Hi!
This newsletter has been quiet for an unfortunate amount of time. Between laying in my bed staring at the ceiling and filing for unemployment (a surprisingly convoluted process), there hasn’t been much brain power left for Transmission. For 99% of us, “stay-at-home” means scrolling through Twitter and Facebook from sunrise until sunset, subjecting ourselves to the worst opinions dredged up from the deepest trough of human ignorance. The other 1% of people bake bread in their Parasite vacation mansions in the Hamptons and on Cape Cod.
For example, I’ve spent at least 36 hours thinking about this incredible photo by Alyson McClaran at the Colorado “anti-lockdown protest.” You’ve seen it.
What I love most about this photograph is the lack of a center. There is no spineless centrist “considering both sides” and suggesting a weak middle-ground compromise. We, as viewers, must take a side. You either stand with a cartoon representation of patriotism, a tacky jingoist flag jersey and gas-guzzling pickup truck, or the healthcare and scientific communities. My other opinions regarding the photo involve too many expletives to print.
The fact that somewhere around 40% of Americans would choose to ride in the back of that pickup waving flags and rifles has been absolutely destroying my morale. I’d rather not pass this defeatism onto you through this newsletter.
The one thing keeping my brain afloat in this sea of nihilism has been Zoom sessions with friends, a weekly radio show (Tues.10am-Noon!), and taking care of the nine plants in my living room. During a recent video chat, my former roommate and radio co-host Pat Hughes insisted we all watch a new animated series on Netflix. After a couple Polar seltzers spiked with tangerine Bacardi (don’t ask), I eventually capitulated.
The Midnight Gospel
The Midnight Gospel is the latest creation from Pendleton Ward, the creator of the wildly successful children’s animated show Adventure Time. The new series, produced for Netflix, is emphatically NOT for children. We follow the journeys of a space-caster (portmanteau of “space” and “podcaster”) as he dives into simulated worlds undergoing cataclysmic Armageddon events to interview subjects on the topics of death, spirituality, and enlightenment.
The animation is built around real interviews conducted by comedian Duncan Trussel on his podcast. The result is nothing short of chaos: in the first episode, the protagonist Clancy Gilroy calmly discusses the pros and cons of psychedelic drug use with “Glasses Man” while navigating a violent and gory zombie apocalypse. Every episode artfully balances manic animation with sincere and measured dialogue.
One of the primary themes of The Midnight Gospel is meditated presence and awareness: clearing your mind of the past and future, exclusively interacting with present moment. This, the show suggests, will lead us to appreciate the beauty of life’s impermanence, ultimately bearing witness to the circle of life. It is the inevitability of death that makes life worth living, and in that way, Death is equally beautiful as Birth.
Heavy stuff.
I finished the series last night and spent time considering the temporary existence of myself and my loved ones. I wondered if I was ever fully present for life’s significant moments, or had my mind always been preoccupied with unhealthy nostalgia or anxiety about my future. Then I fired up my Nintendo Switch and played Animal Crossing. My midnight brush with existentialism was deftly staved off by virtual fishing.
Great Grandpa
This morning, I woke up late, sipped coffee, and began the infinite scroll through my various feeds. I hate sitting in my apartment all day, so whatever is happening in the outside world must be better. This line of thinking is precisely how most of my quarantine days have begun: hating my situation, seeking escape, and then getting absolutely ENRAGED by what I find on the web. Healthy.
Anyway, noon rolled around, and the brilliant Seattle radio station KEXP released their live in-studio performance with Great Grandpa on YouTube. Last year, Great Grandpa released the sonically ambitious record Four of Arrows, which I gave a few spins in January, but had largely forgotten about. I leaned back, sipped more coffee, and fired up the video.
Great Grandpa started off with the dynamic and explosive “Digger,” which establishes the expansive sound the quartet is looking to capture. The second song “Mono No Aware” is much more subdued, but I was drawn in by the soothing tones. I’m beyond embarrassed to admit this, but I had been pronouncing the title as “Mono No Uh-wair” for months. The correct pronunciation, as sung by Carrie Goodwin, is “Mono No Ah-wah-rey.” This struck me as definitely not English, so like everyone with an internet connection, I turned to Wikipedia.
Mono no aware (物の哀れ), literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence, or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
This is what we in the 21st century call a coincidence--it’s not ironic, nor is it some sort of cosmic message sent via the Twitter algorithm. The fact that an animated show and an unrelated musical group encouraged me to wrestle with life’s transience within a 16 hour period is a coincidence, albeit a very strange one. There’s an episode of The Midnight Gospel where the interviewee suggests the inherent interconnectedness of the entire universe, but I’m hesitant to accept that framework. I’m Catholic, and beliefs like that can land me in hot water with St. Peter at the gates, so I’ll quietly move along.
I don’t know if I’m ready for a full-blown dive into existentialism. But I guess in the same way that there is never a convenient time for a global pandemic, there’s also never a convenient time to consider your own mortality. We don’t know when this pandemic will end, and many of us have adopted the mantra “one day at a time.” Pushing the past and future aside to live fully in the present is a noble pursuit.
That’s going to be my goal for the remainder of quarantine. I won’t succeed every day or even most days, but it’s the striving for presence that matters. I’m going to take care of my nine plants, sip an unhealthy amount of coffee, and try to appreciate each day as it comes.
In the meantime, check out Great Grandpa on Spotify and Bandcamp.