.
Join us on Tuesday August 19th at Low Bar in Toronto for a poetry fundraiser and celebration of the book launch of My Voice Cannot Be Bombed (available for pre-order through iskra books) by Yahya Al Hamarna. Yahya is a Palestinian writer from Gaza City who “documents the brutalities of war alongside the fragile rituals of everyday life—studying, walking to the park, reading poetry, preparing tea, mourning, surviving.”
Toronto writers will read from Yahya’s debut collection and share their own work. Signed book copies and other prizes will be auctioned off. All proceeds will go directly to Yahya and his family in Gaza.
Doors will open at 7:00pm, with the reading to begin at 7:30pm.
Organized by Independent Jewish Voices UofT and UofT English Graduate Students for Palestine
A Radical Cut In The Texture Of Reality
August 16, 2025
August 12, 2025
Some passages from Liberation Through Hearing by Richard Russell
Some passages from Liberation Through Hearing by Richard Russell:
*
“As is often the case with those who make disturbing art, he seems a person of integrity. Those in the public eye who go out of their way to seem benevolent, the supposedly squeaky-clean ones, are the ones to beware of. Nasty pretends to be nice, and vice versa.”
*
“Mainstream entertainment, like mainstream religion, is used to control people. But there are threads that run through all religions and I see music in similar terms. Both religion and music provide ways of seeing the unseeable and a necessary escape from the sometimes unbearable harshness of reality. Ideas can be communicated about death and the worlds beyond the one we inhabit.”
*
“Once I had been allowed to enter the movement, I decided it was rubbish, continuing a lifelong pattern of disowning my goals once they were achieved.”
*
“Not only did this represent champagne aspirations on a beer budget, but Nick and I were attempting it without our partners. There were lessons to be learned: break up a winning team at your peril. Never overlook the contributions of your collaborators.”
*
“Every artist who achieves longevity does so not just through the making of music, but the making of decisions, eventually thousands of decisions, starting with what to call themselves and who to play their demos to, through whether to sack their friend and go with a professional manager, which live agent to work with, and then on to the lifelong navigation of an endless series of suggested compromises.
The artists who thrive are not just the most musically talented but the most dedicated to their core values. There is a toughness required of this kind of work, but given that artistry is delicate, a dichotomous nature is necessary. That is the thread that has linked the artists I have worked most closely with. Extraordinary strength coupled with sensitivity that is so acute it is almost psychic.”
*
“I was starting to realise that a large part of the creation of success was about ignoring the reasons it might not happen. Blocking out reality and getting on with it. Focusing on what I wanted to happen and how to get there, not the reasons it was unlikely to work.”
*
“The process of songwriting and recording often involves wild oscillation between feeling immensely empowered – godlike is how some describe it – by one’s own abilities to make something out of nothing, and feeling like an idiot who is wandering around naked while everyone laughs. These extreme swings can occur in very short spaces of time and when they do you are fairly close to madness. The uncertainty of the creative process feels to me at times like chewing tin foil.
The manager of one huge artist proudly told me that he insists to the musicians he works with that they behave functionally. He said that he doesn’t buy into the idea that instability is intrinsically linked to creativity. Perhaps, I thought, he is just working with talent so mediocre that their behavior is as mundane as their music. Whatever abilities I possess feel like they are simply the flipside of the least functional parts of me. Dysfunctionality comes with gifts as a consolation prize. Whether a person is able to tap into these gifts is another question.
But no one whose art is really good tends to feel all that good for much of the time. Blissful happiness is an unlikely condition in any event and would certainly be an unusual place for a gifted person to inhabit, at least for long. The best a great talent can hope for is to reach some sort of an accommodation with themselves. An appreciation that they at least have something to show for their alienation.”
*
“John Peel was an influential tastemaker, but I wanted to diverge from his approach as much as emulate it. He was probably the greatest champion of independent music ever because the way he chose which records to play was so ideologically powerful. His position was not that he would play good music, regardless. It was more political than that. If he perceived something was too pop, he would not play it.
So while John Peel was a supporter of Scritti Politti’s early singles and debut album for Rough Trade, Songs to Remember, he never played anything from their masterpiece, and one of my all-time favourite albums, Cupid & Psyche 85. This music was even better than their previous output but he did not support it. Green and co. had decamped to New York and made the music they dreamed of, which was R&B, with storied soul producer and arranger Arif Mardin. But Peel stopped playing them because he considered what they were doing too pop.
I didn’t wish to take this approach.
‘Indie’ to describe music was a term that was destined to become obsolete, and I didn’t want this type of ghettoization to happen to XL. I wanted to be able to back artists to be as ambitious as they saw fit. Equally, I wanted to discourage artists from being overly commercial if that meant their records would suffer. I wanted to work with the best artists and help them make the best music. I didn’t want to be tied down to an ideology that would get in the way of that. I didn’t want records to have to be commercial – like a major; equally, I didn’t want them to have to not to be – the way John Peel seemed to sometimes see it.”
*
“Her approach owed something to punk, perhaps best summed up as: If it ain’t broke, break it.”
*
“This book is not about sales figures or awards. Too many artists whose work is close to my heart have not achieved huge sales for me to think of units sold as what is important. Commercial success is a measure of something outer; not necessarily anything deeper. The record industry’s obsession with figures is limiting and stifles creativity. Music that reaches a lot of people but has no substance is of no interest. Music that has depth but only reaches a small audience is often the most important and long-lasting.”
*
“I just knew that whatever we did needed to be a celebration, and that I had to have faith that something special would manifest. The principle I tried to stick to was that the absence of doubt would lead to success. Commit to the process, don’t waste time thinking about whether it will or won’t work, and execute to the best of your ability. The rest will take care of itself.”
*
“Coincidences are ‘God’s way of staying anonymous.’ They are a reassurance that there is a flow and it’s useful to note and appreciate them when they occur.”
*
*
“As is often the case with those who make disturbing art, he seems a person of integrity. Those in the public eye who go out of their way to seem benevolent, the supposedly squeaky-clean ones, are the ones to beware of. Nasty pretends to be nice, and vice versa.”
*
“Mainstream entertainment, like mainstream religion, is used to control people. But there are threads that run through all religions and I see music in similar terms. Both religion and music provide ways of seeing the unseeable and a necessary escape from the sometimes unbearable harshness of reality. Ideas can be communicated about death and the worlds beyond the one we inhabit.”
*
“Once I had been allowed to enter the movement, I decided it was rubbish, continuing a lifelong pattern of disowning my goals once they were achieved.”
*
“Not only did this represent champagne aspirations on a beer budget, but Nick and I were attempting it without our partners. There were lessons to be learned: break up a winning team at your peril. Never overlook the contributions of your collaborators.”
*
“Every artist who achieves longevity does so not just through the making of music, but the making of decisions, eventually thousands of decisions, starting with what to call themselves and who to play their demos to, through whether to sack their friend and go with a professional manager, which live agent to work with, and then on to the lifelong navigation of an endless series of suggested compromises.
The artists who thrive are not just the most musically talented but the most dedicated to their core values. There is a toughness required of this kind of work, but given that artistry is delicate, a dichotomous nature is necessary. That is the thread that has linked the artists I have worked most closely with. Extraordinary strength coupled with sensitivity that is so acute it is almost psychic.”
*
“I was starting to realise that a large part of the creation of success was about ignoring the reasons it might not happen. Blocking out reality and getting on with it. Focusing on what I wanted to happen and how to get there, not the reasons it was unlikely to work.”
*
“The process of songwriting and recording often involves wild oscillation between feeling immensely empowered – godlike is how some describe it – by one’s own abilities to make something out of nothing, and feeling like an idiot who is wandering around naked while everyone laughs. These extreme swings can occur in very short spaces of time and when they do you are fairly close to madness. The uncertainty of the creative process feels to me at times like chewing tin foil.
The manager of one huge artist proudly told me that he insists to the musicians he works with that they behave functionally. He said that he doesn’t buy into the idea that instability is intrinsically linked to creativity. Perhaps, I thought, he is just working with talent so mediocre that their behavior is as mundane as their music. Whatever abilities I possess feel like they are simply the flipside of the least functional parts of me. Dysfunctionality comes with gifts as a consolation prize. Whether a person is able to tap into these gifts is another question.
But no one whose art is really good tends to feel all that good for much of the time. Blissful happiness is an unlikely condition in any event and would certainly be an unusual place for a gifted person to inhabit, at least for long. The best a great talent can hope for is to reach some sort of an accommodation with themselves. An appreciation that they at least have something to show for their alienation.”
*
“John Peel was an influential tastemaker, but I wanted to diverge from his approach as much as emulate it. He was probably the greatest champion of independent music ever because the way he chose which records to play was so ideologically powerful. His position was not that he would play good music, regardless. It was more political than that. If he perceived something was too pop, he would not play it.
So while John Peel was a supporter of Scritti Politti’s early singles and debut album for Rough Trade, Songs to Remember, he never played anything from their masterpiece, and one of my all-time favourite albums, Cupid & Psyche 85. This music was even better than their previous output but he did not support it. Green and co. had decamped to New York and made the music they dreamed of, which was R&B, with storied soul producer and arranger Arif Mardin. But Peel stopped playing them because he considered what they were doing too pop.
I didn’t wish to take this approach.
‘Indie’ to describe music was a term that was destined to become obsolete, and I didn’t want this type of ghettoization to happen to XL. I wanted to be able to back artists to be as ambitious as they saw fit. Equally, I wanted to discourage artists from being overly commercial if that meant their records would suffer. I wanted to work with the best artists and help them make the best music. I didn’t want to be tied down to an ideology that would get in the way of that. I didn’t want records to have to be commercial – like a major; equally, I didn’t want them to have to not to be – the way John Peel seemed to sometimes see it.”
*
“Her approach owed something to punk, perhaps best summed up as: If it ain’t broke, break it.”
*
“This book is not about sales figures or awards. Too many artists whose work is close to my heart have not achieved huge sales for me to think of units sold as what is important. Commercial success is a measure of something outer; not necessarily anything deeper. The record industry’s obsession with figures is limiting and stifles creativity. Music that reaches a lot of people but has no substance is of no interest. Music that has depth but only reaches a small audience is often the most important and long-lasting.”
*
“I just knew that whatever we did needed to be a celebration, and that I had to have faith that something special would manifest. The principle I tried to stick to was that the absence of doubt would lead to success. Commit to the process, don’t waste time thinking about whether it will or won’t work, and execute to the best of your ability. The rest will take care of itself.”
*
“Coincidences are ‘God’s way of staying anonymous.’ They are a reassurance that there is a flow and it’s useful to note and appreciate them when they occur.”
*
Labels:
Richard Russell,
Some passages from
August 10, 2025
perhaps a relief
.
For the past few years I've been trying to figure out if there are ways for me to increase the readership of my books and I think I've finally come to the conclusion that, at least for the time being, there aren't any. This perhaps comes as a relief.
,
For the past few years I've been trying to figure out if there are ways for me to increase the readership of my books and I think I've finally come to the conclusion that, at least for the time being, there aren't any. This perhaps comes as a relief.
,
August 8, 2025
Twenty years of A Radical Cut
.
Today is the twentieth anniversary – to the day – of A Radical Cut in the Texture of Reality. The very first post here was on August 8, 2005. The title came from a Slavoj Žižek quote (this was a long time ago, I would never quote Žižek now.) You can find the quote in this Twenty-eight quotations on failure post, if you scroll down to the middle, which was the first in a series of posts collecting quotes around a theme including: pessimism, fame, individualism, loneliness, sex, suicide and of course failure. Other ongoing series include Some passages from and Some favourite things from my year. I've told this story before, but the main reason I started A Radical Cut was because I had written a book called Families Are Formed Through Copulation and was having great difficulty getting it published. Every publisher I sent it to said no, and more than a few genuinely seemed to hate it. So I was wondering if there was some way I could just write and have at least a few people read what I was writing, not have to wait so long (and receive so many rejection letters) before someone got to see it. Families Are Formed Through Copulation did eventually get published in 2007 by Pedlar Press (though it's now out of print.) And starting in 2014 my work began to have a little bit more of a positive readership and therefore it became a bit easier for me to get my books out there. Now I feel like I'm having almost the opposite problem, in that it seems to me I'm writing too many books too quickly (which is probably a problem many writers would like to have, assuming the books are any good.) (It now occurs to me that perhaps I would have written more books if, back when I was starting out, I'd had an easier time getting them published.) Earlier this year I started a Patreon and I suppose, at the time, I was planning to slowly phase out A Radical Cut and eventually just do the Patreon. But so far I haven't had the heart to make even small steps in that direction. Doing something for twenty years really makes it feel like it's a part of you. So we'll have to see what happens. Not quite sure how to end this, so perhaps I'll simply repeat myself (at least if you've read previous posts) by saying, if you don't already know, my last book got some really nice reviews. I wonder if I'll manage to do this thing for another twenty years.
.
Today is the twentieth anniversary – to the day – of A Radical Cut in the Texture of Reality. The very first post here was on August 8, 2005. The title came from a Slavoj Žižek quote (this was a long time ago, I would never quote Žižek now.) You can find the quote in this Twenty-eight quotations on failure post, if you scroll down to the middle, which was the first in a series of posts collecting quotes around a theme including: pessimism, fame, individualism, loneliness, sex, suicide and of course failure. Other ongoing series include Some passages from and Some favourite things from my year. I've told this story before, but the main reason I started A Radical Cut was because I had written a book called Families Are Formed Through Copulation and was having great difficulty getting it published. Every publisher I sent it to said no, and more than a few genuinely seemed to hate it. So I was wondering if there was some way I could just write and have at least a few people read what I was writing, not have to wait so long (and receive so many rejection letters) before someone got to see it. Families Are Formed Through Copulation did eventually get published in 2007 by Pedlar Press (though it's now out of print.) And starting in 2014 my work began to have a little bit more of a positive readership and therefore it became a bit easier for me to get my books out there. Now I feel like I'm having almost the opposite problem, in that it seems to me I'm writing too many books too quickly (which is probably a problem many writers would like to have, assuming the books are any good.) (It now occurs to me that perhaps I would have written more books if, back when I was starting out, I'd had an easier time getting them published.) Earlier this year I started a Patreon and I suppose, at the time, I was planning to slowly phase out A Radical Cut and eventually just do the Patreon. But so far I haven't had the heart to make even small steps in that direction. Doing something for twenty years really makes it feel like it's a part of you. So we'll have to see what happens. Not quite sure how to end this, so perhaps I'll simply repeat myself (at least if you've read previous posts) by saying, if you don't already know, my last book got some really nice reviews. I wonder if I'll manage to do this thing for another twenty years.
.
July 28, 2025
Monday August 11th / Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren at Perfect Books in Ottawa
.
Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren, hosted by Rachel Weldon
Perfect Books
Monday August 11th
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
258A Elgin St, Ottawa
In writing that speaks to the here and now, two protagonists, in very different ways, seek connection as an antidote for hopelessness.
Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren read from their recent novels: These Songs I Know By Heart and Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim, and converse on the intersections between literature and performance making, and the personal and political. Hosted by Debaser's Rachel Weldon.
-Erin Brubacher, These Songs I Know By Heart (Book*hug Press): Seeking and searching; making art; making new friends; getting divorced; falling in love; becoming a stepparent; surviving miscarriage; enduring the pandemic; valuing lakes, lilies, and mosses; and celebrating the quiet moments between people. A novel about living inside the unknowing: surrendering control and finding joy in the free fall of it all... It’s about love.
“This book left me feeling less alone.”
— Aimee Wall, author of We, Jane
-Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (Book*hug Press): In these pages, real-world politics mingle with profoundly inventive fabulations. This is an anti-war novel unlike any other, an intricate study of our complicity in violent global systems and a celebration of the hope that underpins the resistance against them.
“A knowing knot of courage and its opposite, and a defiant work of desperate grace.”
— Eugene Lim, author of Search History
Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren, hosted by Rachel Weldon
Perfect Books
Monday August 11th
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
258A Elgin St, Ottawa
In writing that speaks to the here and now, two protagonists, in very different ways, seek connection as an antidote for hopelessness.
Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren read from their recent novels: These Songs I Know By Heart and Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim, and converse on the intersections between literature and performance making, and the personal and political. Hosted by Debaser's Rachel Weldon.
-Erin Brubacher, These Songs I Know By Heart (Book*hug Press): Seeking and searching; making art; making new friends; getting divorced; falling in love; becoming a stepparent; surviving miscarriage; enduring the pandemic; valuing lakes, lilies, and mosses; and celebrating the quiet moments between people. A novel about living inside the unknowing: surrendering control and finding joy in the free fall of it all... It’s about love.
“This book left me feeling less alone.”
— Aimee Wall, author of We, Jane
-Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (Book*hug Press): In these pages, real-world politics mingle with profoundly inventive fabulations. This is an anti-war novel unlike any other, an intricate study of our complicity in violent global systems and a celebration of the hope that underpins the resistance against them.
“A knowing knot of courage and its opposite, and a defiant work of desperate grace.”
— Eugene Lim, author of Search History
July 25, 2025
start over again
.
I'm in some sort of madness where I can't seem to stop writing books. It's like the last push of madness before I die, which I have decided to call a trilogy. The performances we made are so ephemeral. It feels to me like they never even happened. Some of the books are now out of print and those also now feel like they barely exist. It's actually only the book I'm writing at this moment that feels alive to me. But, also, it's like my writing practice restarted in 2014. Starting with the book I published in 2014, all my books are still in print. I've been a writer for thirty-eight years, but in my current trajectory I've only been a writer for eleven years. It's like I found a way to start over. And I am searching for a way to now start over again. (And, of course, all this writing must also have something to do with wanting to have something to do other than doomscrolling the current state of the world.)
.
I'm in some sort of madness where I can't seem to stop writing books. It's like the last push of madness before I die, which I have decided to call a trilogy. The performances we made are so ephemeral. It feels to me like they never even happened. Some of the books are now out of print and those also now feel like they barely exist. It's actually only the book I'm writing at this moment that feels alive to me. But, also, it's like my writing practice restarted in 2014. Starting with the book I published in 2014, all my books are still in print. I've been a writer for thirty-eight years, but in my current trajectory I've only been a writer for eleven years. It's like I found a way to start over. And I am searching for a way to now start over again. (And, of course, all this writing must also have something to do with wanting to have something to do other than doomscrolling the current state of the world.)
.
July 24, 2025
Francesca Albanese Quote
.
“And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter—not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.”
- Francesca Albanese
From Francesca Albanese's remarks to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, at the Hague Group Emergency Conference of States in Bogotá, Colombia.
,
“And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter—not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.”
- Francesca Albanese
From Francesca Albanese's remarks to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, at the Hague Group Emergency Conference of States in Bogotá, Colombia.
,
Labels:
Francesca Albanese,
Free Palestine,
Quotes
July 17, 2025
changing around (and unchanging) the various titles
.
Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (2024)
Desire Without Expectation (2027)
Faithful Unbeliever (2030)
I now seem to spend a significant amount of time changing around (and unchanging) the various titles of the books I’m working on. I mostly do so here. (It also might be worth mentioning that I now think of these three books as some sort of strange trilogy based loosely around questions concerning the desire for utopia.)
.
Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (2024)
Desire Without Expectation (2027)
Faithful Unbeliever (2030)
I now seem to spend a significant amount of time changing around (and unchanging) the various titles of the books I’m working on. I mostly do so here. (It also might be worth mentioning that I now think of these three books as some sort of strange trilogy based loosely around questions concerning the desire for utopia.)
.
July 15, 2025
Some favourite books of 2025 (so far)
.
[I do a list at the end of every year. And sometimes I also do a shorter list in the middle. Not all of these books were published this year, but this was the year I read and enjoyed them.]
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Touching the Art
Raja Shehadeh – We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I
Vivian Blaxell – Worthy of the Event: An Essay
Sarah Schulman – The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
M.E. O'Brien & Eman Abdelhadi – Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies Novel
Bonus:
Some passages from The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman
Some passages from Touching the Art by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
.
[I do a list at the end of every year. And sometimes I also do a shorter list in the middle. Not all of these books were published this year, but this was the year I read and enjoyed them.]
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Touching the Art
Raja Shehadeh – We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I
Vivian Blaxell – Worthy of the Event: An Essay
Sarah Schulman – The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
M.E. O'Brien & Eman Abdelhadi – Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies Novel
Bonus:
Some passages from The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman
Some passages from Touching the Art by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
.
July 12, 2025
NEVER STOP ACTING FOR PALESTINE
.
Next Wednesday, 5pm, join us for a popular gathering at métro Mont Royal, at the square, a live speak out and recording for broadcast on Radio alHara of poets, political activists and musicians speaking out and playing for Palestine! Thank you to Léon Lo for working on this poster design!
At this gathering we will hear poetry from Alejandro Saravia, community activist Summer Alkhdour, educator Sarwat Viquar, poet Jacob Wren, an anarchist marching band project Fanfare d'occasion featuring many awesome folks, plus many more, I hope to see you there!
.
Next Wednesday, 5pm, join us for a popular gathering at métro Mont Royal, at the square, a live speak out and recording for broadcast on Radio alHara of poets, political activists and musicians speaking out and playing for Palestine! Thank you to Léon Lo for working on this poster design!
At this gathering we will hear poetry from Alejandro Saravia, community activist Summer Alkhdour, educator Sarwat Viquar, poet Jacob Wren, an anarchist marching band project Fanfare d'occasion featuring many awesome folks, plus many more, I hope to see you there!
.
Labels:
Free Palestine,
Radio alHara
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