Morning Comrades.
Despite the fact that I am not German, living here and having grown up with grandparents that both lived and fought through WW2 here in Germany has instilled a level of historical distaste when people in power start banning books, which is scratching the surface in regards to my feelings. The steady recline into Fascism 3.0 around the west is something I have been writing and drawing about for years and as far as I am concerned the situation is far from “oh if we don’t watch out, we might be heading towards fascism” but rather “fucking a, is anyone not hearing the warning bells and marching boots?”. Make no mistake, we are lightyears away from merely having to be aware of the dangers of fascism, we are technically speaking already neck deep into a new variant thereof.
It shouldn’t be news to anyone, but the US, specifically states such as Florida are at the forefront of utilizing the classic Italian / German playbook of creating faux fears and creating imaginary scapegoats via their stronghold on essentially all mass media to push through their interpretation of fascism. Just three days ago, Florida rejected well over 40% of all submitted MATH textbooks for their school systems on the grounds that they contained subversive ideologies, such as CRT.
Deep Breath, don’t scream, carry on. Popular Information did a great piece on the insanity of this by going through all these banned books and logically found no mention of these “subversive” ideologies in them and I highly recommend you check out the below article.
What enrages me most, however, is not this maddening reality that we find ourselves in but the actual reasons behind them and they have very little, if anything at all to do with “hate”, “fear” or any other of the nonsensical reasons fascists employ to grab power. It’s money. As pathetically simple and beyond reason as that sounds, but as so often when dealing with fascists, their ideology is mostly hollow and a pretence for ego. I’ll get to the Florida paper trail shortly.
If you study the power grabs by Fascists in Europe in the 20th Century at a deeper level you will immediately notice the relationship between money and ideology. The deeper you go yet, you will learn that the majority, not all, there are some deeply unsettled individuals that truly believed their inhumane world view, of people involved in Fascism and all it entails served their most base interest, Greed. Not wanting to get esoteric here, but there is a damn fine reason why every religion, past and present, renounced Greed as the prime sin. That’s a different story for another day, however.
So, Florida, or rather the very-aware power greedy active Fascists predominately in the GOP, but not exclusively. The new Florida law, HB7, which forbids CRT from being taught in math classes from K-12 here in Florida has resulted in only one publisher of textbooks in the country, Houston-based Accelerated Learning to be eligible to supply books to the State of Florida, out of all of the publishers of textbooks in the country. Sounds a bit iffy already, but there is more. It turns out that up until 2020, the CEO of The Carlyle Group ( you know, the fine people that own brands like Supreme and an array of weapons manufacturing companies ), the global investment group that acquired Accelerated in 2018, was none other than the newly-elected government of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin. He had been with Carlyle for 25 years and since taking office, Youngkin has pushed legislation that mimics Florida's almost to the letter. Meaning, the company that he was affiliated with until running for government, would benefit from legislation he's pushing through. Funny that. There is a lot more research to be done into these connections but the initial picture is clear.
Akin to all power hungry fascists, these politicians are creating a faux “emergency” and are supplying scapegoats, to, one the one hand, seize power and on the other, profit. It fucking enrages me to no end that this is a continuing cycle of top-down violence, and violence it is, continues to exist and is kept quiet. Whilst the attention is manufactured on the “crisis” and the readily supplied “scapegoats”, the true crime is being hidden and people will suffer.
Fuck democracy if this is what anyone is defending. It sure isn’t my idea thereof.
Whilst I don’t agree with much of Hoffner’s work post his heyday, his book, “The True Believer - Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” is one of the most vital texts in regards to understanding the following that fascism creates, falsely and I highly, highly, recommend everyone finding a second hand copy of it and churning through it.
As to the rest of this email, it’s Friday and that means I am going to leave you with a number of resources to take into your weekend. I wish I could write more but my brain is still mushed from this damn virus and my attention span is definitely not what it should be.
Scorched Earth - Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World
I haven’t read this one yet but it’s next on the list. “In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our ‘digital age’ is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialisation of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support.”
These Dark Times Are Also Filled with Light
For anyone interested what else is going on the decaying world of the Western Empire, read the above essay on the IMF and Argentina. It’s definitely worth your time.
The Monkey Glad. Cocktails with Tatjana.
The MONKEY GLAND however off putting the name is, it comes from a practice by Russian doctor Serge Voronoff. The dear doctor had the idea that grafting monkey balls to humans would increase longevity. The actual drink itself has two claims of origin. One is that bartender Harry MacElhone (1890-1958) came up with it at his bar Harry's New York Bar (located in Paris) in the 1920's. The other story goes that it was invented by bartender Frank Meier of the Ritz in the same period, although I've only seen this claimed a handful of times.
Harry MacElhone was Scottish and started bartending right after the first World War ended. He is often credited with inventing a number of classics, and has published two books on cocktails. First one in 1921 and Barflies and Cocktails from 1927. He worked not only in London and Paris, but also the Plaza Hotel in New York for a time. As for his own bar Harry's New York Bar, it's where Harry himself invented many of the drinks later to be classics, but was also a place that Ernest Hemingway, Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart, Brendan Behan, Coco Chanel, Jack Dempsey and even Daft Punk in modern times have frequented. Harry's New York Bar in Paris is not only legendary in the industry, but has become a landmark in Paris. After Harry MacElhone's death in 1958, his son took over and in turn, his son took over as well. Then Harry's gandson's widow. Last I heard, it's still being run by the MacElhone family.
Specs for the MONKEY GLAND varies greatly. Some are a equal parts between gin and orange juice, some are double the gin to orange juice, while others is more of a 1,5 gin to orange juice. I don't own the original book by Harry MacElhone, but only those with a later version or adaptation of it. So this is my best offer on how like it given the products I use. You might need to adjust the specs a little for you personally depending on simple syrup ratio and orange juice acidity. There's no garnish for the MONKEY GLAND originally, but an orange peel is commonly used.
WHAT YOU NEED:
- Gin
- Absinthe bitters (absinthe will do as well) or Bénédictine
- Grenadine
- Orange juice (with no goddamn pulp)
- Simple syrup
- Jigger
- Bar spoon (or teaspoon, they're roughly the same size)
- Shaker (I prefer working with Boston shakers, glass on tin)
- Hawthorne and fine mesh strainer
- Cocktail glass
- Ice
HOW YOU DO IT:
- Put your glass into the freezer/fridge. This is served straight up, so it needs all the help it can to stay cool longer.
- 5 cl gin, 3 cl orange juice, 1 bar spoon of grenadine, 1-2 cl of simple syrup and 3 dashes of absinthe bitters or Bénédictine. The simple syrup will vary depending on the acidity of your orange juice, but also your sugar to water ratio in the simple syrup itself. Keep that in mind, start low, taste and add more if needed. A little goes a long way!
- Take your glass out of the freezer/fridge.
- Put ice into your shaker and shake for about 5-8 seconds. Put your Hawthorne strainer on it, hold your fine mesh strainer under it and above the glass, and pour.
- Drink
And finally, a few things to watch and learn from to keep you away from the brain rot that the usual streaming services have on offer for your weekend.
With that, I wish you all a restful and healthy weekend. Thanks for tuning in and your attention. Enjoy this weeks tunes, and I will be back on Monday for a hopefully more regular week.
Until then, I remain yours, without compromise,
V.