Charlie Bertsch

Music & Film Editor: Charlie Bertsch is a writer, editor, and teacher who lives in Tucson, Arizona. A co-founder of the pioneering internet magazine Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, he has also written for Punk Planet magazine, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Phoenix New Times, Tikkun, ZEEK, Alternet, Souciant, The Tucson Sentinel, and The Battleground.

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 25 May 2022

The View From Davos

Thomas Mann in Silicon Valley

Why would someone want to read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain? And why would they finish it?(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 18 May 2022

The Thomas Mann Mountain

Learning to Read Again

As I made my way up the trail, the late-afternoon sun temporarily muted by clouds, I suddenly realised how strange my situation was.(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 27 Apr 2022

When it happened, I’d finally decided to move forward through the crowd, loosely grouped in front of the outdoor stage at Tucson’s iconic Hotel Congress. Beloved local band Sidewinders, the penultimate act at this Whole Enchilada benefit show, was already playing their third number. But I still hadn’t committed myself to the experience.(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 06 Apr 2022

No Oriental Fantasy Here

Albat Alawi Op. 99, by El Khat

Israeli band El Khat’s new album Albat Alawi Op. 99 is the sort of record that gets better over time. Although intriguing from the outset, it proves too complicated to absorb right away.(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 23 Mar 2022

Club Music at War

Sounds of Survival: From Ukrainian Underground

Sounds of Survival: From Ukrainian Underground is so consistently good that its social function almost seems extraneous. We should have been listening to this music before we felt it was our democratic duty.(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 09 Mar 2022

Ukraine Crisis Playlist

Mooncup, by wetcatsmell

I was hiking my favourite trail, timing my passage from one boulder to another to the pulsing rhythms of wetcatsmell’s debut album Mooncup, when I suddenly had to stop: the music, my legs, the entire process of trying to go through the motions of everyday life.(...)

Culture

Charlie Bertsch / 23 Feb 2022

Echoes of the Past

Water and Tears, by Il Santo Bevitore

For the first thirty seconds, Il Santo Bevitore’s “Fractured Belief” sounds like the sort of music that would be made by the driving force behind a music festival called Dronica, reminiscent of an early Sub Pop song played at 16rpm.(...)