“This is Not America”
Just another day spent celebrating US Empire…
Which raises the inevitable question: “If this is not America, then what is?”
I’m in the final stretch w/ my dissertation and that’s (I hope understandably) thrown off the regular publication schedule for our “Substack” experimental writing project.
My apologies, but please don’t think I’ve given up quite yet, Dear Reader! There is OH SO much more in store… once the hurdle of the diss. has surmounted.
While “not writing” my Substack, I have (in addition to the slightly higher priority of working to finish my dissertation…) refreshed myself on some info regarding the “poetry cults” thread of our narrative.
This includes re-listening to the six episode podcast mini-series Revelations, about the “Fellowship of Friends,” a cult based in Oregon House, CA which (I learned within the past couple years…) my high school teacher (who led the *second* poetry cult that I was a part of, in this case a “cult of one”: Star Wars “master and apprentice” style…) was himself a member of, unbeknownst to me at the time.
Content warning for the Revelations podcast, a significant portion of the mini-series is devoted to investigating/discussing long-time and endemic sexual abuse by the cult leader of many young men in the cult. This is not directly connected to my own experiences with the second “poetry cult” I will describe encountering as a teenager, but it does add some extremely disturbing background context. As well, the Fellowship of Friends is an offshoot of the “Fourth Way” teachings propagated by the early-mid 20th c. Greek-Russian mystic/cult leader George Gurdjieff (whose name has already come up on here previously, in relation to the Enneagram, a personality test which Gurdjieff inspired). For anyone who’s seen the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country or knows about the Rajneesh cult (participants referred to it as the “Rajneesh movement”) that the documentary focuses on, their leader Rajneesh/Osho himself modeled his communities on Gurdjieff’s compound at Fontainebleau (outside Paris).
Told you this story gets (even more) weird. And we’ve “miles to go before we sleep”… (after I finish my dissertation!)
On “Not Writing,” here’s the great Anne Boyer (who it appears was previously active on Substack, up until Nov. 23, when she shared her resignation as poetry editor of the NYT to protest Israel’s genocide of Gaza):
Not Writing
by Anne BoyerWhen I am not writing I am not writing a novel called 1994 about a young
woman in an office park in a provincial town who has a job cutting and
pasting time. I am not writing a novel called Nero about the world's richest
art star in space. I am not writing a book called Kansas City Spleen. I am
not writing a sequel to Kansas City Spleen called Bitch's Maldoror. I am not
writing a book of political philosophy called Questions for Poets. I am not
writing a scandalous memoir. I am not writing a pathetic memoir. I am not
writing a memoir about poetry or love. I am not writing a memoir about
poverty, debt collection, or bankruptcy. I am not writing about family
court. I am not writing a memoir because memoirs are for property owners
and not writing a memoir about prohibitions of memoirs.
When I am not writing a memoir I am also not writing any kind of poetry,
not prose poems contemporary or otherwise, not poems made of frag-
ments, not tightened and compressed poems, not loosened and conversa-
tional poems, not conceptual poems, not virtuosic poems employing many
different types of euphonious devices, not poems with epiphanies and not
poems without, not documentary poems about recent political moments,
not poems heavy with allusions to critical theory and popular song.I am not writing "Leaving the Atocha Station" by Anne Boyer and certain-
ly not writing "Nadja" by Anne Boyer though would like to write "Debt"
by Anne Boyer though am not writing also "The German Ideology" by
Anne Boyer and not writing a screenplay called "Sparticists."I am not writing an account of myself more miserable than Rousseau.
I am not writing an account of myself more innocent than Blake.I am not writing epic poetry although I like what Milton said about lyric
poets drinking wine while epic poets should drink water from a wooden
bowl. I would like to drink wine from a wooden bowl or to drink water
from an emptied bottle of wine.I am not writing a book about shopping, which is a woman shopping.
I am not writing accounts of dreams, not my own or anyone else's.
I am not writing historical re-enactments of any durational literature.I am not writing anything that anyone has requested of me or is waiting
on, not a poetics essay or any other sort of essay, not a roundtable re-
sponse, not interview responses, not writing prompts for younger writers,
not my thoughts about critical theory or popular songs.
I am not writing a new constitution for the republic of no history.
I am not writing a will or a medical report.
I am not writing Facebook status updates. I am not writing thank-you
notes or apologies. I am not writing conference papers. I am not writing
book reviews. I am not writing blurbs.I am not writing about contemporary art. I am not writing accounts of
my travels. I am not writing reviews for The New Inquiry and not writ-
ing pieces for Triple Canopy and not writing anything for Fence. I am not
writing a daily accounting of my reading, activities, and ideas. I am not
writing science fiction novels about the problem of the idea of the au-
tonomy of art and science fiction novels about the problem of a society
with only one law which is consent. I am not writing stories based on
Nathaniel Hawthorne's unwritten story ideas. I am not writing online dat-
ing profiles. I am not writing anonymous communiqués. I am not writing
textbooks.I am not writing a history of these times or of past times or of any future
times and not even the history of these visions which are with me all day
and all of the night.
[This one’s on my personal Spotify page rather than the Studying Up Spotify page (which features post-specific playlists, and also the podcast episodes we’ve started releasing). If you’re looking for additional (only somewhat random) playlists (unrelated to Studying Up), there’s plenty more music where this came from. Just click “IGM” on the player embedded above].
The one thing I’ll note about this “Independence Day/Fuck the 4th” playlist (because based on my anecdotal experience this piece of trivia isn’t all that widely known—though it should be) is that between the ages of 8-12, the artist now known as Doja Cat lived (with her mother) as part of Alice Coltrane’s ashram in the Santa Monica Mountains. There’s much to unpack there, but (at the very least) I think you can draw some interesting points of connection between the (eternally brilliant) musical oeuvre of Alice Coltrane and the psychedelic/cosmic imagery and theme of Doja Cat’s 2021 album Planet Her.
“Alice Coltrane’s ashram—and her ‘Black radical imagination’—lives on at the Hammer Museum” (LA Times): https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-02-14/alice-coltrane-hammer-museum-ashram-monument-eternal
Also the line “I don’t mind working / but I do mind dying” from Joe Lee Carter’s song “Please Mr. Foreman” (included on this playlist) serves as inspiration for the title of the classic Detroit: I Do Mind Dying about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. The rest of the playlist I’ll leave for you to interpret as you will, Dear Reader.
A young Doja Cat (née Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini) dressed in pink, seated front row Left. Alice Coltrane, dressed in orange, seated front row Center.
(Perhaps) unrelated: For a rather interesting, at times disturbing (fictional) examination of a mother-daughter relationship in the aftermath of (the narrator’s) childhood spent living in an ashram, see the novel Burnt Sugar (for its UK and US release, first published in India as Girl in White Cotton) by Avni Doshi.
Before signing off, I’ll note just some of the catastrophic news “since we last spoke”: i.e. Trump and Netanyahu’s terrifying geopolitical brinksmanship (and unacknowledged declaration of war by bombing) Iran, alongside the hundreds of starving Gazans being brutally massacred by the Israeli army and the (so-called) “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” on a daily basis. [Among other, seemingly endless, cruelty… the US Supreme Court’s recent spate of rulings enshrining the President’s authoritarian powers, the trillions of dollars in tax breaks recently gifted to the rich, the $100 billion+ allocated to ICE’s deportation/terror machine, the defunding of SNAP and Medicaid… so much cause for celebration! 🤬🤬🤬]
In the words of that iconic protest sign:
Please support Jewish Voice for Peace—Chicago hunger strikers demanding an end to Israel’s genocide of Gaza:
Chicago Jewish Activists Embark on Indefinite Hunger Strike Over Gaza (In These Times): https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-leaders-chicago-hunger-strike-gaza
The worst stage of 20 months of genocide (Jewish Voice for Peace): https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2025/07/03/the-worst-stage-of-20-months-of-genocide/
In closing, here’s a video I took on June 22 (the night the US bombed Iran). A truly, unfortunately fitting song choice by the band playing the bar where I was at:
According to the Wikipedia page for Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”:
The lyrics criticize the George H. W. Bush administration, then in its first month, quoting Bush's famous “thousand points of light” remark from his 1989 inaugural address and his 1988 presidential campaign promise for America to become a “kinder, gentler nation.” The song also refers to Ayatollah Khomeini's proclamation that the United States was the “Great Satan” and Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign slogan, “Keep hope alive.”