EERIE
"Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship." George Wald
The mechanistic explanation of evolution, championed by Richard Dawkins, is almost universally accepted, and his models demonstrate how refinements and adaptations are cumulative, thus explaining the crazy leaps and bounds of development.
Despite this, I can't forget a flower I saw on the slopes of Mt Meru in Tanzania which was shaped exactly like a spindly red insect, so as to encourage others of that species to inadvertently pollinate it while, presumably, trying to mate - or else to have a conversation. (Spare a thought for the frustrated insect when he discovers his date is not all she was cracked up to be!)
I also recall an episode of In Our Time (Radio 4) last year, in which one scientist was saying that the octopus's eye and the human eye, despite having developed on totally unrelated evolutionary branches, are strikingly similar in their structure. He admitted, almost guiltily, that such recurring patternings were "eerie." Melvyn Bragg replied instantly, but in a matter-of-fact tone, "a lot of people will have picked up on your use of the word eerie."
It is not in the scientific lexicon. But can't be completely dismissed from mine.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
ARC
Nothing to report, so I'll talk about the weather. Yesterday and today the sky was bright as June and I felt different about everything.
People rarely look up to see it, though they'd happily pay to go to the imax cinema or have a virtual reality headset on. Imagine all the people who were in galleries looking at Turner skies today, when the arc of infinity was there in all its glory above the chimney-pots.
Every time the sun shines, I am utterly transported. It's as if an oppressive weight has been lifted from me. Sometimes I think of Saturday afternoons as a child, free to wander the endless summer holidays. Or I imagine being alive in a different era under the same sun. Everything becomes imaginable.
When I used to live in Africa, the sun became quite ordinary and I longed for the cool and damp days. My heart sank when I saw the morning sky cloudless and thought of the heat of the day coming on. Seems hard to believe now!
Nothing to report, so I'll talk about the weather. Yesterday and today the sky was bright as June and I felt different about everything.
People rarely look up to see it, though they'd happily pay to go to the imax cinema or have a virtual reality headset on. Imagine all the people who were in galleries looking at Turner skies today, when the arc of infinity was there in all its glory above the chimney-pots.
Every time the sun shines, I am utterly transported. It's as if an oppressive weight has been lifted from me. Sometimes I think of Saturday afternoons as a child, free to wander the endless summer holidays. Or I imagine being alive in a different era under the same sun. Everything becomes imaginable.
When I used to live in Africa, the sun became quite ordinary and I longed for the cool and damp days. My heart sank when I saw the morning sky cloudless and thought of the heat of the day coming on. Seems hard to believe now!
Sunday, March 28, 2004
A PERSUASIVE INTERPRETATION?
At Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, there's a Marxist called Heiko who holds forth every week and, if you weren't paying attention, you might take him for just one of the raving lunatics that populate the place. His defiance, however, is of a more thoughtful kind and what he says is very challenging. In fact, the idea of class struggle is a credible interpretation of what is happening in global politics today.
Everyone is rightly outraged at the terrorist bombings in Madrid, especially because they influenced the outcome of the election, yet not enough people have questioned the almost casual use of force on behalf of Western governments time and again to achieve precisely the same results.
Heiko draws a parallel between the Bush people and Al Qa'eda; both will stop at nothing to establish effective political control over what happens in the strategic Middle Eastern states of Iran, Iraq, Saudi.
He jokingly asked whether, if Bin Laden tows the American line for a while at some future date, as Gadaffy is apparently doing now, he will be brought back into the fold and rewarded in future years.
He also repeated the now familiar story that Bush had 24 members of the Bin Laden family flown out of the US to safety in Saudi the day after the 9/11 attacks. What's the truth behind that?
I'm not able to tie all these threads together effectively yet because I haven't done my research. It is clear, however, that the shots in the "war on terror", from both sides, are being called by rich elites whose interests are purely selfish i.e. maintaining and extending their economic power.
And isn't it these same forces that are the "drivers" behind many of the Government's policies? If only people weren't quite so keen to believe the official line, perhaps they would wake up one morning a reality quite different from the one they are used to.
Heiko's talks
At Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, there's a Marxist called Heiko who holds forth every week and, if you weren't paying attention, you might take him for just one of the raving lunatics that populate the place. His defiance, however, is of a more thoughtful kind and what he says is very challenging. In fact, the idea of class struggle is a credible interpretation of what is happening in global politics today.
Everyone is rightly outraged at the terrorist bombings in Madrid, especially because they influenced the outcome of the election, yet not enough people have questioned the almost casual use of force on behalf of Western governments time and again to achieve precisely the same results.
Heiko draws a parallel between the Bush people and Al Qa'eda; both will stop at nothing to establish effective political control over what happens in the strategic Middle Eastern states of Iran, Iraq, Saudi.
He jokingly asked whether, if Bin Laden tows the American line for a while at some future date, as Gadaffy is apparently doing now, he will be brought back into the fold and rewarded in future years.
He also repeated the now familiar story that Bush had 24 members of the Bin Laden family flown out of the US to safety in Saudi the day after the 9/11 attacks. What's the truth behind that?
I'm not able to tie all these threads together effectively yet because I haven't done my research. It is clear, however, that the shots in the "war on terror", from both sides, are being called by rich elites whose interests are purely selfish i.e. maintaining and extending their economic power.
And isn't it these same forces that are the "drivers" behind many of the Government's policies? If only people weren't quite so keen to believe the official line, perhaps they would wake up one morning a reality quite different from the one they are used to.
Heiko's talks
Saturday, March 27, 2004
CHAPTER 4 GRIND
In Shallow, the sky is nearly always Arctic grey – there is probably some chemical explanation, but no one cares enough to remember what it is. Everything is degraded.
Crabdale’s energies are elsewhere; he is almost consumed by his job as a moderating auditor for the Department of Public Attainment. His team of moderators have built up a fearsome reputation locally as they undertake their round of detailed checks on all aspects of public service provision, validating the initial grades of the in-house assessors. The final results of their enquiries are digested and passed straight to the office of Herr Grinningsoul, the Cardinal of Hibernia, who can thereby ensure that everything is running with just the right amount of versimilitude and perplex.
Today, the very greyest of the season of drizzle, Crabdale felt relieved to have an indoor assignment, a routine flash inspection of the kitchens at the Shallow Institute. He took the main road towards the Institute, which was lined on either side by gas lamps and the usual blackened buildings in various states of neglect or scrub, and from which, here and there, some tattered posters for last year’s visit of the Metaphysical Circus or any of the other thousand tawdry entertainments on offer flapped in the fumes.
In Shallow, the sky is nearly always Arctic grey – there is probably some chemical explanation, but no one cares enough to remember what it is. Everything is degraded.
Crabdale’s energies are elsewhere; he is almost consumed by his job as a moderating auditor for the Department of Public Attainment. His team of moderators have built up a fearsome reputation locally as they undertake their round of detailed checks on all aspects of public service provision, validating the initial grades of the in-house assessors. The final results of their enquiries are digested and passed straight to the office of Herr Grinningsoul, the Cardinal of Hibernia, who can thereby ensure that everything is running with just the right amount of versimilitude and perplex.
Today, the very greyest of the season of drizzle, Crabdale felt relieved to have an indoor assignment, a routine flash inspection of the kitchens at the Shallow Institute. He took the main road towards the Institute, which was lined on either side by gas lamps and the usual blackened buildings in various states of neglect or scrub, and from which, here and there, some tattered posters for last year’s visit of the Metaphysical Circus or any of the other thousand tawdry entertainments on offer flapped in the fumes.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
NEW LABOUR: WEAK
"National governments appear increasingly impotent in the face of the giant corporations, who transcended national borders many years ago," writes Noreena Hertz in The Silent Takeover.
She claims that the welfare state is being undermined, arguing that New Labour have more or less reached the limit of what they can achieve, given the fact that no one would thank them if the monsternationals upped and left the country, as Ford seem to be doing in Dagenham.
No one can deny that Mr Brown is in favour of wealth redistribution; he has committed billions to education, childcare, the NHS and allieviating poverty. No one can deny that people both at the top and bottom of the social pyramid have been affected by his policies. I can't remember the exact figures, but I did hear from an independent source (on Newsnight, 2003) that the top 5% are 15% worse off while the bottom 5% are 15% better off - something within that range anyway.
The question is whether the Chancellor can do more, especially given the long-term environmental and pensions crises, let alone the money being wasted on the "war on terror".
If indeed, as I suspect, he is unable to act because of an electorate unwilling to vote for an income tax hike and corporations refusing to pay more corporation tax, how on earth will we be able to sustain anything like the current level of provision by the welfare state, especially when growth falters and the number of pensioners increases?
If the electorate is unwilling to vote for a sensible policy, on their head be it. That is how democracy works. But that predatory monsternationals should be able to lean on the government to prevent its acting in the cause of social justice is a disgrace.
Where is a more virile breed of politician?
The state of the world: read George Monbiot
"National governments appear increasingly impotent in the face of the giant corporations, who transcended national borders many years ago," writes Noreena Hertz in The Silent Takeover.
She claims that the welfare state is being undermined, arguing that New Labour have more or less reached the limit of what they can achieve, given the fact that no one would thank them if the monsternationals upped and left the country, as Ford seem to be doing in Dagenham.
No one can deny that Mr Brown is in favour of wealth redistribution; he has committed billions to education, childcare, the NHS and allieviating poverty. No one can deny that people both at the top and bottom of the social pyramid have been affected by his policies. I can't remember the exact figures, but I did hear from an independent source (on Newsnight, 2003) that the top 5% are 15% worse off while the bottom 5% are 15% better off - something within that range anyway.
The question is whether the Chancellor can do more, especially given the long-term environmental and pensions crises, let alone the money being wasted on the "war on terror".
If indeed, as I suspect, he is unable to act because of an electorate unwilling to vote for an income tax hike and corporations refusing to pay more corporation tax, how on earth will we be able to sustain anything like the current level of provision by the welfare state, especially when growth falters and the number of pensioners increases?
If the electorate is unwilling to vote for a sensible policy, on their head be it. That is how democracy works. But that predatory monsternationals should be able to lean on the government to prevent its acting in the cause of social justice is a disgrace.
Where is a more virile breed of politician?
The state of the world: read George Monbiot
CHAPTER 3 FROTHIE FAILS TO RETRIEVE
Open a new document and a blinking cursor demands your attention. Emerge blinking into a grey dawn and, half a minute behind you, “Auntie” Frothie will have pinned you down with one of her monologues that take over a room, smell of decaying rind and end up trailing off into nowhere. She has had no sleep and has spent the last hour devising a tale so inane and convoluted that it will leave you suffocated.
This is her domain and Crabdale has been trapped here for as long as he can remember. Every day begins in the same way and there is absolutely no respite.
The pattern of Frothie’s monologues was a chain of interlocking relative clauses, which took the unfortunate victim (I will not say “listener”) further and further from what might have been the original point. She would faithfully report each painful step of the interminable conversations-with-herself that filled her otherwise empty days. And each monologue was an impostor; being unsolicited, it announced itself as if it were a fragment of a real conversation.
“No, the interesting thing was…” she began at high volume, “I couldn’t remember which nostril she was referring to. She did say something about nostril-clearing, which I meant to write down and I should’ve written it down only I didn’t have a pencil and I had been debating with myself whether to bring one but," - here, the pitch rose to a higher intensity and each stressed syllable became a shriek - "Did I remember? Did I find one? Where is there a pencil anyway?"
The eyes stared madly out of the head.
“So I was sitting there racking my brains and she was explaining the breathing technique… I wish I could remember… it was supposed to be good for something or other; backaches, I think it was. Anyhow, she was explaining it and we were all trying to do it, if you see what I mean, and I did start to feel a certain dizziness, which made me think of Ellen because that’s exactly what she used to say when she was trying to learn the oboe…”
This was the cue for one of a fascinating range of silly voices.
“I really really wanted to learn the instrument but I wouldn't have done it if I'd known it was going to make me fall over!!!” – a peal of manic laughter and back, at once to a hushed, almost apologetic tone “…if you see what I mean.”
Crabdale avoided looking at the flat, yellow teeth and chewed harder on his carbon granules. Exit, exit, shut down, log off.
Open a new document and a blinking cursor demands your attention. Emerge blinking into a grey dawn and, half a minute behind you, “Auntie” Frothie will have pinned you down with one of her monologues that take over a room, smell of decaying rind and end up trailing off into nowhere. She has had no sleep and has spent the last hour devising a tale so inane and convoluted that it will leave you suffocated.
This is her domain and Crabdale has been trapped here for as long as he can remember. Every day begins in the same way and there is absolutely no respite.
The pattern of Frothie’s monologues was a chain of interlocking relative clauses, which took the unfortunate victim (I will not say “listener”) further and further from what might have been the original point. She would faithfully report each painful step of the interminable conversations-with-herself that filled her otherwise empty days. And each monologue was an impostor; being unsolicited, it announced itself as if it were a fragment of a real conversation.
“No, the interesting thing was…” she began at high volume, “I couldn’t remember which nostril she was referring to. She did say something about nostril-clearing, which I meant to write down and I should’ve written it down only I didn’t have a pencil and I had been debating with myself whether to bring one but," - here, the pitch rose to a higher intensity and each stressed syllable became a shriek - "Did I remember? Did I find one? Where is there a pencil anyway?"
The eyes stared madly out of the head.
“So I was sitting there racking my brains and she was explaining the breathing technique… I wish I could remember… it was supposed to be good for something or other; backaches, I think it was. Anyhow, she was explaining it and we were all trying to do it, if you see what I mean, and I did start to feel a certain dizziness, which made me think of Ellen because that’s exactly what she used to say when she was trying to learn the oboe…”
This was the cue for one of a fascinating range of silly voices.
“I really really wanted to learn the instrument but I wouldn't have done it if I'd known it was going to make me fall over!!!” – a peal of manic laughter and back, at once to a hushed, almost apologetic tone “…if you see what I mean.”
Crabdale avoided looking at the flat, yellow teeth and chewed harder on his carbon granules. Exit, exit, shut down, log off.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
PREREQUISITES OF FREEDOM
People sing and write about freedom. Sometimes they take to the streets in protest, risk their lives and even die for it.
What is necessary for freedom? First, there is freedom from constraint; it must be true that our actions are not determined by external forces and are somehow a result of our choices.
Some philosophers have suggested that, since everything follows causal patterns and arises from pre-existing conditions, we are not "really" free. It follows from this that we should cease the almost universal practice of praise, blame, criticism, carping, admiration, condemnation, etc. This is hopelessly counter-intuitive for most people (even many Buddhist monks, for example, those who protested against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.)
A less extreme position, explained by Simon Blackburn in his book Think, is to accept that people do often go through a decision-making process, and that while the outcome of our decisions is often determined by our characters (incorporating our genetic inheritance, upbringing and experience of life), it is precisely this that is up for praise and blame, namely our characters, our "software", no matter how it was arrived at.
Second, and this is crucial, we need freedom of choice. Otherwise freedom is only freedom to dream, like the characters in The Matrix at the beginning of the first film, before they realise their world is illusory.
In the political sphere, we have freedom from constraint. This is why I can express my opinion without fear of being taken away in the night by the secret police. And I don't take this lightly.
However, this freedom has been rendered impotent, because there is no substantive freedom of choice. The often trumpeted idea of "change through the ballot box" no longer applies in this country. A couple of percentage points either way on tax and spending - that's it. All the parties are representing the interests of global capital (the movements of which are truly free from nearly all constraints). There is no alternative way which offers a sane environmental policy and justice for the world's poor.
What is to be done?
People sing and write about freedom. Sometimes they take to the streets in protest, risk their lives and even die for it.
What is necessary for freedom? First, there is freedom from constraint; it must be true that our actions are not determined by external forces and are somehow a result of our choices.
Some philosophers have suggested that, since everything follows causal patterns and arises from pre-existing conditions, we are not "really" free. It follows from this that we should cease the almost universal practice of praise, blame, criticism, carping, admiration, condemnation, etc. This is hopelessly counter-intuitive for most people (even many Buddhist monks, for example, those who protested against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.)
A less extreme position, explained by Simon Blackburn in his book Think, is to accept that people do often go through a decision-making process, and that while the outcome of our decisions is often determined by our characters (incorporating our genetic inheritance, upbringing and experience of life), it is precisely this that is up for praise and blame, namely our characters, our "software", no matter how it was arrived at.
Second, and this is crucial, we need freedom of choice. Otherwise freedom is only freedom to dream, like the characters in The Matrix at the beginning of the first film, before they realise their world is illusory.
In the political sphere, we have freedom from constraint. This is why I can express my opinion without fear of being taken away in the night by the secret police. And I don't take this lightly.
However, this freedom has been rendered impotent, because there is no substantive freedom of choice. The often trumpeted idea of "change through the ballot box" no longer applies in this country. A couple of percentage points either way on tax and spending - that's it. All the parties are representing the interests of global capital (the movements of which are truly free from nearly all constraints). There is no alternative way which offers a sane environmental policy and justice for the world's poor.
What is to be done?
Sunday, March 21, 2004
INSIDIOUS
"Like a bird on a wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free." Leonard Cohen
Yes, I am grateful to be living in a country where I can express my opinions more or less freely to my friends, in songs and in this blog. I can go as far as to hand out leaflets and last year I even took to the streets. I am also free to take all the opportunities open to me, without fear of discrimination, as long as I can get the requisite amount of cash behind me. In a sense, I am free, and I want the government to continue to protect these freedoms.
Yet I feel a sense of unease at all this. What can it be? Somewhere along the line, what has happened to democracy? Can I and people like me really determine the direction of the society in which we live?
Since Mr Blair and Mr Howard both believe that it is Rupert Murdoch and The Sun that will win the next election, are they then going to let his views determine their policy on Europe? (This is a rhetorical question!)
Mr Howard woos Mr Murdoch
And isn't this just one instance of a more widespread cancer in the body politic, namely that corporate elites in the arms, oil and media industries, hand-in-glove with each other, have either bought politicians or otherwise constrained their freedom of action to such an extent that they have to follow only the policies that will benefit those industries? Isn't this clear for all to see?
Welcome to 1984, This Perfect Day, Brave New World... Choose your dystopia. The future has arrived and very few people have noticed. We the people are NOT in control. The only difference between the situation in the "democratic" countries and 1984 is that dissent is tolerated, even welcomed! The corporate elites have been so terrifyingly ingenious in their assumption of power that they can now allow dissenters to sound off as much as they like, safe in the knowledge that any amount of protest will be utterly insignificant.
"Like a bird on a wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free." Leonard Cohen
Yes, I am grateful to be living in a country where I can express my opinions more or less freely to my friends, in songs and in this blog. I can go as far as to hand out leaflets and last year I even took to the streets. I am also free to take all the opportunities open to me, without fear of discrimination, as long as I can get the requisite amount of cash behind me. In a sense, I am free, and I want the government to continue to protect these freedoms.
Yet I feel a sense of unease at all this. What can it be? Somewhere along the line, what has happened to democracy? Can I and people like me really determine the direction of the society in which we live?
Since Mr Blair and Mr Howard both believe that it is Rupert Murdoch and The Sun that will win the next election, are they then going to let his views determine their policy on Europe? (This is a rhetorical question!)
Mr Howard woos Mr Murdoch
And isn't this just one instance of a more widespread cancer in the body politic, namely that corporate elites in the arms, oil and media industries, hand-in-glove with each other, have either bought politicians or otherwise constrained their freedom of action to such an extent that they have to follow only the policies that will benefit those industries? Isn't this clear for all to see?
Welcome to 1984, This Perfect Day, Brave New World... Choose your dystopia. The future has arrived and very few people have noticed. We the people are NOT in control. The only difference between the situation in the "democratic" countries and 1984 is that dissent is tolerated, even welcomed! The corporate elites have been so terrifyingly ingenious in their assumption of power that they can now allow dissenters to sound off as much as they like, safe in the knowledge that any amount of protest will be utterly insignificant.
Saturday, March 20, 2004
CHAPTER 2 - VIA DOLOROSA
Crabdale trudged home through sub-district B11 of Shallow, preoccupied by the internal parade of images he played with to avoid looking at the grim skyline. At every shop doorway, he tuned his ears to the news of a distant war. He’d always loved current affairs! It gave him a thrill to think of himself as a tiny particle, the product of thousands of events, momentary.
Finally he ran the gauntlet of his own street, where high narrow gargoyled houses rose to block out the light. With relief, he turned the key to his own door. He’d got through another day! Virtually grey with exhaustion, he clambered over a heap of yesterday’s carpet shavings and plugged in the kettle. He watched it boil and restarted it every time it periodically sparked and switched itself off. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but it was no good.
From the bowels of the house, there were the unmistakable sounds of movement and eventually a strident squawk and a series of jarring chirrups as “Auntie” Frothie burst through the door, her tiny body taut as cables. As always, she had news that just had to be sung.
"Did you have FUN at work today?" she screeched and gave a manic grin.
Crabdale's heart sank and, grunting a response, he withdrew into his nether world.
Crabdale trudged home through sub-district B11 of Shallow, preoccupied by the internal parade of images he played with to avoid looking at the grim skyline. At every shop doorway, he tuned his ears to the news of a distant war. He’d always loved current affairs! It gave him a thrill to think of himself as a tiny particle, the product of thousands of events, momentary.
Finally he ran the gauntlet of his own street, where high narrow gargoyled houses rose to block out the light. With relief, he turned the key to his own door. He’d got through another day! Virtually grey with exhaustion, he clambered over a heap of yesterday’s carpet shavings and plugged in the kettle. He watched it boil and restarted it every time it periodically sparked and switched itself off. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but it was no good.
From the bowels of the house, there were the unmistakable sounds of movement and eventually a strident squawk and a series of jarring chirrups as “Auntie” Frothie burst through the door, her tiny body taut as cables. As always, she had news that just had to be sung.
"Did you have FUN at work today?" she screeched and gave a manic grin.
Crabdale's heart sank and, grunting a response, he withdrew into his nether world.
Friday, March 19, 2004
AL QAEDA NEED NOT FEAR
A badly punctuated London Underground poster by the Metropolitan Police gives some cause for concern, but not to terrorists. If we notice a suspect package, it tells us:
"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station staff or dial 999."
from the Independent letters page
A badly punctuated London Underground poster by the Metropolitan Police gives some cause for concern, but not to terrorists. If we notice a suspect package, it tells us:
"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station staff or dial 999."
from the Independent letters page
FRONT-LINE GRIPES
Ha ha ha - I must have been daydreaming! Of course the government isn't going to fund a huge amount of public housing. For a moment it was like being in a socialist utopia (literally, no place.) They are only going to allow them to be built. Buyers-to-profiteer must be rubbing their hands with glee.
My tired brain got the wrong message on my 13-hour Wednesday. Arrive 8am; teach 9-12.15; teach 1-3; observe training course 5-6; observe teaching practice 6.45-9.15. Get home (to my single room) 9.30. Too tired to even catch the whole of Newsnight; crashed totally out before 11pm.
Every year, the work I and my colleagues do bring £1000s from abroad into our college; this goes ultimately towards supporting front line education, as well as - this goes without saying - a generous tier of management and administration.
I am an experienced front-line worker, yet to afford the meanest one-room studio above some noisy newsagent's in this London suburb, I'd have to multiply my salary by five.
Ha ha ha - I must have been daydreaming! Of course the government isn't going to fund a huge amount of public housing. For a moment it was like being in a socialist utopia (literally, no place.) They are only going to allow them to be built. Buyers-to-profiteer must be rubbing their hands with glee.
My tired brain got the wrong message on my 13-hour Wednesday. Arrive 8am; teach 9-12.15; teach 1-3; observe training course 5-6; observe teaching practice 6.45-9.15. Get home (to my single room) 9.30. Too tired to even catch the whole of Newsnight; crashed totally out before 11pm.
Every year, the work I and my colleagues do bring £1000s from abroad into our college; this goes ultimately towards supporting front line education, as well as - this goes without saying - a generous tier of management and administration.
I am an experienced front-line worker, yet to afford the meanest one-room studio above some noisy newsagent's in this London suburb, I'd have to multiply my salary by five.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
GOOD OLD GORDON BROWN!
The best politician in Britain has just committed the Government to building 1000s of affordable homes. I have been working in education for 13 years and am about to become a teacher trainer, but am priced out of the market.
Even if my deposit was twice what it is, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. So I live just as I did when I was a student, in one room with my stereo and CDs. Most of the books I own have been in a friend's loft since 1997 as I have no room for them. Every day I go out to work - hard - for this. (In effect, for nothing, for I cannot move my life on to the next phase.) Many of my friends are in the same situation.
Why doesn't someone go the whole hog and make it ILLEGAL to own a second home merely in order to reap profit from have-nots?
The best politician in Britain has just committed the Government to building 1000s of affordable homes. I have been working in education for 13 years and am about to become a teacher trainer, but am priced out of the market.
Even if my deposit was twice what it is, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. So I live just as I did when I was a student, in one room with my stereo and CDs. Most of the books I own have been in a friend's loft since 1997 as I have no room for them. Every day I go out to work - hard - for this. (In effect, for nothing, for I cannot move my life on to the next phase.) Many of my friends are in the same situation.
Why doesn't someone go the whole hog and make it ILLEGAL to own a second home merely in order to reap profit from have-nots?
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
THE MAGIC AIR
Was wakened at around 6 today by the first true dawn chorus of the year. (Either the birds notice the temperature rise, or I've slept through the others.) In my first job, one of my colleagues used to tell me how she'd always throw open the window to take it in and I do this sometimes as well when I can muster up the energy to stumble over to the window.
The deep blue morning is alive with bright chirrups and bleeps, and shrill "loops" that sound almost electronic; some short and insistent, others coded in a more involved way. I always try to track these longer messages; some are clearly variations on a theme, but with no exact repetitions.There's very little sense of space - it sounds as if all the little choristers are sitting on the window sill. Like a blind person might, I try to imagine the series of points where each little voice comes from.
Was wakened at around 6 today by the first true dawn chorus of the year. (Either the birds notice the temperature rise, or I've slept through the others.) In my first job, one of my colleagues used to tell me how she'd always throw open the window to take it in and I do this sometimes as well when I can muster up the energy to stumble over to the window.
The deep blue morning is alive with bright chirrups and bleeps, and shrill "loops" that sound almost electronic; some short and insistent, others coded in a more involved way. I always try to track these longer messages; some are clearly variations on a theme, but with no exact repetitions.There's very little sense of space - it sounds as if all the little choristers are sitting on the window sill. Like a blind person might, I try to imagine the series of points where each little voice comes from.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
MUSIC AGAINST THE GLOOM
Spring refuses to come, but never mind. My friend Steve came down this weekend and we challenged ourselves to see if we could write two songs in an afternoon. (This is because I've had musical writer's block for nearly two years.) Incredibly, we succeeded.
Both of us had bits of melody, a few fragmentary lyrics and chord sequences -musical junk - and then were pretty much swept along in the creative process for a few hours. First we wrote a throwaway calypso, which was OK as a start, and then a love song just came out from nowhere. Steve is able to take my rudimentary ideas and instantly transfer them to piano and develop them, and I can build on some of the things he comes up with.
Because I have no musical education at all and am a pretty rough player, it always hits me as one of the best things in the world to be able to produce passable songs.
Spring refuses to come, but never mind. My friend Steve came down this weekend and we challenged ourselves to see if we could write two songs in an afternoon. (This is because I've had musical writer's block for nearly two years.) Incredibly, we succeeded.
Both of us had bits of melody, a few fragmentary lyrics and chord sequences -musical junk - and then were pretty much swept along in the creative process for a few hours. First we wrote a throwaway calypso, which was OK as a start, and then a love song just came out from nowhere. Steve is able to take my rudimentary ideas and instantly transfer them to piano and develop them, and I can build on some of the things he comes up with.
Because I have no musical education at all and am a pretty rough player, it always hits me as one of the best things in the world to be able to produce passable songs.
Friday, March 12, 2004
DOGGEREL
Variduck, Cessame, Bastardy, Drake
All of a sudden a rumpus did make
Felons for certain, and wayfarers all
They lifted the curtain and went to the ball
The ball it was held in Fraternise Green
Given by several knights of the Queen
The knights were all stout and their counsels were sage
But the Queen was quite fractious, befitting her age
Now, Variduck planned to take over the Realm
The minute he’d wrested her hands from the helm
But wrest as he might, their grip remained firm
For she was determined to serve out her term
Cess, who just knew that it couldn’t be right
To thinkle and scratchle and writhe in the night
And usurp a monarch quite justly installed
Said to young Variduck, “Sir, I'm appalled!”
“Our Queen may be boring and captious and gaunt
And treat us like animals, as is her wont
But surely she governs by right of her genes
And we should refrain from venting our spleens?”
But Variduck upped and went straight to the ball
Requisitioned a horse, sallied forth from the hall
Arrived at the palace excited and numb
And asked of the Queen was she willing to come
As soon as he heard she had given assent
He cleared out his nasals to start a lament
A song that the Queen was startled to hear
Was full of foreboding and terrible fear
“Cease that racket at once!” she commanded the wretch
“Or I’ll have you transported abroad for a stretch.
You make me reluctant to sit on your nag
When your songs are so risibly awfully bad.”
At that the young villain took hold of her head
And squeezed her trachea until she was dead
And smiling quite grimly, he took up the corpse
And gingerly placed it on top of his horse
Returning in triumph, he entered the hall
Without any compunction, broke into the ball
“Behold she is gone!” he announced in his glee
“And the inerim leader – of course, it is me!”
But try as he might, all the matters of state
Almost certainly due to their ponderous weight
Made him quite fractious and flaccid and down
So he came to regret his assault on the Crown
Now Variduck finds he is captious and gaunt
Treats people like animals, as is his wont
He serves out his term and awaits the event
That will finally show he is broken and spent
Variduck, Cessame, Bastardy, Drake
All of a sudden a rumpus did make
Felons for certain, and wayfarers all
They lifted the curtain and went to the ball
The ball it was held in Fraternise Green
Given by several knights of the Queen
The knights were all stout and their counsels were sage
But the Queen was quite fractious, befitting her age
Now, Variduck planned to take over the Realm
The minute he’d wrested her hands from the helm
But wrest as he might, their grip remained firm
For she was determined to serve out her term
Cess, who just knew that it couldn’t be right
To thinkle and scratchle and writhe in the night
And usurp a monarch quite justly installed
Said to young Variduck, “Sir, I'm appalled!”
“Our Queen may be boring and captious and gaunt
And treat us like animals, as is her wont
But surely she governs by right of her genes
And we should refrain from venting our spleens?”
But Variduck upped and went straight to the ball
Requisitioned a horse, sallied forth from the hall
Arrived at the palace excited and numb
And asked of the Queen was she willing to come
As soon as he heard she had given assent
He cleared out his nasals to start a lament
A song that the Queen was startled to hear
Was full of foreboding and terrible fear
“Cease that racket at once!” she commanded the wretch
“Or I’ll have you transported abroad for a stretch.
You make me reluctant to sit on your nag
When your songs are so risibly awfully bad.”
At that the young villain took hold of her head
And squeezed her trachea until she was dead
And smiling quite grimly, he took up the corpse
And gingerly placed it on top of his horse
Returning in triumph, he entered the hall
Without any compunction, broke into the ball
“Behold she is gone!” he announced in his glee
“And the inerim leader – of course, it is me!”
But try as he might, all the matters of state
Almost certainly due to their ponderous weight
Made him quite fractious and flaccid and down
So he came to regret his assault on the Crown
Now Variduck finds he is captious and gaunt
Treats people like animals, as is his wont
He serves out his term and awaits the event
That will finally show he is broken and spent
CHAPTER 1 - OUT OF THE CRADLE INTO THE FIRE
He would always remember stained glass window fables told by automated tellers. So many to learn by heart, and later burn by decree during the great Recanting. Tales overheard in the cloisters from where you could look out and see the fruit trees in blossom, proverbs which took root in your mind and became a garden of wisdom, (“Root them out!”), ancient Sanskrit mutterings pored over by candlelight. Things were predictable then: matins, lauds, chants, all at the appointed hour. Data, descript, known, comforting. Now everything needed to be verified.
Here, at this watch of the moon, daily the same, hunched over his manuscript scribbling, is Crabdale the insufferable bureaucrat. How carefully the ground had been prepared for him, how thoroughly sterilised!
Of course, beauty was officially proscribed but hardly out of bounds for one who could invent a good story. Why can't he wrest his poor heart from its feckless mooring? Seven severed heads and he gave up the ghost, didn’t he? Instead he should be casting the torn nets of circumstance into the waves.
What ails him? Little by little he was lulled out of belief and set upon. His pathetic ribcage was stark in the dawn.
He would always remember stained glass window fables told by automated tellers. So many to learn by heart, and later burn by decree during the great Recanting. Tales overheard in the cloisters from where you could look out and see the fruit trees in blossom, proverbs which took root in your mind and became a garden of wisdom, (“Root them out!”), ancient Sanskrit mutterings pored over by candlelight. Things were predictable then: matins, lauds, chants, all at the appointed hour. Data, descript, known, comforting. Now everything needed to be verified.
Here, at this watch of the moon, daily the same, hunched over his manuscript scribbling, is Crabdale the insufferable bureaucrat. How carefully the ground had been prepared for him, how thoroughly sterilised!
Of course, beauty was officially proscribed but hardly out of bounds for one who could invent a good story. Why can't he wrest his poor heart from its feckless mooring? Seven severed heads and he gave up the ghost, didn’t he? Instead he should be casting the torn nets of circumstance into the waves.
What ails him? Little by little he was lulled out of belief and set upon. His pathetic ribcage was stark in the dawn.
EARTH FESTVALS
Now that nobody agrees about anything much, especially about God, it's high time we resurrected the old festivals which may or may not have been observed by the Celts. (Unfortunately, we can only see in any detail through Roman eyes...) They would work equally well, or better, as post-modern feast days. Oh, and they should all, ALL, be bank holidays!
Ever since I first saw The Wicker Man when I was 15, I've been fascinated by them because they're so evocative and, being almost equally spaced round the "wheel of the year", give some sense of order to recurring time. They provide a real reason to celebrate because each is in tune with our northern islands.
BELTAINE (May Day): The triumph of Spring, the garlanded fanfare to what is surely the giddiest season: high, high Summer!
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE: Midsummer's Day, when you feel as if anything is possible. They even let hippies get to Stonehenge now, don't they?
LUGHNASADH (around August 1st): beginning of the harvest (not any more). I always feel a bit sad that this marks the last of the summer true, although some hot days are left.
SAMHAIN (Hallowe'en/All Saints): end of the harvest. Anything you harvest after this is - West Country accents - accurrrsed! The veil between the worlds is thin. This was a day for remembering the Ancestors - hence its ghostly associations now.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE: (Yule) (Sonnenwende) Rebirth of the divine sun amid the darkness.
IMBOLC: (around February 1st) (Candlemas) First stirrings of Spring. This is supposed to be when the ewes first produce milk.
Add the Autumn and Spring equinoxes and you have a perfect suite of highly charged symbols - capable of endless interpretation and reworking - to remind people that, despite everything, there's still an earth and a sun and we're still dependent on them. Only problem is that the card industry would have a field day. Despite this,
Hail to the God of the Corn! (and sorry to policemen everywhere.)
the Celtic year
Now that nobody agrees about anything much, especially about God, it's high time we resurrected the old festivals which may or may not have been observed by the Celts. (Unfortunately, we can only see in any detail through Roman eyes...) They would work equally well, or better, as post-modern feast days. Oh, and they should all, ALL, be bank holidays!
Ever since I first saw The Wicker Man when I was 15, I've been fascinated by them because they're so evocative and, being almost equally spaced round the "wheel of the year", give some sense of order to recurring time. They provide a real reason to celebrate because each is in tune with our northern islands.
BELTAINE (May Day): The triumph of Spring, the garlanded fanfare to what is surely the giddiest season: high, high Summer!
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE: Midsummer's Day, when you feel as if anything is possible. They even let hippies get to Stonehenge now, don't they?
LUGHNASADH (around August 1st): beginning of the harvest (not any more). I always feel a bit sad that this marks the last of the summer true, although some hot days are left.
SAMHAIN (Hallowe'en/All Saints): end of the harvest. Anything you harvest after this is - West Country accents - accurrrsed! The veil between the worlds is thin. This was a day for remembering the Ancestors - hence its ghostly associations now.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE: (Yule) (Sonnenwende) Rebirth of the divine sun amid the darkness.
IMBOLC: (around February 1st) (Candlemas) First stirrings of Spring. This is supposed to be when the ewes first produce milk.
Add the Autumn and Spring equinoxes and you have a perfect suite of highly charged symbols - capable of endless interpretation and reworking - to remind people that, despite everything, there's still an earth and a sun and we're still dependent on them. Only problem is that the card industry would have a field day. Despite this,
Hail to the God of the Corn! (and sorry to policemen everywhere.)
the Celtic year
Thursday, March 11, 2004
RAPT: THE RICH LIFE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
What did Proust and Jesus both know? What is it that people expect to hear at the feet of gurus? Why do fools fall in love? What is the secret to the joy on a child’s face? And why do people spend a lifetime trying to recapture it?
It’s nothing other than this: look within!
Proust’s scenes are picked out by a dazzling inner light which reveals the intense enchantment to be found in the same reality more often dismissed as “everyday”. His kind of seeing has a lot in common with “Behold! The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!” It is the reason why the Buddha closes his eyes on the mountainside in India. It also quickens hearts worldwide as a lover’s lingering gaze is returned. It’s why the child is so reluctant to leave his absorbing game.
What can these seemingly disparate phenomena have in common? It is the quality of concentration that counts, being alive in a moment that will never return. Enraptured and held. And the problems that were assailing us moments before have disappeared, ghosts banished by the morning sunlight, only shades - of possible pasts and futures.
It's an ego-less state, though it may be imbued with an awareness of a kind of higher Self, the Atman of the Upanishads.
“Why turn within? Because it is the Heaven that you have always looked for. Because it is the joy that you have always looked for.”
It’s the Message of the Ages, rehashed.
I wonder what the difference is, if any, between Enlightenment and mere distraction?
What did Proust and Jesus both know? What is it that people expect to hear at the feet of gurus? Why do fools fall in love? What is the secret to the joy on a child’s face? And why do people spend a lifetime trying to recapture it?
It’s nothing other than this: look within!
Proust’s scenes are picked out by a dazzling inner light which reveals the intense enchantment to be found in the same reality more often dismissed as “everyday”. His kind of seeing has a lot in common with “Behold! The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!” It is the reason why the Buddha closes his eyes on the mountainside in India. It also quickens hearts worldwide as a lover’s lingering gaze is returned. It’s why the child is so reluctant to leave his absorbing game.
What can these seemingly disparate phenomena have in common? It is the quality of concentration that counts, being alive in a moment that will never return. Enraptured and held. And the problems that were assailing us moments before have disappeared, ghosts banished by the morning sunlight, only shades - of possible pasts and futures.
It's an ego-less state, though it may be imbued with an awareness of a kind of higher Self, the Atman of the Upanishads.
“Why turn within? Because it is the Heaven that you have always looked for. Because it is the joy that you have always looked for.”
It’s the Message of the Ages, rehashed.
I wonder what the difference is, if any, between Enlightenment and mere distraction?
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
A DISAFFECTION
In this book by James Kelman, the main character (a teacher, like me) discovers a piece of old copper piping which he blows into, making a resonant and satisfying sound. The pipe becomes a sort of fetish for him, charged with meaning. In contrast to this, his work and relationships, the daily grind, have become a surreal procession of events from which he feels completely alienated.
There is a wonderful sentence, now forgotten, where he defines the entire dilemma, and it was the hidden climax of the book. The hero muses to himself that no one values anything that is of any real value; and the things that are accorded the highest esteem have no worth at all.
Looking at the online "headlines" and ads that flash at me every time I log on, I feel that, every day, more than ever.
In this book by James Kelman, the main character (a teacher, like me) discovers a piece of old copper piping which he blows into, making a resonant and satisfying sound. The pipe becomes a sort of fetish for him, charged with meaning. In contrast to this, his work and relationships, the daily grind, have become a surreal procession of events from which he feels completely alienated.
There is a wonderful sentence, now forgotten, where he defines the entire dilemma, and it was the hidden climax of the book. The hero muses to himself that no one values anything that is of any real value; and the things that are accorded the highest esteem have no worth at all.
Looking at the online "headlines" and ads that flash at me every time I log on, I feel that, every day, more than ever.
Monday, March 08, 2004
APPEAL
My friend from Ghana, who set up and currently runs an educational NGO campaigning to limit the spread of HIV and promote rural education, desperately needs a computer to produce letters and other documents. Does anyone know the name of companies or charities who are involved in sending second-hand computers to Africa? In this case, it wouldn't just be inappropriate dumping.
Computer waste
My friend from Ghana, who set up and currently runs an educational NGO campaigning to limit the spread of HIV and promote rural education, desperately needs a computer to produce letters and other documents. Does anyone know the name of companies or charities who are involved in sending second-hand computers to Africa? In this case, it wouldn't just be inappropriate dumping.
Computer waste
Friday, March 05, 2004
AS IF… (USEFUL FICTIONS)
I’m going to adopt a god for a month, or maybe three, or longer. I’m going to picture this unnamed being as having the energy of Shiva/Dionysius and the compassion of Christ.
I can’t continue to “shake off illusions and yet remain passionately in love with life, even after its great futility has been revealed.” (Safaranski, echoing Nietzsche’s view, in A Philosophical Biography.) No Superman then! Being a strict Nietzschean comes at a terrible cost, making the daily struggle to fulfil dozens of small purposes more arduous because you must remain aware of the overarching spectre of meaninglessness, yet push it from your mind in order to muster the energy each task requires.
Banishing illusion may satisfy some kind of intellectual vanity, but is the price (in terms of stress and endless mental “noise”) really worth paying? The whole point about Sisyphus is that he was not happy!
The truth-value of religion is the least of its value. Easily dismissed but vital to reckon with is its moral function and as a tool for social control, one which politicians have vainly been trying to replace for years. No, “community” just doesn’t cut the mustard, does it? This was clear from a reality TV show I caught this week, where the police in Aylesbury and Essex were struggling against hopelessly out-of-control and abusive late night drinkers, in a weekly ritual. My friend remarked that these people didn’t know how to behave. I said how sad they must be with their lives.
By contrast, my experiences living in religion-mad Ghana were of a society really at ease with itself, though where grinding poverty was an everyday reality. And the unforgettable friendliness and lack of suspicion that impressed me immediately about Ghanaians was a sign of something else too: contentment.
For religion provides useful psychological fictions that most of us continue to preserve anyway: a grounds for optimism (“it’ll all work out”; “everything is meant to be”; “it’s all part of a bigger picture”) a belief in the unity of the Self, a belief that doing good is ultimately worthwhile. What it all amounts to is comfort.
Contentment and comfort: easy for Nietzsche and the very young to sneer at, but how wonderful they are to have and how sadly missed when they are gone!
For me, adopting a god won’t be like trying to pretend Santa gives me my presents any more than it will involve taking on obscure metaphysical baggage. It will be more like what Tony Blair did with the WMD - a strange analogy, I know. For reasons of his own, he convinced himself these were real. He believed what evidence there was to support his view and gave little weight to the opposite opinion. People do this all the time, trying to convince themselves about one thing or another. It isn’t exactly lying; it is keeping the useful fiction alive because of the rewards it brings. (In Blair’s case, the uncertain reward might be something to do with UK access to dwindling oil reserves, but that’s another story.)
This theistic experiment will involve looking inside (some kind of meditation and even prayer), thinking of things as being part of a beautiful pattern, and acting as if someone was – in some way that I can’t explain – protecting me.
Even Nietzsche, at root, was deeply theistic. By the end of his life, his concept of the Will To Power was godlike in its universal explanatory reach. And here he is from The Birth of Tragedy in a passage of the kind he later scorned, but is among the most beautiful he ever wrote:
“The bond between one person and another is forged once more by the spell of the Dionysian… Now… each person finds himself not only united, reconciled and blended with another but altogether fused, as though the veil of maya had been torn apart and was only fluttering in shreds before the primordial mysterious unity.”
A mystical vision par excellence!
I’m going to adopt a god for a month, or maybe three, or longer. I’m going to picture this unnamed being as having the energy of Shiva/Dionysius and the compassion of Christ.
I can’t continue to “shake off illusions and yet remain passionately in love with life, even after its great futility has been revealed.” (Safaranski, echoing Nietzsche’s view, in A Philosophical Biography.) No Superman then! Being a strict Nietzschean comes at a terrible cost, making the daily struggle to fulfil dozens of small purposes more arduous because you must remain aware of the overarching spectre of meaninglessness, yet push it from your mind in order to muster the energy each task requires.
Banishing illusion may satisfy some kind of intellectual vanity, but is the price (in terms of stress and endless mental “noise”) really worth paying? The whole point about Sisyphus is that he was not happy!
The truth-value of religion is the least of its value. Easily dismissed but vital to reckon with is its moral function and as a tool for social control, one which politicians have vainly been trying to replace for years. No, “community” just doesn’t cut the mustard, does it? This was clear from a reality TV show I caught this week, where the police in Aylesbury and Essex were struggling against hopelessly out-of-control and abusive late night drinkers, in a weekly ritual. My friend remarked that these people didn’t know how to behave. I said how sad they must be with their lives.
By contrast, my experiences living in religion-mad Ghana were of a society really at ease with itself, though where grinding poverty was an everyday reality. And the unforgettable friendliness and lack of suspicion that impressed me immediately about Ghanaians was a sign of something else too: contentment.
For religion provides useful psychological fictions that most of us continue to preserve anyway: a grounds for optimism (“it’ll all work out”; “everything is meant to be”; “it’s all part of a bigger picture”) a belief in the unity of the Self, a belief that doing good is ultimately worthwhile. What it all amounts to is comfort.
Contentment and comfort: easy for Nietzsche and the very young to sneer at, but how wonderful they are to have and how sadly missed when they are gone!
For me, adopting a god won’t be like trying to pretend Santa gives me my presents any more than it will involve taking on obscure metaphysical baggage. It will be more like what Tony Blair did with the WMD - a strange analogy, I know. For reasons of his own, he convinced himself these were real. He believed what evidence there was to support his view and gave little weight to the opposite opinion. People do this all the time, trying to convince themselves about one thing or another. It isn’t exactly lying; it is keeping the useful fiction alive because of the rewards it brings. (In Blair’s case, the uncertain reward might be something to do with UK access to dwindling oil reserves, but that’s another story.)
This theistic experiment will involve looking inside (some kind of meditation and even prayer), thinking of things as being part of a beautiful pattern, and acting as if someone was – in some way that I can’t explain – protecting me.
Even Nietzsche, at root, was deeply theistic. By the end of his life, his concept of the Will To Power was godlike in its universal explanatory reach. And here he is from The Birth of Tragedy in a passage of the kind he later scorned, but is among the most beautiful he ever wrote:
“The bond between one person and another is forged once more by the spell of the Dionysian… Now… each person finds himself not only united, reconciled and blended with another but altogether fused, as though the veil of maya had been torn apart and was only fluttering in shreds before the primordial mysterious unity.”
A mystical vision par excellence!
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
THE OPINION OF OTHERS: WHAT'S IT WORTH?
My friend just said to me today that the first piece of advice he'd give to anyone embarking on a spiritual path is to ignore what others think of you. (I remember being in this heady state as a teenager.)
Obviously, this is Nietzsche's way too, escaping from a "slave" mentality of continually seeking to please.
But I've also heard that conscience is nothing more than the internalised representation of what you consider to be the judgement of at least some others, if not the whole of society.
Is conscience no more than the voice of convention? Is it something to grow out of as we forge our own judgements?
My friend just said to me today that the first piece of advice he'd give to anyone embarking on a spiritual path is to ignore what others think of you. (I remember being in this heady state as a teenager.)
Obviously, this is Nietzsche's way too, escaping from a "slave" mentality of continually seeking to please.
But I've also heard that conscience is nothing more than the internalised representation of what you consider to be the judgement of at least some others, if not the whole of society.
Is conscience no more than the voice of convention? Is it something to grow out of as we forge our own judgements?
Monday, March 01, 2004
WHY GEORGE MATTERED
Today sees the release of George Harrison's back catalogue (the Dark Horse Years) on CD. It's fair to say that none of his major work is here, though there are good songs on all of the albums I've heard.
Though he was not the best musician nor the most outspoken member of the Beatles, George actually - unintentionally -changed the culture. When he began his personal "Journey to the East" by asking Ravi Shankar for sitar lessons, he became the most celebrated Western figure up to then to have shown an interest in Eastern music and philosophy. And within a few months of a sitar appearing on Norwegian Wood, one of the key themes of the late 60s counter-culture really got going.
On the collage cover of the Wonderwall album, a missing brick in the wall might just allow the grim City gent in his bowler hat to hear the music and laughter of the Indian girls' dance on the other side of the wall.
Now, decades later, you can find yoga and tai chi classes in every drab suburb, as well as festivals and radio stations given over to "world" music (a dubious term, if you think about it.) A stream of ideas from the East continues to fertilise a spiritually barren West.
Are there any musicians today who can wield such an influence?
Recommended Dark Horse albums: George Harrsion, Gone Troppo
the George Harrison official website
Today sees the release of George Harrison's back catalogue (the Dark Horse Years) on CD. It's fair to say that none of his major work is here, though there are good songs on all of the albums I've heard.
Though he was not the best musician nor the most outspoken member of the Beatles, George actually - unintentionally -changed the culture. When he began his personal "Journey to the East" by asking Ravi Shankar for sitar lessons, he became the most celebrated Western figure up to then to have shown an interest in Eastern music and philosophy. And within a few months of a sitar appearing on Norwegian Wood, one of the key themes of the late 60s counter-culture really got going.
On the collage cover of the Wonderwall album, a missing brick in the wall might just allow the grim City gent in his bowler hat to hear the music and laughter of the Indian girls' dance on the other side of the wall.
Now, decades later, you can find yoga and tai chi classes in every drab suburb, as well as festivals and radio stations given over to "world" music (a dubious term, if you think about it.) A stream of ideas from the East continues to fertilise a spiritually barren West.
Are there any musicians today who can wield such an influence?
Recommended Dark Horse albums: George Harrsion, Gone Troppo
the George Harrison official website
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