4.28.20 by Ryan Masteller
Hey, you guys doing OK?
I’m doing OK. I realize that “doing OK” is super relative and that maybe a lot of you are readjusting your definition of what “doing OK” is, and maybe some (a lot?) of you are finding that sliding scale to be a bit more intense than you feel you can deal with. I’m hoping that you have support from friends or family. I hope you have a crap ton of music whiled away for times such as this, where you’re holed up and bored, and where your tape player beckons you at every moment to feed its gaping maw. I hope that music can get you through this. It’s not food or rent or medicine, but hopefully it’s that spiritual stimulus that keeps you on the path to the other side of this thing.
But really, I’m doing OK – no need to worry about me, anyhow.
Two points: 1) this is my first quarantine post, and hopefully it’s the only one I acknowledge, because that would get OLD; 2) this is my first post since I “cried retirement” but just didn’t write for a few weeks. I wouldn’t call me “back” quite yet, at least not at THAT pace.
So, let’s see, what have I been listening to since I can’t get out of the house and go anywhere… oh, here it is, Morast! Yep, Morast’s “Drawing Figures into Negative Space.” I’m not sure what the real antidote is for antisocial blues, but it might just be this Morast tape – well, it’s the antidote for even trying to walk out the door, as in, gosh, I feel so cooped up, maybe I should check out the spring outdoors NOPE Morast is dragging me back into a broken electronic claustrophobia that’s as comforting as a chain-mail duvet made out of circuits and gears and electrodes. Meaning NOT COMFORTING AT ALL.
But somehow fitting in “Quarantinaville,” which I’ve come to nickname this end of the house where I can listen to experimental tapes – the other end is where the NORMIES (read: my family) spend their time judging me. “Drawing Figures” plays like that moment in a postapocalyptic film when you’re hunkered down in the tense quietude of your shelter, then a mob of out-of-luck/chances/time survivors descends ready to wipe out anybody who’s left because, you know, can’t accommodate everybody in this new paradigm. 1980s Kurt Russell is among them. They miss me though, and I’m down to “Drink from Your Own Liquids Until You Suffocate” on the stereo, which is definitely not helping the mindset.
Or is it?
It is. It’s assisting in the preparation of my defensive position, and I’ll be damned if I’m not the last holdout in this hellstorm of inactivity and mind-wandering-ness. This noise-blasted rhythmic call to retreat into oneself is indeed the perfect antidote for feeling even remotely the necessity for connection. You just headphone this sucker like a mainline injection through ear canals. Nobody will bother you.
Well, you’ll have to interact with your family at SOME point, I guess. (Actually, embrace your family quite closely, if you can.)
Available from Baba Vanga in PRAGUE.
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