Ahoy Facebook #2

Bits and pieces. Left-overs. Call it what you like. 

**********************

What good is intellectual masturbation? What's the point in analysing all of the complex proxy wars in the middle east to death when none of this intellectual masturbation/theorising will translate into concrete policies which will help the poor people over there? What's the point in reading so much philosophy when, millennia after Socrates and all these people, no-one is altogether clear what the real use of it is? What's the point in me writing a strange and complex novel that no-one will care to read? Aiiii.... I'm useless and all of my interests are useless and nothing I will do will contribute one jot to the well-being and welfare of others.

**********************

I regret not listening to as much jazz as I used to. Something I've especially neglected recently is the more avant-ish variety. The past two/three years I've been gorging myself on the earliest stuff - everything starting from 1920s New Orleans jazz, ragtime etc. to big band 50s swing. I'm glad I did, because I found to my delight I found that a lot of that stuff is really good. I'm trying to listen to more freestyle/avant variety jazz more often now. What I find about most free improv is that you really have to be there in concert. On record, it's largely forgettable, meandering and can even be a bit of a headache. What I find is that there is a new breed of avant/free improv music which tries to integrate more tonal stuff, harmonies, actual chords etc. into the music. When I'm in Canterbury, I go every week to a concert of free music called 'Free Range' and I find most of the music there to be of interest. By inserting more 'musical' elements into the soundscapes, does it cease to be as 'free'? All that rigid terminology is such utter nonsense. I always thought that the ethos of free jazz was the freedom to play whatever one wanted, whether it meant playing in key or out of key, a ballad or a noisy clump of random notes. If hardcore free improv says 'no, you can't play in key or any chord - the whole point is that this is a process where we forget how to play in a proper manner' - that's just utter silliness. Completely childish dogma. I recently discovered Mary Halvorson and I really like her stuff. She is quite versatile on the guitar and has a unique style. What I like about her stuff is that it embodies the spirit of free jazz I mentioned above. She is keen to try anything of interest in any context. What you find with younger generations is also a tendency to play in 'punk' contexts and to infuse it with jazz. Her stuff also always has technique. When she plays in a looser style, there is always a sense of structure, too. I particularly like this track.




**********************

I hate Richard Linklater's films with a passion. Unironic, nonglorifying, non-critical, naturalistic treatment of pseudy, edgy, bohemian, nose-pierced (and-everything-else-pierced) youths who quote Bukowski and Kerouac whilst chasing girls and riding cars all day long. This is peppered with a liberal dose of platitudinous soppy statements about relationships and love. The arthouse equivalent of a Kodak ad.

**********************

I think that I have found the most pointless word in the English language. I had seen the word 'Defenestration' here and there and the first thing I thought one morning when I woke up was 'I wonder what "Defenestration" means?' (As you do.) It so transpires that it involves throwing a person or an object out of a window. Do we really need a word for that? If I happen to throw something out of a window, I will just say that I am "defenestrating." Hang on, is there even a verb for it?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration

**********************

I am undergoing a bit of a seismic shift. I would rather read the Holy Bible, Greek philosophy and Shakespeare than spend all day trying to get my head around Derrida, Deleuze and Foucault. (Those 3 thinkers are just not worth the work for me and, even if you synthesise their arguments into something easily comprehensible, I still don't find them at all interesting.) I would rather listen to Bach, Beethoven and Schubert than spend a lot of my time looking for obscure and weird bands. (There are a lot of weird and wonderful bands out there, but I have to sift through a lot of unlistenable and pretentious crap to find them. Why would I want to do that when I can listen to a nice piece by Bach?) When it comes to printed media, I would rather read a mainstream newspaper than some arcane magazine about strange art. I guess that this is what it means to grow, develop and mature. It can only be a good thing.

**********************

Doing a job application correctly involves striking a fine balance between writing the most stomach-turning platitudes, insincere arse-licking and projecting an insincere, almost narcissistic sense of self-esteem.

**********************

The events in Paris compounded my frustrations with the 'hard left.' It's almost as if a lot of people wait for these events to happen so that they can simply push a button and wait for all the same tired arguments to come out. There's a lot of truth in the fact that, say, that Isis targeted France because they tend to marginalise minorities, they support wars in the middle east, that the media focuses on European terrorist attacks as opposed to covering those that take place in the middle east etc. etc. But if you just drive that home again and again, you end up with a very biased, simplistic, black-and-white view of the world. Saying a lot of these things a lot of the time hardly involves any observation or analysis ('empiricism,' if you like). It simply involves someone saying 'I believe this - this is my view of the world - hence, these terrorist attacks mean this.' When terrorist attacks happen, I would rather that everyone felt sombre, absorb what's happened, take time to reflect and empathise with the bereaved. After a few days, I would feel that it's more appropriate to start to discuss, analyse and interpret. That kind of emotional response is better than equally emotive knee-jerk reactions. It's better than scapegoating the media and western governments and it's much, much better to respond like this than those horrible, toxic hawks who say 'these muslims hate our values (they hate freedom, equality and fraternity!). We need to marginalise them and, better still, wage wars against them in Syria and Iraq.'

**********************

If there's anything I can take away from losing 3-0 to Uruguay is that it bestowed upon the world a piece of comic wisdom. This is especially given that Uruguay are the South American team I hate the most. Come to think of it, they are the only South American team that I hate. I really like Peru (determined and earnest) and Argentina (have always loved their combination of technique, speed and passion. Plus, without Argentina's footballing qualities, Chile would not play the way they do now). Uruguay are just a bunch of overrated wankers who rely on getting getting the luck of the draw. All of their accomplishments in the past have been nothing but flukes. They were lucky to win the 1950 world cup (easy draw on the way and Brazil got nervous in the final and crumbled) and to finish 4th in 2010 (look up the teams they played before the semi-finals - South Africa, that woeful France team, an under-par Mexico, South Korea and Ghana! Come on!) Not only that, they are dirty buggers who foul, cheat and resort to the scummiest tactics to win. When they get a dose of their own medicine - as they did with Chile in the last Copa America - they don't know how to take it and they cry like little school girls. Anyway. Following the loss to Uruguay, Chile's lovable manager Sampaoli made an analogy to describe why possession really DOES matter. Chile boasted 73% possession yet STILL lost 3-0. Counter-productive, no? Well, Sampaoli said the following: 'One night, I went to a bar, I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.” Ha! That has to be the best defence of possession football ever! Van Gaal has tried in the past, but it falls flat. It was a humiliating defeat, but it DID leave behind a genius, and hilarious, analogy.

**********************

Auster is pretty much stating the obvious here, but it resonates a lot. In fact, Auster is pretty much the consummate 'boyish' writer - the kind of writer that the intelligentsia will laugh at you for reading and will promptly ask you how old you are. I've pretty much always been attracted to the modern/post-modern 'boyish' writers - i.e. dicking around with narrative, absurd scenarios, rehashing existing novels, etc. It's strange to define it these literary genres by gender, but that's all very male - boyish, rather. It's like a geeky fascination with literature, not some sort of grand quest for truth or meaning or whatever. Again, this is very reductive, but female readers tend to read female authors and they don't always go for all of that post-modern stuff. Older men usually say 'I'm too old for this - artifice gets old quickly - I would rather read Dickens.' I actually hardly read fiction anymore. I'm reading more philosophy, politics, bits and bobs of history, social commentary, religion, etc. Still, I find that the real reason why I amass all this disparate information is so that I can dick around with it in my own consummately boyish attempts at fiction.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-margaret-daniel/paul-auster-on-boy-writer_b_4670507.html

**********************

Jonathan Coe is a writer I have taken an interest in lately, especially after I read reviews for his novel 'Number 11.' He writes satires about contemporary UK and critiques its commercialism, individualism and lack of compassion. He writes with nostalgia about the post-war consensus and hence has been called 'a conservative leftist' or 'reactionary socialist.' All this bodes very well with me, but he went from the 'interesting-I'll-keep-an-eye-on-this-category' to 'this-guy-is-amazing-category' after I heard that his favourite album of all time is also 'Rock Bottom' by Robert Wyatt. That album has such a special place in my heart and, whilst I have heard the odd person here and there claim they like that eccentric 1974 release, I haven't heard anyone else also claim that it's their *favourite* record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5utd3TdIvUM