TSDK No. 6. End of the World Edition

In this installment:

• Doomsday bulletin

• Asspocalypse Now

• Mood music for societal breakdown

• The End of the World is always nigh

• Strategies for self-isolation

• A suitable soundtrack for the apocalypse

• That's all folks

Greetings 

My friends, it's been a while — and since last I wrote I think we can all agree that the world has spun out of control somewhat. In fact, I had another email two thirds ready to go, but that particular mix of updates, articles and curated bits of music and video didn't seem quite right, given the circumstances. Shit's getting crazy out there. So this is a special, end-of-the-world edition of Thus Spake Daniel Kalder, specially attuned to these times of plague panic, self-isolation and toilet roll stockpiling. Oh, and since many of us may have a lot more time on our hands as we self-quarantine and practice social distancing, I've made this a bumper edition, filled with suggestions for how to while away the hours as the world burns.

So without further ado, let's get stuck in!

ASSPOCALYPSE NOW

Above is a photo essay on the state of the pandemic as it stands round my way:
 
1. Ransacked toilet roll shelves at the Walmart in Cedar Park, Texas.
2. Fortunately, there's still good eatin' to be had.
3. Having been locked out of the place where I work 10 days ago, I am growing my beard until I am allowed back in. The duration of the crisis will thus be measured by the amount of hair I can accumulate on my face.

As anyone who has seen Dawn of the Dead (original version) will be aware, a crisis, whether it be zombies or a pandemic, can be made considerably worse by how people react to it. All those folk in the shopping mall would have lived longer if the bikers hadn't turned up and ruined it for everyone. Knowing this, I was about 48 hours ahead of the COVID freak out, and got in two weeks of supplies lest I fall ill, before everything went manic this weekend. I was struck that the initial panic buying was aimed at the wrong things: it was impossible to buy ass paper (although diarrhea is not a symptom of Coronavirus, and, you know, newspapers), and most of the bottled water was gone (although, you know, taps). Meanwhile, on Wednesday night there was still plenty of food in Walmart, including Spam, the survivalist's favorite, and on Thursday it was still easy to buy soap from Walgreen's, unless you like the fancy stuff that you squirt out of a bottle. 

I'm sure the Doomsday preppers, of which Texas has more than a few, are enjoying the spectacle of everyone else getting it (literally) ass backwards during this beta-test for the apocalypse. I went out to run some errands on Friday and the world felt like the interior of a Barnes and Noble. The quiet, eerie, semi-abandoned vibe also reminded me of riding the Moscow metro on the day of a terrible bombing back in the early 2000s. There was a strong sense of unease and sublimated panic, a "could we be next?" vibe — and yet an awareness that life has to continue. (That said, I don't think that people in Western countries are anywhere near as resilient as those in Russia; we haven't been tested in the same ways.) On Saturday I decided to spend some money in a couple of my favorite small businesses in Round Rock, the town where I live, before things get worse for them and I may not be able to any longer. En route to the coffee shop where I often worked on THE INFERNAL LIBRARY, I heard the skirl of bagpipes, not something you normally hear in central Texas: there was a group of pipers performing on the plaza for a tiny audience. It added to the surreal spectacle of it all. 

At a time like this, my guiding principles are 1) to take things seriously but not panic, and 2) to act in such a way that I won't look back in shame upon my behavior later. Meanwhile I look around and think that if we're like this now, how would we handle a truly terrible virus, like the bubonic plague or ebola? Signs point to: badly.

Baltang Ort by Squarepusher: mood music for societal breakdown.

THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALWAYS NIGH

"Godless" (not to be confused with the rival publication "Godless at the Machine."

After interviewing Alejandro Jodorowsky a few years ago, I figured I had done just about everything I wanted to as a journalist and I more or less retired, except to do pieces if/when I had a book out. But when a rather fine editor I know invited me to write for Unherd a few months ago, I decided to give it a go, and I haven't regretted it; I'd even say that exercising the dormant article muscle in my brain has been a good and enjoyable thing for me.

Among recent pieces, perhaps the most appropriate given the times is my choice for "Book of the Decade" (the last decade, that is) which is entitled, The End of the World is always nigh. That's the title of the article, to find out what the book is, you'll have to click through. 

I also took a look at some of the mystical/eccentric beliefs of our tech oligarch overlords, with a special focus on Jeff Bezos. This one also required me to watch an episode of Gwyneth Paltrow's terrible Goop TV show, which was at least as bad an experience as reading a dictator book.

I also reviewed an interesting book on atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union, from one of my favorite publishers, FUEL (they did Danzig Baldaev's trilogy on Russian prison tattoos), and also in the "obscure facts about the USSR dept", I took a look at the brief-lived sexual revolution that predates the one in the West by around 50 years.  

And here's a review of a book about dictators that would probably be of interest to anyone who enjoyed THE INFERNAL LIBRARY.
 

STRATEGIES FOR SELF-ISOLATION

Running out of toilet paper is not something Razorfist worries about.

In this space I might typically review a terrible film as part of the $1 cinema club. However, today I figured it might be more helpful to suggest some entertainments that are actually enjoyable, to fill some of those hours that loom ahead. 

As far as reading material goes, I don't think that should be too hard as we have nearly 4000 years' worth of literature to get through, if you count back to the oldest surviving fragments of Gilgamesh. I recommend that, of course, but it must be said that you can read it pretty quickly. On the other hand, Alexander Pope's verse translation of The Iliad takes a really long time to read and so does George Chapman's translation of The Odyssey, which I recently embarked upon. I also just downloaded Don Quixote to my Kindle, so maybe it's time to take a crack at that?  Alternatively, I've been reading eyewitness accounts of vanished worlds, such as Nine Years Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann and Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa, from 1796. I've been meaning to read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun for a decade or so; maybe it's time. 

Of course, it's very easy to watch wads of TV in the age of streaming. I recently finished the last season of Game of Thrones, during which multiple sharks were jumped by people riding dragons, so no need to bother with that. Lurking on Amazon Prime, however, is a magnificently bizarre, trashy Russian TV series called Gogol, in which the great author is transformed into a detective/demon hunter. I also rewatched the final season of the dark UK comedy Peep Show. There are other good things, of course, but you probably know what they are already.

Longterm recipients of these emails may know that I have been undergoing a Conan cure since finishing the research required for THE INFERNAL LIBRARY. A Conan cure involves reading lots of 1970s Conan comics drawn by John Buscema or Barry Windsor-Smith; these are very good for whiling away the hours, and as the end is nigh, now may well be the time to invest in a luxury 1000 page hardback compendium that retails for $120 or so. Just as entertaining, but still more ludicrous, is another seventies classic, Master of Kung-fu, especially those drawn by Paul Gulacy. This is a completely bonkers series of psychedelic espionage stories, starring Shang-chi, the titular hero, who travels the world fighting diabolical villains on secret islands and in sinister HQs, while also meeting beautiful women and waxing philosophical about violence. The three issue run featuring Razorfist, above, is especially bizarre. Like Conan, you can buy a fancy volume for a ludicrous amount of money or you can get it much cheaper on Comixology and read it on a tablet. 

And finally, it could also be a good time to get your classical music on. Mahler wrote a lot of symphonies and they are very long, while you could always celebrate Beethoven's 250th by working your way through his stuff. I am a fan of punishing avant-garde music, but it's not always easy to get in the zone required to listen to the works of, say, Iannis Xenakis, so maybe now is an opportunity to do so? Then again, it may actually make you feel worse, not better, during any required period of self-quarantine. Well, there's a piece of it below: I'll let you be the judge.

Jonchaies by Iannis Xenakis: A suitable soundtrack for the apocalypse.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS

That's it from me for now. If you enjoy these newsletters  please feel free to share them with like-minded connoisseurs of the strange and marvelous. They can even sign up for future editions themselves.

Until next time — keep it real and take care out there.

DK