#would-be-goods

[bandcampsnoop]

7/11/23.

We first posted about Would-Be-Goods (London, England) back in 2021, and at that time Jessica Griffin had been challenged by her partner Peter Momtchiloff to write and record a song per day. "The Night Life" is a CD which compiles 20 tracks from that project.

Griffin's voice is sweet - reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan. But the music isn't really folk. It has more of a baroque pop feel - in some ways it reminds me of Belle and Sebastian or Tele Novella. The earlier post mentioned Momus and The Happy Family.

While this CD seems to be self-released, I would like to issue a quick reminder - Matinee Recordings has released many Would-Be-Goods releases over the years. Check them out to see the myriad of artists Griffin has worked with on each release.

[mywifeleftme]

238: Would-Be-Goods // The Camera Loves Me

The Camera Loves Me Would-Be-Goods 1988, él

A tip of the cap to friend of the podcast and occasional French language correspondent Mea for recommending Would-Be-Goods’ The Camera Love Me, a music album that is also a ribboned box of perfectly primped macarons. I’ve listened to it at least thirty times over the past few months. Would-Be-Goods is the indie pop project of Londoner Jessica Griffin, whose posh, girlish voice and Continental lyrical fascinations give her songs the vibe of a clever teenage novel about a young Anglophone woman buying amazing clothes and courting a variety of suitors in Paris. On The Camera Loves Me, Griffin is backed by dapper jangle poppers the Monochrome Set (who were otherwise in the midst of a hiatus), and they help dress her dainty tunes in arrangements that are as elegant as they are twee. “The Camera Loves Me” gives pride of place to the humble recorder; “Marvellous Boy” pulls what sounds like a vintage Farfisa organ out of mothballs. Like a lot of the more fashionably effete members of the Cherry Red roster, Griffin makes a fetish of the styles and sounds of ‘50s and ‘60s France and Italy, even as she gently sends up the lifestyles her characters aspire to. She doesn’t have the Luciferian sarcasm of sometime-labelmate Momus by any means, but she’s self-aware enough to know what clothes she’s putting on. For a charming woman, presenting a cute, superficial affect can be a form of armour—it shifts the terms of engagement with the world such that strengths of wit, taste, and softness become decisive, and allows the inner self to hold its privacy. I never fully have the sense that I’m hearing anything like Griffin’s soul on The Camera Loves Me—but what a chic surface!

238/365

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[wishfulsketching]

Silco and his terror of a daughter

[boltlightning]

not watching severance and succession means i log on the day after an episode and everyone is like SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEYRE SO INSANE FOR THIS and the image cited is a man in a suit standing still in an otherwise blank, fluorescently-lit hallway. i'm happy for you guys or sorry that happened

[grunklebongrip]

When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

[daftpatience]

slow down for your disabled friends. thats like a bare minimum kindness that we shouldnt have to ask for. i love that youre so quirky and walking fast is a cool personality trait to you and all that but i bet you can count your physically disabled friends on less than one hand

[charbroiledchicken]

if it's good enough for you, then it deserves to be made. don't let anyone else decide if your story is worth it or not.

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[ditzyblues]

headphones on the tulpar cuz we don't always agree with the DJ!! (curly) #onlyfacts

[fox-bright]

I am never going to be able to leave Reddit.

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[beguilingcorpse]

i am glad queer representation has drastically improved in my lifetime. because now i can say that i dislike a gay book and not feel like i’m invalidating stonewall

[brightlotusmoon]