Joel Schalit

Found Sound

Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon several boxes of LPs sitting in front of a house across the street. Containing everything from Glenn Gould’s rendition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to first edition Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins records and post-WWII electronic and musique concrète recordings like these,  was one of the best and most thoughtfully curated record collections I’d ever seen.

Most of the albums turned out to be in perfect condition, as though they’d sat in their sleeves for the last forty years without ever having once been played. I wondered who could have amassed such a library, without leaving as much as a thumb print on any of these discs. Then, it began to drizzle. That’s when I made up my mind to redeem these recordings, and carry them all home.

Why I Love Italy

At least a third of my time at Allvoices has been spent writing summaries of developing news stories. Over the course of the last 6 months, I completed over 130 such pieces.

I wrote Italy to Fingerprint Gypsy Population last Thursday afternoon. It’s a good example of how I write these kinds of analyses when I feel as though I have a little more room than usual to editorialize.

Local Levantine

1 of 4 photographs of our neighborhood, featured in a new photo essay of mine published today in Zeek. Focusing on the imbrication of the Middle Eastern in San Francisco life, the article is a brief portrait of an increasingly multicultural city, bisected by two regional conflicts, and immigrants living peacefully together, side by side.

American Oriental

The main supermarket in 29 Palms, California, home to the largest Marines base in the U.S.

Back from Iraq, the troops bring home a taste for middle eastern food, American-style.

The new desert couture: three keffiyehs, next to a U.S. flag in a surplus store down the street.

Desert Camouflage

Jennifer and Joel. Joshua Tree, 2008.

Mixed Media

Along the same lines, I wrote a series of reflections on Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's 2007 film Jellyfish, which appeared in Zeek today. Nonsensically titled Netanya Fish Fry, the piece addresses recent American attempts to come to grips with contemporary Israeli cinema, and a tendency I detect to try and de-politicize it. Contending that recent narrative experimentation in Israeli filmmaking is in fact it's own political gesture, the article is about Diaspora anxieties about Israel, displaced onto film criticism.