#billie holiday
Of Inherent Value: Viv Albertine
Last summer, I saw three movies in one go by Joanna Hogg, including her latest, Exhibition,which stars Viv Albertine. Albertine’s performance compelled me to pursue her further, and conveniently, her memoir was released last November by MacMillan Publishing. I don’t often read memoirs but when I do, it’s usually by a singer who also happens to be a woman. In the last four years, I only read two memoirs that I really liked: Lady Sings the Blues byBillie HolidayandI Put a Spell On YoubyNina Simone. Both books were ghostwritten by white male writers.
Viv Albertine’s memoir Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys is entirely self-penned in what Dwight Garner dubs “an honest, lo-fi grace. If it were better written, it would be worse.” (New York Times). As a matter of fact, Albertine dedicates an entire chapter in the book to why she didn’t go with a ghostwriter and the resulting conflict between her and her former manager based on her decision; the chapter ends up becoming a heroic anecdote for all women who wish to write their own stories everywhere. (Women everywhere: Write your own story! Let it not be mediated through some poorly executed process that’ll water it down to some lame rhetoric that lacks your substance (your touch, your smell, your memory, your voice) and is instead a list of general events and public people that have all been written about again and again for years and years by the same old big ass corporate media channels that tell you that those same events and people are important when in fact they really have nothing to do with your touch, your smell, your memory, and your voice.)
Reading Albertine’s memoir feels like a long chat with an attentive friend—one who is older, wiser, more experienced and infinitely cool—the kind that’ll tell you that some awful things may happen in life but it’s fine because you’re an alright gal. Her voice is precisely the kind that I keep searching for in life. It’s good to have role models, especially one that offers instructions on how to be fearless in a world that is disdainful of women who think and create. There are not too many places women can look to for such instructions. As I read, Albertine’s illustrations of her own struggles, anxieties and triumphs spanning nearly six decades became a kind of soundboard for me to work out my own navigation of this life courageously.
Albertine’s memoir examines the stifled culture of her time filled with boredom and social atrophy that she and her peers revolted against—a “movement” which was eventually labeled the umbrella term “punk,” although Albertine herself doesn’t recognize any of those incidents under a light of such Romance. She has a frank way of elaborating on her scuffles, battles, tender moments—all the complexities that come with young relationships and collaboration. My favorite story of hers is the one about Sid Vicious asking her if he could wear her jeans but she tells him ‘no’ without mentioning why (a period stain). He later goes into her house with the excuse that he needs to use the toilet and returns wearing her jeans anyway, grinning, as if he then knew why she said he couldn’t wear them. The moment is so telling of each personality and the dynamic of their friendship.
Albertine knows full-well that the pressures around her reader will always disagree with who and what she is, but her memoir implicitly seeks to make the reader feel empowered, understood, and granted permission to trust her own instincts first.
Grace Jung is the author of Deli Ideology and producer of feature documentary A-Town Boyz, directed by Eunice Lau. Her translation of Lee Cheong-jun’s The Abject (벌레 이야기) is forthcoming at MerwinAsia Publishing. She is currently developing her first feature narrative and writing her second novel. She is a former Fulbright scholar and lives in New York. Follow her on Twitter.
This post is the first in a series curated by Grace Jung, guest editor of Literary Mothers in the coming weeks.
Billie Holiday - I’ll Be Seeing You (1944)
Happy birthday, Lady Day.
Btw… Andra, Viola, and Chadwick was snubbed! But a heavy congrats to H.E.R, Daniel, Terrence J, and the Make Up Crew for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom!!! ✊☺️
Billie Holiday (2019)
M. Ward / All the Way (Billie Holiday)
Celebrating Jazz Architect, Genius and Legend Louis Armstrong to Close Out #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
We end our celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth today with a short tribute to a seminal architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong.
To read about Armstrong, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
https://goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/GBNPADpod043022.mp3
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop…
OBSOLETE RECORDS-New Releases/Restocks for early June:
**all items are currently available for sale at Obsolete Records - 2454 Agricola Street (Halifax, NS Canada)
alt-j relaxer cd/lp
arrhytmia s/t tape (hermitofthewoods)
beach fossils somersault cd/lp (limited edition clear vinyl)
bert jansch living in the shadows v1 4lp box set
bert jansch living in the shadows v2 4 lp box set
billie holiday strange fruit lp (violet vinyl repress)
childish gambino awaken, my love cd/2lp box set
cigarettes after sex s/t lp
crimpshrine dust tape soup lp (repress)
crimpshrine sound of a new world being born lp (repress)
dan auerbach waiting on a song cd
danny brown atrocity exhibition cd/2lp
drums abysmal thoughts lp
helium ends with and 2lp (colored vinyl)
helium dirt of luck lp (repress)
helium magic city/no guitars 2lp (repress)
higher state s/t tape (EMC/hermitofthewoods)
interpol antics lp (repress)
interpol turn on the bright lights lp (repress)
jason isbell/400 unit nashville sound cd/lp (180 gram vinyl) (release date june 16th)
jeff buckley grace lp (180 gram repress)
judee sill heart food lp (180 gram repress)
judee sill s/t lp (180 gram repress)
moondog s/t lp (white vinyl repress)
new pornographers whiteout conditions cd/lp (blue vinyl)
nick cave/bad seeds lovely creatures: best of 2cd/3cd+dvd/3cd+dvd+book box set/3lp (180 gram vinyl)
nick cave/bad seeds one more time with feeling blu-ray
nick drake bryter layter lp (180 gram repress)
nick drake five leaves left lp (180 gram repress)
nick drake pink moon lp (180 gram repress)
phoenix ti amo lp
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pinegrove everything so far 2lp
slowdive original album classics 3cd
soundtrack (angelo badalamenti) blue velvet lp (repress)
soundtrack v1 stranger things 2lp
soundtrack v2 stranger things 2lp
stereolab dots and loops 2lp (repress)
stereolab emperor tomato ketchup 2lp (repress)
sufjan stevens/nico muhly/bryce dessner… planetarium cd/2lp
swans great annihilator 2cd/2lp (repress)
swirlies blonder tongue audio baton lp (repress)
swirlies they spent their wild… 2lp (repress)
tony conrad ten years alive on the infinite plain 2cd
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walrus family hangover lp (white vinyl)
wu-tang clan wu-tang forever 4lp box set (180 gram repress)