First published by Zero Books, 2016
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Text copyright: Jordannah Elizabeth 2015
ISBN: 978 1 78535 193 8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946054
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.
The rights of Jordannah Elizabeth as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design: Lee Nash
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK
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CONTENTS
This book is dedicated to:
My Grandmother
Annie McFadden
My Grandmother
Veryl L. Harvey
My Great Aunt
Daisy Granger
My Mother
Susan L. Phillips
Harriet Tubman
and to all the women and little girls
who the world has seemingly rejected and overlooked.
I do it all for you.
Foreword by Mark Fritz
How can you not love somebody who writes a column, and lists the pertinent songs, for a mixtape to accompany a first-time sexual encounter? Someone who extols the economic virtues of pet-sitting, or explains the practical advantages of living in a so-called AirB&B? Jordannah Elizabeth writes about these things and so much more, wittily deconstructing all aspects of life and love and, most of all, art.
I wrote a couple of pieces for Publik/Private, a website that Jordannah runs. It is offbeat, original and quite beautiful, very much like Jordannah herself. Her love of the written word delivered in a visceral way is infectious and inspiring. Her commitment to raw passion and the uninhibited expression of human emotion has made me fiercely loyal to this wonderfully complex artist. I take great pride in the fact that she is my editor.
The things that I, as well as my writing partner, Joyce Riha Linik, wrote for Jordannah perhaps would not be published elsewhere. One piece I wrote was a meditation on Monica Lewinsky (I had a double date involving this sadly ridiculed human being). It examined a life that continued after the circus of media attention had moved on. Joyce and I collaborated on another piece that was essentially a vivid and explicit depiction of a sexual encounter. Joyce also wrote a short story about a boyfriend so obsessed with finding a Yetithe Abominable Snowman, the so-called Bigfootthat he actually began morphing into such a creature. Not only did Jordannah embrace these pieces with enthusiasm, her layouts and her choice of art to accompany each were both brilliant and elegant yet somehow earthy, which, again, is probably a good way to describe Ms. Elizabeth herself. (The sex story that Joyce and I wrote was accompanied by two people with hand grenades for heads, a perfect image for a piece about the primal power of unbridled lust.)
Ive never met Jordannah in the physical sense. But, and I guess its a testament to the power of communications technology, our message exchanges and telephone conversations revealed somebody who was bracingly frank, freakishly smart, beguilingly charming and pretty damn hilarious. I tested her with a few outrageous comments, which she fielded with aplomb and then fired whistling rejoinders right back at me. As I mentioned earlier, this charismatic woman engenders a fierce allegiance.
As for this book: Reading the selections in this volume supports my own gut instincts about this unique woman. Though our relationship is based purely on her role as purveyor of original writing, I was only superficially aware of her involvement in the other arts. Now I understand the diversity of her creative genius. And I can only marvel at her evocative writing. Like all great writers, it has a singularly distinctive voice that seems almost effortless. It is by turns muscular and powerful, droll and beautiful. It is mesmerizing and addictive. It is funny and just sexy as hell.
Jordannah, herself an accomplished composer and singer of haunting songs, writes primarily about culture in general and music in particular. This is fitting, because she writes with beats and rhythms and a cadence that sweep the reader along like a really good song. Her music reviews, interviews and essays about life as we know it are as eclectic as her own artistic tastes, the result of a questing mind unencumbered by boundaries. Its impossible not to both admire her work, and also genuinely like the person who wrote this stuff. The sheer breadth of her music reviews is dazzling; country, punk, hip-hop, psychedelic and pure pop are dealt with deftly, and Jordannah has an uncanny knack for drilling down into what seems like a perfectly logical analysis of the psyche of a particular artist. Her broad range of knowledge allows her to find something that eludes lesser writers: the intersection where not just genres, but ideas, somehow meet to form something original. And that, I guess, is who Jordannah Elizabeth is: somebody who lives at the crossroads of virtually every component of contemporary culture.
Check out this compact excerpt of a concert review for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. The nuance, the sense of place, is so evocative that you can almost smell this particular moment in time:
While the hazy, eerie atmosphere coated the venue, LAs Giant Drag was able to play a sensually dark set of songs, completely appropriate for the early evening. The crowd slowly trickled in throughout the night, not quite filling the room, and people seemed to shift and cycle through the venue, never standing in one place for too long. There was never a moment where there was a complete loss of the crowds attention, but there was a quiet level of distraction going on.
She closes with this:
Everything seemed to flow peacefully as the show ended with the songs New Teenage Mutilation, Sweet 69 and The Last Dance. McBean played solo for the last song, and it was endearing and really lovely to watchuntil McBean suddenly smashed his guitar over his amp, hurling it over his head several times until it cracked, ending the show on a strangely violent note.
The band had joined him on stage seconds before McBean attacked his guitar, and they put their instruments down just as quickly as they had picked them up after McBean walked past them leaving the stage. The rest of Pink Mountaintops mingled with the crowd, seeming unaffected by McBeans behavior, allowing their non-inner circle to slowly disperse from the evenings odd occurrence. The show was weird, but the band is great.
I guess the things I find most endearing are the personal essays, the meditations on love and life. Her lyrically instructional series of essays on How to Survive as a Broke-Ass Writer in particular resonated deeply with me because thats exactly what I am. Ive spent the past year crashing on couches and in my car during a road trip from Key West to LA to Detroit, where Im homesteading a derelict house because its the cheapest way to live and write.
So, Ive been on the road as a writer and musician for a little over a decade. The first time I officially became homeless I was 19 years old, and the first time I ran away from home was at age 15. I have always been a transient person. Working and moving has been my life, and I chose a career that allows me to travel often. As a journalist, Ive flown from coast to coast to get interviews and exclusive tours of studios by my favorite artists.
