Until the Bracts Have Mauved Up

PRESS RELEASE:

Ubu Projex, the art and business directorate of the American band Pere Ubu, can confirm that notice has been received this weekend from the United States Customs & Immigration Service (USCIS) rejecting the visa petition for British band members Keith Moliné and Graham Dowdall (aka Gagarin).

The sole grounds for rejection is the band’s refusal to seek approval from the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).

“The AFM are the antagonists in this affair,” band leader David Thomas said. “They have no business telling me who can and who cannot be in the band.”

Details can be found in previous press releases, www.ubuprojex.net/press/ubuvisa.pdf.

Cleveland guitarist Dave Cintron will join the band for the September US tour and provisions are in place for Moliné and Dowdall to link remotely for one of the songs in the set.

There has been much disbelief and incredulity about this not-uncommon example of the obstacles international bands now face when seeking to tour the US.

“The whole process has been going on since May, with several delays and absurd complexities,” Thomas said. “The Cintron version will be magnificent, I have no doubt. If I cannot put a band together without government interference and without a pat on the head from the AFM, like a grateful dog, then so be it. I have no interest in frittering my life away with campaigning.

“We will proceed with our music. Nothing will be announced from the stage. We won’t be writing ‘protest’ songs or haranguing audiences.

“There are visions and ideas to pursue. There’s too little time to waste it on fighting stupidity. In the words of the MGM lion, ‘Ars longa, vita brevis.’” [Yes, we know it was Hippocrates.]

• Seeing Pere Ubu two weeks from tomorrow. I've mentioned this before: there were a few weeks when Thomas threatened to cancel the US tour because of visa issues with two band members. They remain in Europe; Thomas has hired a new guitarist he's never met and who's never played Ubu songs. I expect amazement. I don't expect any new protest songs. I expect to hear lots of Lady from Shanghai. You know what you can expect.
• The war on leaks and journalism v journalism, or: access whores find leakers distasteful.
• What the surveillance state is trying to do to journalism.
• Trying to stay sane in an insane world, part three.
• Frederick's biggest asshole bows out of governor's race.
• Saw him in front of Leo's.
• On a new semester of the same fucking thing.
• The coming fight over DC United new stadium. First, the fuck-me-jig still exists - I don't believe there will be a stadium - but second, I give less of a fuck day-by-day about United. I can't imagine I'll buy season tickets for RFK next year much less by tickets for an endzone seat so I can stand at a new stadium.
• Vemodelen.
• Rim of fire.
• Adorno and Beckett.
• Another riff on Pynchon's Against the Day.
• Silliman's litlinks.
• Fragments of a broken poetics.
• Debaser (Acapella) by IsolatedVocals
• So yes, like I need an excuse to play Pere Ubu.

RETRO

John Ashbery

 It’s really quite a thrill
when the moon rises above the hill
and you’ve gotten over someone
salty and mercurial, the only person you ever loved.

Walks in the park are enjoyed.
Going to Jerusalem now
I walked into a hotel room.
I didn’t need any name or anything.
I went to Bellevue Hospital,
got a piece of the guy.
As I say, it’s really quite a thrill.

Quite a thrill too to bend objects
that always return to their appointed grooves—
will it be always thus? Or will auto parts
get to have their day in the sun?

Got to drone now.
Princess Ida plans to overwork us four days a week
until the bracts have mauved up.
Then it’s a tailgate party—
how would you like your burger done?

A little tea with that?

I saw her wailing for some animals.
That doesn’t mean a thing doesn’t happen
or only goes away, or gets worse.
What’s the worst that could happen?

The midnight forest drags you along, thousands of peach hectares. Told him I wouldn’t do it if I was him. Nothing to halt the chatter of locusts until they’re put away for the night. He edges closer to your locker. Why did I leave it open? I’ve forgotten the combination. But it seems he’s not interested in the locker, maybe my shoe—something unlike anything he’s ever known. Sensing the tension he broke the ice with a quip about the weather somewhere, or maybe—maybe an observation on time, how it moves vastly in different channels, always keeping up with itself, until the day—I’m going to drive back to the office, a fellowship of miles, collect some of last year’s ammunition. Then I’m definitely going to the country, he laughs.