On Cuddlecore, Religion, the Israel-Hamas War, and How Death and Social Media Can Really Ruin A Fun Time for All
The ethereal harmonies of The Softies (a two-woman duo, 1994 — present, with significant gaps between then and now; from, where else, the Pacific Northwest) waft through my car as I drive to the nearest Capital One Café at the Domain to finesse this blog post. The songs are incredibly beautiful.
I’m sure it’s a response to the times we’re living in and the events we’ve been living through — which I’ll be getting to in a bit — but over the past couple of weeks I’ve been seriously delving into cuddlecore. Up till now I’ve only been vaguely aware of what the word meant but I’ve been a fan of Honeybunch (a band I love with all my heart), Belle and Sebastian, and the fabulous Furors for years, which you may call cuddlecore or at least twee, but more lately I’ve been sampling Cub (or just lowercase cub) along with Talulah Gosh, Tullycraft, pathbreaking geeks Beat Happening, Black Tambourine, The Vaselines, The Pastels, Heavenly, Bunnygrunt, and so on. All of which may mean nothing to you unless you’re a music obsessive/headphonosexual like me, but in brief, these are bands that marry sweet melodies to punkish, off-tempo, sometimes minimal orchestration and embrace nerdiness, non-macho attitudes and unabashed idiosyncracy. Singing flat/off-key is optional but very popular; it’s the vocal antidote to the horrible mainstream plague of chronically overdone melisma (off-key singing is indicative of indie cred, à la the old joke about the hipster who tells his friend “my musical tastes have evolved so much that now I like bands who can’t play or sing at all”).
It’s aural comfort food for sure, but if you look under the hood there’s a lot more to it. (For further reading, this piece from 2016 gives an excellent overview and history of the genre and its antecedents, including not only the landmark C86 compilation from the UK but going back as far as Moe Tucker singing lead on “After Hours” with the Velvet Underground in 1969. Yay, Moe!)
This is my new favorite song (for the moment but for reals), from Cub’s debut album Betti-Cola, a cover of “Summer Samba,” the Brazilian bossa nova standard from the ’60s; you know it, but not done this way. Listening to it makes me happy, so sue me. Also this cub song (later covered by They Might Be Giants); if you’re in a New York state of mind, it sure beats Sinatra or Billy Joel in my book, even makes me tear up a bit. (Never mind that the band was from Vancouver.)
The members of Cub ended up somewhat frustrated at the perception that they were talent-challenged but cute dilettantes, but never lost the sweetness that permeated even their darkest songs.
It’s an occupational hazard of navigating the shoals of life in the swinging 60s, but it seems that every time I get into an obsession of the week like this I soon find out that one of the principals recently died. In this instance it was sadly enough Valeria Fellini, Cub’s original drummer and from all accounts a very sweet, fun, and awesome person who we should all endeavor to be more like. Her friends are devastated.
Why do people have to die? It spoils the fun! I listen to music to escape! I want the fun! Why did Valeria Fellini have to die? Why did so many relatives and friends of mine have to die? Why why why??
What is the point, as I often wonder, of a human life? What’s left after it ends? TBH, dude, during her lifetime I didn’t know Valeria Fellini from a hole in the ground, but I’m actually grieving her loss now. She was an artist, once owned a Vancouver shop that made artisanal chocolate, had people who loved and adored her. She was a terrific drummer and part of a great ’90s lo-fi trio that put out some memorable records. What’s not to like? Like most of us, she deserves to be remembered.
In any event, to pivot slightly: The news lately. Do I really need to tell you? You sure opened Pandora’s Box this time, Hamas terrorists. Fahgeddaboudit. Everyone isn’t just mentioning the elephant in the room, they’re taking turns riding it through the house, into the yard and out into the street. It’s a fine time to quit Twitter (as I recently did) since everyone, including their accountant, barber, dentist and lawn-mowing service, seems to be weighing in on one of the most complex Gordian knot-level problems of our time, reducing tales of wartime atrocities on both sides with a simple approach, as if they’re writing a Yelp review of a new neighborhood ramen joint (if you’re on one side, you’re not allowed to sympathize with the other side even a little tiny bit or mention bad things your side may have perhaps done in a momentary loss of composure, no no, that’s not allowed). Each side is only allowed to post videos of the horrible awful unspeakable things the other side did, in a group bid to win the Social Media Zeitgeist Sympathy Olympics. It’s the worst.
Some people blame religion, which I’ll allow has a lot to answer for. Especially organized religion. Control, control! But some of the uses of religion are beneficial. (I have, by the way, NEVER written for public consumption before about my relationship with my religion. First time for everything!)
Trust me, Jewish studies can actually be interesting. Through textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible, and through the performance of good works and service to others, one builds and strengthens a community: it sounds weird, but it actually works. Thanks mainly to my current rabbi in my Reform congregation, I’ve rediscovered it after many years of dormancy. As for Jewish people in general, the ones I know in the Reform community tend to be kind, intelligent, smart, morally conscious folks. They tend to be open to helping others. They are nothing like the stereotypes antisemites promulgate. I care about these people. I don’t consider myself especially religious, but I enjoy the occasional D’var Torah (an oral commentary on the weekly Torah portion) and even did one once myself while I was on my congregation’s board of trustees.
As for the war, to borrow a popular word of the moment, I see it as a nonbinary issue, i.e. not black and white, i.e. it’s complicated. I’m disgusted that so many seem to be unable to see Jews as victims or Palestinians as flawed, or vice versa depending on their tribe (can people be victims and oppressors simultaneously? Discuss amongst yourselves).
I spoke recently over the phone with my 93-year-old German Jewish Holocaust survivor dad, who was on his way to a new Holocaust documentation/education center in South Florida. Politically my dad is not what I’d call a classic liberal, nor is he by any means a MAGA type. He is, however, very practical. He’s disgusted with the leaders on both sides and blames them for the War Between Cousins, and I agree with him all the way on that. I’m down with saying the political leaders on both sides suck dead donkeys and have worsened their constituencies’ lives in significant, tangible and tragic ways, and all of them need to go.
There will be no peace until both sides get to know each other as human beings and lose the tired talking points, propaganda, and putting the blame 100 percent on the Other Side. Whether that’s possible at this point, I don’t know. Not dancing in the streets to celebrate people’s deaths would be a good start.
If the Israel-Hamas War means anything, it signifies the absolute failure and moral bankruptcy of extremism, of black-and-white thinking, of all-or-nothingism in general, of the demonizing of the Other, of nativism. Social media itself, with its anonymous nature encouraging insults, name-calling and absolutism in general over reasoned arguments, is doing a lot more harm than good; the resulting rage ultimately promotes violence and hatred on both sides.
“Uncompromising” isn’t a virtue, it’s a guarantee of eventual doom. (Thanks a lot, Yasser “Missed Opportunity” Arafat. Thanks a lot, Hamas. Thanks a lot, Benny “The Misplaced Net” Netanyahu. Thanks a lot, extremists on both sides. This is what you want, this is what you get.)
We need to see all the people in any wartime conflict in the same rose-inflected, infinitely compassionate light that a cuddlecore-loving music obsessive views the members of Cub. They matter. Their lives matter. Israelis, Africans, Asians, Arabs, indigenous peoples, Americans, Canadians, Slovenes. They all matter very much. It’s called humanism.
Maybe if more of us paid less attention to trying to solve the world’s problems and who got to a certain patch of land first to plant their flag (blood, soil and Starbucks, tovariš), and more attention to creating good things and expressing themselves, the world would actually start to improve bit by bit.
Time, as it has a tendency to do, is of the essence. I’ll leave you with a quote from a 2019 interview with original Cub Lisa Marr: “Want to write a song? Write it! Want to sing a song? Sing it! What are you waiting for? You can sleep when you’re dead.”
And if you’re not into writing songs, you can start by getting to know your neighbors. Or maybe you can do both. Do something to make yourself feel alive, because it feels good and more people should be doing that.
As for me, I’ll continue listening to cuddlecore. Among other things. Also, I don’t know if it’ll help anything, but I’m going to keep on writing.
