it takes two to tango

Me and Kieran are going to Argentina this week for the 20th anniversary celebrations of Caja Negra, the Buenos Aires publisher who have put out nearly all of the books of mine that have been translated into Spanish. 

Actually it takes four to tango because the panel event we are doing on Saturday November 15 at 7pm at the Deseo Club is a quadraphonic colloquy with Argentinian writers Pablo Schanton and Antonia Kon. 

The event is wittily titled Presentemanía - and you guessed it, Kieran is there to represent the present: the !NOW!-minded younger generation of music critics. I, inevitably, will be there to stand for the past-it cohort. Yes, it's all a bit of a set-up but I shall graciously accept my role as the grizzled old fart in the rocking chair mumbling about Omni Trio and Associates. 

Still, who gets top billing, eh? Eh? 

I have no idea if this lot have any cred in Argentina but I have long loved this tune

On your Marx

A couple of related pieces from Kieran Press-Reynolds:

1/ A sharply observed portrait for GQ of the trio behind the popular left-wing podcast TrueAnon. The show started out with deep descents into the foulness pit of Epstein-Maxwell, but quickly diversified, becoming "an oracle of our hysterical times," K writes. "In an online slopscape dominated by far-right furor and mercenary clipfarming, TrueAnon offers something unusual: carefully researched takes, delivered with humor and genuine empathy." 

I was tickled to learn from the piece that one TrueAnon, Liz Franczak, used to read Blissblog and K-Punk back in the day.

At the unmentionable place, the winning witty comment: "The podcasters have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it"

2/ For his Pitchfork column Rabbit Holed, K delves through the dankness of Marxist brainrot - ultra-left teenage meme-makers battling the "alt-right slop all over TikTok", with a particular focus on the mythos of  "Red Shambhala, the idea of a communist utopia from Tibetan Buddhist lore."

Grassed Up

Here's a funny and sharply observed report by Kieran Press-Reynolds on a  "no phones" event called OFFLINE, the brainchild of  ex-politician / President-wannabe Andrew Yang. People pay through the nose to reconnect briefly with undistracted living-in-the-here-the-now. Cool animated graphic by the team at Rabbit Holed / Pitchfork depicts Kieran and Yang both fondling some Astro-turf.