurora Borealis"
Fine China, "Breathtaker"
Drifter, "Beggars Ransom"
Mannequin Pussy, "I Don't Know You"
Nø Man, "Can't Kill Us All"
Deena Abdelwahed, "Each Day كل يوم"
Jules Reidy, "I"
Bapari (feat. Kidä), "Outskirts"
Zalaam, "After Many Winters"
Watine, "All Over the Place"
Luces Negras, "Somni"
Wiki & Tony Seltzer, "That Ain't Pat"
Øjne, "Occidente"
Salt Cathedral, "Complacent"
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, "Daylight"
Adeline Hotel, "Old Baldy"