Ahoy Facebook #19

 

New acquisitions. 

Six CDs: The Real Louis Armstrong, Four Classic Albums by Gerry Mulligan, The Real Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan, Four Classic Albums by Dizzy Gillespie, The Harry Partch Collection: Volume One by Harry Partch and Songs for Drella by Lou Reed and John Cale.

New acquisitions. 

Three records: Money Jungle by Duke Ellington/Charles Mingus/Max Roach, Miles Smiles by Miles Davis and Tago Mago by Can.

One book: Liberalism and its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama.

The first record features three of the greatest jazz players playing together.

I don't think I remember hearing this record by Miles Davis before, so I thought that I'd buy it.

This is an album by a German  prog rock group from the 1970s. This album gets very weird and very wild, which is a pleasure for me as I love weird music.

After the collapse of communism, Francis Fukuyama pronounced 'the end of history.' He didn't claim that there would be no more historical events, he claimed that liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas. He published this book this year and he comments on recent events. Authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe are actively hostile to liberal democracy and there is also Brexit, Trump, Venezuela, etc. He also writes about identity politics, which he considers illiberal.

New acquisition.

One record: The Grand Wazoo by Frank Zappa.

I've been wanting to own this for a while... I was looking for it online and couldn't really find it... It's probably my favourite Zappa album, I just love the melodies, arrangements and solos on this... I found it at a record shop in Chesterfield, so I just had to buy it... 

New acquisitions.

Four books: Maus by Art Spiegelman, Palestine by Joe Sacco, The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo and My Troubles with Women.

These are all comic books. I think that it's a great medium, I first got into reading by looking at comics as a kid (superheroes, Asterix, various Chilean comics).

Maus is about Spiegelman's parents, who were both prisoners in the concentration camps. He draws the Jews as mice and Nazis as cats.

Joe Sacco went to Palestine and Bosnia during the 90s... He made comics out of these experiences.

Robert Crumb is not at all political, he draws about his own personal experiences. This one chronicles his experiences with women. His panels are very detail and cross-hatched.

New acquisitions.

One coaster: A Frank Zappa-themed coaster.

One book: The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: Collection One by Gilbert Shelton.

I needed a drink coaster, so I thought I'd buy a Frank Zappa-themed one... This one has the album cover 'Weasels Ripped my Flesh,' which is one of his greatest and strangest album covers.

This is a collection of comics from the hippie era... It was part of the 'underground comics' movement. They're funny and subversive. 

New acquisitions. 
Five books: Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach by John Eliot Gardiner, The Music and Life of Beethoven by Lewis Lockwood, John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain 1937-1946 by Robert Skidelsky, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock and Havel: A Life by Michael Zantovsky.

I bought a lot of biographies.

The first two look at Bach and Beethoven, both their lives and music.

Skidelsky wrote a three volume biography of Keynes. This last volume covers the period when his ideas were becoming influential.

This biography looks at Hitler and Stalin. It is a chronological biography of both men, even though they never met.

This is a biography of Havel, a playwright and dissident in the Soviet Union. He became president of Checkoslovakia and later the Czech Republic following the rise of democracy.

New acquisitions. 

Two books: Metternich: The First European by Desmond Steward and Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of Britain's Economy from Boom to Bust and Back Again by Duncan Weldon.

I bought a book a book about Metternich. He was chancellor of the Austro-Hungarian empire between 1814 and 1848. He signed a lot of treaties and ensured that there wasn't a major continental war in Europe.

This is an economic history of the UK  over the last 200 years.

New acquisitions. 

Six CDs: Shiftwork by The Fall, Extricate by The Fall, Tilt by Scott Walker, Celestial by Isis, Four Classic Albums by Thelonious Monk and Winter Fragments by Tristan Murail.

The copies of my latest book have arrived! 

 New acquisition: A John Stuart Mill t-shirt.

I went out the other night and saw a grand total of THREE people wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.

Why would one wear a Che Guevara t-shirt? To stand out from the crowd? To signal how rebellious you are?

But why would one wear a Che Guevara t-shirt in this case? He was a rabid communist who supported Maoist China. He wanted to nuke the USA.

Anyway, small quotes aren’t always a good indicator of someone’s thought. Even though Che Guevara was not a systematic theorist or thinker, it is still reductive to pull out random quotes. Still, they do give us some inkling into his thought. These are some of Che Guevara’s pronouncements:

‘In the future individualism ought to be the efficient utilization of the whole individual for the absolute benefit of a collectivity.’

'The desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone.'

'The guerrilla fighter, who is general of himself, need not die in every battle. He is ready to give his life, but the positive quality of this guerrilla warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla fighters is ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but rather to convert it into reality.'

'Terrorism should be considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his elimination useful.'

'The fault of many of our artists and intellectuals lies in their original sin: they are not true revolutionaries. We can try to graft the elm tree so that it will bear pears, but at the same time we must plant pear trees. New generations will come that will be free of original sin.'

Now, let’s consider some quotes from John Stuart Mill. It IS definitely reductive to provide bite-sized quotes from Mill, as he WAS a systematic thinker and theorist. Anyway, here we go. All of these quotes come from his splendid book ‘On Liberty’ (chapters two and three):

‘The opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.’

‘Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.’

‘In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.’

‘Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters: and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it.’

‘Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.’

Ok, so if you want to signal how you are such an edgy non-conformist, would you rather wear a Che Guevara t-shirt or a John Stuart Mill t-shirt? The one who wants you to be a cog in this dreary miserable collective or the one wants you to grow and develop? The one who wants you to die for the communist ideal or the one who wants you to distrust dogma, distrust customs and use your critical faculties? I am not buying – and wearing – a John Stuart Mill t-shirt to signal that I am an edgy-nonconformist, I am buying and wearing a John Stuart Mill t-shirt to counter all those people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts.

New acquisitions.

Ten CDs: 1927-1933: The Early Years by Blind Willie McTell, Runnin' Wild by Sidney Bechet, 1939-1951 by Benny Goodman, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus by Charles Mingus, Kinks by The Kinks, Apostrophe by Frank Zappa, Orchestral Favourites by Frank Zappa, Greatest Hits by Queen, Greatist Hits by Smashing Pumpkins and Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.

I earn a pittance, prices are soaring and my rent is high, so I probably shouldn't be splashing money on discs, but... hey ho. (Even if they're second-hand... And on offer.) 

I went to a talk with Melvyn Bragg this evening. I've never read any of his books (thus far), but I've really enjoyed his broadcasts on The South Bank Show and In Our Time for a very long time.

I really enjoyed the conversation, which is all about his memoir. He said that he has had health problems recently and that this would be his last book. It's all about his childhood and adolescence in Cumbria in the late 40s up to the late 50s. He came from a 'working class,' background, he always loved reading and later read history at Oxford. He also had a mental breakdown in his teenage years and talked about his love for the countryside.

I've met two writers before (Paul Auster and Iain Sinclair) who I found to be a bit cold and aloof, but Bragg was very warm. The first thing he asked was 'Do you write?' and I told him that I did. I told him that I had suggestions for programs on In Our Time and that they should really do one on Bach. He said that there are many topics that they haven't covered, that Bach surprisingly was one of them and that he' d try to remember that. He then said 'Good luck with the writing.' Well, coming from Melvyn Bragg that means a lot.

Ahoy Facebook #18

 Meandering Pontification 4

I went into a church today… I enjoy being in churches, cathedrals and religious buildings… I really like the peace and quiet, but I also like them for the same reason that conservatives do – they conserve things… The church in Dronfield is the same way it was ten years ago… It has the same podium and the same WWI memorial…

I read REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE by Edmund Burke and hardly remember anything about it… It is the holy book for conservatives the same way that ON LIBERTY by John Stuart Mill is for liberals (I remember a lot more about that…), EQUALITY by R. H. Tawney for social democrats/democratic socialists and DAS KAPITAL by Karl Marx for revolutionary socialists/communists…

Anyway, a quote by Burke always sticks in my head – ‘society is a contract between the unborn, the living and the dead.’ I don’t believe in God/the supernatural, but churches/cathedrals have that quality to them – they retain a link between previous, current and future generations…

Anyway, I can get why you might be repulsed by extreme political radicalism, but not by extreme aesthetic radicalism. A classicist in art might be repulsed by Jackson Pollock splattering paint all over a canvas, a jazz purist might be repulsed by Albert Ayler making weird noises on a saxophone and a classical music snob might be incensed by Karlheinz Stockhausen bashing a grand piano… I can get why you might like or dislike these things, but there is no real social harm involved here…

I can see the danger in extreme political radicalism… The collectivisation of agriculture led to famines that killed twelve million people, Pol Pot killed a third of his population, fascism led to the holocaust… There is a good case for caution and moderation in politics… You might disagree with moderate ideologies like liberalism, social democracy or conservatism, but they never produced famines or genocides…

Also, those three ideologies can coexist… A pluralistic society allows for values to co-exist and these values might clash with each other… A social democrat might try to make a society fairer by investing more in universal health/education, a conservative might want to protect family values and a liberal would want to defend free speech… But all of these values can co-exist in a liberal democracy… Fascism/communism are both antagonistic to value pluralism/liberal democracy, which is why they can both fuck off…

End of meandering pontifications.

New acquisitions.

Four records: Woody Herman's Greatest Hits by Woody Herman, Chapter Three: Viva Emiliano Zapata by Gato Barbieri, Life & Times by Billy Cobham and I Live Jazz by Harry James and his Orchestra.

One book: The Little Friend by Donna Tartt.

One DVD: The Descendants by Alexander Payne.

New acquisitions.

Five books: Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics by P. J. O'rourke, The Logic of Scientific Discoveries by Karl Popper, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History 1962-1976 by Frank Dikotter, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World and The War that Ended Peace by Margaret Macmillan.

P. J. O'rourke was a journalist for years and always encountered a lot of economics. He didn't know much about it, so he wrote a book to learn more about it.

I am interested in Popper's contributions to philosophy of science, although I've been told that these theories are antiquated and disproven. I probably won't understand much of this, but there's no harm in giving a this a whirl. (I've waded through philosophical tomes without understanding most of it, but you always get something out of it.)

I bought a book about China's 'great leap forward.' I want to get clued up on all those egregious experiments in communism/pure socialism (even if those trendy Novara Media kids think that it's a cool word to use).

I bought a book about the lead up to the First World War and the aftermath - again, it' s something that I want to get clued up on.

These are all the books that I read last year.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2021/5993530?fbclid=IwAR0cyGfRQvcp9xdhBIT089figtJdZzuYbg0rEODH7wlzOskMQaRCkd_dTRo

New acquisitions.

Five CDs: The White Album by The Beatles, Abbey Road by The Beatles, Hot Rocks: 1964-71 by The Rolling Stones, Black Market by Weather Report and The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett.

New acquisitions.

Ten DVDs: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary by Robert Wiene, Ordet by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Day of Wrath by Carl Theodor Dreyer, M by Fritz Lang, Pickpocket by Robert Bresson, Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio de Sica, Rope by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia by Sam Peckinpah and The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman.

I've enjoyed these films for a while, so it's good to own them.

New acquisitions.

Four books: Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction by A. C. Grayling, Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction by Catherine Wilson, Zona: A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer and Cuentos reunidos by José Donoso.

I've heard people talk about Wittgenstein in the past and I've not take a smidgen of it in. Hopefully I'll get a better idea of what he was all about when I read this book.

I've always struggled to construct a coherent philosophical and political worldview because, ultimately, I am a mass of contradictions. However, as I get older I realise that I do not NEED to have a coherent, well-constructed philosophical system and I do not NEED to be a politico who has an opinion about everything.

For instance, I am a bit of a hedonist, but I also think that I should act morally/justly... However, ultimately, I am much more of an indulgent wanker and a hedonist than a moralist... Which is why I bought a book about Epicureanism, a school which is all about maximising pleasure (though there's a lot more to it than that... and it's a bit of a myth that they were hedonists anyway).

Geoff Dyer writes non-fiction about a plethora of disparate subjects... and he also writes fiction... In other words, he's the kind of writer that I'd like to be, except that the is actually rather good at it and I'm amateurish crap.

Anyway, 'Stalker' by Tarkovsky is one of his favourite films... so he wrote a book about it... Tarksovsky is also one of my favourite filmmakers, so... I bought this book.

I really like José Donoso... For my undergrad dissertation, I compared his book 'The Obscene Bird of Night' with a book by J. G. Ballard. My dad went on a trip to Chile, so he picked up this book of short stories by him for me.

New acquisitions.

Three CDs: Nevermind by Nirvana, In Utero by Nirvana and Mutter by Rammstein.

According to policy wonks/experts (i.e. people who understand politics/current affairs at much greater detail than bozos like you and me), there is a greater chance of nuclear war now than at any time during the cold war.

Which reminds me of this cartoon by Robert Crumb… A cartoonist thinks that it’d be swell if Bertrand Russell could see his cartoons… But a H bomb brings that lofty dream to an end.

We all have personal goals and aspirations… Many Ukrainians have had to jettison their own personal goals just to survive… For instance, I want to finish writing a book of essays… And, on top of that, I want to write two novels and another book of essays… And think of all those doctors carrying out ground-breaking research, of all those physicists carrying out ground-breaking research into the behaviour of the proton, of all those concert pianists learning Rachmaninov, of all those people combating poverty in Africa, of all those football players who might become the next Messi, of all those filmmakers who might make the next Citizen Kane… All of these personal goals would come to an end thanks to the impetuousness of an unhinged dictator.

New acquisitions.

Four DVDs: The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino, Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade, Blue Collar by Paul Schrader and Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog.

Ahoy Facebook #17

 

New acquisitions.

Seven books: The Republic and the Laws by Cicero, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Selected Philosophical Writings by Thomas Aquinas, Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham, Pericles: A Biography in Context, How to be a Conservative by Roger Scruton and Edward Heath: A Biography by John Campbell.

I want to write an essay about 'nascent liberalism in ancient antiquity and the medieval ages.' Liberalism is associated with the start of the enlightenment, and earlier societies placed a lot more emphasis on the community than the individual, but I wanted to find examples of liberalism in these times. I bought books by Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and Thomas Aquinas so as to detect traces of 'nascent liberalism.' I also bought a book about Pericles, an early democrat. I also bought a book about medieval Europe so to include a bit an essay about Medieval culture/society.

I bought this intriguing book by Roger Scruton. Scruton examines liberalism, socialism, conservatism, capitalism, environmentalism and internationalism. This book looks interesting because it seems to unbiased and even-handed, as it examines the strengths and weaknesses of each ideology.

I bought this biography about Edward Heath. I find him interesting as a person, as he was a very shy and awkward man, but he became prime minister. He was also the first prime minister to probably be a virgin, although this was after the start of the age of permissiveness. I also find his period as prime minister very interesting, as he took the UK into Europe and he struggled with industrial unrest, rising unemployment and the end of consensus.

New acquisitions.

Eleven CDs: Third by Soft Machine, Soundtrack of Le Mepris by George Delerue, The Essence of Woody Herman by Woody Herman, The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James by Skip James, Greatest Hits by Abba, An Elpee and two Epees by Ivor Cutler, Jazz in a Silhouette by Sun Ra, The Magic City by Sun Ra, My Favourite Things by John Coltrane, Les Espaces Acoustiques by Gerard Grisey and The Inner Mounting Flame by The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Jazz fusion, film soundtracks, swing, blues, pop, novelty music, modern jazz, modern classical music.... I like having an eclectic musical taste.

I'm moving into my own - rented - apartment soon.

The Fall - My New House - YouTube

New acquisitions.

Ten DVDs: The Wild Bunch by Sam Peckinpah, Cross of Iron by Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs by Sam Peckinpah, Pat Garett and Billy the Kid by Sam Peckinpah, Blind Chance by Krzysztof Kieslowski, The Bridge on the River Kwai by David Lean, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp/A Matter of Life and Death by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Devils by Ken Russell, The Third Man by Carol Reed and The Silence of the Sea by Jean-Pierre Melville.

Sam Peckinpah is an astonishing filmmaker and the images in his films linger in my mind. His films are about violence, honour and revenge. These are four of his films.

This film by Kieslowski was made in communist Poland. It imagines three different scenarios each time the protagonist either misses or catches a train. In one scenario, he becomes a communist activist, in another one he is an anti-communist activist and in another one he is not involved in politics. Kieslowski is one of my favourite filmmakers.

This film by David Lean is an epic about British held soldiers held captive as prisoners of war by the Japanese during WWII. They are subjected to gruelling labour and forced to build a bridge. For my money, it has one of the best endings in the history of cinema.

I bought this classic film by Powell/Pressburger, which offended Churchill so much that he tried to have it banned. It also comes with A Matter of Life and Death and I already own another copy of that.

This film by Ken Russell is surrealistic and has some awesome images. It is about some nuns who claimed to have been possessed by the devil.

This film by Carol Reed is set in Austria after WWII and it has a memorable cameo appearance from Orson Welles.

This film, 'The Silence of the Sea,' is about a Nazi officer who tries to convince this French couple that Germans are good people and that Germany is a good culture. It has a surrealist slant to it.

New acquisition.

A punching bag.

I've been struggling with anger/negative thoughts the past few years. I can start shouting and I can get quite nasty. This isn't who I am, however, as I am sure that I am a decent/nice person. Someone at work suggested that I buy a punching bag, which seemed like a good idea. So, the next time I get irrational/angry thoughts for some unfathomable reason, I'm going to punch the living shit out of this punching bag.

New acquisitions.

Three CDs: Stoner Witch by Melvins, Houdini by Melvins and The Bootlicker by Melvins.

One book: Ritual in the Dark by Colin Wilson.

Melvins are a group that I've enjoyed for a while. They're kind of grungey but quirkier. They were a big influence on Nirvana.

Colin Wilson wrote this novel alongside his non-fiction book The Outsider, which catapulted him to fame age twenty-four. It is a crime thriller about a serial killer.

Meandering Pontification 1/2 *

I am interested in a lot of things… Literature, music, film, philosophy, history, politics… And I’m starting to get interested in science, too. The thing is, though, is that I am not an expert in anything… I admire people who can focus and hyper-specialise… I can’t do that.

I find philosophy very interesting. My interest in it is completely amateurish, though. As I said earlier, I am not an expert in anything – I am an amateurish dilettante.

However, I find a lot of philosophy very infuriating. The philosophers that I find most interesting at the moment are John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum and Karl Popper. They write in crystal clear English/German (they don’t use wanky phrases like ‘the negation of the negation’) and I can comprehend what they are going on about. I find a lot of what Kant and Hegel said very interesting, but the primary texts are a fucking nightmare to read. I’d probably have to wade through dozens of secondary sources before they start to make sense. When I read primary sources, I don’t digest all of it, which probably goes to show what an amateur I am.

I get that there is a need for precision in all this and that you need to use terms, but a lot of the ‘continental’ stuff seems to be deliberately obscured. (I can be extremely imprecise, obscure and vague myself, which is something that I need to work and improve on.) All of the ‘postmodernist’ stuff seems to be a like a waste of time for me. I lost motivation with my MA… I did a module in Comparative Literature and I had to do a presentation on Roland Barthes. I could not find the primary source in the library – all the books had been taken. I cobbled together a presentation from secondary sources that I found in the library… The lecturer said that it was great (or maybe she said that it was shite, she spoke really obscurely) … When it came to writing the 5,000 word essay for that module, I started it three days before it was due and received 58% for it… (Something similar happened with my MA dissertation.) There might be a lot of substance behind all the obscurity, but all the postmodernist philosophy seems to be a whole load of pseudery to me… This might not be true, but I’m glad that I don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Maybe I should have done a degree in philosophy, history, politics or maybe even economics. My BA was really soft… I was reading through one of my essays that received 85% and it made me wonder how such a fluffy little essay could receive such a high mark… (I also threw in loads of Foucault/Deleuze into my undergrad dissertation without really understanding it and received 75% for it… I’d never use that stuff in one of my essays now!!!) It seemed to confirm that grade inflation IS a thing and that my degree was really soft.

* I try to avoid writing about this kind of thing on Facebook because these topics are divisive by their very nature and will piss off a large section of your friends… This is the kind of thing that will make people delete you, but… fuck it.

Meandering Pontification 2/2 *

The world is not fair and just (and it never will be)… so there is every good reason to make it more fair and just. There are good reasons for being a leftist – to make the world a fairer, more just, equal etc. place.

However, I would not want to get involved in left-wing politics… Every time I’d express an original thought that deviates from the party line or ideological orthodoxy, people would shout at me for being a ‘bourgeois individualist.’ I joined the Labour Party, but I let my membership expire for precisely this reason. Anyway, I would not want to spend my free time attending political meetings… I’d rather spend my free time reading books, writing books, watching films and listening to music instead. (Each to their own, though…) Denis Healey said that the Labour Party membership are not representative of Labour Party voters… Labour Party members are more ideological, more left-wing and more inclined to spend their free time attending political meetings. Labour Party voters are less ideological and more moderate, but they are less inclined to spend their free time attending political meetings. Denis Healey was correct.

The more extreme currents of leftist thought are just palpably silly – people like Paul Mason, Aaron Bastani, Grace Blakeley and Ash Sarkar… I can get why you might be an anti-capitalist or some sort of utopian anarchist in your early 20s, but I don’t understand how you can keep adhering to that stuff in your late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s etc. (Again, each to their own!) I used to find that stuff appealing in my early 20s, but I grew out of it. Bastani’s idea of ‘fully automated luxury communism’ sounds like some sort of Monty Python sketch. Paul Mason goes on about ‘globalised neo-liberalism’ as if we should know what that means. This is his definition of neo-liberalism: ‘By neoliberalism I mean the global capitalist system shaped by a core of neoliberal practices and institutions, themselves guided by a widespread and spontaneously reproduced ideology, and ruled by an elite which acts in a neoliberal way, whatever conflicting and moderating ideas it holds in its head.’ Ok then!

Anyway, there is a good case for social justice, but never when it crushes individual freedom. (People can get a bit silly with social justice and go over the top with it – all those ‘Social Justice Warriors’ etc., but there’s always a good case for it.) It reminds me of the film ‘Dr. Zhivago’ by David Lean… A Russian poet is involved in the Russian revolution because he wants to do something about the injustices in Tsarist Russia… Come the revolution, one of the Soviet commissars addresses him… He says that he admired his poetry very much, but that in the new communist society there is no need for that ‘bourgeois’ nonsense. That’s the problem with leftist politics at its worst – its authoritarianism, its dogmatism and its contempt towards individualism, pluralism, tolerance, diversity, autonomy and personal goals. (In other words, leftist politics is bad when it is illiberal… And a lot of leftists are actively hostile to liberal values…)

As I said earlier, there are good reasons for making the world a fairer and more just place and there are good reasons for being a leftist, but so much of left-wing politics is such a load of crap.

* I try to avoid writing about this kind of thing on Facebook because these topics are divisive by their very nature and will piss off a large section of your friends… This is the kind of thing that will make people delete you, but… fuck it.

Meandering Pontification 3

In literature, music and film I tend to like stuff that is more ‘out there’ and experimental. I do like things that everyone else knows about… I do like Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, I do like groups like Abba, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, I do like composers like Bach and Beethoven and I do like films like The Godfather and series like Breaking Bad… But there’s something about the stuff that is experimental, pushes boundaries etc. etc. (insert endless cliches here) that appeals to me… It’s hard to explain, as taste is often so emotional and arbitrary.

A composer like Harry Partch certainly belongs to the latter category. An archetypal outsider, he did everything on his own terms. He actively enjoyed being a hobo, he railed against European modes of tuning, he incorporated music from Antiquity and the orient into his music and since he could not have his ‘microtonal’ music performed on conventional instruments, he built his own.

Anyway, I’m trying to buy stuff that I really like on CD/record and to stop streaming stuff. I bought Partch’s ‘Delusion of the Fury’ on vinyl and I tried buying his album ‘Eleven Intrusions’ on CD… It’s been out of print for years, so I ordered a second-hand copy several months ago… And they never delivered it.

So, last night I dreamed that I was at this book/record shop… And I dreamed that I found new editions of Delusion of the Fury (well, I already have that), Eleven Intrusions and The Bewitched on vinyl… And I was overjoyed… And the people who worked there had no idea who Harry Partch was… So, very few people in the world dream about finding new editions of Harry Partch, but… who knows, there might be?

New acquisitions

Two records: Raw Delta Blues by Son House and Easy Rider by Leadbelly

One DVD: Ghost World by Terry Zwigoff.

I really like delta blues from the 1920s... This is also the decade in which jazz first emerged. These musicians really had it rough... Economic hardship, racial injustice... And they made great music out of it.

I really like this film by Terry Zwigoff, mainly because I relate to the character played by Steve Buscemi... Ultimately, a lot of novels/films are about human relationships, not the organisation of society/the nature of reality etc. etc.

New acquisitions.

Four CDs: The Artistry of Christopher Parkening by Christopher Parkening, A Bach Celebration by Christopher Parkening, Strathclyde Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 by Peter Maxwell Davies/Scottish Chamber Orchestra and String Quartets 6 and 15 by Franz Schubert/Kodaly Quartet.

Two books: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and An Introduction to Medieval Europe: 500-1500 by James Westfall Thompson and Edgar Nathaniel Johnson.

I really like the sound of classical guitar and I really like Bach. Christopher Parkening was one of the most accomplished classical guitarists of all time and he played a lot of Bach, so I bought two discs by him.

I've bought a lot of records by Schubert at charity shops. My second favourite piece by him (after his 'death and the maiden' quartet) is String Quartet No. 15. I thought that I owned a vinyl copy of it, but I don't, so I purchased a copy of it online.

I've always known of the name 'Peter Maxwell Davies' and I always knew that he was the most famous British composer of modern classical music. However, I don't think I'd heard a piece by him before, which is why I bought this disc by him (and I'm hearing it right now).

I wrote a philosophical science fiction novel which was heavily influenced by Tarkovsky's film 'Solaris.' That film was based on a novel, which I've bought so that I can finally read it.

I'm about to start an essay which uses source on medieval history. I saw this at a charity shop and I thought that another book on the topic would be helpful. This is a 1.000 page book and I might read it from cover to cover one day, too.