The OrphanAGE, Vol. 1.32
First Lines
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing… ~ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Under Siege
From the auctioning off our birthright, our national parks, to the Flamingo Revolution’s pushback against the Kushner/Ivanka-backed (Affinity Global) land grab in Belgrade. From brazen moves to claw back Scotland’s ‘Right to Roam’ to the genocidal razing of an entire nation’s infrastructure ( and citizens) and the subsequent $-rush to seize private property in order to construct a for-the-world’s-wealthy-only resort, the very idea that WE the PUBLIC should be allowed to participate even in a passel of space is under assault.
The term is old: Comen Wele aka the Public Weal [old English — the same root that makes up both ‘wealth’ and ‘well’] — the idea is not. The common good. The idea that there are rights not just reserved to the have-alots underpins the foundations of common law from the Magna Carta to our own founding documents.
A recent post from KC’s C.J. Janovy touched a nerve. With her permission, the OrphanAGE is pleased to re-share an excerpted sample.
Fun fact(s): if you earn under $165,000-ish a year, you are considered the bottom 75%. If you earn over $669,000, you are the 1%.
With this firmly in mind, we must not forget that the most meaningful ways to join the fight is by guarding our sanity, by being decent to each other and by proactively seeking out and supporting the things that make life a grace – art remains a cornerstone of value-added living.
As most of you know, The OrphanAGE is a joint project of Club Medici and Prospero’s Bookstore. Club Med’s 2026 major grant was awarded to Kansas City’s The Sexy Accident to help release its first vinyl album (its 20th release since 2005). Conceived over a frosty beverage at the neighborhood watering hole, Fric n Frac’s, Before We Invented the Moon is a greatest hits re-visioning of work spanning more than two-and-a-half decades, and boasting collaborations with some of modern rock-n-roll’s most important producers, videographers and musicians.
Check out a sneak peek and pre-order your copy of this limited-release album. Each preorder entitles you to admission to the October 3rd release concert.
Peace, stay strong, and stay at it!
w.e. leathem
In This Issue
- Music by The Sexy Accident (and vinyl pre-sale opportunity]
- Essay by C.J. Janovy
Before We Invented the Moon
Somewhere between the Cars and Steely Dan lies The Sexy Accident. One of the tightest musical outfits going. The shows are polished, and to borrow a phrase: “you can dance to it.” Smart hooky music, composed with a David Gilmour-esque eye to perfection. Jesse Kates and crew have worked with a who’s-who of rock n roll's finest producers and audio engineers — to mind are a pair of Steves: Albini (Pixies PJ Harvey, Pussy Galore, Urge Overkill, Jesus Lizard) and Sub Pop/K Records’ Fisk (Nirvana, The Afghan Whigs, The Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, the Wedding Present, etc., etc.), and video producers like former KC’r Zac Eubank.
The new vinyl is a ‘greatest hits’ of two-plus decades of recording and performance. It includes a heretofore unreleased track. The album release show is October 3rd. Your pre-purchase will also serve as admission to the show — a two-fer (don’t say we never gave ya nothin’)
After one year in Portugal...
by C.J. Janovy
Coming from highly privatized America, the idea of constitutionally protected public beaches blows my mind.
The big controversy in town this summer has been about a wealthy property owner’s effort to privatize five beaches in the nearby Arrábida nature preserve.
Back in May, members of Setúbal’s Bloco de Esquerda political party planned a protest at Praia de Albarquel, one of the beaches in question and my favorite beach because it’s within walking distance from my apartment.
At first, the protest looked a bit pathetic: just a dozen or so people. They put up a banner, one stood in front of it and gave a speech and another videotaped, while a beach full of people paid no attention. I expected it to end there. But then the banner holders, the speaker and the photographer moved on and repeated this bit at different places on the beach, while a few others passed out fliers to everyone under an umbrella or on a blanket. The hand-to-hand passing of fliers turned into conversations, and I watched as folk who’d paid no mind to the sign-in-video-action sat up. Their body language suggested they cared. I’ve seen a lot of ineffective protests in my long career as a journalist, but this one turned out to be an impressive display of communication and education.
I was fascinated by the fact that Portugal’s constitution says beaches belong to the people. Coming from highly privatized America, the idea of constitutionally protected public beaches blows my mind.
…rumors were spreading about developers’ payoffs to city hall. My impulse was to get to the bottom of it. My ability to do so was zero. Even if I wanted to …I am retired… it wasn’t just a language barrier that would prevent me from understanding the nuances of real estate contracts, local ordinances and the country’s constitution. I also had no clue about local history, customs, longstanding grievances, favoritism and vendettas. After decades of needing to know, I had to let it go.
This was when I began to feel nervous about the future. My wife, Lori, and I had been here just over nine months. We’d done what we thought were the hardest parts: leaving the United States, making it over here, getting oriented, completing the first round of bureaucratic requirements to become legal residents. What I hadn’t anticipated was how, relieved of all that work, I would suddenly have enough head space for a flood of new existential questions.
…When we arrived in Setúbal early last August, our first friend Gaby was marking the end of her first year here. I tormented her with questions: What had been her three biggest surprises? Her three biggest challenges? How had she changed? Gaby struggled to answer. Now I know why.
I can’t answer the questions myself.
I can describe three surprises: 1) How strange it feels to make a bunch of new friends in one’s 60s, yet it’s been surprisingly easy — among English-speaking immigrants, anyway. People quickly move beyond superficialities and bond over the relatively unusual and extremely high-stakes moves we’ve all made. 2) How bizarre it feels, geographically, that the continent to the south is not South America but Africa — that’s where the birds here fly for the winter, and dust blowing up from the Sahara is a regular part of life here. 3) How silly I was to assume that cicadas buzzing from trees was a sound unique to summers in the U.S. Midwest.
I can talk about the three biggest challenges. 1) Learning Portuguese, 2) The deep sense of cultural cluelessness, accompanied by an urgent desire to know the entire history of a country that’s hundreds of years old. 3) The corollary: I left a place I knew everything about — that was my job, and a whole life’s experience — and have claimed as home a place I’ll never fully know, no matter how much I study.
How have I changed over the past year? I can now speak and read a bit of a new language. I’ve fallen in love with the city of Lisbon. I know more people from countries other than the United States. I do most business in euros. I don’t have to do much mental math, anymore, to know what it is when it’s 17:30 or 22:00. I've barely noticed, and am not offended, by everyone smoking. I’m generally Calma Calma. Tranquilo.
All of that’s true. But it’s nowhere close to conveying how this really feels. Because I’ve only just begun to acknowledge the losses. To face the immensity of: What Now?
Even the obvious answer — more writing — is complicated. A project I’ve been working on for a long time needs more attention. It’s a story entirely about America, at a time when I also need to focus more on being a good resident of Portugal, and of Europe. So, a head-splitting double challenge. Rebalancing my writing time means giving myself permission to slow down…
…Meanwhile, other journalists have the beach situation covered. News outlets in both Portuguese and English are on it, so I don’t have to be. Soon after the action at Albarquel, Bloco de Esquerda circulated a petition that would force the Portuguese Parliament to debate the issue. This required 7,500 signatures; last time I checked, 15,333 people had signed…Beyond the reporting by Portuguese news outlets, the Guardian’s Adam Almeida has provided crucial international context…
"...Demonstrators chanted that 'Arrábida is not for sale' and held signs that read 'No to new kings'…"
"All of which sounds mighty familiar, and not just because I’m now living in Setúbal, gazing west at the Arrábida all day, but because I watched big business’s near-complete takeover of the United States, too.
One thing that hasn’t been a surprise over this past year is witnessing how America exports problems. But over here, it’s also easier to see how all the world’s problems are the same. Now, what to do about them…