Every showing is full of secrets.
–Julian of Norwich, 1373

1

I'm going to let go of any intentions for this episode and simply follow the path of coincidence because I'm exhausted and my muscles ache. I spent last night pulling everything out of the storage unit in our parking garage, which flooded after a derecho blew across the Midwest this week. I schlepped giant canvases, copies of an unpopular book I wrote, Christmas ornaments, and boxes of god only knows so I could put all of this stuff on plastic risers. For the next once-in-a-lifetime storm. Because there will be more.

It was like a metaphor came to life, suddenly being forced to deal with all the riff-raff I thought I'd hidden away. As I tossed soaked upholstery into a dumpster and frowned at piles of dead electronics, I pondered what I might write for this episode, which tonight's special guest suggested calling A Torchlight Shining at the Bastards. What does a title like that need? I wondered. Then I found the lamp.

2

For decades, this brass pirate lamp stood on a workbench in my grandfather's basement that smelled of spider poison and Saginaw Bay. I was afraid of it when I was small, perhaps sensing it was a relic from a different world, unable to imagine it would become part of mine.

My grandfather inherited it from Queenie and Hazel, his spinster aunts. They said Hazel bought it at a Detroit pawn shop in the early 1900s. They said a lot of things about Queenie and Hazel. Like that they hopped a fence and walked across a military airstrip in Kalamazoo, determined to register as nurses in World War I. When a man tried to kiss Hazel, they said Queenie grabbed her rifle and chased him down the street. She fired off a couple shots in some versions of the tale.

The pirate watched over my grandfather's basement for decades, switched on whenever he went downstairs to putter in his woodshop, where he produced vases and bookends. He sold most of his belongings before he moved to a retirement home. But he brought his lamp with him.

To help residents locate their rooms, the nursing staff encouraged each patient to place a memento on a shelf next to each door. Plastic flowers, birthday cards, family snapshots, and woodland figurines lined the halls because it's easier to remember a picture of your grandchild than room 27B. My grandfather placed his lamp outside his door, where it threatened the tiny shelf with its brass weight, the pirate looking like he might murder the neighbor's ceramic chipmunk. Some of the residents complained. When my grandfather asked my opinion, I told him I loved it. "Good man," he said. "I think it classes up the place."

He taped my name beneath the lamp before he died, and I'd forgotten it was in our storage unit. As I installed it on my desk, I could hear him saying good man, let's shine a light on these bastards.

3

I'm not quite sure how I crossed paths with Michael Donaldson, which is one of the delightful effects of the internet we once knew, the way people would bleed into our lives, maybe starting with a stray comment on a blog or a social media encounter, but there was the very real sense of sending out a signal that could attract fellow travelers. And Michael is a steady and welcome presence on my screens. (Find him on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Letterboxd.)

He's turned me on to countless new sounds and broadened my tastes, and his commitment to championing creative goodness now arrives at scale via his publication, The Tonearm.

He even went out of his way to arrange for me to interview one of my all-time music heroes, who then completely flaked. But that's what the best heroes do. They teach us to kill the Buddha in the middle of the street. And so:

4

Do you believe in a god or any spiritual dimension to the universe?

"Does it matter?"

"I know that feels flippant, but I don't mean it that way. It's just that I don't know that I'd behave differently knowing than I do not knowing, and there's no way to be sure of anything anyway. All I have is an interpretation of my perception. I think, therefore I am—fine. But what is that? These thoughts could be the fever dream of a caterpillar sitting on a leaf. They could be one expression of a consciousness that exists collectively in everything. Maybe the nerds are right, and I'm the center of a simulation, World on a Wire style, which is honestly the most tangible argument for a god I've heard. There's no escaping this dream within a dream, as Poe had it, and I've made my peace with that."

"I've also been thinking about John Keats's idea of negative capability. In an 1817 letter to his brothers, Keats describes a person 'capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.' Yeah, I should probably steer clear of any irritable reaching. It's also tempting to say that the mystery is god, that god is the churn of the cosmos in random directions, but I don't think that's right. A god would be part of the churn, subject to the uncertainty like everything else."

"If perception is king, then it's my job to imagine the world I want to live in, and bring it about as best I can. That's tough work—I don't think humanity is innately good and thus isn't much help. For one thing, factory farming exists and is tolerated, which settles the humanity question for me. If you really dig into it, there's very little that humanity contributes to this universe that's a net positive. Two things come to mind, though. One is the asking itself, philosophy, the fact that anyone bothers with a question like yours. The other is art."

"Art is what survives us. When we look at a civilization gone for thousands of years, we marvel at its art before anything else, and that art is how we come to know those people. It's how we understand where we live and who we're living among. And I guess that's the feeling that inspires The Tonearm. The world I want to live in encourages the making of art, the consumption of it, and the understanding of it. That's as pure a way to connect as we have. It's a resistance against the darkness, a torchlight shining at the bastards."

"Art makes no promise that things improve (spoiler: there's a good chance they won't). It's a shared recognition of existence, which is a means of connection, perhaps a means of hope, and most of all a means of expressing this unknowable universe. And that brings us back to my answer to the original question: I don't think the yes-or-no of a god matters much. Yet whatever passes between a person and a work of art might be that same question in a form we can use, arriving as insight, feeling, sympathy, and empathy rather than an answer."

"So we need more people talking about art, more people talking about philosophy, and best of all more people bringing the two together. Despite the dispiriting reports about online journalism and music criticism, The Tonearm is having those conversations, adding more people to its cohort every week. It's going great. It's fun. And there is so much great art, music, and writing out there—as negative as I can be about 'the wretchedness,' being swallowed up in the culture keeps me resilient and ready for battle."

"The songs I've collected for this edition of Midnight Radio carry some of these feelings, I think. They've all got an air of wondering and wandering, curiosity, and unanswered questions. A few might conjure that pull you feel in your stomach as you turn into a philosophical creature, something mysterious swelling up, a little melancholic and somehow uplifting at the same time. Enjoy."

5

Given Michael's omnivorous taste, I wasn't sure what to expect, and the dozen songs he sent me remain unexpected. It's a delightfully eclectic mix of old favorites and exciting new sounds that immediately reminded me of the Electrifying Mojo, whose broadcasts fused funk, new wave, classical, and electro into new creatures. So I dusted this set with a few clips of Mojo—and to bring our lights full circle, let's do as he says: If you’re in your car, I want you to flash your lights. If you’re sitting on the porch, blink your porch light. I want you to show some solidarity tonight.

  1. David Sylvian - Preparations for a Journey
    Alchemy: An Index Of Possibilities • Virgin, 1985 • Boomkat
  2. Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske - Intuition, Nimbus
    At Source • Light Years, 2026 • Bandcamp
  3. Cinna Peyghamy - Glass Teeth 94
    Music For Tombak & Synth • Other People, 2026 • Bandcamp
  4. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
    Luxury Problems • Modern Love, 2012 • Boomkat
  5. Sylvester - I Need Somebody to Love Tonight
    Stars • Fantasy, 1979
  6. Agile Experiments - Mysteries
    Havana • None More Records, 2026 • Bandcamp
  7. King Tubby & Yabby U - Tubby’s Vengeance (48% slower)
    Conquering Lion • Prophecy, 1975
  8. Q-Burns Abstract Message - Uncertain T (52% slower)
    Mixed Emotions: Jazz In The Eighth Dimension Volume One • Eighth Dimension Records, 1995
  9. Radwan Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland - Walked and Walked سار و سار
    Eternal Life No End ليلة ظلماء ملعونة، كحياة طالبيها • Constellation, 2026 • Bandcamp
  10. Tim Hecker - Music of the Air
    Love Streams • 4AD, 2016 • Bandcamp
  11. Cabaret Voltaire - Landslide (47% slower)
    Red Mecca • Rough Trade, 1981
  12. Chrome - New Age
    Red Exposure • Beggars Banquet, 1980 • Bandcamp

Download • Podcast

And I hope Michael can abide how much I've slowed down one of his own productions, the Q-Burns cut from '97—I love how it lopes along and shivers the trunk. But Michael knew what he was getting into. Last week he shared my favorite comment about Midnight Radio, which I will print and hang above my pirate lamp:

Some breaking news:

Thank you for listening.