Crossing Imaginary Borders

Subtle Transition from Toddler to Preschooler

William Sundwick

He’s three now.

Birthdays are getting to be old hat for my grandson, who is learning to take them in stride. The calendar is still a fuzzy concept though. When asked at his party on Saturday, “when is your birthday, Owen?” his reply was “ummm.” I think he didn’t know or understand that it wasn’t until the following Monday, two days away. He knows about changing seasons:  it’s Fall because of the leaves changing color and falling to the ground, Winter comes next, when it’s “Colddd!” – but since we had an early snowfall a few days before, which melted, it must mean we already had Winter?

The idea of years is still unknown to Owen. Not long ago, during an excursion to the local elementary school playground, when Mom told him that the adjacent building would be his school when he gets to kindergarten, he explained to all of us later, “I’m going to kindergarten!” But, when? For several days, his favorite refrain was “I want to go to kindergarten.”

His answer on Saturday to the question, “how old are you, Owen?” was confident, unhesitating –

“Three!” That was, after all, the number stuck on top of his cake! If his grasp of the calendar is less than precise, his new comfort with himself as agent and actor is quite precise. He now always begins declarative sentences with “I want …”, “I did” or “I’m going to …” He no longer refers to himself in the third person, like he did last year, when declarative statements often began “Owen is …” or “Owen does …” The discovery of “I” is philosophically important.

Developmentally, there is a distinction between looking/hearing/moving and seeing/listening/deliberating. Owen did eagerly show off his very deliberate “exercises” to me on Thanksgiving, learned from his mother. I could duplicate only some of the stretching myself! He is clearly more agile at three than his grandpa is at 71.

He looks around trying to find what to do next but seems more attuned to revisiting the familiar (at our house, at least) than exploring the unfamiliar. Repetition of play behavior associated with us is the most likely trigger, either at our house or his.

Conversation is an art Owen is still developing. He hears what you say, and frequently parrots it back (including new words), but there is less evidence that he is listening and processing a response. He retains his favorite response to any statement, as he has for some time: “Why?” Retorts with this interrogative are what pass for conversation – and, it does have its charm. Mostly, however, we listen while he talks.

According to his dad, Owen is also showing signs of another aspect of Self – he is beginning to lie! He apparently can code what statement or which answer is most likely to get him what he wants and supplies those words. Regardless of whether they are objectively true, even to Owen.  I encountered an example when babysitting at his house the day after his party. “I have to go potty!” said O., “Okay, do you want to use the big potty or the little one?” (i.e., the regular toilet or the portable “Lil’ Loo” toddler training potty in his room). His choice, ”the little one”.  We go upstairs to his room, “all done!” “Okay, let’s go in the bathroom and wash your hands,” moving next door expecting him to follow, his answer, “Daddy says I don’t have to wash my hands when I use the little potty” – “Oh?” seemed reasonable only for a preschooler who knew he didn’t soil his hands anyway, and didn’t understand the need to take more time from play. Dad confirmed later, it was a lie! 

Owen relates to others as you might expect. Most people in his life are there to pay attention to him and serve him. The only noteworthy exception is his baby sister Mira, now three months old. She doesn’t seem to owe him anything. Perhaps she’s still enough of a novelty to be entertaining for Owen. But everybody else must respond to his commands, “Watch me!” or “Play with me!” Oddly, one of the hallmarks of his toddler assertiveness, “Me do it!” has given way to “You do it …” – is it laziness? Or, more likely, impatience with skills already mastered? He will watch, to see if he can learn more, especially small motor tasks, like operating a screwdriver, but is less likely now to have the patience to perform a task himself. Sometimes, he almost takes pride in saying “I broke it!” so that he can then demand, “Fix it, grampa!”

Play-acting has remained one of his favorite activities for some time. He will be a monster, a dinosaur, a bear, or a pet. Something that can roar or make animal sounds. Often, he plays the role of a worker “man” (fill in the job, followed by “-man”). Having a job seems to be rewarding for him.

Whether animal or worker, he’s usually aware that he is play acting. He doesn’t really believe he is that character. Even when playing with toys, or building with blocks, he frequently slips into the play-acting mode (he’s a monster and smashes the house he’s made with blocks, or a “package man” who drives a toy truck to the opposite side of the room to make a “delivery”). Indeed, play-acting seems to capture his imagination more than engineering. When he builds with Duplo blocks, his buildings

often have no doors or windows, but are simply enclosures for a toy vehicle (a “garage”), or are towers, whose only purpose is to be as high as possible before tumbling down. Although, he does seem to be aware of the need for “stabilizers” on structures made with blocks, it seems awareness of physics is primordial at best.

Owen’s new favorite word, potentially a replacement for the interrogative, “why?”, is “actually.” The meaning of this preface has clearly been learned from adults (his parents?), and in O’s case it is not intended as a statement of fact. Instead, it denotes rebuttal, or change of mind. Much as “why?” is intended as a conversation starter, “actually” at the opening of a statement is intended as an assertion. Owen is declaring, “now it’s my turn!” So, every sentence begins this way.

Do all these observations of my grandson indicate anything more than that he’s growing up? Probably not, but his new mad skills appear to position him advantageously for entering the pre-school of his choice, any time his parents deem it appropriate. Owen’s mother, however, is a professional early childhood development specialist. And, his father is a highly analytical team-building media professional. The family day care center three doors down their street has been Owen’s comfortable

second home since he was an infant. His parents feel that “Miss Eymy” continues to run a supportive, nurturing, and educational environment for her charges – and, now she can accommodate little Mira, too! Not likely they could find a better setup in the short term. So, at least for another year, the day care arrangement will remain unchanged. It is already Owen’s “school.” He has always called it that, as have his parents. Miss Eymy even regaled him with chocolate cupcake on Monday, for a second birthday party!

Although his dad and uncle were both enrolled by age three in more formal pre-schools, we are but one set of grandparents. This grandfather is willing to grant Owen’s parents more good parenting sense than we ever had. Owen will be fine in his fourth year!

Who Killed the Anger?

Creative Tension in Rock Music

William Sundwick

First there was “blues.” It was raw. Sung and played by illiterate, marginalized sharecroppers in the Deep South. Somebody in New York decided that, if it could be made more pleasant, less painful to hear, especially if played by an ensemble of musicians (a “band”), it might gain a wider audience. That was called “jazz.”

Sometime before, during, and after World War II society began making lightning fast changes, via technology. The pace only intensified for the rest of the century, and into the 21^st. By mid-century, there was already noticeable tension between fans of “roots” music (folk and “traditional” delta blues forms), seen as simpler and “purer” forms of artistic expression, and more modern, sophisticated, urban fans who consumed a broader array of electronically reproduced music (radio, TV, stereo records).

That media-saturated urban group started showing the anger first. Rock-and-roll, especially the genre emerging from blues, was the first commercial expression of that anger. It was social alienation, clearly stated. Like big-band jazz, it was originally conceived as dance music. And, like jazz, as it became more “mainstream,” it would stifle creative impulses of young performers. They became frustrated by their inability to break through barriers enforced by taste-making record labels and radio stations.

It may have been marketing that saved them, but it was marketing of creativity itself. Artistic anger, alienation, became the marketable commodity. It turned out there was an audience for it. But, with success, sustaining anger becomes difficult. It seems only the uncomfortable, the struggling, can channel their creative impulses into the deep frustration and resentment that we associate with artistic anger. Creative tension between hungry and well-fed becomes an endless cycle.

This is where John Cage came from when he invented his experimental music. He was, essentially, raising his middle finger to the academic music “establishment.” It is also where Sun Ra and John Coltrane came from with their “avant-garde” jazz in the early sixties. It is where punk rock came from in the seventies. And, as we saw in the two previous entries of “Who Killed the Anger?”, it is where noise and experimental rock came from over the last thirty years. The eternal quest for “something new” is the motivation.

The first act in any revolution is to tear down the old system – or at least demonstrate against it! Revolution, not evolution, is the model. Evolution may be fine and, clearly, it’s the way of nature. But sometimes evolution is just too damn slow. The impatient among us will usually opt for revolution instead.

Indeed, the only thing that keeps us from violence in the streets is fear and doubt of our own moral rectitude. But, in music, revolutionary change seldom carries a moral component. It’s primarily aesthetic. Politics can be moral, music is almost always aesthetic.

Popular music, being consumed largely by young people, is especially fertile ground for the impatient and the frustrated. And, the upcoming Generation-Z shows no sign of being any less impatient, or alienated, than earlier youthful generations. The “silent generation” found early rock-and-roll, the later boomers had punk, “Gen-X” had heavy metal, and angry millennials have noise and experimental rock. Of course, not all members of each generation are equally afflicted by alienation and impatient anger. Many, perhaps through fear of their own emotions, have chosen instead to listen to milder “easy listening” music. Such music intends to erase anxiety with melody.  The anger is pushed down, repressed.

But the music I like confronts anxiety. It tells me to “deal with it!” For me, it’s about emotional catharsis as a solution to problems. If music is “in your face,” so much the better. Full disclosure: the only time I listen to music now is when I’m working out at the gym!

I do appreciate creative sounds, however. If a certain band has a trademark riff, mix or vocal that makes their songs easily identifiable, I am more likely to purchase them on iTunes. Uniqueness has equal weight to a biologically-driven beat that’s a good match for my cardio workout. I like music that encourages me to punish the equipment. “Pedal harder!”

Where do I find new music? Inadvertent listening on SiriusXM (often at the gym) and music-related discussion groups on Facebook are the tools I use to discover bands. They were my sources for Sonic Youth, AWOLNATION, and Deaf Wish.  Since I have no IRL friends who share my musical tastes, I rely on the virtual world for exposure. Sometimes my millennial younger son will contribute ideas, but his older brother has already moved on. Pandora in my car only occasionally, Spotify never.

And, yes, the secret personal drive behind all this: it does make me feel young, again!

2018 Election Recap

Blue Ripple or Wave?

William Sundwick

It didn’t take long after the 2016 election for organizing to start. The Women’s March the day after the Inauguration was an affirmation of public disdain for the newly elected president and everything he stood for. So angry, yet so positive. The packed Mall was a marked contrast to the nearly empty Mall the day before, for the Inaugural. And, true to form, the new president lied about it, creating his own narrative out of whole cloth. It was the beginning of “alternative facts,” which we would see much more over the next two years.

As expectations headed successively lower for this president, planning for the 2018 midterm elections became a major preoccupation. The first nationwide referendum on the Trump era would be held on November 6, 2018. But it became apparent that not all voters agreed about him. How many would care enough to vote? Which ones? Which specific awfulness would motivate them most? Would there be so many that voters would just throw up their hands in disgust, and refuse to participate?

The Democratic Party needed a strategy. They needed to discover what would motivate voters most viscerally, much as the Republicans (and Trump himself) had succeeded in doing the last two election cycles.

Would it be the piggishness toward women? The semi-overt racism? Charlottesville or Vladimir Putin? How about the attempted repeal of Obamacare? That one was a wider Republican disaster, not just the President’s. Had Bernie Sanders brought enough socialists “out and proud” to make inequality and class struggle cool again? (After 100 years!)

In 2017, something eye-opening happened in Virginia. A huge blue wave was coming toward the Old Dominion. Was it a dress rehearsal for the nationwide elections the following year? In the event, it was more about fresh faces, and women, than about issues. But we have seen Medicaid expansion and dedicated funding from Richmond for Metro despite the wave not being quite complete in the General Assembly. It needs to wait until next year.

In 2018, the two-year-long organizing of the Resistance was about to meet its first real test. There were so many organizations: Indivisible, Our Revolution (the Berniecrats), PDA, PCCC, DFA, OFA, and DSA (Democratic Socialists of America, sounding almost like a third party, but not quite).  Indeed, from the viewpoint of one of those newly “out and proud” socialists, it seemed that the left had not seen better days in the USA for just about a century (certainly not since the New Deal).

The results of the November 6 elections did not, in the end, support such giddy optimism. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a big media splash after winning her Democratic primary but has been punching above her weight class ever since – we wish her the best, but it’s going to be a long, hard slog on Capitol Hill.

The Bret Kavanaugh hearings did galvanize women, likely contributing to many female Democratic candidates’ victories. But there may have been a reverse effect as well, in some races (North Dakota?). 

This year’s results, like last year’s in Virginia, were spectacular in the House, and more than impressive in statehouses and governorships (six statehouse flips, seven governorships so far). Many states, especially red ones, were willing to jump on non-partisan ballot initiatives. Had they relied on a Democratic candidate to push them, many would likely have failed.

A gun control measure passed easily in Washington. Decriminalizing recreational marijuana passed in Michigan, medical marijuana in Missouri and Utah. Minimum wage increases passed with ballot initiatives in Missouri and Arkansas. Voting rights were restored to ex-felons in Florida. All these initiatives passed easily -- even as Democratic Senators went down to defeat in Missouri, and maybe Florida, too.

More than ever, it seems that whether you vote for a Democrat or a Republican depends on where you live and who you are. It isn’t really about issues, it’s about tribes. Tribalism is growing, not subsiding. Sometimes, however, demographics do change. Virginia is now a classic example: it is more diverse, more suburban, better educated than twenty years ago. It’s seen a bluification. But some rust belt and rural states in the Midwest are undergoing redification. They experience a brain drain and decline of their cities and educational infrastructures. This seems to be true of Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri. But, even here there continue to be blue oases within those red states (i.e., cities). House seats can be won by Democrats in such places, and in this year’s elections many were.

Certain indicators can predict accurately how you will vote. And, the myth of telecommunications bringing us closer together was clearly exposed in these last two election cycles. The Internet age has contributed to greater tribalization, not less. The indicators are:

• ·         How old are you? (18-to-29-year-olds are Democrats, if they vote; 65+ are mostly Republicans)
• ·         How close do you live to your next-door neighbor? (if more than 200 yards, you’re a Republican)
• ·         Where did you go to school? (it’s too much to say that only non-college-educated are Republicans, but education does matter)
• ·         What color is your skin? (this one is at the end of the list on purpose, because it’s well-known, but is not as decisive for brown people as you might think)

It would seem this makes pollsters’ jobs easier. But, for some reason, they still crank out those polls every election. Why don’t they just look at Census Tracts? The answer lies in the eternal uncertainty of who will show up to vote!

This election, turnout was huge – rivaling presidential years. But, contrary to Democrats’ assertions, large turnout, in some states at least, went against them. You can’t assume that “the people,” when engaged, will vote Democratic. See the list above. Many people in many states are afraid, afraid of a future where they may not enjoy the privileges they have always known. They live in anticipation of an ebbing of their influence. They’re old and dying, as is their way of life. And they are still voting. They vote for candidates who project their fears, “Make America Great AGAIN”. 

These people didn’t vote for or against health care, breaking up big banks, the minimum wage, or even “socialism”. They just wanted to be younger! They wanted things the way they used to be.

But, then, many looked forward rather than backward. They likewise didn’t vote for specific issues, just the future in general. For both groups, it came down to personalities, and a non-rational message of hope. It may have been delivered by either an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or a Steve King.

In the end, and it hasn’t ended yet (recounts still going on), Democrats will likely pick up more seats than any time since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974. Perhaps, even more seats than Republicans flipped in 1994 or 2010. And, with pick-ups in governorships and state legislatures, the 2018 midterms were clearly more than a ripple. Those ballot measures were all leftish (except some new taxes, which failed). Looks like a wave to this observer!

Locally, the Virginia Congressional delegation, formerly seven Republicans and four Democrats, reversed to seven Democrats and four Republicans. Deep blue Arlington flipped its sole County Board seat not held by a Democrat to a newcomer, young Matt de Ferranti. 

Whatever losses Democrats incurred in the Senate, after all recounts, can probably be made up in 2020, when Republicans must defend some difficult seats, just as Dems did this time. Beto O’Rourke can try again vs. John Cornyn. And, the field of Dem candidates will only increase.

In the meantime, the House can investigate the administration, looking at Elijah Cummings as chair of the House Oversight Committee. It can block legislation, yes, a “do nothing” Congress might be the right prescription in these times. And, Nancy Pelosi, as presumptive Speaker, is at least as talented a politician as Paul Ryan.

Most important now, Democrats must frame a message that can resonate with voters in 2020 to burnish their brand – even in those red states -- if they want the wave to continue.

Who Killed the Anger?

Noise/Experimental Rock in the Digital Era

William Sundwick

I didn’t realize, until doing some research, that today’s popular music streaming services are at least partially owned by the traditional major record labels – Sony, Universal, Warner.  While Internet streaming can, theoretically, be a path for “DIY music,”  the exposure of the services to placement of bands signed with major labels is inescapable. There are also “artist aggregators,” like CDBaby and TuneCore, who will charge artists an annual subscription fee, or per-track fee, to handle digital distribution – becoming, in effect, streaming labels.

Apparently, digital music streaming, now the primary means of distribution for new bands, has altered the history of rock music. True, indie labels and DIY all have some access to the streaming services, but not all access is equal. Changing fashions are still dictated by major labels. Today’s biggest pop music trends are hip-hop and EDM (electronic dance music). How does anything that used to be called “alternative” or “experimental” get played?

It will likely be a major label that determines whose music gets promoted. Indie labels try to compete, but the market segmentation of audiences that existed for AM/FM terrestrial radio has largely disappeared, replaced by Sirius/XM and Pandora who have services based on genre “channels”. But Spotify, Apple and Amazon (the biggest streaming services) do not. Hence, the majors promoting artists by name once again have all the market clout.

Alternative rock has now become a meaningless category. Perhaps all “genres” have disappeared, leading some critics to claim that rock, itself, is dead.

Yet, new bands keep coming. They all have been inspired by some previous artist. Their motivation can be creative just as much as commercial. Two very different bands, both legitimately rock-oriented, both artistic, have sprung up in this new digital distribution environment. AWOLNATION (they prefer all caps) and Deaf Wish have chosen to pursue separate styles, while tracing their lineage from former rock genres that an aging aficionado like me can appreciate. They are both edgy, if not truly angry. Aaron Bruno’s AWOLNATION mixes Bruce Springsteen’s “industrial” rock ballad sound with a predominately EDM beat, and Australia’s Deaf Wish emerges directly from noise and metal, from Sonic Youth/Velvet Underground roots.

AWOLNATION

Bruno signed early with Red Bull Records, an indie label, and released his first AWOLNATION album, Megalithic Symphony, in 2011 (a megalith is a very large rock). One single from the album, Sail, went platinum. It gave the band early visibility (along with their label). It has since been licensed for TV commercials, and some dramatic TV series episodes. It’s a straight-up rock ballad, “Blame it on my ADD baby” is the chorus – apparently a personal reference for Bruno. But, the tone is clearly one of struggle, whether from ADD, or some unnamed cause. “Maybe I should kill myself” appears in one line. Heavy bass, driving beat, all electronic – good for slow dancing, with a labored tempo. Yes, it’s angry. “Maybe I’m a different breed.”

Three other tracks on that first album illustrate the group’s range. Reviewers attribute the “group” to being basically Aaron Bruno “and friends.” It is firmly in the EDM tradition -- all production, little solo artistry. Burn It Down and Soul Wars use drums as the foundation for the beat, simple rhyming lyrics, rapper style in Burn It Down, punk style in Soul Wars. Both songs have very fast tempos, hard to imagine them as dance music, but perhaps that’s because I don’t know what dances look like anymore! 

Burn It Down’s first verse starts:

“If you’re feeling like I feel then run your life like it’s a dance floor/And if you need a little heat in your face, that’s what I’m here for”

and second verse:

“If you’re feeling like I feel throw your fist through the ceiling/Some people call it crazy well I call it healing”

chorus:

“So burn it down, burn it down.”

This is EDM as it’s meant to be! Soul Wars uses a similar drum-based format for the rapid-fire beat, but substitutes a whiter vocal style, reminiscent of old-time rock-and-roll, like Jerry Lee Lewis. In fact, it’s probably inspired by Bruce Springsteen. The chorus, “I’m on fire,” is a famous Springsteen song title, which AWOLNATION covered for the sound track of the 2015 film, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Finally, Jump on My Shoulders explores a secondary AWOLNATION theme, Christian allegory. It may have been a commercial gamble, as Mumford and Sons, and Robert Plant’s Band of Joy made their appearances at about the same time, but it is present on AWOLNATION’s third album, Here Come the Runts, as well.

The song begins:

“There’s a mad man looking at you/And he wants to take your soul./There’s a mad man with a mad plan/And he’s dancing at your door. Oh/What to do, oh …”

then:

“There’s a mad man with a mad plan/And he waits for us to stumble.”

Soon we hear the chorus:

“Oh, but our eyes are open/Yeah, they’re really open/(Five, four, three, two, one)/I say we rob from the rich/And blow down the door./On to the next/To dance with the poor./Jump on my shoulders./You can jump on my shoulders.”

Not angry music here, but joyful -- a real change.

Here Come the Runts, AWOLNATION’s latest album, was released last February. It opens with the title track, a theatrical zombie march of runts, martial in tone – you can visualize them coming over a hilltop on the horizon, in formation. It’s an invasion of runts! But, in the end, “Okay I am a runt/Baby you are a runt/Baby we are the runts” – indeed! It makes a great electronic pump for the rest of the album.

 Three short tracks illustrate the experimental nature of the album, compared to their earlier work, and to most of what we hear in the mainstream pop choices. Sound Witness System is a very short rap number (2:22), with electronic finish, almost a sound check, but unquestionably qualified as avant garde in my book. Cannonball and Tall Tall Tale are conventional punk and heavy metal tracks, respectively. Cannonball reminds me of The Ramones, but with an “E” for explicit lyrics (hence, listen at your own risk). Yes, obscenity is anger, and is still avant-garde in pop music. Tall Tall Tale grabs the heavy metal baton, even featuring a synthesizer in a few bewitching chords.  These tracks make AWOLNATION’s third studio album far more adventurous than the relatively cautious, mainstream Megalithic Symphony. Is this where they’re going? I hope so!

They can do “pretty,” too. A wonderful slow dance number, perhaps another Springsteen inspired creation, also appears on this album. I consider Seven Sticks of Dynamite to be possibly their finest piece ever. Listen:

“Who wants to dance who wants to slow dance”

“Lipstick like dynamite, seven sticks of dynamite”

 and, finally:

“Fuse the morning, fuse the night/Give me seven sticks of dynamite.”

A brilliant song, suspenseful, mysterious, sweet, catchy tune, but ending with an amped up electronic flourish. If this represents a new genre of rock music, I’m in!

Deaf Wish

From their home in Melbourne, Australia, Deaf Wish has come into the streaming community by signing with alternative music icon, Sub Pop – still an indie label, technically, but much bigger than Red Bull Records. This band traces its style directly back to Sonic Youth and noise rock.  They take heavy metal and gift it with cacophonous noise in place of a simple punk-style beat.

And, the lyrics are very angry. Sub Pop may have been reminded of Nirvana when they signed Deaf Wish.

Two tracks from Lithium Zion, their fifth studio album (second with Sub Pop) are Easy and FFS. Both are characterized by monotone electronic feedback for the rhythm line, nihilistic lyrics sung by Jensen Tjhung in the former song, Sarah Hardiman the latter. The duo, much like Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, have a darker outlook on life, depressed and angry (like Kurt Cobain?). Their first Sub Pop album, Pain, was even more brutal – as heard in Dead Air -- here, Hardiman mouths the only vocalization of the entire 6-minute track at its opening:

”In my heart there is blood, in my heart there is only blood.”

The remainder is all electronic feedback – noise, in the best SY tradition, or perhaps Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. The band entered the world strictly as a new noise group, with their 2014 single, St. Vincent’s. They were consciously in the mold of Sonic Youth which had disbanded three years earlier.

It’s good to know that somebody still finds this kind of music worthy of production. And, it’s good to know that a label as established as Sub Pop is willing to take a chance on them.

When I first conceived the pages for Warp & Woof, in early 2017, I defined the “Beats” page as an exploration of the music I liked, which I asserted in my original Welcome piece had ceased to be created at least ten years earlier. I was wrong. I have since discovered both AWOLNATION and Deaf Wish. There is great “alternative” and “experimental” rock still being produced. It is not even that hard to find!

Community Organizing

VOICE, the IAF in Northern Virginia

William Sundwick

Saul Alinsky and Bishop Bernard James Shell founded the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago in 1940. Their idea was to mobilize diverse faith communities of urban poor and working-class people lacking in political power.

It was a goal pursued by organized labor as well, but labor unions were based on employment in specific industrial sectors. Alinsky saw religious groups as the more fruitful partners in efforts to organize the marginalized for political action, regardless of employment status.  He was Jewish, and not necessarily religious himself, but Shell was a Roman Catholic prelate.

In time, the basic interfaith nature of their enterprise would also encompass African-American protestant churches. As it grew beyond Chicago, IAF had considerable success organizing in Texas and California, among poor Hispanic residents. New York City also became an early venue for IAF organizations. Other industrial centers in the Midwest, and Baltimore, came into the fold later.

The DC Metro area (DMV) is now represented by three separate IAF organizations: Action in Montgomery (AIM), Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), and VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement).

VOICE was founded in 2008. It includes over 40 congregations from Northern Virginia jurisdictions – Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Methodists, Muslims, Presbyterians, and Unitarians.

Administrative offices are at Arlington Unitarian Universalist Church (UUCA), one of the organization’s founders and primary supporters. In the last two years, enthusiastic engagement from two Northern Virginia mosques have provided many volunteers, and much financial help – Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church, and Dar al-Noor in Manassas. Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church and Our Lady Queen of Peace in Arlington have also been active supporters since its beginning.

In its first ten years, the organization succeeded in obtaining relief for Prince William residents affected by the foreclosure crisis of 2007-08 by securing grants from Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and GE for victims of their predatory lending practices, via principal reduction and renegotiation of loans, as well as $30M in additional investment capital for the county. VOICE secured $3M from Fairfax County to improve parks and athletic facilities for low-income residents along the Route 1 corridor. And, it has helped Arlington and Alexandria save existing affordable housing units from upscale development, expanding their number by adding more than 1000 new units. Just this year, VOICE pressure on the Arlington County Board contributed to an additional $600K added to Arlington’s affordable housing trust fund.

Each year, VOICE has “asks” of local elected officials. For 2019, these include:

1. Criminal Justice Reform – end cash bail and restore rights of returning citizens from incarceration (such as suspended driver’s licenses for court debts)
2. Increase investment in school counselors, mental health facilities
3. Invest further in pre-K for low income residents (already successful for some in PW County)
4.  Keep families together – immigration and ICE enforcement (protect interests of U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants)
5. Make Northern Virginia communities affordable for their own public employees (the rationale behind Arlington and Alexandria affordable housing)

On October 21, at Fairfax High School, VOICE held a major action with Governor Ralph Northam and AG Mark Herring, attended by 1400 enthusiastic VOICE members. The Governor and Attorney General were presented with VOICE asks. Both appeared to support the criminal justice reforms and promised to work with the General Assembly to end cash bail, and restore rights of felons. Additionally, they agreed to explore a program to reduce mass incarceration over a 5 to 10-year period.

Increasing investment in schools and mental health resources met with deflection by the Governor, as did the question about the state’s Housing Production Trust Fund. Instead, the governor crowed about the commitment of dedicated resources to Metro funding as his great accomplishment with the General Assembly this year (it was a VOICE ask last year).

The crowd in the high school auditorium shouted down his deflection on schools, “Answer the question!” The moderators, calm clergymen from member congregations, reminded the audience to be respectful of our honored guests!

Indeed, VOICE relies on clergy from its member congregations for leadership in all public actions. This was an important organizing principle taken from Saul Alinsky, identified in his manual for community organizing, Rules for Radicals (1971). It’s clergy who have the stature, the moral authority in the community, to really mobilize the people – their flocks. VOICE has been successful in its political endeavors only because of committed clergy. 

The co-moderators on October 21 were Rabbi Jeffrey Saxe from Temple Rodef Shalom, Rev. Rebecca Messman from Trinity Presbyterian in Herndon, and the inimitable Rev. Dr. Keith Savage of First Baptist in Manassas (a fiery speaker in the tradition of Martin Luther King).

Non-partisan GOTV canvassing (Get Out The Vote) is next on the VOICE agenda. VOICE was wildly successful when it did this last year for state elections. They identified certain precincts where there was historically low turnout for off-year elections. The results were spectacular. In each Fairfax and Prince William precinct where VOICE sent canvassers, turnout was up more than 10 per cent over 2013. This year, they will be concentrating on precincts in the VA-10 congressional district – Fairfax/Loudoun border (Sterling), and PW County near Manassas.

My wife and I have signed up for door-knocking in the Sterling area on Saturday, Nov. 3 and on election day, itself, for a three hour shift each day. Hopefully, VOICE can do as well as last year. It’s strictly non-partisan. We’re not hoofing for any candidate, just trying to get people to the polls.

Saul Alinsky hated both political parties. And still today, there has been absolutely no partisan grist to VOICE or any IAF organization. If one party wants to oppose organizing marginalized groups in the community, that is its choice. During Alinsky’s lifetime, and since, there has been much scorn directed at him and the IAF. But, let’s write that off to jaded cynicism about prospects for social change.

VOICE is an organization of religious people of different faiths who are willing to give it a try by working together. It will never work if you don’t try – even if sometimes it doesn’t work when you do.

Who Killed the Anger?

Noise and Experimental Rock, 1980s – 2010s

William Sundwick

Punk Rock began in the 1970s as an attempt to strip away the artifice and commercial compromises of art in popular music. It was seen by bands on both sides of the Atlantic -- like The Clash, New York Dolls, and Ramones -- as a path back to the basics of rock-and-roll. It gave expression to working-class alienation and anger as well. Class struggle, adolescent rage, and defiance of social norms all became subjects of the lyrics. The music resurrected blues guitar, strong bass lines, and simple, but pronounced, drums. It was a return to blues roots, but with a modern social message.

Then, the anger became fatiguing to its audience. It needed a boost. Perhaps the original fans “grew up” and a new audience was yet to emerge. But, the genre evolved rather than died. In what is often called “Post-Punk,” groups like The Fall, Joy Division, and Pere Ubu picked certain punk themes to explore, while eschewing others. Nihilism in some cases replaced anger. But, the proliferation of sounds and styles in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s exceeded the ability to find genre names for them. It seemed like every band was its own genre – New Wave became No Wave, Punk became Gothic, etc.

One thing remained unchanged; bands needed a recording label. There was now, fortunately, more competition in this area than in the days of AM radio. ”Indie” labels began to proliferate, and “college radio” (on FM) became the new trendsetter, reaching a much wider audience by the eighties than AM. It was the age of cassette, and widespread dubbing. As business models and technology changed, so did the music.

The emergence of heavy metal and noise rock had been pioneered all the way back in the late 1960s by the Velvet Underground. Their second album, White Light/White Heat (1968) was arguably the first example of both these genres. In the late 1980s, indie Seattle label Sub Pop signed two local groups – Nirvana and Soundgarden – and promoted a new style. It was called “grunge,” based on the stage appearance of the bands. A market for “fusion styles” of rock, combining metal, grunge, and post-punk followed.  The genre known as noise rock by some reviewers was epitomized by New York band Sonic Youth.

Some, including this reviewer, find Sonic Youth the most compelling, and complete, of all the rock bands of the era. They finally disbanded in 2011 after a traumatic breakup of their two founders, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon.

Perhaps their best album is their third studio release, Daydream Nation (1988). It explores their roots, from Lou Reed’s experimental Metal Machine Music, and The Velvet Underground, to heavy metal’s Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead. In a collection of very electronic, very cacophonous, tracks they develop their format of melodious, almost pop-sounding, beginning, then a descent into chaos in the middle, and a reprise of the initial tune in the final chords. Their lyrics borrow standard punk themes.

An excellent example of this is the seven-and-a-half-minute track “Total Trash.” The lyrics are not especially meaningful but fit well into the overall architecture of the piece. It starts with a pleasant, almost easy-listening tune (reminiscent of sixties “surf music”) and repeats that theme for nearly three minutes, as the generally mindless lyrics are sung by Moore and Gordon – “It’s total trash.” At the three-minute mark in the track, something happens. The melody disappears, drowned out by electronic feedback, with only a faint undercurrent of drums. Even that semblance of order transmutes by four minutes into an entirely different, much faster, beat. It’s all feedback and distortion – noise – until six minutes, when the surf music returns, intact from the opening chords. But in less than a minute the chorus repeats, then fades out into more electronic noise. This is SY’s key signature.

Many tracks on the album follow the same formula – familiar sounding melody and lyrics, electronic dissonance, return to melody. It was the essence of noise rock. Daydream Nation was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2005, having received rave reviews by Rolling Stone and other critics when first released.

Some variations on this format are found in The Wonder, which starts out with high electronic anxiety, proceeds through a frenetically fast beat, making you think a better title might be the Silicon Valley mantra, “move fast and break things,” This song simply runs out of energy at the end, after a short interlude of panicked feedback before slowing the tempo into the fadeout. “I’m just walking around, your city is a wonder town” is the chorus.

Borrowing more heavily from punk and metal, Silver Rocket also starts with a familiar tune, harder and rougher than some others, cacophony in the middle, then initial theme resurrected by the end – chorus on this one, “You got it. Yeah, ride the silver rocket. Can’t stop it. Burnin’ hole in your pocket.”

Through their career, Moore and Gordon were looking for new indie labels. They started with SST, abandoned them for Enigma Records with Daydream Nation, then once that album catapulted them to international fame, they sought to try major labels. Yet, they never signed with any. Ultimately, they created their own label, SYR. Distribution was now largely via the Internet, so this made sense. They could do it on their own!

Overall, SY manages to take experimental electronic rock from the age of the Velvets and Lou Reed, adds heavy metal, like Motorhead, and creates a very new experience.

But, we heard little more like this until about 2011, when “alternative rock” ceased to be an identifiable genre – and genres in general became unimportant. Part two of the question, “Who Killed the Anger?” focuses on new developments in marketing music, and two contemporary bands worth noting: AWOL Nation and Australia’s Deaf Wish. The anger has returned!

Vanishing City or Phoenix from the Ashes?

Flint Series, Chapter 6

William Sundwick

Gordon Young published Tear-Down in 2013. It’s his memoir of returning to Flint as an adult after presumably leaving the city forever to pursue a journalism career in San Francisco. It was written before the Flint Water Crisis (2014 - to date).

Young describes the Civic Park neighborhood of his youth, his strong family ties and social engagement shared by most in the city during the seventies and eighties.  He knew about the massive depression enveloping the city after the departure of General Motors; the unemployment, the crime, and, most of all, the collapse of real estate values! That’s what motivated him to buy a reno house for $3000, close to his old neighborhood, abandoned and in need of major repairs (stripped of its copper plumbing, among other things).

Through the course of working on his house, he met many of the figures who might begin to make Flint a real city again. He was impressed by what he encountered. But, in the end, he gave up and returned to San Francisco. It was “too heavy a lift,” he decided. The resources required for scaling his efforts up to make a significant dent in the blight were too great. Hence, his subtitle: “Memoir of a Vanishing City.”

Yet, even with the Water Crisis seemingly adding another nail in Flint’s coffin, a little bit of online research (and my own 2014 visit to Flint) points in a more positive direction. It may not be cause for unbridled optimism, but the replacement of pipes and mains throughout the city is still scheduled to be completed sometime in 2019, and the water source has been switched back to safer “Detroit water.” There are still nearly 8000 GM jobs in Flint (a far cry from the 80,000 jobs of forty years ago, but still). And, some downtown renovation is apparent, a thriving farmers’ market, and a vibrant arts scene encouraged by local community organizations. The Flint Cultural Center is still a going concern sixty years after its founding with C.S. Mott Foundation largesse.

As the population of the city declined, and private or charter schools arrived, Flint Community Schools dwindled as an institution. This makes me sad, but it should not be considered an unmitigated negative. Even in my day, some of Flint’s brightest lights were products of the strong parochial schools in the city (see: Michael Moore’s memoir, Here Comes Trouble, 2011). In the mid-sixties, there were four public high schools in the city, now there is only one – Southwestern Academy (formerly Southwestern High School).

The brain drain experienced in Flint over four-plus decades is no different from that of any other rust belt city in decline. Job markets control demographics for the better educated even more than for the unskilled, who often don’t have the means to leave. Additionally, “white flight” to suburban locations was no less a factor in Flint than many other cities in mid-century America.

Yes, it’s largely about racism. Flint did have one of the first open housing ordinances in the country (1967), and one of the first African-American mayors (Floyd J. McCree, 1966). During this period new GM plants were built in the suburbs – before closing completely! Genesee County’s population didn’t decline nearly as much as the city over that forty-year devolution of Flint.

In June 2014, I returned to Flint for a Sundwick cousins’ reunion (no aunts or uncles left by then, except one in Traverse City, who couldn’t travel). The Flint water supply had already been diverted to the Flint River by then, but none of us knew it. We didn’t drink city water, anyway. My cousin Carol, who hosted the reunion, lived in suburban Grand Blanc. Cousin John was kind enough to take me on a tour of the city, such as it was by that time. We saw downtown, we saw Civic Park, we saw the East Village and Cultural Center, we saw Carriage Town, the birthplace of General Motors more than a century earlier.

And, we saw the house on Winona Street  where I grew up. It was clearly occupied, as were most in the Ballenger Highway neighborhood. In fact, if anything, the neighborhood was more attractive than I remembered it from the sixties – the trees were more mature, offering plenty of shade on that summer day. Houses were generally well-maintained, with fresh paint, landscaping, mowed lawns. But, nevertheless, when I suggested getting out of the car and walking, John was quick to say, “I don’t think that’s a great idea.” Why? It was the middle of the day on a Sunday, seemed peaceful enough, although I don’t recall seeing anybody on the sidewalks. I believe John’s fears were based on us being white! That hadn’t even occurred to me at the time. It seems so bizarre to me, having lived in the cosmopolitan, diverse world of Northern Virginia more than half my life now.

But, John had different experiences. They were, unfortunately, more akin to my father’s fears of 1965 when Dad declared, “We have to move outside the city. You know they’re almost to Welch Boulevard!?”  No need to explain who “they” were. My parents sold the house, for about the same price they had paid 12 years earlier, then moved to Flushing as soon as I graduated from high school. They didn’t even wait to find another house – we lived in a rental apartment for a few months, before they moved into a new townhouse development (back in the city, but behind a wall and gate!). Their paranoia about crime and property values was the final straw for me. I went off to college in Kalamazoo that fall, cured of any desire to return to such unpleasant dynamics.

<![endif]-->The city did experience a long, slow decline. But, somehow, through it all, there has consistently been a core of community activists and concerned citizens who have insisted on making lemonade from lemons. The Flint Public Art Project (FPAP) has been sending volunteers to turn abandoned houses into works of art. A developer has converted the historic Durant Hotel in Downtown to loft apartments. The rococo Capitol Theatre downtown has been renovated and reopened. Farmers’ Market reopened in 2014 and has become a community gathering place in the center of Downtown. University of Michigan-Flint has an active Resource Planning and Social Work department where students have been imagining Flint futures, especially for the Civic Park neighborhood. Public organizations have raised funds to renovate and rehabilitate some grand old Victorian homes in Carriage Town. Kettering University, at the base of the Carriage Town neighborhood, is a respected engineering school, formerly known as General Motors Institute.

The indoor

It would be unrealistic to expect any future population growth for Flint. The industrial framework that supported tens of thousands of unskilled workers will never return. But, perhaps there is an even more noble future for this city – one that grows organically from deeper roots in that former logging transit across fords on the Flint River.

Some will stay. They will provide a different kind of growth for Flint. It will be growth in spirit and heart. The factories are gone, but they were the transient parts of my Flint experience, anyway. Something else is still there. It is Flint’s soul.