More Orwell

Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental difference between rich and poor, as though they were two different races, like negroes and white men. But in reality there is no such difference. The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.

~~ Down and Out in Paris and London
(I think I'm acquiring quite the taste.)

Orwell

Is there anything in the world more graceless, more dishonouring, than to desire a woman you will never have? [...] Envy is a horrible thing. It is unlike all other kinds of suffering in that there is no disguising it, no elevating it into tragedy. It is more than merely painful, it is disgusting.

~~ Burmese Days.

Development

Alack, the tin foil has gone! What could possibly have come over her? A bout of sanity? I doubt it; it's getting into the thirties here in Tucson so I assume she'd be cooking herself in that pathetic little hovel of hers. What'll replace it? Chicken wire? Gauze? Iron bars? The possibilities are endless...

What a gal'...

Remarkably, I'm beginning to grow quite fond of the decidedly insane lady who lives downstairs. She still boasts the tin foil surround that covers her entire front window and she's now decided that it's time to jazz it up even further with an A4 photograph of a Biblical scene (possibly a Caravaggio) accompanied by a page of scripture, reprinted for our pleasure. Not only that, dear reader, but she's reprinted them both twice, just in case two passers-by wanted to read them simultaneously, I presume, but not from the same sheet of paper, because that would be ridiculous. What's more, on my journey to the bins I noticed a jar on the step that leads to the apartment office, presumably as a gift for the simple receptionist who's quite innocently dealing with our rent payments and the like. Upon closer inspection I found the jar to contain two rather small cockroaches (now dead, obviously, after she took great care to cover the jar with clingfilm), and a note with the words, "these guys love my place", signed off as 'Apt. 113'. Oh, how I laughed when I traced the number back to the tin foil facade! I'm not surprised, you fucking idiot. It might have something to do with the acre upon acre of shelved cannabis plants you've filled your place with. It's not so much a place as an incubator. I'll keep you updated with any developments.

How I Made My Millions

Appearing alongside their most recognisable track on the second issue of the No Surprises single in 1997, this song went largely unnoticed by even the stalwart Radiohead community. Thom Yorke sat alone at home by the piano with his mini-disc recorder beside him, and his girlfriend washing up in the background; who might have guessed that he'd produce one of the most beautiful songs in recent memory? When he replayed the track to his bandmates with the view to making a studio version they refused, recognising that the previous three minutes were, at once, raw, yet sublimely perfect, and well beyond their improvement. If your eyes don't glaze over with the sour impulse to cry when you click below then your heart has left you.

Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza: A Classic

It brought me great pleasure to discover that there's a very recent (26/01/2009) debate between Christopher Hitchens and his long-held adversary, Dinesh D'Souza hosted on Richard Dawkins' website. I say though gritted teeth that when these two met back in late 2006 for the early portion of Hitchens' book tour for god is not Great you would be hard pressed to claim that Hitchens won on that occasion (though this simply acts to compound my subsequent point), but it brings me great pleasure to say that Hitchens steamrolled D'Souza in this one. He was worryingly sharp, incredibly astute, even more so than I think I've seen previously. At one point, Hitchens embarresses D'Souza with an off-hand, seven or eight line quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets that supports the notion that, yes, in fact, Shakespeare was, at least momentarily defamatory of religion. Perhaps two years of road-hardened confrontation has purified his thoughts, augmented his positions, and amplified his questions to the point of indestructibility. D'Souza comes across as mildly likable, as usual, but refrained from raising some of his "tier two" arguments about free-will and cosmic intelligence that appeared to catch Hitchens off-guard last time. It's another classic debate that sees quite a different, more focused Hitchens (he was notably intoxicated when they last met) and the minutes sail by. I've somehow managed to embed the video below for your convenience, dear reader, but before I leave you to it, I bring you a not-unusual moment of humour that had me throwing my head back in delight from the opening moments of Hitchens' opening gambit.

One of the very few times I've thought about being a Christian is when one of the early church fathers, lost for an account of why it is fun to be in paradise (the alleviation of the first hundred million years of saying 'thank-you', for example), would say, well, at least you can go to the lip of the thing and look down and see the screams and wails and torments of the damned when you want to be cheered up; and I remember thinking: that's me. I'd be religious on that basis. One of my very few pleasures actually is crowing over the misfortunes of other people and trying to add to those misfortunes. I'm hoping, in fact, to score a few points of that sort tonight.

Gagging Order

A couple more for breakfast,
A little more for tea,
Just to take the edge off.
Just to take the edge off.
Move along, there's nothing left to see,
Just a body, pouring down the street.

~~ Thom Yorke

Bryan and Ricky

My shaky relationship with Mr Bryan Appleyard has been put to one side for the moment now that he's written a defining piece on one of my comedy heroes, Ricky Gervais. Bryan is the master of the print interview, and he's on top form. Take a lesson in journalism and read it all here. Bryan even confronts the subject of religion with Gervais, knowing full well that he's lambasted the inconsistencies and absurdities of the Bible many times over during his stand-up routines. I'm a great admirer of both men, as you know, and to see one side's take of the other written down in pure form is a joy. Bryan uses the notion of Gervais' teetering arrogance as a proxy for his success, but also for his vulnerability, whilst realising, along with the reader, where this all stems from. A hearty recommendation for your Sunday.

A Gift

For my beloved, Holly after having (finally) received her Valentines' gift, which can only be summarised as pampering.

We make no apology...

A moment of brilliance from Hitchens in his debate against the grimy, slobbering, slime ball, George Galloway in 2005, sadly taken out of context (though I invite you to rectify that matter by clicking here and indulging for a full two hours):

There are probably some people among you here who fancy yourselves as
having leftist revolutionary credentials. In fact, I can tell you do from the
zoo noises you make, and the scars you can demonstrate from your long
underground twilight struggle against Dick Cheney.

Corpsing

I freely confess that I neglected Ricky Gervais' Extras until well after they first appeared on television, and I've already explained my mistake on this blog. It is, without a doubt, a demonstration in the art of comedy, and a timepiece for future generations to discover and admire. It's with this in mind, dear reader, that makes me find these videos absolutely hysterical; watching Hollywood A-listers buckle under the hilarity of Ricky and Steve's script is pure gold. Highlights include Sir Ian McKellen's waning professionalism when faced with a deadpan Gervais, and outtakes from Keith Chegwin's classic scene.

Hitchens

Hero.

Another Obama Cartoon

Here's another example that demonstrates America isn't cut out for this irony lark. They are devoid of sarcasm, devoid of duality of meaning, and, it seems, devoid of humour. You may remember that I got myself into hot water a while ago when I was particularly vocal about a cartoon of Obama that appeared in the campus newspaper. This story carries worrying similarities. Who wants to put money on the cartoon being reprinted tomorrow for journalistic merit? Not me. Al Sharpton, that religious zealot intent on decapitating what sense of conscious morality he has left was first to comment: "The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best, given the racist attacks throughout history that have made African-Americans synonymous with monkeys." This kind of appeal to history is pandering to the racism-conscious majority who deplore such ideologies, and linking the two in this way is a pathetic, transparent attempt to suborn the attitude that to defend the cartoon is to be racist. I'm somewhat comforted, however, by the New York Post's resilience; rather than kowtow to the sensitivities of the illiterate and 'apologize for any offense unintentionally caused' (the stock response of the bed-wetting editors of many other newspapers), they've stuck up for themselves and explained the satire behind the cartoon for anyone blind to it. There seems to be a group of reactionaries quite content to jump on the hyper-liberal bandwagon whenever the opportunity presents itself. This needs to be met head on.

Bloggery

My beloved has recently informed me that I've averaged out to about one post a day since I returned to Tucson in 2009, which is well above my usual rate. It appears that my readers are now growing in confidence and more willing than ever to comment about what I write. I assume this is partly due to the communal feeling that develops on blogs like this. My beliefs are obvious, my opinions articulated; even if your viewpoint differs from my own, it's probably quite clear to you that we think in very similar ways: there are grounds for logical debate and reasoned argument. Often I'll clumsily negotiate my way towards a conclusion that doesn't quite summarise what I've just said, but that's part-and-parcel with the blog framework, and I would hope that you know me well enough by now to enjoy the shortfalls in my writing and take away your own tidbits for the day. I'm very comforted by the fact that some of my closest friends who read this blog will go away and follow my links, walking the same path that I did to discover some of the things I bring to your attention. This can accumulate into a mutual web of knowledge. We feed off of each other. I wouldn't stop for the world.

Riot Van

Up rolls a riot van
And sparks excitement in the boys,
But the policemen look annoyed,
P'rhaps these are ones they should avoid.

Got chased last night
From men with truncheons dressed in hats.
We di'n't do that much wrong,
Still ran away though for the laugh.
Just for the laugh.

Please just stop talking,
'Coz they won't find us if you do.
Oh, those silly boys in blue.
Well, they won't catch me and you.

Have you been drinking, son?
You don't look old enough to me.
I'm sorry, officer,
Is there a certain age you're s'posed to be?
'Coz nobody told me.

And up rolls the riot van
And these lads just wind the coppers up.
They ask why they don't catch proper crooks.
They get their address and names took,
But they couldn't care less.

Thrown in the riot van
And all the coppers kicked him in
And there was no way he could win,
Just had to take it on the chin.

Alex Turner

A Farmer in the City

I've just sat through the Scott Walker documentary, 30 Century Man for the second time, this time to see whether my opinion had changed at all, from mild curiosity to active enthusiasm, but I'm afraid it will be a while before I can say for sure. He's managed to remain a total musical enigma, and I'm completely lost for words about how to describe him, even after listening to the sentiments of David Bowie, Marc Almond, Radiohead, Sting, Jarvis Cocker, and Damon Albarn. Surely they can't all be wrong? Go here and turn your speakers up all the way, then let me know what you think.

Hitchens and Fry Debate Blasphemy

Yesterday's joke came from, predictably, a Christopher Hitchens debate. But this wasn't any old Hitchens debate, dear reader. Oh, no! This was a debate held at the Hay Festival 2005 between Hitchens and a certain Mr Stephen Fry. How these things come full circle! I use the word 'debate', however, quite wrongly. It is, in reality, a discussion, or an exchange of ideas. Hitchens and Fry see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and it came at a time amidst the decisive months leading up to the blasphemy legislation that forbade "incitement to religious hatred", and so centers on religion. Note, that this comes before the publication of god is not Great, and so you hear the formulation of Hitchens ideas, rather than the polished, road-hardened article itself. It's entertaining to the extreme, and the ninety minutes go remarkably quickly. Both men could not have sparred more eloquently. Hitchens has a lot of it, to tell the truth, and at one point he's actually heckled, "Can you let Stephen speak, please?". It's a delight. But my personal highlight came in the closing minutes when the organizer, Joan Bakewell handed the microphone into the audience for questions, the first of which attacked Hitchens for living in the United States, and becoming "one of the leading apologists for the United States of America", to which Hitchens replied:

It was beautifully phrased, and I think it should be taken as a comment. I couldn't improve upon it myself. I certainly couldn't improve on it if I was you ... And since everybody knows what you mean I'll take it as a contribution ... and fuck you.

Much to the delight of the audience. Unfortunately, there is no video of the exchange floating about, but the audio is almost as good. It's all available here to download, or here on YouTube.

Idioteque

Indulge yourself. You can't find this on YouTube, folks. The guys at NBC do their best to maintain copyright of this stuff, so feel privileged to have such a well-endowed host.

For Jim

She lives with a broken man:
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns.

He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties,
But gravity always wins.

(Let him sing, for fuck's sake!)

Oldest Joke in the World

Adam says to Eve: "stand back, we don't know how big this is going to get."

Grinning

In a moment of self-flagellation, I googled my own name, as you do. It paid off. It turns out that I was the subject of one of Bryan Appleyard's lengthiest posts on his blog, Thought Experiments, in mid-June of last year. It concerns a comment I made regarding Scientology and conventional religion. I've always grown irritable if someone suggests that Scientology is totally ridiculous. Is it? Why is it any more ridiculous than Christianity? Bryan praises my point and somehow manages to construct his whole argument around my use of the term "bullshit". I'm sorry to say, though, that he's grown wont to jump to the defense of Christianity at every available opportunity; lately, he's been using his column for the Sunday Times as a platform for the promulgation of tier-two theological arguments. He is, however, a fantastic journalist, and a personal mentor. For a masterclass in the art of the interview, read his piece on Monica Bellucci, but before you do, check out what he said about me.

Communtiy

There's been a flurry of comments on this blog lately: seven from my last six posts. That must establish some kind of record. Perhaps I'm getting the hang of this blog thing at last. Someone asked me recently how many hits I get, and I can tell you, dear reader, that about a hundred unique visitors come here on a fairly regular basis, so you're part of an elite community. Be proud. Ill keep writing.

No Surprises Please

It's been five years since I last listened to this recording. I'm in tears. Why doesn't he sing like this anymore?

Joy Division - The Documentary

Yesterday's quatrain was brought to my attention through the excellent documentary by Britain's finest documentarian, Grant Gee. He's infamous on this blog for his integral hand in the Radiohead documentary, Meeting People Is Easy, possibly the most ambitious film project I've ever seen, and for his recent account of the music and times of Scott Walker, that enigma of sound who inspires such greats as Radiohead themselves, in 30th Century Man. The latter follows the structure of a more generic documentary, talking heads and the like, which similarly forms the basis for Joy Division, recounting the rise and relapse of the band from Manchester that culminated in the tragic suicide of their epilepsy-ridden frontman, Ian Curtis.

His widow, Deborah Curtis wrote a memoir entitled, Touching From A Distance, which retells the story of their shaky and impromptu marriage that became a significant, destabilizing feature in Curtis' life. Unfortunately, Deborah declined any involvement in Gee's project, presumably for the active resentment she must still harbour for Curtis' love interest, Annik Honore (who does appear in the documentary), who unintentionally became extraordinarily divisive in Curtis' life. Annik, a sophisticated French journalist and promoter, was more than just an awe-beguiled groupie; it's clear that Curtis was deeply reciprocal in her love. Indeed, it was only she who warned the other members of the band that Ian's lyrics were deeply melancholic and sad, and importantly, deeply personal; only after Curtis' suicide did the other people involved in his life take the time to study and reflect upon his lyrics.

The documentary itself is highly emotionally charged, relying solely upon the memories of the people around Curtis at the time to recollect the events. Whilst Deborah Curtis struggled to bring up Ian's son in Salford, Joy Division became something the band members could never have foreseen.

In the creative film adaptation of Ian Curtis' life, Control, also released in 2007, the screenwriters struggled to capture the visceral disconnection that Curtis felt for his wife, and the pains it brought him to covert Annik. We now know that Curtis was obviously a manic-depressive, alternating between two states. Throughout his life you can witness these forms of division, from his clear intellect to his narrow minded naivety, from his aggressively outward stage persona to his penetrating introspection. His diagnosis of epilepsy polarized his psychology yet further by demanding a rigid discipline be applied to his daily life. It's equally clear that he was in love with both Deborah and Annik, and it was this dialectic that he found so heart-wrenching, leading to his first suicide attempt, and to his untimely death on May 18th 1980.

And so, I bring you a further recommendation, dear reader, although the word 'recommendation' sounds too mild. I press you to watch Gee's piece; it's masterful. I leave you with lyrics taken from the song that became Curtis' epitaph, Love Will Tear US Apart:

Why is the bedroom so cold?
Turned away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect run so dry?
Yet there's still this appeal
That we've kept through our lives.
Love.
Love will tear us apart, again.

_ O _ _ I _ I _ I O _

Weary inside, now our heart's lost forever.

Can't replace the fear or the thrill of the chase,

Each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings,

Open then shut, then slammed in our face.

~~ Ian Curtis. Joy Division.

Evolution of the Eye

I know which side of the fence I'm on. Click.

Here I'm Alive

Thom Yorke often gets asked why people think of him as miserable, and I refuse to accept his repeated retort of having "one of those voices". It's due in part to the documentary masterpiece by Grant Gee, Meeting People Is Easy, but it's more so due to interviews like this one, conducted in the wake of Kid A, an album that I now consider to be the greatest album ever recorded. It took me almost three years to come to this realisation, and it's a position I feel no inclination to defend; those who disagree with me have the right to be wrong. Whilst watching the above interview (intercut with footage of a live show in London c.2000) I've become quite sentimentally nostalgic, reliving the days of discovering Radiohead for the first time: listening, listening, listening. Street Spirit. Lucky. There There. Fake Plastic Trees. How to Disappear Completely. Before I start to sound even more like Mr Yorke, I'll quote Thom from the opening minutes:

Two years writing block. Writing stuff, throwing it away. It's like losing someone you love. I can't really say where it came from. The idea was that there was no plan, at all. We just had lots of ideas - half-formed ideas, and hoped that some of them would see themselves through.

A Very Private Act

I've just started playing chess once again, so I'm slightly distracted at the moment. I shan't wish to disappoint my newly-enlarged audience, courtesy of a certain Mr Nilo, so I'll keep the hooks bated for now with a video from Chris Morris' lesser-known televisual exploit, Jam. An old hero of mine, Mr Bevan once said that if you don't find Jam funny it's because you're not intelligent enough to understand it. Here's one of my favorites (besides, of course, the two-men-in-a-window scene), but if you look hard enough, it's all over YouTube.

The Road Now Travelled

I've retained a soft spot for poetry for a long time now, since I first bought my Everyman edition of the works of John Keats. The first verse in the collection, a sonnet entitled Written on the day Mr Leigh Hunt left Prison, sent shivers down my spine and I've never looked back (although it's also due in part to the relative cost of poetry publications versus fiction). Our new mentor Stephen Fry has written a terrific book on poetry, The Ode Less Travelled, and it's only now that I've come to dedicate my efforts to reading it; it contains various exercises that punctuate each chapter, encouraging you to forge poetry for yourself, mixing styles and revising your own scribbles in order to produce something close to the real thing. Indeed, he too has recognised how poetry becomes a conduit for teenage angst, yet riddled with social unease in later life due to the proliferation of the novel: a seemingly more worthy form of literature (who, for example, blushes when admitting to playing the piano at home, or painting, or gardening - but poetry?) He's a wonderful teacher who seems to have the library of written verse at his fingertips at all times, able to delve into Paradise Lost or Don Juan at will, drawing out the relevant couplet, perfectly encapsulating and demonstrating the point he wishes to make. I'm only toes deep into the book, but I'm already scratching iambs and feet onto my copy of Othello, annotating the line, dissecting the implications of pyrrhic substitution and trochaic reversal, feminine stress and spondee inversion. What a wonderful resource. For those of us besotted with language, itching to uncover more and more of a great thing, Fry's book is magnificent. Prepare yourself, dear reader, for a torrent of self-possessed verse. I fear my Moleskin notebook will be filled with poetic genius very quickly.

Georgie Dawes Again

Now that I have subscribers to my silly little YouTube page, I feel as though I must keep them happy. Anyway,here's my latest offering. I hope it gleams a smile.

Sir Ian McEwan and Others

Rediscovering Richard Dawkins' terrific website, I've been watching this uncut interview with Ian McEwan concerning atheism and humanism. McEwan has been a marvelous guide along the path of secularism for me, and I enjoy hearing him talk on this subject. He briefly touches upon it fleetingly during his conversation with Clive James, whilst also discussing his early years of adventure across the planes of Iran, ironically now a model of dogmatic autocracy. Just for your trivia box, if you look closely at the books behind McEwan at the beginning of his interview with Dawkins, you'll see a copy of Christopher Hitchens' collection of essays, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays; a book that, I'm embarrassed to say, I've so far neglected to read. Then again, why would this be surprising, as they are very old friends? Funny how I came to be followers of the two, along with Martin Amis, independently, without the knowledge of their historical connections.

Charles Darwin and the Brain

We can empathise. We can imagine how it is for others. A society run on crude Darwinian lines would be a ruthless, merciless place. Fortunately, natural selection gave us big brains. With those big brains we can plan a gentler society: the sort of society in which we would want to live. Evolution has no purpose; there's no benevolence there, no forward planning. Some people find that disturbing, but there is a better way to think about it. We, alone on Earth, have evolved to the extraordinary point where we can understand the selfish genes that shaped us. They are not models for how to behave, but the opposite. Because we are conscious of these forces we can work towards taming them. Through kindness and morality, modern medicine, charity, even paying our taxes, we can overthrow the tyranny of natural selection. Our evolved brains empower us to rebel against our selfish genes.

~~ Richard Dawkins, The Genius of Charles Darwin.

Tedious

More subversion from Mr Stewart Lee, just to kick-start your week. For the rest, visit my YouTube page.

Superbowl

Being the Superbowl, my weekly grocery shop was a blend of calmness and fury. Along with a constant scent of barbecues being fired up all around me, the roads suddenly seem so redundant, yet the supermarket was like some kind of panic station. Everybody left right and centre was buying Coke, Crisps, Pringles, Tequila, Lemonade, Bud Light, Corona, etc. I felt rather out of place with my toilet roll and toothpaste, but I pride myself on not knowing anything about American football; I've tried to enjoy it, but it's stupid, pointless, unentertaining, and highly boring. The games are far too long, and the imbeciles that actually play the game are pathetically unintelligent. A foreigner only has to experience the over-enthusiasm of pre-game tailgates to understand that the game has become a social occasion, a tradition, rather than a sporting spectacle. The Superbowl beautifully encapsulates this entire facade. I'll stick to snooker.

A Good Return

I have returned home, smelling of success and heroism. When, last Saturday, the Arizona men's swimming team fell to the pompous, revolting, wretched, vomit-inducingly rested and tapered Stanford team, the media moguls of online sports coverage asked the question, Is Stanford Invincible? It's well within my interests to do a parody of the article that raised this question but I fear for my audience. The answer, of course, is no. This weekend, equipped, ready and raring to go, we overturned the number-one-ranked Texas team, destroying them in all four relays. Inevitably, they will claim that we were more rested than they were, and, in truth, we hold a mutual respect that means we usually come together on fairly equal terms, so they'd only be fooling themselves. However, we weren't particularly jubilant in victory for we know that, come the end of the year, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Yet, having said that, it sent a stark message to the grimy, drivelling, pretentious knobs of Stanford with their ridiculous, absurd victory cheer. Unfortunately, there aren't any videos to direct you towards, but there will be more to come soon enough.