I Can’t Write a Memoir (Post 4 of 5)

(back to Post 3 of 5)

A monument to General Robert E. Lee formerly stood in Charlottesville, Virginia. As part of the “Swords Into Plowshares” project, the statue was melted down. Artists will use the metal to make new public artwork. Photo by Eze Amos.

One example of me playing the fool: I’ve spent far too much precious time fighting with Lost Causers on Twitter. 

Twitter became an outlet for me during the lockdown, something I could do on the clock while stuck at home. I started playing around on the platform, using the account of my then employer, the tiny Institute for International Law & Justice at NYU. I began by promoting our events and publications, and within months our account was up from a handful of subscribers to 11K. I’m proud of this, and I have a hard time feeling proud of anything. 

Before Elon Musk ruined it, International Law Twitter was exciting. It disrupted the elite gatekeeping of the field and transformed scholarly communication, while new intellectual networks coalesced, especially in the Global South. By osmosis, I knew enough about International Law to help connect scholars, not as another expert but as a supporter, like a fan cheering on a team: Go International Law! 

Of course home and life and work and play were all mushed up together during the lockdown. I became a little loopy from the isolation. I started scratching at my skin and pulling my hair out again. I started drinking too much. The Law School’s Office of Communications chastised me for making a joke @ the BBC Twitter account about The Young Ones. [It was a funny joke and I stand by it.] So I moved over to my personal account, to make my jokes over there instead. 

Next I insulted a Lost Causer, or a Lost Causer insulted me, and they figured out who I was, and my connection to Ben Cooter Jones, one of their heroes. Then I was swept up into the ongoing Twitter Civil War, on the side of the Union of course, where I met many brilliant people with encyclopedic knowledge of the conflict such as Brooks Simpson

The Union historians waged intellectual battles, and I reveled in seeing them take Lost Causers down with facts and logic. I waged battles of mockery. I’ve developed a thick skin, after years as a New Yorker, and I’m not afraid of sparring with people. I discovered a talent for infuriating Those Still Fighting the Northern War of Aggression Online.

Lost Causers on Twitter are trolls for the most part, who hold misogynist, racist, and other repugnant views, and who insist on inflicting those views on others. A very few are deluded but polite, and they try to rein in the others from calling me a bitch, slut, tramp, whore etc. I’ve given polite ones a chance, hoping our interactions might influence their views on things Confederate. 

***

According to intermediaries, my father’s last straw with me was Twitter. His version of our estrangement boils down to, “Rachel talked ugly about me on social media.” I was honest. I spoke openly about things that happened between us, things he hoped I would never talk about, let alone on Twitter. I don’t feel guilty. If he wanted me to sing his praises, he should have treated me better. He should have told wife #5 Alma to retract her claws rather than ignore her constant cattiness. I asked him to engage in family therapy with me, and he never responded. So our relationship is over, by his choice, and yes, I processed some feelings about that online.    

I Can’t Write a Memoir (Post 3 of 5)

(back to Post 2 of 5)

Stein Club linocut print by Katherine W. Linn

The day after the reunion was the 92nd anniversary of Lessie’s death. I walked along the Elizabeth River, in a posh Portsmouth neighborhood, noticing the big houses with private docks and expensive boats. As I was walking, I was also birdwatching. My mother’s bird obsession has rubbed off on me, so I always observe those around me.

In the water, there were ducks, egrets, geese, and herons. In the trees, there were big glossy crows, cardinals, and mockingbirds. One was making such a racket above me that I stopped and looked up to see what was going on.

I saw a small hawk. It looked quite pleased with itself, stabbing at its prey, strewing feathers below. The cries were from a nearby mockingbird. She couldn’t save her fledgling, but she refused to let the hawk have a peaceful meal.

I tried to help. I threw rocks towards the hawk to get it to stop, but I have terrible aim. Then I knocked a big stick against the tree, and that worked, although too late for the fledgling. The hawk flew away from the tree, leaving the ground below decorated with soft, tiny feathers. 

The hawk, the fledgling, the mockingbird. I know my mother would have told me to leave the hawk alone, to not interfere with nature. But the scene reminded me of the classic triad: abuser, victim, witness. 

***

After my walk, I set out to find Pinners Point, the place where my father grew up. But it has disappeared, as I discovered when I got lost in a desolate landscape of shipping containers. 

I Can’t Write a Memoir (Post 2 of 5)

(back to Post 1 of 5)

I can’t write a memoir, as I’ve explained, because I have a bad memory, a deep sense of shame, and a desire to keep some remnants of privacy in a world of constant surveillance. There are other reasons. For example, my lack of journals. Many famous memoir writers rely on journaling, and they often mention the importance of it in interviews about their work. Journals allow memoir writers to factcheck themselves, so they can stay within the boundaries of nonfiction. No one wants to be the next James Frey.  

From my twenties to my forties, I kept journals. This meant I also lugged heavy boxes full of memories good and bad from Massachusetts to Texas to California back to Texas back to Massachusetts and then up to Maine down to Virginia and finally to New York, from apartment to apartment to storage unit to apartment etc. I moved so many times that I still have anxiety dreams about packing. I never read my old journals but I thought it was important to keep them, for the future, because that is what writers do, and I was trying to be a writer. 

Eventually, I got tired of the bother and the weight of my journals. I didn’t want to just throw them in a dumpster so I decided to burn them. My ex J. suggested the fire pit at her father’s house in the country, and we drove up there from the city, for one last time of moving those heavy boxes. We built the fire, and I had a wonderful time throwing journal after journal, reminders of my past, into the flames. It was cathartic as hell. I felt unburdened. I regret it from time to time, but I haven’t kept a journal since. 

***

The main reason I went to Portsmouth, Virginia last summer was a family reunion. The reunion was with people I’m distantly related to, through my father and Nova Jenerette Stephens. These cousins are Black and I am white, but we have a common ancestor, Gabriel Jacobs. I’ve written about Gabriel here before

I’ve been in correspondence for several years now with my cousins Tyrone and Luke, who’ve helped me piece together parts of our family history that long puzzled me, for example: are we really a little Cherokee? (Spoiler, we are not. But we are connected through kinship with the Lumbee, Waccamaw, and other coastal Carolina tribes.) Tyrone encouraged me to come to the reunion, so we could finally meet in person. 

While meeting Tyrone and at least a hundred of my distant cousins of color in person for the first time, what struck me most was their kindness. It was a crowded party, but people tended to their elders and disabled. They played with their children. They were loving towards one another, and to me, and they meant it. There were all shades of skin there. Our interconnected families have been mixed for generations, from way back to precolonial days in Virginia and North Carolina: white, African, and Native. 

I Can’t Write a Memoir (Post 1 of 5)

for the Portfire Crew, with gratitude

For the past several years, I’ve talked about writing a memoir a lot. I’m embarrassed to admit this: for all my talking about it, it should be written by now. I also think about writing a memoir constantly, composing sentence after sentence in my head, but never writing anything down. My resistance is strong. It makes lists of reasons for me to stay schtum.

At the top of all the lists: I’ve lived, and continue to live, a messy life. I’m reluctant to share all the shameful bits let alone remember them. People close to me understand that I often play the fool. They’ve seen me create little hells for myself, with my good but naive intentions. I also have quite an index of personality flaws. Nobody but me knows about all my flaws and foolishness, and it’s better that way. I’m intimate with my shadow, but we’re on the down low.

I imagine some potential readers as my high school English teachers, who must be protected from my past and ongoing shenanigans. Other potential readers are my Gen-X peers from Mystic, Connecticut who are connected to Portfire. They already know too much about me, good and bad, so I don’t feel protective of them, especially the ones who find my writing “depressing” and “morbid” etc. If it’s depressing to read about, try living it!

Researching my family history has revealed truly Gothic levels of dysfunction going back generations. It is an ongoing revelation into my own trauma: the context of my messiness, the intergenerational aspects of it. If I’m going to write honestly, I can’t worry about readers who find it “too dark”.  I find it “too dark”. It’s incredibly hard to sit with and write about because of its darkness.

I can’t write a memoir. But I can write pieces of memoir…

***

Some context for readers who are not my high school English teachers or fellow Mystic Gen Xers:

  • My father, Ben Jones, became famous during my childhood
  • He played Cooter Davenport on the hit television series Dukes of Hazzard
  • He then served two terms as a Congressman from Atlanta, Georgia
  • He is probably one of the largest, if not the top, retailers of Confederate flags
  • My father had a rough childhood; he is traumatized and traumatizing 
  • We are estranged; it is not the first round of estrangement, but it is the final one.

***

Last summer, I made a trip to Portsmouth, Virginia, a small city where both my father and his mother grew up. I found the house that the family owned before the Depression. 732 Broad Street was in an old neighborhood crowded with Victorians. Our house wasn’t Victorian. It was grim and plain and squat. There were fake flowers and faded flags on the front porch. I drove past it a few times, then parked briefly across the street. I wasn’t brave enough to cross the street, to knock on the door. 

Delta of Venus- Disengaged b/w Slipping (Official Music Video)

We are live!

PortFire TV

“Disengaged b/w Slipping” is the first music video from Delta of Venus, an indie pop shoegaze band from Mystic, CT, who released their Double A-Side Single on November 26, 2024.

The long-form video reimagines the narrative arc of Joan of Arc, had she lived beyond her nineteen years, and led a movement of feminine resistance set in modern-day Mystic, CT.

Written, Directed, Filmed and Styled by Mystic Photographer Michelle Gemma.

Edited by James Canty

Song Credits:
Released November 26, 2024
Song by Ellery Twining
Music by Delta of Venus
Lyrics by Issy

Bass guitar & Sequencer Programming: Mat Tarbox
Drums: Shawn Fake
Guitars: Ellery Twining
Vocals: Issy

Recorded and Produced by Eric M. Lichter at Dirt Floor / Middletown, Connecticut  
Engineered by Guido Falivene 
September 2024

Video Credits:
All photographs and video by Michelle Gemma
Models: Fiona / Emma / Maya / Izzy N. / Nora / Issy P.

Filmed between 14 January 2025 and 11 March 2025.
A special thank you to Evan Nickles, owner of the House of 1833 for the generous loan of the mansion, and Royal Young for “Show, Don’t Tell!”



RESULTS PRESS

THE PUNK HEAD

Ellery Twining is ahead of his time. He foresees a post-pop era before the genre is even defined, but here and now, RESULTS convinces you that a new aesthetic is the inevitable. Before, the post pop genre hasn’t had an artist who can truly define the genre, at least not until Twining entered the scene.

Twining has something very special to share with RESULTS. Following his acclaimed debut release, the sophomore album further pushes the experimentation of form and texture. To answer the question what post-pop is, you need to first listen to his album. The album sees a translucent form of childhood nostalgia combined with a cynical look at past generations in reflection with modernity, pop, and pop culture.

The influences of RESULTS, or more accurately, its rising aesthetic is also echoed throughout different forms of contemporary art. In literature, there’s a rising of non-linear storytelling and expressiveness, which focus on individual artistry and creativity and sees narratives bend the rules of genres. RESULTS share the same thread of individuality, liberation, and expressiveness. Twining’s non-fiction, personalized narrative is entered through a fluid-like deformation of pop and folk lyricism and carried out by the heart of a poet.

RESULTS in a way reminds you of glam rock, avant-garde, and punk, of which forms all share the confrontation and seeking of a more conclusive expression as new movements and changes are emerging across the globe. We are too at a change of time, and RESULTS articulates these lost and undefined feelings. Its form might still be viewed as edgy by many, but it’s well-supported by the change of narratives that are happening in the world. RESULTS doesn’t lack universal appeal. It’s more than ever resonating and needed to be heard.

From The Day’s Archive 26 December 1995 by Scott Timberg

My first big scoop! Scott Timberg, RIP, was a force upon the Mystic Art & Culture scene in the 1990’s, seemingly at every rock show, poetry reading, art exhibit, with pencil and pad in hand.

Thank you to the Day for digitizing its archive!

Next up- ads from Stitch in Time Boutique, circa 1979

Chicago 1893 Overview

“The future is now Old Man!”, he said to himself.

Official Website: http://chicago1893.com

Documentary Film: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JCPFJ54

Paperback/ebook/audiobook: https://amazon.com/dp/1082413585

Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/1893-chi…

Soundtrack: https://chicago1893.bandcamp.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chicago.1893

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chicago_1893

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chicago.1893