Cascadia Calling, 2025.9.29
"well can it be a comfort between us / because I never wanna know for sure"
Arundel Books says it closes at 7pm on Saturday nights. When my partner, Brigid, and I wandered by, four drinks deep, it was probably closer to 9pm, but the door was wide open. It was bright and inviting. A few folks chatted inside. It looked looked maybe it was the tail end of a reading or a book club or something. We swooped inside and in a few minutes alcohol had helped us each with a few impulse purchases.
I walked out with a Philip Levine collection and a book about a glacier pilot in Alaska. The Alaska book is signed with a charming illustration of an airplane. It’s not signed by the author, but rather by the pilot who the book is about. I have no reason to think that the book will be a good read, but I’m quite pleased with it as far as drunk purchases go.
“A winter Tuesday, the city pouring fire,
Ford Rouge sulfurs the sun, Cadillac, Lincoln,
Chevy gray. The fat stacks
of breweries hold their tongues. Rags,
papers, hands, the stems of birches
dirtied with words.” - Philip Levine, “Coming Home, Detroit, 1968” (excerpt)
I’m more confident about the Philip Levine book. American poetry is best when it’s about motion and place. Our best poets are poets of highways and rivers and cities. Levine’s love letters to Detroit have always charmed me, even when they’re bittersweet. His poetry is vibrant and he draws out the soul of his city even when it’s unflattering. It seems clear to me that he loved the city, even when it was at its worst.
I’ve been reading more poetry than prose fiction lately. With all that’s going on, it feels nice to read something that hits the critical faculties second. I like ingesting words without worrying at first what they mean. If I want meaning behind the musicality of the language, then I can choose to go back and dig for it.
A. A. Bondy is one of the most underrated folk musicians of the 21st century. I saw him once, years ago, at the Blvd in Spokane. It was January and the place was almost empty. It was me, my buddy Mike, and maybe two dozen other people. He was on his way from Seattle to Boise and Spokane’s not a bad place to stop. I doubt the crowd would have been enough to pay for a hotel in anything other than a dump.
He looked rough. I’ve known more than my share of drunks and junkies in my day and I saw something familiar in his quiet, affable, distracted manner. He looked haunted. His set was gloomy and beautiful.
I’ve always been a sucker for gothic folk. (Let’s be honest, I’m a sucker for gothic anything). Bondy’s honest and artful treatment of grim subjects marks him as one of the best. “Black Rain, Black Rain” is one of my favorite of his tracks for its tender, mournful depiction of depression and its pleading personification of sorrow and love.
Neko Case is proof that an artist can be rated highly and still criminally underrated. One doesn’t need to have the relative obscurity of an A. A. Bondy to not get their proper due. Case’s storytelling has always captivated me and it baffles me that she’s not heralded as one of North America’s greatest songwriters.
“Curse of the I-5 Corridor” has the intimacy of autobiography and the narrative depth of unflinching fiction. The bittersweet air of reminiscence (“the sweet sweet burn of the first drink of a night underage / knowing that you’re gonna get away with it”) gives way to a compassionate view of the narrator as confused kid. It builds a clear picture of the pain and magic of being young and dumb without falling into the trap of nostalgia.
The full-throated uncertainty of the chorus (“baby I’m afraid, but it’s not your fault / maybe I should go home alone tonight”) is one of my favorite fragments of music of the last few years. There’s a heartbreaking element listening to it now. Mark Lanegan’s unmistakable voice on confident, yet understated, backing vocals sound much more haunting in the wake of his untimely passing a few years ago.
Neko Case is truly a world-class treasure and no amount of accolades can be enough for consistently rendering such unflinching and beautiful narratives into music.