The Quiet Road

Hallo again. It’s been a wee while.

I just painted my house and replaced the CPU in my PC. Those two apparently unconnected facts actually resolve themselves into a single reason for why I’ve not been online much lately. Oh, and I’ve been spending lots of time staring out the window and trying to decide between the two thesis topics that I’d whittled it down to. In the end I’ve decided to go for the Freudian analysis of modern civilisation, rather than the “psychosis as cultural construct” idea. I’ll be hammering out a final title in the coming weeks, but that’s really just a case of tweaking words; right now I’m basking in the relief at finally making the decision and the knowledge that I can focus my research at last.

As a demonstration of just how distracted I’ve been by that looming decision, I only noticed this morning that the tickets blu-tacked to the side of my bookshelf (to see The Ting Tings) were for last Saturday. Bugger! Still, that’s a minor irritation, all things considered, when compared with the blessed relief.

Speaking of music, two tickets to see Leonard Cohen arrived in the mail this morning. As did a ticket to see Prince. The two concerts are on successive evenings in June which will present an incongruous juxtaposition, but one I’m looking forward to. I also considered buying a ticket for Glastonbury upon hearing they’d not sold out yet, but two things stopped me… firstly the fact that it might not be the best time to spend a week wrecked — thesis-wise… and secondly the ludicrous faff with the ticketing system. Next year, for sure though. I mentioned this to someone (that I was considering going) and they shook their head and complained “it’s a fairly dire line-up this year, though”. Hmmm… I had to point out the fact that (a) you don’t go to Glastonbury based on who is playing, you go because it’s Glastonbury; and (b) on paper, certainly it may not be the most exciting line-up the king of all festivals has seen, but if you can’t find a couple of days worth of music out of this lot, then you’re just not a music fan.

As I say though, next year……

The American Astronaut

Keeping with the music(al) theme, my dear friend Mahalia sent me the movie “The American Astronaut” on DVD many moons ago. I never got round to watching it, but have picked it up and thought about it on several occasions. Then I got pointed to the following video on Youbiquitube which makes me think I’ll be watching the entire film very soon…

And finally… “From the blogs”

It’s perhaps a little hurtful to note that the blogosphere continued on without me, almost as if my presence wasn’t an integral part of the rich tapestry of the world wide web net. Worth reading (or at least glancing at the first paragraph and thinking “huh?”) are:

di leo da liar (Merrick at Bristling Badger on the recent exposé of an inflitrator within the Climate Change action group, Plane Stupid)

HEF (Harry Hutton at Chase Me Ladies, I’m in The Cavalry… celebrates Hugh Hefner’s 82nd birthday in his inimitable style)

Binge drinking: bottling it again (Justin at Chicken Yoghurt is characteristically spot-on with his sharp précis of exactly why increasing the cost of booze by a token amount is unlikely to have much of an impact on a national alcohol problem)

Vote Boris: kill a child (Pigdogfucker at… er… Pigdogfucker on why, despite everything, voting for Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral elections is still the best option for anyone who isn’t a git)

Frank Wilson – Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) (Merrick — again — but this time at Dust on the Stylus, his wonderfully written music blog, offers an mp3 download of a glorious Motown track that I’d not encountered before. I’ve been playing it constantly ever since, though)

Dick Cheney and the Precautionary Principle (Rochenko at Smokewriting provides an analysis of US policy and concludes that the neo-conservative tendency have introduced “the precautionary principle” as a siginificant factor in setting that policy. It’s a good piece, though as I pointed out in the comments over there, I’m not sure it’s telling the whole story) best make up brushes test

Some describe Duck Soup as satire. Personally I think “observational comedy” would be more appropriate.

I’m just testing out the ability to embed YouTube videos in my blogposts (everyone else seems to be doing it after all). None of these are very long, but they’re all worth watching in their own way. Nothing unites them aside from being in my YouTube “favourites”. First up is David Lynch’s great iPhone subvertisement…

I’ve pointed people towards this one quite recently, but it bears repeat viewing, I give you: Pitch ‘n’ Putt with Beckett ‘n’ Joyce… all fecund in its nuttiness.

And last but not least, as mentioned in the previous post, I’m quite digging the music of Los Campesinos! at the moment. Here’s their latest song… Death to Los Campesinos! They’re playing The Village in Dublin on February 11th. I’m told they’re good live.

Enjoy.

Deconstruction and postmodernism have a lot to answer for. Modern culture is shredding itself into smaller and smaller pieces, and recycling the sludge into a myriad new and unexpected shapes. From Hakim Bey’s wonderful essay, Immediatism…

With the disappearance of a “mainstream” and therefore of an “avant-garde” in the arts, it has been noticed that all the more advanced and intense art-experiences have become recuperable almost instantly by the media, and are thus rendered into trash like all other trash in the ghostly world of commodities. Now, “Trash”, as the term was redefined in, let’s say, in Baltimore in the 1970s, can be good fun — as a sort of ironic take on a sort of inadvertent folkultur that surrounds and pervades the more unconscious regions of popular sensibility — which in turn is produced in part by the Spectacle. “Trash” was once a fresh concept, with radical potential. By now, however, amidst the ruins of Post-Modernism, it has finally begun to stink. Ironic frivolity finally becomes disgusting. Is it possible now to BE SERIOUS BUT NOT SOBER? (Note: The New Sobriety is of course simply the flip-side of the New Frivolity. Chic neo-puritanism carries the taint of Reaction, in just the same way that postmodernist philisophical irony and despair lead to Reaction. The Purge Society is the same as the Binge Society. After the “12 steps” of trendy renunciation in the ’90s, all that remains is the 13th step of the gallows. Irony may have become boring, but self-mutilation was never more than an abyss. Down with frivolity — Down with sobriety.) Everything delicate and beautiful, from Surrealism to Breakdancing, ends up as fodder for McDeath’s ads; 15 minutes later, all the magic has been sucked out, and the art itself dead as a dried locust. The media-wizards, who are nothing if not postmodernists, have even begun to feed on the vitality of “Trash,” like vultures regurgitating and reconsuming the same carrion, in an obscene ecstasy of self-referentiality. Which way to the Egress?

Hakim Bey | Immediatism

… to fanvids on YouTube in less than ten years. Even as art gets recycled as cynical capitalist propaganda, so nuggets of gold still manage to show up on the slagheap. Whatever else YouTube produces, though, has it already reached its own particular zenith? Is it soon to be replaced by the next big thing? Can it ever possibly top Brokeback To The Future? I think not.

It seems that even the most prescient of cultural commentators will soon be out of a job. No sooner do you suggest a potential direction for humanity, than you get rebuffed with a “they tried that in Japan for a while, everyone hated the shoes”. And what passes for culture is mostly commentary these days anyway. Reading some of the stuff that Leary wrote in the late 60s is like being transported to a weird alternate reality. He was perceptive enough to recognise the potential that lay in computers and communications technology. So his descriptions of the early 21st century can be eerily accurate in some ways. But then he’ll describe the social revolution he sees approaching and it all descends into a flowery psychedelic utopia. By the 1990’s it will be considered natural and, indeed, almost a social obligation for couples to take LSD together prior to getting married and raising a family. After all, argues Leary, how could you possibly know whether someone is “right” for you until you’ve tripped together?

How indeed.

Incoming!

I noticed that my cannabis prohibition piece got a mention on Tim Worstall‘s weekly BritBlog roundup. This fact came to my attention when my traffic shot up over the weekend. Of course, none of them stayed very long and I don’t expect I pick up much return visitors that way, but nice of them to stop by all the same.

Also visiting recently were some people from google, and I’m pleased to note that one of them arrived here having typed “i want a wank quick”. Of course, of all the sites on the internet, I suspect this wasn’t the one he was looking for. And on the same theme, it appears that some poor chap was hoping I’d advise him on “best way to wank”. I mean, what are you supposed to say? Avoid sandpaper? It’s hardly rocket science, kid.

The theme that generates most google hits is the carbon dioxide emissions of planes versus coaches. Which pleases me, as I know those people are finding the info they’re looking for (the blog post they arrive at has some basic introductory data and links to an authoritative PDF). I’m less clear, however, whether the person who arrived looking for “groovy multiple mocks” was happy with the information they found. And was the person who wanted “explain quiet thinking” any the wiser for having visited? Quiet thinking? Are there really people out there somewhere… thinking too loudly? And I’d love to think that I helped the person who searched for “weird wacky tourist travel strange unusual signs places road trip united states”, but sadly I doubt I did. Maybe next year.

As for the two folk who searched for “bollocks” and arrived at my blog, can I just say; “fuck you too!”