The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, March 20, 2019 — 5A

In 1973, a man purchased 
a can of gasoline from the 
Walgreens in the French Quarter 
of New Orleans. In an act that 
he would never be indicted for, 
he proceeded to “the Upstairs,” 
a New Orleanian gay bar, where 
he used the fluid to ignite the 
stairwell of the bar, a passage 
already 
conducive 
to 
flame, 
trapping many patrons inside. In 
a span of minutes, the Upstairs 
fire spread. The fire would 
ultimately claim 33 lives.
While 
dozens 
lost 
lovers, 
family, income and security, and 
as the community scrambled 
to understand the implications 
of 
the 
fire, 
response 
from 
government and police officials 
was dampened. Media reported 
on the event in unusual scarcity. 
The attack on the Upstairs 
Lounge threatened to slip into 
oblivion. LSA alumni Robert 
Fieseler, however, is determined 
to stop that from happening. I had 
the opportunity to speak with 
him about his recent research 
on the Upstairs Lounge fire that 
culminated in his first book, 
“Tinderbox,” 
recently 
named 
a finalist for The Randy Shilts 
Award — a conversation that 

proved amiable and educational. 
Fieseler is rightfully confident 
in his understanding of the 
event. His passion is refined and 
prominent. He is as articulate in 
speaking as he is on paper.
“I look for the cracks in 
the concrete that I can fall 
down,” 
says 
Robert 
Fieseler 
on the writing and research of 
“Tinderbox,” which details the 
1973 calamity. “Where it seems 
like something that’s solid in 
our society but actually doesn’t 
make any sense.” He’s talking 
about the cleavages in history 
that get smoothed over too 
quickly, events like the Upstairs 
Lounge fire that, while slighted 
for many years, act as something 
of a juncture, invisibly shaping 
the course of today. It’s these 
invisible histories — perhaps 
call them icebergs, with most 
of the story unseen beneath the 
water from a traditional view — 
that Fieseler looks for when he 
researches. “Tinderbox” is the 
product of the discovery of one of 
these quiet but salient fractures: 
the Upstairs Lounge fire.
“Tinderbox” tells the story of 
the Upstairs Lounge brilliantly, 
researched and presented in 
a fashion that remains both 
remarkably 
professional 
but 
intimate. 
Fieseler’s 
account 
reaches beyond solely the events 

of June 1973 and allows readers 
surveys of both the events 
leading up to the fire as well as its 
long-reaching consequences. The 
work provides well-researched 
evidence, filling between the 
bricks with careful investigations 

of those involved in the incident, 
relying sometimes on dutiful 
descriptions 
and 
literary 
imagery.
Fieseler spoke to me about the 
precariousness of writing about 
tragedy. He nodded to the fragile 
responsibility that accompanied 
both his descriptive writing 
of the 1973 events and the 
presentation 
of 
uncontested 
essentials. Everything he wrote, 
from the color of walls to the 

countenance of victims, had to be 
traceable back to a source. “It was 
maddening,” Fieseler says. “It 
creates a level of accountability.” 
The 
balance 
of 
character 
investigations 
and 
textbook 
facts that make “Tinderbox” so 

compelling also made Fieseler’s 
research all the more important. 
There was the need to be 
honest and fair to the victims 
and the city of the time, he 
explained, something he felt was 
impossible to contribute without 
entrenching readers into the 
lives of patrons and witnesses. It 
is this investigation that makes 
“Tinderbox” so evocative.
And so, research was both 
consuming 
and 
impactful. 

Fieseler spent time in archives 
around the country to stack his 
nearly seventy pages of citations 
on the event, though it was 
mostly his conversations with 
those who had lived through the 
fire that he spoke to me about. 
These talks were difficult but 
necessary. “Individuals sensed 
that although it would be painful 
to rehash and, to a certain 
extent, relive a lot of these events 
… that there would be some 
broader purpose,” he says of the 
interviews he conducted. “There 
were a couple conversations with 
people that were some of the 
greatest moments of my life and 
that I would never take back.” 
Conversations happened both in 
and far from New Orleans, one 
even taking place in a jazz club. 
Fieseler decided to directly quote 
these interviews in “Tinderbox,” 
and they are certainly successful. 
The first-hand accounts from fire 
survivors scattered through the 
work make the event all the more 
real for readers.
When 
asked 
about 
the 
politicizing of the fire, Fieseler 
said that he doesn’t believe it’s 
possible to separate the event 
from the politics of the time. “It’s 
woven into the fabric,” he says. 
He pointed to the people affected 
and the lack of a response from 
leaders and community members 

that only worsened the scenario, 
leaving victims without funerals, 
families without income and 
thousands 
who 
refused 
to 
even 
acknowledge 
the 
term 
“homosexuality” when reporting 
on the event. “People forget 
the era of criminalization (of 
homosexuality),” Fieseler says, 
“and what criminalization meant 
… for the victims and how people 
suffered mentally.”
At the end of our conversation, 
I 
directed 
the 
dialogue 
to 
Fieseler’s 
experience 
at 
the 
University. He openly recounted 
his struggle as a gay college 
student in a time of remarkably 
low 
visibility, 
nodding 
to 
coverage of the queer community 
by The Daily in helping him come 
out. “I hope that we live in a 
day and age where people aren’t 
struggling [with their sexuality] 
in college,” Fieseler told me. 
“Coming out is a great thing. I 
mean, do it while you’re young 
and cute, please,” he laughed. 
In a later and more thoughtful 
note, he nodded to the weight 
of the story “Tinderbox” tells, 
one far more important than 
any one individual. It is a horror 
that events such as the Upstairs 
Lounge ever occurred. And it is 
the research and passion of those 
like Fieseler that ensure it will 
never happen again.

Queer history: In conversation with Robert Fieseler

BOOK REVIEW

Going 
into 
The 
Brian 
Jonestown Massacre, I had no 
idea what to expect. Coming out 
of it, I have no idea what to think. 
I had never heard of The Brian 
Jonestown 
Massacre 
before, 
and 
after 
listening to a 
few of their 
past releases, 
it 
was 
hard 
to get a firm 
grasp on the 
band’s sound. 
Their 
most 
recent release 
is no different. 
The 
album 
has so many 
influences 
that it’s hard 
to 
determine 
exactly 
what 
the 
album 
sounds 
like. 
It’s not quite 
a 
modern 
version 
of 
classic 
rock, 
it’s not quite 
psychedelic, 
it’s not quite 
post-rock, it’s 
not quite neo-
folk, it’s not 
quite garage rock and it’s not 
quite shoegaze. Somehow, The 
Brian Jonestown Massacre is a 
menagerie of all these genres and 
many more, and when it works, it 
really works.
A quick glance at the Spotify 
page for The Brian Jonestown 
Massacre will reveal that the 
self-titled album is their 18th 
full-length release. The band has 
as many singles and EPs as they 
have albums. The band releases 
a staggering amount of music, 
but based on this most recent 
release, the band’s prolificity is 
not a hindrance whatsoever.

The 
Brian 
Jonestown 
Massacre’s 
driving 
opener 
“Drained” proves to be an 
ambitious song to follow. It 
starts the entire album off on 
the right foot. “Drained” sounds 
like it could be the grittier, less 
grandiose little brother to some 
of the most popular Britpop 

songs of the late ’90s and early 
’00s. It’s bluesy and fluid, and 
overall, it’s so much fun to hear.
The rest of the album struggles 
to match the highs of “Drained,” 
especially toward the back end. 
However, other standouts include 
the haunting “Tombes Oubliées” 
and the bluesy rocker “Cannot 
Be Saved.” Unfortunately, both 
of these songs are found early 
in the tracklist, which actually 
hurts the album. Placing three 
of the best songs in the first four 
slots of the album is decidedly 
not a good decision. It leaves the 
band playing catch up for the rest 

of the work, reusing the elements 
that made the album’s highs so 
great.
With this in mind, it is easy 
to see why The Brian Jonestown 
Massacre begins to skid. Despite 
its varied influences and multiple 
sonic motifs, The Brian Jonestown 
Massacre 
becomes 
a 
little 
monotonous 
as it runs. The 
reverb-soaked 
guitars 
and 
vocals 
begin 
to 
sounds 
washed 
out, and the 
grooves begin 
to be recycled. 
The 
song 
“Remember 
Me This” is 
especially 
guilty. 
As 
one 
of 
the 
later 
songs 
on the album, 
“Remember 
Me 
This” 
needs to bring 
something 
new 
to 
the 
table, 
but 
instead 
it 
festers in the 
same sounds 
that 
have 
already been 
used and abused throughout the 
album.
The album is by no means 
perfect, but it surely does not 
disappoint. The Brian Jonestown 
Massacre wasn’t made in an 
attempt to attract new fans. 
Rather, it was made for the 
band’s faithful fans that will end 
up walking away from this album 
content. The album seems like 
an unwarranted victory lap for 
The Brian Jonestown Massacre, 
who could, if driven to it, most 
certainly craft a consistently 
great album instead of just a few 
noteworthy songs.

A confusing release from
The Brian Jonestown M.

TEE PEE RECORDS

ALBUM REVIEW

The Brian Jonestown 
Massacre

The Brian Jonestown Massacre

Tee Pee Records

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

Tinderbox

Robert W. Fieseler

W.W. Norton & Company

Jun. 5, 2018

JOHN DECKER
Daily Arts Writer

My mother taught me to 
read. She taught me to read 
long before pre-school and long 
before someone else could teach 
me first. She wanted to be the 
one to bless me with the gift of 
stories, so we spent all of my 
childhood reading together. My 
now overgrown personal library 
started from a chest of books in 
the basement of my childhood 
home, 
and 
a 
small 
white 
bookshelf set against the wall in 
my childhood bedroom. When I 
was young and small, reaching 
into the chest meant reaching 
into another world, where pages 
could ignite the wildest parts of 
my mind with dreams of far off 
places. Maybe she knew that I’d 
be so inclined to telling stories 
— to knowing them, to holding 
and nurturing them, years and 
books and pages later, when 
I’ve become all tangled up in 
everybody else’s wordy limbs in 
attempts to untangle my own. 
She took me to the library to get 
my first library card, a tradition 
I’ve matched as I move to new 
cities 
and 
experience 
new 
places, and would sit on a plush 
cushion chair as I browsed 
for a few hours, indulging my 
curiosity for books. She gave me 
stories and with that, perhaps 
as collateral or perhaps because 
she truly intended to, she gave 
me imagination. She let me 
write stories and read them 
out loud at the dinner table, 
where I was the strong, female 
protagonist, so that when I was 
met with hundreds of stories 
with strong male characters, 
and a singular troupe-y female 
ingenue, they felt foreign and 
forced. 
Maybe 
she 
doesn’t 
realize this, but perhaps I am 
so inclined to make believe 
because she gave me the tools to 
fall in love with art.
My mother taught me to 
run. She instilled in me a fierce 
competitiveness even when I 
was the weakest athlete on the 
team, a willingness to believe 
that anyone no matter how 
unathletic, could be a runner. 
All 
it 
takes 
is 
supportive 
sneakers and the road, and 
you could fall in love on your 
way down the dusty trail and 
never return to where you 
began. Running is not without 
defeat, but the best days are 
always accompanied with the 
knowledge that for me, the road 
always listens. I was ten years 
old when I started running at 
Meadowridge Park with my 
mother, and I’ve probably run 
a total of 10,000 miles. It is a 
love affair — Meadowridge 
Park, Hoka sneakers and I, that 
will never grow stale. At first it 

felt as though she was making 
me run, and I dreaded every 
middle school cross country 
practice and the runs her and 
I would take on the weekends. 
But she was right in teaching 
me to run. My mother did not 
make me a runner, but she gave 
me the tools to begin. Running 
and I are an unlikely pair, as I 
like to think I am unabashedly 
artistic and unathletic, and 
runners are meditative and 
strong. But my body craves the 
movement — running is my 
moving meditation, the way I 
settle an unsteady heart, the 
way I clear my cluttered mind. 
I’ve run five half marathons 
and one full marathon, with her 
unwavering support, because 
she gave me love for the pain 
and the goodness in the familiar 
motions.
My 
mother 
taught 
me 
gratitude. For no one thing 
in particular, but for my life. 
She taught me to count my 
blessings and know that I have 
many of them — even when I 
struggle to recognize it. She 
puts 
momentous 
downfalls 
and eye level tragedies to rest 
when she reminds me that 
things can always be worse. 
She taught me this when she 
curbed my anxiety surrounding 
flying on airplanes, when she 
didn’t sugarcoat the difficult 
moments in life to teach me 
about reality and truth, no 
matter how ugly those can be. 
She taught me to be thankful 
for my body, regardless of how 
frustrating 
it’s 
peculiarities 
and complications, because at 
the end of the day it is a healthy 
body. It is a strong body. It is a 
beautiful body. One that has 
given me so many gifts — one 
capable of so many miracles 
and with so many flaws that are 
mine to love.
My 
mother 
taught 
me 
strength, which is a life lesson 
you cannot learn from a book 
or a classroom, or even a simple 
conversation. Sometimes it takes 
a monumental understanding 
to climb life’s most troubling 
challenges. When she fell ill my 
sophomore year of high school 
and battled debilitating vertigo 
and imbalance, she managed to 
continue to serve as a central 
beacon of support continually 
effusing energy and strength, 
even when I knew she had none 
left to give. If she was bedridden 
for an entire week, she’d find 
a way to muster up courage 
and shaky toughness to come 
support a cross country race, 
school musical or honors society 
induction. She would be in the 
hospital just days before my 
first Thanksgiving in college, 
but conjure up the energy to 
smile and be completely present 
for me as we sat around the 

family room couch to eat dinner 
with her. When she was finally 
diagnosed with late stage Lyme 
Disease and the incurable, not 
fatal, yet all the while crippling 
Ménière’s disease, I recognized 
that a mother’s job is never on 
break or vacation. Because even 
when her body was attacking 
her mercilessly, she put positive 
energy out into the world, and 
used every ounce of herself 
to put my brothers and I first, 
circumstances aside. Her first 
priority is never and would 
never be herself. Perhaps this 
is a part of motherhood, or 
perhaps this is just part of her. 
She once told me that her 
purpose in life was to raise my 
brothers and I, and now that 
we’ve grown up, she’s okay 
with not having a purpose 
as demanding anymore. She 
doesn’t work a nine to five job, 
and since being diagnosed with 
an unpredictable autoimmune 
disease it’s more difficult for her 
to pick up intensely demanding 
jobs or responsibilities. But I 
disagree with her sense that 
her purpose has become less 
of a demand, or that her job is 
lighter now. Your purpose and 
role as a mother only grows 
more 
demanding 
as 
your 
children find their footing, grow 
old enough to shake naivetes 
and truly see the world. My 
mother has an uncommon and 
salient purpose as a healer. She 
heals people with words and 
actions. In another life she may 
have been a therapist — she 
has a medicinal way of curing 
the deepest of wounds and 
reconciling concerns, whether 
grave or trivial. Maybe she’s 
just some sort of a saint. Her 
advice is therapeutic — realistic 
and honest, yet soft and careful. 
She will constantly tell you that 
she is inarticulate or not as 
intelligent as she could be, but 
on this, she is wrong. She always 
has the right words in the most 
natural way, in her mind she 
has every answer. It’s not just 
me who sees this ability to 
remedy. She is an unbelievable, 
altruistic friend, saving the 
people she loves when they need 
saving, telling them the truth 
when they need reality. She is 
an extraordinary sister and I’ve 
watched her give her sisters 
the epitome of female love, be 
it as small as fashion advice 
to as monumental as pieces of 
herself. Whenever anyone in 
her life needs her words, her 
shoulder, her eyes, they give her 
a call. I am surprised her phone 
ever stops ringing, and try my 
best to wonder about her when 
I call too.

Lessons from my mother

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

ELI RALLO
Daily Arts Writer

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