A review by ralowe
Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

3.0

there are whole industries dedicated to the commodification of our suffering. aside for nominal compensation to a given cultural worker, what's beneficial to a contingent grouping of experiential similitude imbuing particular interpretive capacities (or "community"ќ) is never anything other than accidental. this is the expectation in the case of blackness and queerness on its own. even moreso at its intersections. the name of the game is selling the pain, at the expense of the oppressed group: the opposite would be an industry liability. these oppressed experiences are inherently paradoxical: precious and disposable. i continue to struggle with determining what at this barren, depraved and desolate industrial site truly and unconstrictingly nourishes the psychic well-being, and promotes the flourishing, of the given cultural producer. it would appear the artist (depending on the medium of one's affinity) owns the means to their own production (that is, structuring and apprehending institutions notwithstanding, subjectivity), and yet art is not enough. fred moten has been my go-to for describing this ambivalent conundrum concerning black (also queer, insofaras it momentarily lapses into a discreet and also necessarily fleeting trace (indeed, in moten's own work)) traditions of cultural production that can "occasion something very much like sadness and something very much like devilish enjoyment."ќ there's not enough of brontez purnell's demonic laughter by way of relentless stylistic proficiency in *since i laid my burden down*. i'm pretty sure brontez (deshawn?) is the devil, in the blues/judeochristian sense, a fugitive from paradise: a vital and ironic remedy for the impasse of tired political life. luminaries in this realm of demonic ideality are david wojnarowicz and assata shakur. my favorite part early on in the book is the satanic seance for kurt cobain in middle school. (think of how different my life would have been if i was into nirvana in middle school.) it's regrettable that the critique of religion throughout is not allowed to develop its confrontations further (say as a gentler alternative to a more generous edit allowing the traumatic life events chosen for narration to breathe). sure, process is rarely a luxury for real life, but this isn't: this is art, right? i'm reminded of gayl jones and toni morrison, poets of unendurable experiences. like pat parker, purnell's strength is in the articulation as much as the content, where the riot grrrl shines. but an audience straight white feminists like kathleen hanna don't get it. purnell requires an editorial staff that won't compromise. as we said before there's whole industries of varied traditions dedicated to this. plus think of all the people who have no outlet so massive. which makes the privilege all the more valuable. i'm not proposing that there's an existing resolution to the question of the artist's psychic compensation. (the whole time i was uneasy wondering what i was participating in.) the devil is the devil due to a refusal to compromise. and those fucking details.