Freedom of Assembly — Magic Sword Q&A — A Sunday in Hell
Go read the First Amendment to the Constitution. It never hurts to refresh your memory.
Welcome back to Highly Transmissible, a weekly newsletter about film and the world we live in.
The past week has been tumultuous. Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, a national, sustained protest movement has sprung forth on a scale unseen since the civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s and 1970s. The primary motivation of the Black Lives Matter protests has been opposition to pervasive police brutality directed primarily at black and brown communities in the United States. While these massive peaceful protests have been marred at times by violent opportunists — anarchists seeking to co-opt mass unrest and looters out to rob businesses while the authorities are distracted — the vast majority of violence has been perpetrated by the police themselves.
This is not agitprop. It’s fact. The disproportionately aggressive, violent and authoritarian approach of the NYPD toward protesters has been on full display. There’s more video footage of cops beating and otherwise attacking unarmed protesters than you could watch in a month at this point, but the perverse inclination of American police departments to meet free speech with violence is evident long-before officers actually begin striking their fellow Americans with truncheons. Case in point: on Tuesday, while thousands of peaceful protestors walked through downtown Brooklyn, scores of NYPD officers in riot gear with clubs were already forming up.
There was no reason for them to be there. The protestors had signs, allowed city buses and ambulances to pass, and displayed zero inclination towards violence, and yet the officers formed lines to prevent them from entering the public plaza around the Barclays Center and were spinning their clubs as if warming up for the Home Run Derby. In short, it was obvious they were spoiling for a fight. (“Gee, Officer Krupke.”) That night, like every other night this week, hundreds of protesters were beaten and arrested while exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and free speech. Police helicopters have flown low over residential neighborhoods every night for a week, creating a constant, pervasive sense of surveillance. Of course, this kind of treatment is nothing new for America’s over-policed low-income communities of color, yet the brazenness and impunity on display now is nonetheless shocking.
Others have written at length on these topics and with greater eloquence and erudition than I can muster. However, I would contend that the events of the past week speak not only to the existence of systemic and historic racism in the United States, but also to a rapid deterioration of our democracy and a contemporary rise of authoritarian government. This is evident not only at the federal level, but also in the responses of the states and local governments. An intensification of conflict in the lead-up to the November elections seems inevitable at this juncture.
America’s police forces are filled with officers with track records of violence and abuse, yet it is extraordinarily difficult to identify these officers, much less remove them from their positions or prosecute them, due to the exceptional power wielded by the police unions. These unions — like all unions — view their primary objective as protecting the jobs and livelihoods of their members. When we talk about social workers or teachers or pipe fitters, for instance, this is generally a good thing. But in the case of the police, this means the unions have a vested interest in concealing disciplinary records, supporting anti-reform politicians, fighting efforts to require officers to live within the communities they police and quashing public reform movements that could result in officers being fired or prosecuted.
If you need proof of this, look no further than Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis union, who recently had a starring role in a Trump Rally and who has fought everything from body cameras to mental health checks for officers. In New York City, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch has spent millions of dollars on lobbying to prevent reforms that would release disciplinary records to the public. It will be extraordinarily difficult to enact large-scale police reform without also breaking the power of these police unions.
Yet the problems we face now run far beyond the police themselves, and there is a greater anti-democratic, authoritarian movement that the police are aiding and abetting. In Washington D.C., President Trump deployed the army earlier this week to attack peaceful protestors so that he could carry out a photo-op with a bible. Setting aside the clear issue of separation between church and state that this raises, the use of the military to quell American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly is deeply troubling. Trump’s further threat to dispatch the army to states experiencing protests is even more concerning and raises the possibility that he might seek a show of force in the run up to the election.
Exacerbating the president’s clearly authoritarian impulses are governors and mayors (I’m thinking explicitly of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio) who, beyond failing to reign-in their police forces, are further attacking citizens’ rights of free speech and assembly through the introduction of curfews and a systematic failure to protect protestors or ensure due-process for arrested demonstrators. These curfews fail to prevent looting and vandalism — individuals intent on these clearly criminal actions are not going to be dissuaded by an order to remain home — and rather serve as further excuse to arrest citizens who are doing nothing more than exercising their rights. Beyond unduly targeting peaceful protesters, the curfews criminalize the daily lives of ordinary people. Not only is protesting now illegal under the curfews, so is going to the bodega for a snack at 10 p.m. The curfew, in effect, has become an excuse for total control by the police.
Compounding matters further, in New York City the NYPD has been making so many arrests that they are now failing to arraign people within the legally required 24-hour period. In short, New York City is now a place where you can be arrested for going to buy a slice of pizza at 8 p.m., and you may have to spend days in jail before being released. The added stress on the system caused by massive unemployment and the trauma of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only makes matters worse. Each incremental move to exert control by the government, rather than moderating protests and assuaging an injured public, further generates public outrage. The protests are swiftly becoming about a profound failure of leadership.
There may be no easy resolution in sight, but it’s important people play the long-game. Reform is never instantaneous, and the upcoming election must remain in focus. Protests are a marathon, not a sprint. And like a foot race, democracy a matter of one foot in front of the other until you reach the finish line. It’s not easy, but it is worth it in the end.
Q&A: Magic Sword — The Keeper
The last few months have been profoundly stressful and trying for millions of people, and the wave of unrest sweeping across the nation has only amplified this feeling. Yet it is incredibly important in these times to find ways to escape. Dwelling exclusively on struggle — even when it is worthy — is a pathway to burnout and unhappiness, and art and entertainment have the unique ability to provide respite, inspiration and context to the challenges we collectively face every day.
I recently discovered the Boise, Idaho-based electronic music act Magic Sword after the group featured in a question on comedian Ophira Eisenberg’s trivia show Ask Me Another. Magic Sword, which performs in masks and under assumed identities created as part of their comic book series, has gained popularity in recent years thanks to their ‘80s soundtrack vibe — reminiscent of John Carpenter films — and the use of one of their tracks in the trailer for Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok. I caught up with Magic Sword’s creator, who appeared on camera wearing a neon-lit fencing mask and goes only by the stage name The Keeper, to talk about the inspiration for the group, artistic struggle, and why he loves the vibe of classic sci-fi and fantasy soundtracks. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Benjamin Reeves: So what do I call you? Mr. Keeper?
The Keeper: Just “The Keeper” is fine.
There are a lot of parts to Magic Sword. There’s the music, obviously, but you also have these personas, and then there’s the comic book series as well. What’s the origin of all of this?
I had been writing music for a long time, and you know, never really got any traction, like a lot of guys who make electronic music. You start out and you’re copying other people, and you’re like ‘oh, I want to make music like this.’ But I never really found my thing, my sound. And then I went on this Buddhist meditation retreat.
Tell me about that.
I go to this facility out in the middle of nowhere, and I meditate for ten days, for like 8–10 hours per day. It’s pretty intense. I went there with really no, like, agenda or anything. It kind of popped into my head as I was there, about the seventh day, that the one consistency or constant in my musical history would have been soundtracks from the ‘70s and ‘80s, sci-fi and fantasy movies, especially the synthesizer stuff like John Carpenter and Vangelis. I decided when I got back that I was going to make electronic music based around that.
What about the name?
I don’t know why, but the name, the name ‘Magic Sword’ just kind of popped in to my head.
How did you get from this idea to a world encompassing albums, a comic book series, and these personas?
I had approached a local guy who had done some comic books, and initially my idea was just doing a single comic sheet per song, and the whole concept was vaguely around this magic sword, this infinitely powerful weapon. Then he did like three pages, and then he passed and handed me off to a friend (current artist Shay Plummer). We started feeing off each others energy, and then it blew up from there and then it just slowly evolved into what it is now.
Where you do you draw inspiration from artistically?
Obviously it’s a lot of films from that era (the 1980s), stuff like Conan the Barbarian. A lot of that fantasy from the 1980s starts our with just these, like, epic narrations and this guy introducing this tale of high fantasy. And obviously comic books, and I read a lot of fantasy.
What was it like when your “In the Face of Evil” was picked as the score for the Thor: Ragnarok trailer? Did that change things?
We have a licensing agency that we work with, and they always send us stuff that’s like ‘so-and-so is looking for something like this,’ and it’s always like, ‘oh, I hope I get the new Blade Runner movie,’ but 90% of the time, it’s just that, just a possibility. So they called about Thor: Ragnarok — I was in the middle of moving from my home studio to a studio space — and they’re like they want you to do some rewrites and they want it in 48 hours.
My entire studio was in my truck, so you know, it was kind of bad timing. I basically just stopped what I was doing, I did some rewrites, and we sent it over. I talked to the people on the phone who were doing the trailer for Marvel, and it was crazy because I wasn’t really sure what they were looking for, and I asked if I could see the trailer. And they were like, ‘we can’t send it to you,’ because there’s such a huge non-disclosure with Marvel.
So you didn’t really know if they were going to use you song or not?
We were not sure if we got it. The following day, I was at my nephews wedding, and during the ceremony my phone is just like vibrating like crazy. After the ceremony, I go check my phone, and I had like 150 Twitter notifications. It had just come out at Comicon. That really took us up as far as exposure goes.
The Keeper has a regular streaming set on Twitch on Fridays at 6 p.m. Mountain Time. Learn more about Magic Sword and read the comic books at the band’s website.
Today’s Film: A Sunday in Hell (1977)
Today’s film comes from guest reviewer Katherine Tolentino. Tolentino is a filmmaker living in the San Francisco Bay Area. View her work at www.katherinetolentino.com.
The ongoing global coronavirus pandemic caused the cancelation of this year’s Spring Classics, the annual set of bicycle races held in Europe every March and April, dating back to the 19th century. (That’s right — the world of cycling is much bigger than the Tour de France!) In historic races like the Tour de Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and Paris-Roubaix, thousands of fans invade tiny rural farm towns and the quiet countryside to watch these magnificent cyclists fly past at 25mph.
A Sunday in Hell, by director Jørgen Leth, is a little-known gem of a film that provides a cinematic look into the Paris-Roubaix, one of the oldest Spring Classics, founded in 1896. If you know nothing about competitive cycling, this film will teach you everything you need to know. If you’re cycling-obsessed, you’ll appreciate the film’s passion and reverence for the sport.
In some ways, the film reminds me of an educational video you’d see in grade school, or one of Mr. McFeely’s tapes on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. In a cool, informative tone, the narrator describes the structure of the race, the major players, and the team strategy. However, the combination of stunningly crafted shots, historic footage of favorites like Eddy Merckx and Roger de Vlaeminck, and an unusual soundtrack (including deep-throated chanting reminiscent of Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi), mean this is no dreary documentary. Indeed, it’s a work of fine art.
The film is less concerned with who’s going to win the race than it is with the longstanding tradition of competitive cycling, which the mirrors fans’ fervor for these races. Winning isn’t important, rather, it’s all about the crazy, kooky journey to the end. At one point, a whole mass of newspaper type-setters flood the race course, protesting the mass layoffs (thanks to automation) at Le Parisien, a newspaper sponsor of the race.
As the cyclists struggle to push past the protest, the filmmakers linger on the weathered faces of the workers themselves, documenting their plight and paying tribute to this moment in time. It’s a beautiful scene which captures the chaos, the quirkiness, and the cultural significance of the race. Anything can happen at the Paris-Roubaix.
A Sunday in Hell is available to stream for free on YouTube.
Care for a drink?
Let’s keep it simple this week. Order up a nice French table wine from you local wine store — nothing too expensive — and pair with a soft cheese and a baguette, if you can find a fresh one. There’s enough to worry about without mixing a complicated cocktail.
Reading List:
The Amherst Cinema has put together a list of anti-racist films that speak to the particular moment that we’re living through right now. (Hat-tip to Jimmy Sullivan for passing this along). All of these can be streamed, and there are plenty of well-known films, as well as hidden gems.
Over at McSweeney’s — always reliable when you need a laugh — this is the headline today: “Senator Susan Collins Responds to the Federal Government’s Deployment of People-Eating Machines to End Protests.”
Benjamin Reeves is an award-winning screenwriter, journalist and media consultant based in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter @bpreeves or write to him at breeves.writer@gmail.com.