Joel Schalit

We Are All Losers

Morning reading for my book research, February 2007. The Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon was definitely the most colorful of these four selections.

You may not agree with them, but the document’s wholesale criticisms of all of the parties involved display a refreshing disenchantment with the positioning on the war that we’ve grown accustomed to.

I can’t seem to locate the original statement. However, I’ve linked through to the copy that was circulated on the LBO list when it was first published during the summer of ’06.

Blast From the Past

It’s finally out, and boy does it look good. Strolling through the Haight yesterday, Jennifer and I stumbled upon the brand new edition of the Punk Planet interview collection, We Owe You Nothing, at the appropriately DiY, volunteer-staffed Bound Together Books.

Featuring several new interviews conducted between 2001 and 2007, We Owe You contains six pieces I acquired for PP back in the day, including interviews with Steve Albini, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Negativland, Team Dresch’s Jody Bleyle, Outpunk’s Matt Wobensmith and Black Flag.

Toronto’s Eye Weekly reviewed the collection on the 9th, together with former Punk Planet Associate Publisher Anne Elizabeth Moore‘s excellent Unmarketable. Putting Anne’s book in the mix not only was smart. It also explains why PP remains essential to understanding the zeitgeist.

An Editor’s Whiteboard

The golden road to unlimited content. Beit Schalit, 2008.

Two Way Mirror

The Middle East reflects America back, wishing it were somewhere else. The quintessential site of sixties utopianism, Woodstock, printed on the wall of an abandoned Syrian army barracks in the Golan Heights. On the border, June 2007.

Target Marketing

How’s your translation skills? Five blocks west of this billboard, three restaurants serve falafel, and a supermarket carries excellent za’atar. San Francisco, January ’08.

Through My Binoculars

When Jennifer first began working at her new office in October, she mentioned that the Jordanian consulate was also in her building. I’d forgotten this until Saturday, when we stopped by to show off her new digs to Jen’s parents, who’d flown up from LA for the weekend.

Unlocking the front door, we noticed that the country’s coat of arms had been pasted inside the building’s Mission street entrance. Though the details are slightly obscured by a mid-afternoon shadow, its hard to miss the archetypal Bedouin icon, the desert falcon, symbolically holding up the Hashemite royal crown.

Walking up towards Union Square afterwards, I wondered how many people took notice of it, and if they did, understood it – the falcon, the importance that Bedouins play in Jordanian politics. Overhearing Arabic on the street, twice in the course of the next ten minutes, I figured, most likely, more than a few.

Protect Your National Identity

Every time I go home to see my parents, I always seem to do something wrong with my US passport. For example, once I ran it through the wash just before we were to take a trip to nearby Istanbul.

It would have been one thing if I’d known where my Israeli papers were. Handing the border control officer a decidedly damp American ID, when he could tell that I held dual citizenship, is another. I barely made it on to my flight.

I wonder whether there would have been a problem if I’d had memorable sleeves for my passports like these. The eagle inscription is so in-your-face, it feels like it’s watching out for you.

Only in San Francisco

It was a highly animated conversation. It could have been about any number of persons. 

At a local cafe this afternoon, I overheard the most precious of disses:

"Politically, he’s a Trotskyite. Culturally, he’s a Transcendentalist. Personally, he’s an asshole."

Dubbing with de Gaulle

The cover of a January 1969 edition of the French weekly news periodical L’Express, featuring the face of former President Charles de Gaulle set inside a Star of David. Surrounded by an English translation of a letter de Gaulle wrote to David Ben Gurion in 1967, it’s figured prominently in revisions to my book, whose 2nd draft I’m furiously working on finishing right now with my editor.

A scanned page from European Union official Francois Massoulie‘s idiosyncratic volume, Middle East Conflicts, the image is bordered on either side by the end of one of my own book’s chapters, an open Real Audio browser loaded with a BBC page, and my most recent playlist, featuring the brilliant Sledgehammer Dub LP by the consistently overlooked roots producer, Niney the Observer.