We’ve been at it for almost a year now with the Substack version of Pomocon. I do love writing so…and sometimes spend too much time with it. Anyhow, I wanted to report that in retrospect, I judge that perhaps the best piece I put together for our substack, both in terms of ideas and visuals, was my Carl’s Rock Songbook, No. 125: X-Ray Spex, “Germfree Adolescents.”
That piece wound up also being about two other songs which are similarly relevant to our discussions of Covid-issues, “Genetic Engineering” and “I Can’t Do Anything.” I highlighted the first of those as a prophetic warning about scientism’s hubris, and used the second for purposes of admonishing today’s youth for their very un-Poly-ish passivity in the face of lockdown-despotism.
I also mentioned in it that a new bio-pic on Poly Styrene had been released, and last week the great conservative film critic Armond White, who from time to time is a fairly insightful pop-music critic also, wrote an appreciative review of it. Here’s a trailer for the film, but do read Armond and I on the pop-art genius of Poly, and what the young ones might learn from it today.