Layer 525 . . . Great Artists, Enlightenment, Zen, Dawkins and Obscurity

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In the previous blog I wrote about some of America's greatest living artists, and it seems to me I need to say a little more on this subject. The job of an artist is ultimately to raise awareness, to express, celebrate and comment on the human condition, and to bring a little (or a lot) more enlightenment into the world.

There should be no doubt that artists such as Dylan, Cohen, Springsteen and Young fulfill all of these criteria. Anyone who doubts Dylan's credentials as an artist and a poet should read Christopher Ricks' wonderful "Dylan's Visions of Sin" and Michael Gray's "Song and Dance Man - the Art of Bob Dylan", and also pay careful attention to Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man".

Anyone who questions Leonard Cohen's right to be called a great artist also ought to pay attention to his words, his poetry and his music, and then allow themselves to go "a thousand kisses deep", or simply take a walk down "boogie street".

Bruce Springsteen's art, on the other hand, is based on a very different sort of poetics, and a determination to speak to his audiences clearly and directly, without obscurity, but without being in any way patronising or underestimating their intelligence. Of course there will still be idiots like Reagan who completely fail to understand the irony in a song like "Born In The USA", but Bruce has learnt to live with this as a fact of life.

Neil Young also comments on his country and his fellow humans through songs like Ohio, Let's Impeach The President and Restless Consumer.

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/11/layer-84-music-politics-neil-young-and.html

http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwvideos/therestlessconsumer_wm.html

Neil's all-time masterpiece may well be the Sleeps With Angels album, and in particular the track "Change Your Mind", which not only has brilliant lyrics but also features scintillating, extended guitar solos which tear at the senses and wrench emotions from stony souls. Try listening to this track on decent headphones with the volume turned up in a darkened room, with or without the video on the screen -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZWPgScALU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWXy-8vNxrs&feature=fvsr

You'll need to be in it for the long run though - all 14 minutes and 55 seconds.

http://www.neilyoung.com/   -  Horse Back -  This is even longer!

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Enlightenment and Obscurity

You have to hand it to Richard Dawkins - he draws attention to some pretty important stuff and gets people talking:

What is the proper place for religion in Britain's public life?

Britain became engulfed in a culture war last week as secularists and believers clashed over the role of religion in public life. Even the Queen intervened to defend the Church of England's role. Richard Dawkins, whose survey about Christianity in the UK ignited the row, defends his position on secularism, faith and tolerance in conversation with Will Hutton of the Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/religion-secularism-atheism-hutton-dawkins

Once again Will Hutton ventures into territory he's not really qualified to have strong opinions about. It's not clear from this article that he really understands secularism.

On the other hand, Oxzen has issues with Dawkins' disbelief in what some of us are calling spiritual intelligence. He's not the only one who fails or refuses to understand this crucial intelligence. Most people do.

Here's what Oxzen said in Layer 12:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-12-spiritual-intelligence.html

Key concepts for developing spiritual intelligence can be found in schemes of work with a sharp focus on human values. These are values that are subscribed to by humanists and by people of no particular religion, as well as by members of the many different faith communities throughout the world – values that give meaning to life and help to direct our most positive beliefs and actions. They are values that help to make our families, our communities and our societies better places to live in for all of us. Without such values we descend into strife, conflict, selfishness and aggression.


The following list is a summary of the key words and concepts we need to understand as part of a curriculum for human values and spiritual intelligence.


TRUTH
Curiosity, Equality, Honesty, Integrity, Intuition, Optimism, Truthfulness, Self-knowledge,
Reasoning


LOVE
caring, compassion, friendship, forgiveness, generosity, helpfulness, joy, kindness, tolerance, sharing, sympathy, patience


PEACE
calmness, contentment, dignity, discipline, happiness, honesty, humility, understanding, patience, reflection, self-confidence, self-control, self-discipline, self-respect, optimism


RIGHT CONDUCT
Contentment, Courage, Dependability, Duty, Ethics, Gratitude, Good behaviour, Healthy living, Helpfulness, Leadership, Initiative, Unity, Respect, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Self-confidence, Self-sufficiency, Simplicity, Perseverance 


NON-VIOLENCE
appreciation of others, brotherhood / sisterhood, citizenship, compassion, concern for all life, consideration, cooperation, unwillingness to hurt, equality, forgiveness, global awareness, good manners, loyalty, social justice, service to others, respect for people and property, unity, universal love, collaboration

My feeling is - without having read his book on science, religion and atheism - that Dawkins and his ilk set up a false dichotemy with God on the one side and total disbelief in any sort of spiritual intelligence on the other . . . . . .  whereas most people neither have any definite belief in God nor any disbelief in the 'spiritual'. This would appear to be a perfect example of the wisdom of crowds - that the majority of people believe there is something within most of us that directs us towards the values and virtues listed above - in the broad categories of truth, love, peace, right conduct and non-violence. The question is not whether spiritual intelligence exists, but where do we sit on a continuum that goes from high spiritual intelligence to low spiritual intelligence?

The two most spiritual words I know are lovingkindness & enlightenment. Professor Dawkins has a problem if he can't understand or reckon with these key Buddhist concepts. I commend him in a spirit of lovingkindness for his stance in favour of atheism, but I'd recommend him to pay greater attention to Buddhist philosophy and metaphysics.

Enlightenment? Don't know what it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(spiritual)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensho

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Layer 524 . . . Bruce Springsteen, Wrecking Ball, Angry Patriotism, Optimism, Rocking, Protesting, Jingoism and Taking Care of Our Own

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This piece is an appreciation of a man whose music is brilliant, and whose art stands alongside the best ever to come out of America, alongside that of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. His stage shows are still the most dynamic of all time - right up there with the Stones and the Who at their very best. The fact that he's willing and able to follow in the footsteps of the great blue-collar and overtly political songwriters of the past - Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger - is the icing on this particular cake. He's also steeped in the blues and can sing and play the blues as well as the great black songwriters and performers. He also happens to have a sense of perspective as well as a sense of humour.

Bruce Springsteen: 'What was done to my country was un-American'

The Boss explains why there is a critical, questioning and angry patriotism at the heart of his new album Wrecking Ball

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/17/bruce-springsteen-wrecking-ball?

by Fiachra Gibbons

At a Paris press conference on Thursday night, Bruce Springsteen was asked whether he was advocating an armed uprising in America. He laughed at the idea, but that the question was even posed at all gives you some idea of the fury of his new album Wrecking Ball.

Indeed, it is as angry a cry from the belly of a wounded America as has been heard since the dustbowl and Woody Guthrie, a thundering blow of New Jersey pig iron down on the heads of Wall Street and all who have sold his country down the swanny. Springsteen has gone to the great American canon for ammunition, borrowing from folk, civil war anthems, Irish rebel songs and gospel. The result is a howl of pain and disbelief as visceral as anything he has ever produced, that segues into a search for redemption: "Hold tight to your anger/ And don't fall to your fears … Bring on your wrecking ball."

"I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream," Springsteen told the conference, where the album was aired for the first time. It was written, he claimed, not just out of fury but out of patriotism, a patriotism traduced.

"What was done to our country was wrong and unpatriotic and un-American and nobody has been held to account," he later told the Guardian. "There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism."

The tone is set from the start with . . . We Take Care of Our Own – a Born in the USA for our times –  sung with mocking irony through clenched teeth by a heart that still wants it to be true. "From the shotgun shack to the Superdome/ There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home." It is a typical Springsteen appeal to a common decency beyond the civil war he sees sapping America.

"Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire."

Springsteen, 62, says he is not afraid of how the album will be received in election-year America: "The temper has changed. And people on the streets did it. Occupy Wall Street changed the national conversation – the Tea Party had set it for a while. The first three years of Obama were under them.

"Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no push back at all saying this was outrageous – a basic theft that struck at the heart of what America was about, a complete disregard for the American sense of history and community … In Easy Money the guy is going out to kill and rob, just like the robbery spree that has occurred at the top of the pyramid – he's imitating the guys on Wall Street. An enormous fault line cracked the American system right open whose repercussion we are only starting to be feel.

"Nobody had talked about income inequality in America for decades – apart from John Edwards – but no one was listening. But now you have Newt Gingrich talking about 'vulture capitalism' – Newt Gingrich! – that would not have happened without Occupy Wall Street."

You tend get a better class of comment on Bruce features:

kjeeThis a 62 year old musician saying these things.. and all power to him.Can we have a few more 23 year old musicians saying these things as well?

RonnieWouldBruuuuuce!!!Springsteen fucking rules.

BeazleThe greatest American white live act there has ever been and one hell of a genuinely caring guy.

6ofclubsThe boss, not only a great artist, but a great man in general standing up for everything that is decent and just in the world.He is what I would like to think is a true American Partiot.The man is a hero for many differant generations.

ChristinuvielWhat an utter legend! By far the best live act I've seen, and someone whose music is full of intelligence, passion and talent. It's always worth listening to what Bruce has to say, and as others have pointed out, his is true patriotism, wanting what will really help the people of your country and others. Look forward to hearing this album in its entirety, though it will be sad to hear Big Man Clarence's sax for the last time on it.

DontCallMeShirleyCan't wait for this album.The Boss is at his best when he goes political. Still hasn't lost anything, even at 62. I actually felt a little deflated coming out of his concert a while back - I knew that no matter who I would see play live in my lifetime, nothing could ever top that.

stfcbobResponse to kjee, As kjee says why haven`t we got dozens of angry bands/artists making songs like this ?Bruce Springsteen is a legend.

gingerjonI'm going to join the sycophantic parade ... Springsteen is angrier, better informed, more erudite and altogether rockier than artists forty years his junior.

cryddaThe greatest live performer rock has ever known and one of its best song writers.Long may he keep on rocking and protesting.

mmmmbeerThese kind of songs speak to me and for me and I don't care who trolls. Ry Cooder has recently released a similar polemic (Pull Up Some Dust) and it all adds to the groundswell.

Bruce Springsteen is not afraid to use the 'p' word (patriotism) either and I think he's right to do so. Patriotism is exactly about 'taking care of our own' and it's patriotic to care for your citizens. It's the antithesis of patriotism to grab as much wealth as you can, to lobby, bribe and intimidate your way to riches and wave a flag as you secrete your wealth offshore. Here in Britain we are less comfortable with outward shows of patriotism - Samuel Johnson refers - but maybe it's about time we took the flag away from the fascists and gave it to the Occupy group.

nattybumpoSpringsteen has always been political and his message has never been needed more. With muppets like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich running to be President; his voice could help The USA to escape from the perils of the new type of Reaganomics they offer.It's a shame we can't overturn the moral vacuum we now have in this country with someone of his stature. Someone who could articulate in verse the election lies of "The NHS Is Safe In My Hands"; or "Let's Fuck Over The Disabled"!In fact many Government policies would make excellent song lyrics; all we need now is for someone to add a decent tune.........

jamesdarWhy is it the guys protesting against the effect of the Bush years are the older ones (Springsteen, Neil Young on Living with War)? What happened to rock and pop for rebellious youth?

fortyrunnerSpringsteen is the single most consistent artist for nearly 40 years.
The Stones, The Who, Dylan, McCartney etc had a golden period of maybe 10-15 years. Springsteen has continued to knock out amazing material in a variety of genres and his passion is still as strong.e is also the best live performer I have ever seen - amazing stuff.

aylestoneboy1Why isn't there a British musician saying these things about the horrific state that this country is in? A minority government destroying the NHS and rejigging the educational system with limited opposition. The welfare state is being killed off.

This is a country where clearly the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Culturally Sir Julian Fellowes and Etonian actors dominate. Adele complains about paying tax.

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Jingoism is no answer to England's ebbing power

From the EU to football and the Falklands, England must abandon its memories of empire to survive in a changing world

by Billy Bragg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/jingoism-england-ebbing-power

Jingo is the default reaction of the English ruling class when they feel their interests are under threat. Unsure about our true position in a changing world, they hold on to the union flag like a comfort blanket, wrapping themselves in it to enhance their sense of importance.

While the Scots seem confident about their future, a Little Englander mentality is in danger of taking hold south of the border, in which every external challenge is perceived as a threat.

The rattling of the old jingoistic sword is a sure sign that the English ruling class feels its power ebbing away, torn between a European super-state, the aspirations of the Celtic fringe and demographic changes within England itself. Whether the English can awake from their long dream of empire and use this opportunity to renew their sense of identity remains to be seen.

Unless and until we throw off our imperial pretensions and begin to relate to our neighbours as equals, joining with them in creating new networks of active devolution and shared sovereignty, we English are in danger of becoming an insular people, jealously guarding the right to make our own laws while increasingly unable to control our destiny.

1111 comments on this piece so far.

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Layer 355 . . . SATs, Assessment, Gove, Free Schools and Academies, Young, Springsteen, Fry and Wagner

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Year 6 Stress

Children like being tested, they just don't like Sats

Really? Shouldn't this say children like learning and achieving, and having their achievements recognised?

A survey of 1,000 children carried out by the Wellcome Trust shows that children are surprisingly positive about assessment, but they don't think Sats are the best method

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/21/sats-survey-children-positive

A significant new report published today by the Wellcome Trust and seen exclusively by Education Guardian points out that the Sats debate has never canvassed opinions from those at the heart of the matter – children. The trust commissioned academics at Queen's University Belfast to rectify that, carrying out an extensive survey polling 1,000 children, plus parents, on their views of how key stage 2 assessment takes place in primary school.

While the report shows overwhelming support from both children and parents for primary school assessment, it records a strong preference for non-Sats testing.

"Children are more sophisticated than we often give them credit for: the survey results show that they understand why they need assessment, but they also understand the difference between a test that simply measures their ability, and one that gives them feedback and helps them learn."

In the survey, 95% of students said science assessment was "useful", but only 10% said Sats were the best method for finding out how well they were doing in the subject. The reason for that disparity, according to the Wellcome research, was that children liked tests that give them feedback and a consequent chance to improve, but they didn't associate those benefits with Sats.

"Kids get no individual feedback with Sats – just a mark. The tests are not about individuals – and our research showed that children know this, and they know it's not very good," says Bell.

Another concern flagged up in the Wellcome report is the burden placed on children to perform. The researchers highlight one child's comments in the survey that Sats "make you less confident because there is a lot of pressure".

That is a real concern, says Bell. "Schools know that Sats can have a huge effect on their ranking, so many put significant effort into ensuring that the measuring of their kids on Sats day goes well. But it just brings more pressure on kids, and all that time spent doing revision means schools end up losing the richness of the curriculum because Sats dominate everything."

The report also recorded the "largely negative" impact of Sats on children's home life, with year 6 and 7 pupils reporting "feeling stressed or nervous, being made fun of or bullied over their marks, and even talking of assessment causing break-ups between friends". One year 6 child admitted: "My family push me too much and my friends get all nervous and angry and don't want to be friends anymore."

The Wellcome report concludes that children know the value of assessment, but that it makes them stressed and they would prefer it to be broader, including investigations, projects, presentations, and end-of-topic (rather than end-of-year) testing. Bell is now sending the findings out to policymakers, including those involved in the current curriculum review, as well as teachers and education ministers, hoping to bring about change.

"It's not a case of throwing Sats out completely, but designing them more carefully so they're testing what we want to be testing – individuals," he says. "The current system makes pupils stressed, there's too much pressure on producing particular results. We need to remember that we are dealing with children, who need support and help."

Pardon? After all that's said in the report - it's bleeding perverse to say that SATs should continue, rather than being scrapped in favour of proper tracking systems that make use of formative assessment backed up by a certain amount of in-school testing.

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Why I oppose free schools and academies

The coalition government's education policy is incompatible with the basic principles of the Liberal Democrats

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/libdemconference-freeschools-academies

by Peter Downes

The academies bill was rushed through parliament in July with a speed and urgency normally reserved for anti-terrorist legislation.

The substance of the act we now have on the statute book is potentially a very significant threat to the stability, fairness and viability of our educational system.

Gove's educational vision is based on a number of fallacies. I want to concentrate on just five.

First, he is very keen to liberate schools from "local authority control". Local authorities do not "control" schools. They used to.

It is the head and governors who make the vast majority of the decisions as to how the school functions. The LA is there to provide a whole range of services and support, including: curriculum advice and challenge;
coordination of admissions; and the cost-effective provision of enough school places for children coming through the system.

Clearly some LAs perform these functions more effectively than others but there is no justification for dismantling a structure that has an essential and invaluable role.

The greatest interference in schools today comes not from local authorities but from central government: a highly prescriptive national curriculum and shelf-loads of guidance; an oppressive inspection regime; an obsession with targets and putting schools into categories; and a never-ending stream of education acts and hundreds of regulations.

Gove's accusatory finger of excessive control should be pointed at central not local government.

The second fallacy is that there needs to be a massive upheaval in the school system because of parental dissatisfaction with schools as they currently function. This is simply not true. The latest DCSF survey of parental views on the schools their children attend shows that 94% of parents are extremely satisfied, very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the school their children attend. A very small minority have serious reservations. These need to be addressed, but there is no widespread demand for schools to be revolutionised.

An Ipsos/Mori poll recently reported that 96% of parents want their children to go to a good local schools within the local authority family.

There is no popular support for a root and branch reform on the scale envisaged by the academies act.

Fallacy number three is that changing the structure of the school system raises standards. The idea is that you call schools by another name and re-organise them and standards will somehow rise. The academic research on pupil performance gives a different finding. Dylan Wiliam, from the London Institute of Education, says it's not the school you're in that matters, it's the classroom. So our national efforts should be focused on improving teaching and learning rather than on an expensive and distracting administrative re-structuring.

Fallacy four is the idea that academies and free schools are part of the localism agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth. I quote from the DfE website: "The Young People's Learning Agency will fund, monitor, regulate and handle complaints about academies." This isn't localism – it is a massive centralisation of our school system.

The most dangerous fallacy of all is the idea that the principles of the market place can be applied to state-funded education. "Good" schools are expected to expand; "free schools" will provide competition so that under-performing or failing schools will have to improve their performance or wither and die.

Just as the supermarket drives the corner shop out of business, so it will be with schools.

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Simon Jenkins:

Another middle-class escape tunnel parents don't want

He may see them as a way of saving children from local politics – but Gove's free schools are just a blackboard Tea Party

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/21/middle-class-escape-free-schools

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Britain's Youngest Boarders

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00txn31

Brilliant. Shocking.

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The BBC's Battle of Britain programmes continue to be superb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11022335

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Culture Corner

Neil Young: Le Noise

Neil Young's latest is frightened, confused, and a bit of an effort. All good signs, says Alexis Petridis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/23/neil-young-le-noise-cd-review

Le Noise demands more effort than some listeners might be willing to put in, but at its best, it repays that effort pretty handsomely. In that sense at least, it pretty much sums up Neil Young's entire career.

deadflowers94
Brilliant album, Neil's best since Sleeps With Angels and probably my favourite of this year.

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Bruce Springsteen: 'People thought we were gone. Finished'

Hobbled by legal wrangles, a frustrated Bruce Springsteen turned Born to Run's optimism on its head – and Darkness on the Edge of Town was born.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/23/bruce-springsteen-darkness-edge-town

Springsteen is in Toronto, where The Promise, a documentary about the making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, is receiving its world premiere at the city's film festival.

The notion of "authenticity" will always attend Springsteen, owing to his espousal of the basic human values of community and civility in tandem with material wealth, a paradox that coalesced around Darkness on the Edge of Town. Consequently, The Promise offers a valuable insight to Springsteen's motivation at a key moment in his life.

As work proceeded throughout the second half of 1977 and into 1978, Springsteen's conception for the new album hardened. He had become influenced by the film versions of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, and John Ford westerns such as The Searchers, whose themes of essentially decent men assailed by external forces resonated on a personal and increasingly political level with this shy product of working-class New Jersey. He began posing himself Big Questions: "How do you make a way through the day and still sleep at night?" "How do you carry your sins?"

"I veered towards music that I felt would speak of people's life experiences."

"Thirty five years staying connected . . . That's why I think the band continues to improve. You can't be afraid of getting old. Old is good, if you're gathering in life. Our band is good at understanding that equation."

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A Bit More of Fry and Wagner

Stephen Fry's at it again with his Wagner obsession. (see also Layer 346)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2010/sep/23/stephen-fry-wagner

You can't allow the perverted views of pseudo-intellectual Nazis to define how the world should look at Wagner.

All of us who love Wagner are familiar with another argument, where people will say: "It's too powerful, there's something wrong with music that can have that much effect." Is it earned? Is it too much? Is it manipulative? Is it unfair for music to have this unbelievable ability to make one shake in quite that way? There are those who disapprove of Wagner purely on that aesthetic ground.

There are those of us who "disapprove" on the grounds that there is FAR more enjoyable music available, and life's far too short to waste it on bombastic, germanic, martial bollocks like Wagner. Is it earned? Is it lovely? Is it too little? Is it pretentious twaddle? Is it mad posturing? Is it squawking, screeching, twittering tish tosh twattishness?

Perfect music (Ride of the Valkyries) for a mad murdering US Air Cav commander like Kilgore in Apocalypse Now to play loud as his Hueys bombed, rocketed and machine-gunned the shit out of Vietnamese villages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz3Cc7wlfkI&feature=player_embedded

Stephen's ambition is to produce, at enormous expense, an animated version of The Ring.

Not a cheesy cartoon, but a truly serious animated Ring. Because – let's face it – in the last five minutes you've got a Valkyrie getting on a horse, galloping into a flaming funeral pyre then being covered by the river Rhine, while the palace of the gods crumbles into dust in the background.

Think what you could do with beautifully and properly presented animation. So my ambition is to one day meet a Russian oligarch billionaire who has a passion, because it would cost a huge amount of money. But wouldn't that be fantastic?

Er . . . no. That would be a fucking huge waste of money that could be far better spent on far more worthwhile projects and causes. Best keep those fantasies of Valkyries, galloping horses, flaming funeral pyres and palaces of the gods crumbling into dust right there in your head, Stephen dearest.
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Layer 177 Bruce, Pete Seeger, Tom Joad, Social Mobility, Aspirations and Education.

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Broooooooce!

I forgot to mention that B.Springsteen Esq was in London this summer. This guy is so great in so many ways, it's impossible to overstate how amazing he is. For those not yet up to speed, his excellent website gives a flavour of the man, and of the E Street Band.

I found the following words on the site, by the man himself, of course:

"As Pete [Seeger] and I traveled to Washington for President Obama's Inaugural Celebration, he told me the entire story of "We Shall Overcome". How it moved from a labor movement song and with Pete's inspiration had been adopted by the civil rights movement. That day as we sang "This Land Is Your Land" I looked at Pete, the first black president of the United States was seated to his right, and I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. My own growing up in the sixties in towns scarred by race rioting made that moment nearly unbelievable and Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. He was so happy that day, it was like, Pete, you outlasted the bastards, man! . . . It was so nice. At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing, like fifteen degrees and Pete was there; he had his flannel shirt on. I said, man, you better wear something besides that flannel shirt! He says, yeah, I got my longjohns on under this thing.

And I asked him how he wanted to approach "This Land Is Your Land". It would be near the end of the show and all he said was, "Well, I know I want to sing all the verses, I want to sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, about private property and the relief office." I thought, of course, that's what Pete's done his whole life. He sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we'd like to leave out of our history as a people. At some point Pete Seeger decided he'd be a walking, singing reminder of all of America's history. He'd be a living archive of America's music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. He would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of the people, and despite Pete's somewhat benign, grandfatherly appearance, he is a creature of a stubborn, defiant, and nasty optimism. Inside him he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly facade and it won't let him take a step back from the things he believes in. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself. Pete Seeger still sings all the verses all the time, and he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light toward our better angels and the horizon where the country we've imagined and hold dear we hope awaits us.

Now on top of it, he never wears it on his sleeve. He has become comfortable and casual in this immense role. He's funny and very eccentric. I'm gonna bring Tommy out, and the song Tommy Morello and I are about to sing I wrote in the mid-nineties and it started as a conversation I was having with myself. It was an attempt to regain my own moorings. Its last verse is the beautiful speech that Tom Joad whispers to his mother at the end of The Grapes of Wrath.

"Wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there."

Well, Pete has always been there.

For me that speech is always aspirational. For Pete, it's simply been a way of life. The singer in my song is in search of the ghost of Tom Joad. The spirit who has the guts and toughness to carry forth, to fight for and live their ideals.

I'm happy to report that spirit, the very ghost of Tom Joad is with us in the flesh tonight. He'll be on this stage momentarily, he's gonna look an awful lot like your granddad who wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad could kick your ass.

This is for Pete . . ."


When I read that piece I assumed that Bruce had written it for his concert programme or for a newspaper – that he'd written it after much thought and several drafts, perhaps. In fact it's a transcription of his unscripted spoken introduction to a performance of “The Ghost of Tom Joad”. Beautiful, warm, loving, inspiring, appreciative words – not a single one sounding false or out of place. Genius.
View the recording of it on the website under BRUCE'S INTRODUCTION AT PETE SEEGER'S 90th BIRTHDAY CONCERT :

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html

Also on the site, amongst tons of really good stuff, is a video of Bruce and the band performing the opening song at the Hyde Park gig: London Calling. Fantastic guitar work on this. Find a big amp and plug it into your computer.

This is a classic song, written by Joe Strummer. I wrote about it last August in Layer 71. It's very similar to Bruce's song, Born In The USA, in that people who don't really listen to lyrics seem to assume that both these songs are somehow celebrations of London and the USA. Duh!

You should also check out on the website:

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S APPEARANCE ON "THE DAILY SHOW"
Bruce Springsteen appeared on the "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Thursday, March 19. View Bruce's interview and performance of "Working On A Dream" here, and be sure to visit www.thedailyshow.com.


THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD
As he did in L.A. last year, the extraordinary Tom Morello joined Bruce and the Band for "The Ghost of Tom Joad." Here, with Tom's kind permission, is an extended excerpt.


[Incredible stuff – never seen a guitar solo quite like it.]


"THE RIVER" AT GLASTONBURY July 4

On Saturday, June 27, Bruce and the Band played to their largest audience since East Berlin in 1988. A total of 135,000 people at the Glastonbury Festival watched a remarkable and emotion packed set. Here is the full version of one of many highlights, The River. The flags you see waving were held high by fans from the beginning of the show to the end. The mist you see behind Bruce is the steam on stage bouncing off of his back. For everyone there it is was a night to remember always.

The River

"I come from down in the valley

Where mister, when you're young,

They bring you up to do

What your daddy done . . .”


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Social Mobility

Bruce has written many songs about working class and blue collar communities, speaking from the heart about people he knows and cares about.

Here's a couple of extracts from a recent Guardian editorial on social mobility:

"Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. Britain is an unequal society. The elite look after their own. Poverty traps people from one generation to another. Government action and huge expenditure have at best stopped social division worsening. Encouraging aspiration is hard. And these conclusions, from yesterday's excellent report on access to the professions, sit alongside some startling individual facts.

It is uncomfortable to be told such truths; behind its modern veneer, British society is determined by who you know, and who your parents are. Some things have improved, of course. There is more gender equality (although not enough); more racial equality, too. But effort and merit are not rewarded as they should be. In some regards, poor children born in 1958 had better prospects than those born five decades on. This was, of course, one of the problems that Labour won power to tackle. The conclusion of the panel led by a former Labour cabinet minister, Alan Milburn, is that the party has failed.

What went wrong?

The corporate world needs to change; so do many professions, most of all the law, whose training structure could not have been more perfectly designed to protect privilege.

The report is refreshing in its refusal to draw political dividing lines, or blame underinvestment, when there is no more money to be had. It points out that to help people is not to dumb down society, or disadvantage the bright. Perhaps it shies away from the biggest source of inequality of all, Britain's addiction to private education; since no government in a liberal society would abolish it, the imbalances it creates must be fought in other ways. The cries from the right at the Charity Commission's attempt to force obligations on independent schools are telling. The report calls on the government to maintain education budgets, and stresses that what happens before 16, rather than after it, matters most – both challenges for a possible Cameron government. But this is a report for the future; the next government, from whichever party, will learn from it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/22/all-party-social-mobility-report

This social mobility thing is very interesting. Whilst it's obviously a social evil that the kids who start life with the most advantages, including private tutors/coaches/crammers, get the best opportunities in tertiary education, it's annoying that the underlying belief in this debate is that anyone who doesn't even get to university is a failure in life. There's an unspoken assumption that to be a tradesman or a small businessman or anyone below the level of 'manager' in an organisation is to be an also-ran in the rat race.

This is patently crazy when you see the numbers of miserable, striving idiots and bastards in the high status jobs and professions, and compare them with the numbers of people who enjoy their lives whilst working in low-status jobs on relatively low incomes.

What's missing from this entire debate is any understanding of what really comprises a proper education and whether or not young people are developing all their intelligences and learning to be creative, imaginative people who live enjoyable and well-balanced lives. What's the point of being alive unless you're finding fulfillment and enjoyment?

The Guardian's editorial is called “Ambition Is Everything”. One of the reasons young people lack the ambition to go to the elite universities and join the prestigious professions is the sheer effort required from their particular starting points. There's also an issue about having to give up their own sense of identity in order to join those particular clubs, and the sacrifices not being worth it anyway.

It's fine to campaign for more working class kids to join the professions, to become politicians, etc, but can we please stop assuming that only middle class people can live valid and fulfilling lives?

“What happens before 16, rather than after it, matters most” should be amended to “What happens before 12, not after, matters most”. Enabling kids to become confident, lively, thoughtful, curious, energetic, enquiring, imaginative, creative learners for life is what matters most. This government has done more than any to turn the clock backwards and ensure this doesn't happen, thanks to its beliefs in “traditional” modes of schooling and education, where all that matters is 'academic' success, albeit on a non-level playing field.

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More worthwhile articles to check out this week:

Simon Jenkins on swine flu and scaremongering:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/21/swine-flu-fear-deaths


Larry Elliott on cutting spending versus raising taxes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/21/uk-debt-fiscal-cuts-tax

“Given this background it seems perverse that the current debate is all about which bits of spending should be cut rather than which taxes should be raised. There are plenty of ways to raise revenues. Darling could delay the introduction of the 50% tax rate but lower the threshhold; he could prevent corporate tax avoidance by taxing companies on their turnover rather than their profits; he could deter speculative holdings of property through a land value tax. Is the public ready for this? Almost certainly not. But it is probably not ready either for a bigger squeeze on public spending than Margaret Thatcher ever managed.”

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Nick Clegg had this excellent column in the paper this week:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/21/political-reform-liberal-democrats

"For years, banks took insane risks with other people's money. Yet beyond some regulatory tinkering, big decisions to bring sanity to the sector have been ducked. There has been no action to split up the biggest banks or protect high street customers from the risks of casino investment banking, and no blueprint for more balanced economic development.

In banking and politics alike we have the bare minimum: lowest common denominator answers from a government without the imagination or zeal for the radical changes needed. Scratch beneath the limited rule changes and easy rhetoric, and a dismal picture of business as usual emerges. With one eye on the end of the parliamentary session, Labour and the Conservatives have played for time. Only the Liberal Democrats have remained outspoken in support of reform. The despair millions of people feel about an out-of-control banking system and an out-of-touch political elite will only deepen once they realise that neither of the establishment parties has any intention of putting them back in their place.

It is easy to understand the resistance to reform from the Conservatives. Maintenance of the status quo has always been the party's hallmark. David Cameron and George Osborne have highlighted a few eye-catching proposals – abolishing the FSA or cutting back quangos – which give the impression of change; but they leave vested interests in the City and Westminster intact.

Labour, however, was supposed to be a party of progress and reform.

The Conservatives will never challenge the way in which money and power are distributed. It is a Westminster stitch-up from which they hope to be the main beneficiary. But it is a betrayal of people's hopes for a different future that a Labour government has become so conservative."

Just have a read of the whole piece.

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A song about money, power, property, entitlement, inequality, and hopes for a better future:

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign that tried to stop me
That sign was painted – it said private property,
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie
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Layer 172 Young & McGuinn, Working for the Teachers, Working for the Government.

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Neil Young is a monster. A great, lurching, raucous bear of a man. Headlining at Glastonbury this evening he ended his set with an amazing version of 'A Day In The Life'. Where the hell did that come from? He made this Beatles classic - this Sergeant Pepper climax - rock and roll in a way the four moptops would never have dreamed of. He blasted and crashed his way through it, ending in a cacophony of noise, with the strings of his black Gibson totally busted and broken. That's something I've never seen. I've seen guitars that were beaten up, smashed and dead, but this was something quite different. A guitar that was still intact, only with all its strings snapped and zapped.

Having watched Neil's power and emotion and originality it was almost impossible to deal with the rest of the TV coverage of today's acts at Glastonbury – a horrible bunch of derivative prats wailing and whining their way through their 'original' compositions – every single tune instantly forgettable, as were the performances.

Bruce Springsteen is the headline act tomorrow, and the press seems full of condescending articles proclaiming that Bruce is suddenly, somehow, COOL! In his 60th year the tossers who inhabit Planet Rock these days have seemingly latched on to the fact that The Boss really is the boss. How has that happened? Where was the crack that allowed reality to creep into the consciousness of these lickspittles, these cringe-making creeps? As if Bruce gives a toss what they think anyway.

Oh dear. Oh dear. A bunch of schoolkids called The White Lies just tried to perform 'Dancing In The Dark'. Not cool at all. Fine maybe for their local youth club, but surely not the nation's premier music festival, on national TV. Oh dearie me. They just did a song called Death.

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Interestingly, Roger McGuinn had name-checked the Beatles several times during his set at the Cadogan Hall, just off Sloane Square, earlier in the evening. He did a retrospective of his musical life and times, playing and singing solo, using an acoustic 7-string Martin and a beautiful electric 12-string Rickenbacker. He acknowledged the influence of the Beatles in his arrangement of Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man for The Byrds – their first monster hit. He kept referring to the 'Beatles Beat' in all his early songs and arrangements of folk tunes. Dylan gave him the lyrics for 'Ballad of Easy Rider', knowing McGuinn would Beatle them for the film. He ended his set with a magnificent version of Eight Miles High. Excellent.

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Prior to the concert I'd had to drag my old friend J out of the panini bar where he'd taken refuge from the Sloanes. Initially he refused to budge, claiming he was too tired to go back out into the heat of the evening and the weirdness of the streets. However, after I'd made it clear there was no way I was staying in a soulless bloody sandwich bar when I was desperate for a pint of decent ale he decided to tag along to the pub we managed to stumbled upon a few streets away where we had portions of chicken cassoulet - a two for a tenner deal. The beer was excellent.

Chelsea is bonkers. Straight out of the tube, which had transported me from the real world to the Emerald City via the circle line/whirlwind, I came across a huge black Jag limo driven by a gorgeous chauffeuse wearing black gloves and a miniskirt. Not too many of those in the East End . . .

J, meanwhile, on the other side of the square, outside the Peter Jones department store, had been practically knocked off the pavement by several flunkeys carrying rolls of fabric from the store out to parked limos in which rich old biddies were sitting, waiting to examine the wares.

By the way, according to J, who's of the faith, it's impossible for Jewish people to catch swine flu, since it's not Kosher. On the other hand, gefilte fish flu is apparently causing havoc, and as for the chicken noodle flu epidemic . . .

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Martin Shaw was on Desert Island Discs this morning. His choice of music was complete pants, but this is what he said about his education:

“I loathed school. I had the impression I was working for the teachers – not for myself. There were only two enlightened teachers. The rest were idiots, and why would I work for them?”

As I said in Layer 171, we need to “agree on how children should get access to the best and most relevant curriculum, and how they should learn.”

• Why are so many teachers 'idiots' – whatever that might mean?

• Is it right that children should feel they're not doing things for their own benefit, only for the teacher, the school, the LA, the government, etc?

• Why do so many children loathe school?

• How much ability and talent is under-developed and wasted because children aren't allowed to travel their own pathways, on their own learning journeys?

It's a complete outrage that children have been badgered and bored by teachers in the name of 'driving up standards', and certainly have not been working and learning for themselves. In a word, they've been USED. And abused.

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Martin Shaw also spoke about “Yearning for something outside the physical”.

It's also a matter of needing, not just yearning. Does anyone seriously doubt that humans need to connect with the metaphysical and the spiritual?

If we agree on this need to connect,

• How can we go about it?

• Does it need to involve “God”?

• How do we equip people, through education to begin their quest for the metaphysical, and become better able to engage with it?

• Do schools even attempt to do so, beyond tokenistic RE lessons and ritualistic assemblies?

• How many children leave school without even knowing the terms 'metaphysical' and 'spiritual', let alone understand what they might mean?

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Martin Shaw again -

“The great philosophers and teachers have said, Know Thyself.”

Our schools don't, by and large, give a damn about enabling children to know themselves. Where does it say in the national curriculum that children should know themselves? And so they don't get any opportunity or encouragement to look within, to meditate, to reflect, to perceive themselves through their own eyes, as well as the eyes of others. How can they be expected to understand themselves without time, opportunity or encouragement?

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From today's Guardian:

Labour to junk Tony Blair's flagship school reform

Headteachers to get more powers as era of centralised control ends.

The government is to abandon the most significant education reform of the New Labour era in order to end the centralised control of schools and grant headteachers more powers, the Guardian has learned.

In a totemic break from the Blair years, next week's education white paper will signal the end of Labour's national strategies for schools, which includes oversight of the literacy and numeracy hours in primaries. The changes will strip away centralised prescription of teaching methods and dramatically cut the use of private consultants currently employed to improve schools.

They will give schools more freedom and establish new networks of school-to-school support to help drive up standards in what will be described as a "new era of localism".

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, has masterminded the plan, which could save the government up to £100m a year on its contract with the private company Capita, which delivers the national strategies. It forms part of an efficiency drive to slim down government bureaucracy.

So there we have it. This isn't for the benefit of the children. This is to save money. What a bunch of shits. They will never, ever, admit that the national literacy strategy has been a total waste of money, time and effort. Worse than that, it's fucked up decades of hard work trying to help teachers appreciate what subtle and sensitive practices are required in order to help all children become fully literate and absolutely passionate about reading and writing.
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Layer 124 The Working Classes

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It’s obviously a zeitgeisty thing, but Radio 4 started a series on the working class today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00hkl7g

Class consciousness is definitely making a comeback in Britain. It’s surely impossible NOT to think about Us and Them when most people are feeling fucked over by the bankers and the financiers, and have become acutely aware of the fact that there’s a whole group or class of people who manage to avoid paying their fair share of taxes whilst simultaneously paying themselves phenomenal amounts of money in salaries, profits and ‘bonuses’.

No doubt many of those people work hard, but it’s not necessarily ‘work’ as we know it, Jim. And many of them only work because they feel driven to get seriously rich - like, mega rich. Many of them don’t work at all, of course, and this is also becoming clearer to many - that there’s a rentier or property-owning class who have become richer and richer on the basis of their families having bequeathed to them property and share portfolios which they pay other people to manage, whilst they themselves swan around the place and live the life of Reilly.

Not that anyone would seriously want adopt their useless and pathetic lifestyles, their parasitical and trivial existences. As someone said in the programme, even if he won the lottery he’d still want to live near his family and mates, use the same pub, and go to football at weekends.

But this is something the footloose and aspirational middle classes have difficulty understanding - ‘up there’ in the midlands and the north there are people living happy and fulfilled lives who are not driven by a restless quest for life behind suburban walls, behind electric gates, thinking that’s where happiness and contentment lie.

You can’t buy community, you can’t buy lifelong friends and a loyal extended family. Money doesn’t bring happiness, especially if it’s used in ways that cut you off from those who bring joy and friendship into your life.

Of course we’d all like a year’s sabbatical and enough money to go traveling - but ultimately there has to be more to life than being idle. Prince Siddharta found meaning in life, and ultimately enlightenment, by becoming a bodhisatva and striving to serve people in need.

According to the programme:

More people now identify themselves as working class than they did 40 years ago

Engles was shocked by the conditions of the working classes in Manchester.

For many years it’s been ‘unfashionable’ to talk about class

Who now speaks for the working class? (Certainly not NuLabour)

Unfortunately they interviewed Hazel bleeding Blears, “one of the few senior politicians from a working class background”, blathering on about having a string permanently around her neck as a child. It turns out the string held a latch key. There’s quite a few of us who’d like to see the string back round her neck.

So how do people define their class? Is it about attitudes?

“There’s only one way to get money, and that’s to work,” said somebody. But that’s so not true. There are now thousands of people who live off inherited wealth. Trustafarians abound in the wealthier parts of London, for instance.

So is a working class person someone who works for a living, or someone who HAS to work for a living, because they have no choice?

There’s also the issue of identity - identification with a section of society, such as the working class, plus whether you need to work for a living.

The programme made the point that in Australia & the USA it’s different - since people there usually have a sense of being able to (and wanting to) reinvent themselves. Invariably as better off and more aspirational beings. Nobody in those places apparently wants to consider themselves as working class, let alone feels any pride in it.

The programme then focused on how change comes about in society - how working class people can fight back against poverty and exploitation. Pressure from below? Mass movements agitating for social change?

Thomas Paine - England’s greatest radical - was mentioned. "These are the times that try men's souls," declared Thomas, in his pamphlet The Crisis - and indeed they are. Are we also on the brink of a revolution? Not necessarily a revolutionary war, as such, but certainly a revolution in consciousness and political sophistication, leading to the radical economic and social changes the world desperately needs. Perhaps. Who knows where the current turmoil will lead? (see also the bits on Cameron and Chavez below)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/

Ewan McColl was name-checked by the programme, as was Anthony Burgess - a working class lad who grew up in Manchester and also went to university there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_MacColl

http://www.peggyseeger.com/ewan-maccoll
Interesting that there’s such a good section on Ewan on Peggy Seeger’s website, and a coincidence that Pete Seeger’s reputation has been boosted lately by the man himself performing at Obama’s inauguration concert (see below), and by Springsteen’s brilliant “Seeger Sessions Band”. The Boss, as we know, has always been the champion of blue collar folk, in both senses of the words - champion and folk.

(And to digress even further - there was a superb documentary on Seasick Steve on BBC4, or Sky Arts, last week - his life and times. Plus 30 minutes of him playing the blues at the Reading Festival and the Albert Hall - literally rags to riches. Go out and buy Dog House Music if you don‘t already have it.)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen_with_The_Seeger_Sessions_Band_Tour


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasick_Steve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNoPNC3ebYQ

- great video of Steve performing Dog House Blues on 3-string bottleneck guitar on Jules Holland’s prog. Play loud. (great camera work, by the way. Respect to the ‘Later’ team.)

Another coincidence for me was rooting around on my bookshelves last night and coming across Anthony Burgess’s ‘Earthly Powers’, which I bought second-hand for £1.30 several years ago and never got round to reading. It was written in the year of my son’s birth, and has written inside the front cover: “Dear Daddy, Happy Birthday 19/11/81 lots of love Helen xxxxxxxxxx”.

I wonder what Helen and her dad are doing now, and whether he managed to read the book. (see below)

The programme concluded with some thoughts about working class people getting by in life, helping one another out when times are hard, having a sense of community

Whereas middle class & comfortably off people can afford to let things stay the same, and can seemingly live anti-socially, in isolated nuclear units.

Right at the end there was a reference to John Cooper Clark, the Bard of Salford, whose dad worked in car factory. “Working on the midnight shift”, no doubt. Coincidentally John’s about to go back on the road, and had a gig reviewed in the Guardian this week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/16/john-cooper-clarke-pop
http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/midnight.html
http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/poemlist.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7DQRWeTWos

Looking ahead to the next programme the presenter asked: Is it just what we earn, who we identify with, whether we feel a part of a community, and which newspaper we read? Is it in fact a question of values and culture?

Stay tuned.

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There’s a brilliant advert on TV at the moment for the Co-operative movement, showing dandelion seeds floating on their parachutes to a soundtrack of Dylan’s ‘Blowing In the Wind’, letting the lyrics speak their message - “How many roads must a walk down? . . . “How many times must a man look up? . . .“

The message of the voice-over right at the end is simply about the Co-ops’ community projects, sharing profits, fair trade, etc. Excellent.

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1) A Cat Among the Pigeons

David Cameron set a cat amongst pigeons with an article in yesterday’s Guardian, “A Radical Power Shift: Our future depends on putting more political responsibility in the hands of local people.”

Tony Benn once spoke about wanting a fundamental shift of power and wealth to working people. I too want that fundamental shift - to local people and local institutions. Over the last century Britain has become one of the most centralised countries in the developed world as power has been sucked to Westminster. Some might wonder why this matters. After all, isn't politics just about what works? But there is a deep connection between where decisions are made and what works.

When one-size-fits-all solutions are dispensed from the centre, it's not surprising they so often fail local communities. When people experience a yawning gap between the changes they want to see and those they can directly affect, it is inevitable that demoralisation and democratic disengagement follow.

225 responses in CIF so far. Worth a read.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/17/cameron-decentralisation-local-government?commentpage=1

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2) A catamite among the pigeons.

So I started reading Earthly Powers, and was immediately grabbed by it. How many books do you come across that have a word in the very first sentence that you need to look up in a dictionary, or Wikipedia?

A catamite is the younger partner in a pederastic relationship between two males, which was a popular arrangement in many areas of the ancient world.

Kings and Emperors in some ancient cultures had not only concubines but also catamites (male concubines), in addition to their many wives.

The word is also used to describe the practice in early Japan, where monks would have sexual relationships with younger monks[citation needed]; samurai with pages; and noblemen with younger members of the aristocracy.

The word catamite is derived from the Latin catamitus, itself borrowed from the Etruscan catmite, a corruption of the Greek Ganymedes, the boy who was seduced by Zeus and became his beloved and cup-bearer in Greek mythology.

So there. And then we discover that Burgess is having a laugh -

“I have lost none of my old cunning in the contrivance of what is known as an arresting opening.”

A novelist is having a siesta on his 81st birthday. An archbishop comes to visit and the novelist asks his manservant to take him into the bar and pour him a drink.

“The bar was across the hall, to the right, between the wreck of an office where Geoffrey neglected his secretarial work and my own fussily neat study. On the wall between the bar and the study was the Georges Rouault - a scrawled ugly ballerina, impatient thick black strokes and bitter washes. In Paris that time Maynard Keynes had hotly recommended that I buy it. He had known all about markets.”

600 pages to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Powers

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/burgess.htm
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Chavez

Hugo Chavez has won his referendum to entitle him to keep on putting himself up for reelection in Venezuela. Say what you like about him, and his methods, but the man’s got a head, a heart and balls. After all that the USA did to the proletariat in South America, after all the killings and torture inspired by the Shock Doctrine, the revenge of the neo-cons and the Chicago Boys against leftists and progressives, it takes guts to stand up to the USA when it’s in the control of Bush and his ilk and is determined to get rid of you, and considers you a threat to its ‘national security’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

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Obama’s Inauguration

Last night on TV there was a broadcast of the ‘concert’ that preceded Obama’s inauguration. A dog’s breakfast of an event, but very stirring in parts. Some naff speeches, but how fantastic to see so many black people taking leading roles in their country’s affairs. Some truly awful music and songs, but some wonderful stuff from the likes of Springsteen and gospel choirs.

After the truly hideous years of the neo-con ascendancy how incredible it all seems - the possibility that the affairs of a great nation are at last being coordinated and supervised by people with intelligence and credibility.
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Layer 118 Snow, Social Pedagogy, The Musical Divide, Paying Taxes, and the Discontented.

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The heaviest snow for 20 years had a transformational effect on London and south-east England yesterday. Such japes! If only every winter was like this one. Mass break-outs of community spirit, as someone said on the radio this morning.

In London there were no buses and trains running, so all schools and most work places were closed. The overnight snow had spread a blanket of brilliant whiteness nine inches deep over everything. There was virtually no traffic moving - just a few cars creeping slowly and crunching quietly down ungritted streets. There was silence everywhere.

This virtual bank holiday enabled parents and children, and grandparents, to go out together into a cityscape that very few of them had ever seen, or could recall from living memory. By the end of the day local parks and playing fields were populated with snowmen standing singly and in groups, like an Anthony Gormley landscape made of snow and ice.

Adults were playing in the snow! Making giant snowmen without a child in sight! Snowball fights! Some were taking photographs on their phones of one another’s snowmen. People were spontaneously chatting in public spaces that are normally empty except for occasional dog walkers. Kids were out with sledges, having a brilliant time.

In my local park I had conversations with people from Poland, Turkey, Slovakia, India, the Caribbean and Russia. Someone had proudly put a small banner with the word POLSKA on it across their snowman.

The dog that I walk these days went completely crazy the second she bounded into the street - rushing back and forth, ploughing her face into deep drifts, skidding and sliding. Since I’d forgotten to take a tennis ball out with us she was happy to rush after snowballs, bounding through the snow, looking puzzled and affronted when the snowball she was chasing disappeared into the deep stuff, and when she did manage to leap on the snowball she was chasing biting it and eating it like a lollipop, to the great amusement of passers-by.

Even after darkness fell there were people out in the parks and green/white spaces, and in the streets, just sightseeing and playing in the snow. It was a reminder of how community spirit in our cities is literally dampened by our climate - which in normal years is neither hot and dry enough or cold and snowy enough the bring people out of their homes to enjoy open spaces in significant numbers.

Most amusing image of the day today - Peter Mandelson tottering gingerly along Downing Street in shiny black loafers, terrified of going arse over tit in front of the lurking news cameras. Second most amusing - twattish women in stilettos.

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I felt so pleased for those children whose parents allowed them to go out in the snow yesterday. We sometimes talk about a work/life balance for adults, but rarely consider whether it’s the right balance for children to be experiencing an enforced didactic education five days a week, with only two days a week for play, fun and self-direction.

Today we have news of another report on children’s wellbeing, another grim review of the diabolical things we do to children in our stupid society.

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The buzz-word for today is Social Pedagogy - and both BBC radio and BBC TV have today run features on Denmark’s provision for looked-after children, since 6 out of 10 of such children in Denmark go on to higher education, compared with 6 out of 100 in Britain.

Somebody commented that it’s possible to have high-quality provision in Denmark because they pay 50% income tax and 25% VAT. But the point is surely that they see the need to have high-quality provision for children generally, and are therefore willing to vote in governments to pay for and run those services.

Barry somebody, the Chair of an all-party committee on children and childhood said, “Something dramatic needs to be done.” And indeed it does. A totally new look at how we care for and provide for children.

I guess it's worth saying one more time - it's about time we prioritised the well-being of children by prioritising the development of their social, emotional and spiritual intelligences, and in order to do that we need to develop those intelligences in adults.

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The Musical Divide

Ennio Morricone is 80 this year, and is still going strong, both as a man and as a prolific composer of contemporary orchestral music. It’s interesting to compare contemporary and ‘classical’ orchestral music.

On Radio 4 last week someone who knows Morricone well said, “To be as accomplished a composer as Morricone you have to be deeply in touch with your own soul.”

How many of us are deeply in touch with our own souls? How would we describe to ourselves, or convey to others, the contents of our souls?

I have a new theory about the divide between enthusiasts for ‘classical’ music on the one hand, and on the other hand people who find the majority of ‘classical’ music absolutely dull, soulless, spiritless, tiddle fiddle twaddle. (No bias showing here, I hope.)

Indoctrination, snobbery, ignorance, pretentiousness, fear and narrow-minded prejudice are the key concepts here.

On the one hand we see middle-class, predominantly Eurocentric, Arian people who grew up in households where classical music was played on gramophones at a sensible volume, and where the aspirational offspring were given expensive musical instruments and private tutors, plus private or grammar school education where they learned to play in the school orchestra.

On the other hand . . . we see the rest of the world, whom the aforementioned would see as the deprived, uncultured, ignorant, untutored and unenlightened. Whereas, in point of fact, most of the rest of the world has listened to classical music and decided IT SUCKS. We see people who enjoy other forms of music that expresses THEIR sensibility, the reality of their lives, their feelings, their passions, their joys, their sadness, their spiritual experience.

Listening to Desert Island Discs, it’s so interesting how all the bourgeois, high-achieving anodyne individuals who go on the programme so rarely choose more than a token track that actually rocks, swings, grooves or moves the body and soul. Why is that?

Who was it who first said, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”? Must google that.

It’s obviously a mark of being ‘cultured’ if you profess a love of somebody singing something solemn and portentious in German or Italian, something most people find incomprehensible and dull, even on a purely musical level. And of course to be properly bourgeois you must sit up and beg when you hear the words Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bach, etc.

I very much doubt whether these classical music-loving desert-islanders have ever listened properly to the greats of jazz, blues and rock, including Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, John Lee Hooker, Louis Jordan, Slim Gaillard, Ray Charles, Keith Jarrett, Lester Young . . . to say nothing of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Dave Gilmour, Manu Chao, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, etc.

To say nothing of the great folk and roots artists of Africa, India, Japan, China, the Caribbean, etc.

All of them deemed inferior and unworthy of a trip to the desert island.

In the words of the great Leonard Cohen - “But you don’t really care for music, do ya?”

This week I’ve been working on my Desert Island Discs, and have managed to shortlist around 300, which is my minimum, otherwise I don’t go. These are my legacy tracks, and I will now begin the task of assembling them on sets of CDs to give to family and friends.

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Brooooce

Last week there was a brilliant TV broadcast of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘folk music’ ‘Seeger Sessions’ 17-piece big band, filmed in London, featuring a veritable host of great musicians, and Bruce himself in great voice.

http://www.slate.com/id/2140317/

Bruce and his E Street Band then lit up the interval of Sunday’s Super Bowl - a mini-show of incredible energy and passion, in the middle of what was one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time.

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Pay Your Fucking Taxes.

This week The Guardian began publishing its investigations into tax avoidance in Britain, in a series of articles that can only cause incredible fury in anyone who gives a fuck about exploitation and social justice in what we laughingly call our ‘society’.

“Pay your fucking taxes!” said Jon Stewart in The Daily Show today, talking about some American fat cat.

And talking about the bank bail-outs, Stewart called those trillions that were given to the bankers in order to keep the banks solvent “Revolution Insurance”. Quite so.

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Rumblings of Discontent

Meanwhile the working classes in places like Britain, France and Greece are beginning to find ways to express their fury about the bank bail-outs, the bankers who caused the economic crisis, the job losses, the ineptitude of politicians, etc.

The growing number of demonstrations and strikes are looking ominous to those who fear civic unrest and fear demands for radical changes to the way this country runs its businesses, its economy and its politics.

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The Doves Are Dead

Here are some voices speaking from the depths of their souls - voices from Israel - reported on R4:

“If someone hurts us - I say bomb them out of existence.”

“The doves are dead.”

“Israel has to be tough - we’re on our own here. People all over the world hate us and want to destroy us.”

“The early Zionists had vision. We don’t have that any more. We just have to protect ourselves.”

“The Israeli media hardly report the images of the destruction in Gaza.”

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Of course virtually those same words could have been spoken by any Right-wing American talking about America since 2000/01, since Bush and his gang stole the election, and since the twin towers came down.

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Dementia

An all-party Parliamentary enquiry into the care of people with dementia started work last week. It seems that people who work in care homes for people with dementia have to have training on health and safety, etc, but do NOT have to have training in understanding the nature of dementia, or understanding the needs of people with dementia.

Does this seem like an acceptable situation? No, it fucking doesn’t. So how come it’s allowed to happen? Would I like my mum to be in a care home and looked after by people who didn’t understand her difficulties or her needs? No I fucking wouldn’t.
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