Hello, welcome to Border Crossing issue one hundred and twenty nine, thank you for continuing to read and support my writing, it’s heartening to know you’re here.
A big hello if you just signed up, a gorgeous bunch of new subscribers. I hugely appreciate you signing up — hopefully you’ll enjoy it enough to stick around for a while.
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Oh wow, it’s actually raining.
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There’s a new section, down the bottom, for live events. I have more gigs than usual, not just with Jim but also my (not-yet-launched) new collab Hibbett & Christopher (“the Men In Black of indie!” — Doja Cat) which I’ll tell you about later. Peering ahead, into the mists of 2027, I realised there are many varied live things incoming (speaking, as well as music) so adding a gigs section now is timely.
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I’ve done a new personal interview. Sarah and Sophia of Gut Feelings zine recently reactivated their iconic ‘Brain Map’ series, which digs into people’s psyche. I originally took the Q&A more than ten years ago — but this summer I’ve redone it, without looking back at my old answers. It really does map your brain in a beautiful, rewarding way. Anyway, it’s the deepest I’ve dived in a personal interview for a long time.
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The footie season is upon us (this weekend) and we have a Border Crossing league. If you play FPL why not join us?
Add your team using the code: dkqcr5.
I wonder if one could’ve predicted the increased physicality and directness of elite football (in the Prem but also across European leagues) via observation of the geo-political shape of the region and the times. And then I wonder if one could’ve done it the other way around. Basically, does the underlying shape of football lead, or follow, culture’s shifts in tone?
If football’s changing shape through the past few years is directly related to social change, driven in tandom by the same politicised economic forces, then perhaps one could predict future changes (back towards intricate, structured passing football, for example, or something new) as these socio-economic challenges are (one hopes) finally met by those in charge. If that happens.
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Did you know, the Kyoto Treaty gave an exemption in the small print to the US Military? The single biggest consumer of fossil fuels in the world.
Right, let’s get going.
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gems
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Ta-Nehisi Coates with Hasan Minhaj talking about his Vanity Fair piece, ‘The Next Black President’.
2
We’re enjoying Diane Morgan’s new BBC dramedy Ann Droid far more than expected. We decided to watch after Morgan went on the Romesh show, which is an hour-long feast of deadpan.
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Four episodes in, my comrade MJ Hibbett’s brilliant podcast series Data And Doctor Doom has me hooked. Dr Hibbett shares his PhD thesis (for real, he is the world’s only doctor of ‘Doctor Doom’) via the medium of musical comedy and storytelling. Somehow, it totally works.
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The first weekend in September is the centenary of the great thinker and educator Ivan Illich. A visionary, rock star philosopher in his day, Illich’s ideas still resonate powerfully, yet he’s lost to mainstream discourse. Dougald Hine of ‘A School Called Home’ is collating a global map of convivial, small-scale gatherings in Illich’s memory. I’ll publish something on Illich and we’ll do something for it, though I haven’t got my shit together yet to organise anything. That said, I asked Facebook friends if they knew Illich and got literally zero response, so maybe this will just be me and my pasta salad in Preston Park, re-reading ‘Tools For Conviviality’.
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Adam Tooze: Electrostates, Petrostates and the new Cold War (via YouTube). Not for the faint hearted, in a simply outstanding lecture from last October, for London Review of Books, Tooze pulls together the geopolitics of the climate catastrophe, unpacking how China has become the leader in renewables, even as the USA reverts to fossil fuel machismo.
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Tonsil Hockey podcast with Catherine Bohart and Olga Koch launched to react to the hot TV show Heated Rivalry and I didn’t bother with it. But they’ve expanded the remit and now cover all manner of horny content on telly, in books and on film. Both killer comics and the vibe is ace.
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NETPOL published its report on the dangerously misguided policing in Brighton of ‘Carnival Against Fascism’ on 13th June. It’s downloadable as a PDF, as usual NETPOL doing vital work on a minuscule budget.
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I’m (stupidly) flirting with academia again. In a German radical bookshop I found Dirk Vis’ offbeat 2022 book Research For People Who (Think They) Would Rather Create, which is quirky and still very thought-provoking. Christ on a bike, books are expensive in Europe.
potato gems
• This week I saw a talk at David Bramwell’s (always worthwhile) Catalyst Club in Brighton, by the award-winning composer and researcher Helen Anahita Wilson, who I briefly encountered a few years back as an explorer of Indian classical music. Currently she’s generating compositions using the natural biodata and electrical signals emitted by plants as her triggers, with recent album Nightshades out via American label Flag Day Recordings. It’s dedicated to the great botanist Sandy Knapp. Of course, the nightshade fam, or solanaceae, includes our beloved spuds. Check out ‘Jersey Royal’ on the label’s Bandcamp.
• Also this week there was a good question on potatoes in art history, on University Challenge: three nineteenth century works portraying harvesting potatoes, name the artists (answers at the bottom) —
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get in touch
email me: chris@christt.com
Instagram: cjthorpetracey
live events
Sun 30 Aug FOUND FESTIVAL Buckinghamshire
MJ Hibbett & CJ Thorpe-Tracey
Wed 2 Sep WINCHESTER Swiss Cottage, Twyford
Hibbett & Christopher - supporting Lee Bain
Thur 1 Oct BRIGHTON Radio Blah Blah at The Actors
Hibbett & Christopher - live radio session + interview w/ Guy Lloyd
Wed 7 Oct LONDON The Bedford, Balham
Hibbett & Christopher + Anna Tabbush Trio + Interiors + Adrian Roye
Wed 21 Oct NOTTINGHAM The Grove
Hibbett & Christopher + Vom Vorton + Sarah Farrell
Sun 1st Nov BATH DETAILS TBA
Thur 12 Nov TORQUAY The Foundry
The Undertones 50th Anniversary Tour + Jim Bob
Fri 13 Nov CARDIFF Tramshed
The Undertones 50th Anniversary Tour + Jim Bob
Sat 14 Nov BRISTOL Electric
The Undertones 50th Anniversary Tour + Jim Bob
Sun 15 Nov SHIIIINE ON WEEKENDER Minehead [SOLD OUT]
Thur 3 Dec BRIGHTON DETAILS TBA
Fri 4 Dec LONDON Islington Assembly Hall
Jim Bob + Gaye Bikers On Acid
Sat 5 Dec LONDON 100 Club [SOLD OUT]
Jim Bob
Fri 11 Dec STUTTGART Winterfest
Jim Bob
Sat 19 Dec ATHENS Black Temple
Jim Bob
always there
• Sort out your ‘art life balance’ with a conversation to help reset your creativity: check out my face-to-face sessions
• Double Chorus about songwriting and the music industry (irregular, casual)
• Refigure podcast, bitesize arts review show I make with Rifa, we’ve now made 99 episodes (!) and the last two episodes look back on spending the last few weeks based in Berlin. I don’t know what we’ll do about episode 100, need to make some kind of plan.
• I host The Old Market podcast, interviewing brilliant artists each month
• Two vintage Chris T-T LPs: London Is Sinking (2003) and 9 Red Songs (2005) for the first time on 12” vinyl, limited stocks still available
• A bunch more T-T albums on CD: Love Is Not Rescue (2010), The Bear (2013), 9 Green Songs (2016) and Best of Chris T-T (double CD, 2017) all available via Bandcamp
• My Pact Coffee discount code is CHRIS-A8UKQG. Sign up for beautiful coffee bean delivery, use this code, you get £5 off, and I get £5 off a bag too
Thanks again, please look after yourself and your people
all my love,
Chris
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ps. potato artists, from left: Pissarro, Millais, Van Gogh