90: October 2024

Welcome to Border Crossing issue #90…

Hello, I hope you’re doing well and not too thrown by Autumn.

I just got home from a tutored non-fiction writing week with Arvon, at their residential site in the middle of nowhere in Devon. Big thatched farmhouse, edge of Dartmoor, home cooking, an revamped ancient barn for writing classes, gorgeous hills all around. Doing courses (joining groups and such) is not my usual learning process at all, far outside my comfort zone to put it mildly. I’ll write about it properly another time, but I needed to do it and this turned out to be exceptionally rewarding — far more useful and enjoyable than I’d dared hope. My long-form writing process, which was a mess, is overhauled and reinvigorated. The group was lovely. At the end we set up a Whatsapp called ‘Finish The Damn Book’.

Fingers crossed.

The two tutors were exceptional: shout out music journalist Jude Rogers, author of the moving song-based memoir The Sound Of Being Human and brilliant architecture writer and social historian John Grindrod, author of Iconicon and Concretopia. I’ve come away feeling ridiculously indebted to these two generous, insightful souls. Midweek, we had a guest author session with the great Simon Garfield, which was also terrific.

So now we see.

Right back to it, as Katie Crutchfield sings.

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Something inside me made me want to do the tough stuff. Part of it was I wanted to be a writer, and I figured that I had to get out and live.
— Kris Kristofferson

Jim Bob stuff

Just too late for the previous Border Crossing, Jim announced (and damn near sold out in a few hours) a one-off Shepherds Bush Empire concert for 12th April 2025, with the strapline 40 Songs For 40 Years. Already, there are only a handful of tickets left, sorry, none downstairs or on level one, which is bonkers. Apologies I couldn’t do a heads up sooner, what with being away and shit. Grab one if you can.

Before that, in November, I’m on the road with Jim for his ‘Where Songs Come From’ book tour, playing piano at Shiine On weekender and I’ll be at the other events: Louder Than Words festival in Manchester (Sun 17th), Nottingham (Mon 18th), Leicester (Tue 19th), Brighton (Wed 20th). I won’t actually play for most of these — they’re author-style Q&A events — so I’ll get to just chill and hang out. Come say hello, obviously.

gems

1

Slate’s great investigative American history podcast Slow Burn reaches a tenth season, with the story of the founding of Fox News.

2

If you’re in London (particularly the south-east) you enjoy grass-roots theatre and fancy a cheap night out this week, Tim Connery’s excellent new play Lucky Dog runs nightly to next Saturday 12th, at the tiny Bridge House Theatre, down in Penge. It digs into the psychology of gambling addiction, with the rising tension of a good thriller and some smart budget staging tricks, yet it maintains a humane realism. Powerful storytelling, very well acted and directed (by Alex Donald).

3

The great writer and educator Ta-Nehisi Coates is back, doing the rounds in the USA promoting his new book The Message. Annoyingly, this is not out in the UK til January. Still, these conversations are important: Coates blends his already huge critical authority with some potent first-hand witnessing and brings that onto mainstream American media, resulting in conversations (especially on the Middle East) almost never heard there.

Here, Coates talks with Jon Stewart.

Here, he joins Terri Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air. (Apple podcasts link)

Here, he talks to Chris Hayes on MSNBC.

I’ve been on the streets of Hebron and this is obviously a moral abomination. Obviously.
— Chris Hayes

All potent, measured, deeply thoughtful interviews, then made more so by the mindboggingly appalling stance (close to accusing Coates of terrorism, defending Israel’s race-based dominance, utterly disinterested in facts and Palestinian pain) taken by CBS hosts in another recent interview, where Coates was forced to (cordially) demolish their hypocritical tone with plain morality. I don’t really recommend that final link, but if you’re interested in how Coates is handling the more reductive questioning and challenge, it’s there. He can do it.

3b

While I’m jagging on the unbalanced media around the Middle East, here’s Michael Walker on Novara, methodically dissecting BBC rising star (ex-Telegraph hack) Emma Barnett’s blatant (shocking) bias.

4

Another live gem, if you’re in reach of Hull, Newcastle or Edinburgh: this week we saw touring Nigerian dance company QDance perform Qudus Onikeku’s intense Re:Incarnation show. This is a visceral Afrodance exploration of birth, death and rebirth, showcasing the spirit (in all senses of that word) of Lagos. Brimful of great visual ideas, the final section is perhaps a touch too long, but I didn’t mind, was overall thrilled. It played to a very small audience though, over two nights at Brighton Dome where the promo clearly didn’t connect to potential punters. Tickets/info: Hull, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

5

I personally believe that patriarchy does not exist in the soul of man — but is rather the indiscriminate disembodied thing which gapes at the market in awe — believing that its movements cannot be intervened on, that its terrible, incessant slouch towards growth is a marvel that must be obeyed — against all instinct towards fairness and human dignity. It is the force that provokes people to look at the world solely through the prism of growth at any cost, turning humans into workforces, mothers into strains, artists into products — the earth into a garbage heap.
— Laura Marling from her Substack

In the same newsletter, Laura plugs a decade-old manifesto against economics in creativity by Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi ‘The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance’. This book turns out to be brilliant, though the introductory section is academic-level dense. It’s a belting read that would’ve made David Graeber or Mark Fisher proud.

potato gem

‘Marel’s Potato Specialties Event’ takes place this year 27th and 28th November, as advertised in Potato News Today.

Sunday with Eddie Marsan in The Guardian. My potatoes are legendary, he says.

Also, I’ve taste-tested Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Bombay potato boule and it’s pricey but delicious.

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get in touch

email: chris@christt.com
Instagram: @cjthorpetracey

always there

Try my irregular music newsletter Double Chorus

Listen to Refigure podcast, the bitesize DIY arts review show I make with Rifa. It’s series #7 and there’s a new ep every fortnight (roughly) just search “refigure” where you get podcasts.
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Purchase my book of annotated Chris T-T lyrics Buried in the English Earth which is still (just about) available via the Border Crossing shop.

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Look after yourself and your people.

All my love,
Christopher
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