Layer 540 . . . Yet More on the Olympics Closing Ceremony!

.
Either the Olympics closing ceremony was a ceremony or it wasn't. What I'm saying, of course, is that it wasn't. In which case it shouldn't have been advertised as one. What it was, was an outrageous waste of time and money, which its organisers were finally reduced to calling "a big party". So we gave these people - these idiots - several million pounds to organise a fitting ceremony for an important and many would say very wonderful gathering of the world's finest athletes and they blew the money on a trashy "party". Who's going to take responsibility for that?

The dictionary defines a ceremony as
1. A formal occasion, typically one celebrating a particular event.
2. An act, or series of acts, performed according to a particular form.
3. The formal activities conducted on some solemn or important public or state occasion.

So what actually took place? Clearly the producers of this horrible event thought they should say something about London and about British society. Fair enough. And what did they do? They built  small-scale and rather pathetic versions of well-known London landmarks and set them up in the stadium - the London Eye, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, the 'Gherkin', etc. A totally unimaginative, unneccessary, lazy and clunking way of saying "This is London". It reminded me of the hilarious incident in the film This Is Spinal Tap! when the majesty of Stonehenge was represented on stage by a ludicrously small model of three stone blocks forming a  Stonehenge-type arch. There was nothing the heavy-metal band could do about it once it had been lowered on to the stage - they played on regardless, no matter how ridiculous the whole thing looked.

So what else happened in the Olympic stadium?
London traffic, which needs no depiction at all since it's something we put up with rather than celebrate, was represented by newspaper-covered cars, vans and lorries trundling around the arena. Round and round they drove, to no purpose whatsoever.

Somebody sang a song on the back of a lorry.

A band played on the back of a lorry.

Another band played on the back of a lorry.

A Robin Reliant car blew up and out staggered two people dressed as Batman and Robin. Apparently this was supposed to bring back hilarious memories of an episode in an ancient 'comedy' series about South London lowlife losers which most of us never ever watched anyway on account of it being very silly and completely unwatchable. Since the car blowing up was meaningless to most Brits watching, it would have been completely baffling to the rest of the world.

The top of Big Ben then opened up and an actor appeared declaiming a few lines of Shakespeare, which could barely be heard. Presumably this was the formal and solemn part of the ceremony.

Am I making too much of this fiasco - or does it actually matter what occured last Sunday?

I think it matters. Here's part of a letter that was sent to a newspaper in the USA this week:

Olympic Games closing ceremonies embarrassing
Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 5:58 am

The closing ceremonies of the Games in London were an embarrassment to Western Civilization and showed how morally bankrupt the British have become.

In Beijing, China’s message in their closing ceremony was clearly the virtues of statism. They proudly showcased the merging of corporatism and communism. Flying, identically dressed humans creating a Tower of Babel represented the “cog in a machine” values of their culture and was done so artfully that most people never recognized the symbolism.  

The British showed they have no philosophy, no values except rock and roll, big-breasted chicks, rap stars riding in Rolls Royces, and no real clue that their expression of morally bankrupt worship of materialism is repugnant and why the rest of the world thinks Western colonialism needs to be overthrown, violently. Most Olympic hosts make some effort to show their cultural values in a positive light.

The British seemed completely unaware that their cavalcade of campy, garish and pompous frivolity made Beijing’s Kafkaesque showcasing of Big Brother look moral by comparison.

Very bad message. The games were great, they did a good job. But if that closing spectacle did not offend you and make you afraid for Western Civilization, you aren’t thinking clearly. Obviously the Brits weren’t.

Sonny Craig
Apache Junction

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/article_4dda8d68-e66d-11e1-bc6b-0019bb2963f4.html
[See also Oxzen's comment on the website.]

Since it was Lord Seb Coe who claimed the credit for the good parts of the Olympics then presumably he's the man who appointed the men who were responsible for the closing ceremony. More on this anon.

Layer 537 . . . A Summer of Sport, and a New Beginning

 .
After four years of regular blogging Oxzen has needed a sabbatical and some time off to refresh, reflect and take stock. It's been an interesting few months. 2012 has been an interesting year.

So what's been occurring?

As far as Oxzen is concerned, since the beginning of April - a great deal of watching television. March was glorious, warm and sunny, but the rain began at the start of April. It rained almost daily throughout April, May, June and July. The wettest spring and summer on record in Britain.

Not that I'm complaining. I'd had some vague idea that the summer of 2012 was going to be glorious and I'd spend day after day sitting and walking in endless sunshine. However, in many ways it was fortunate there was little possibility of spending a lot of time outside. It's been an amazing television summer.

From the beginning of April, and even before that, it was necessary to watch the many hours of live televised coverage of the Leveson Enquiry.

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

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

"The first part will examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media. In particular, Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians."

This enquiry turned out to be a fascinating carnival of scumbags and professional liars, all rehearsed to the nth degree by their highly paid advisors and spin doctors to find every possible way of avoiding giving truthful answers to the Enquiry's questions, and if all else failed, to simply say, "I can't remember" and "I don't recall".

Leveson was supposed to examine the culture and the ethics of our media, but the use of  words like "culture" and "ethics" in relation to the majority of our predominantly nasty, supine and obsequious media is quite amusing. For "culture" read "the habitual practice of distorting the truth and whenever possible distracting the nation from anything that really matters in our national life". For "ethics" read "willingness to lie, distort, trivialise and smear; tendency to spread alarm, confusion, mystification and fear".

Throughout this spring and summer the government of Great Britain has stuck doggedly to Plan A, with all the obvious and predictable consequences. The 'rolling back' of the State and the trashing of public services has made an appalling and unnecessary economic depression even worse than it already was. The Labour party is not wrong to say that the Tories have been cutting "too far and too fast", but they are very wrong and very guilty in their collusion with the very notion that our public services should have been cut AT ALL.

Any economist with half a brain (ie those who resisted the nonsense of the neo-conservatives and the Friedmanite Chicago School) understands that in a time of recession and a failure of the private sector to invest in the British economy you need to spend MORE on public services and not LESS if you wish to avoid deflating the economy and prevent a recession from turning into a depression. For fuck's sake - we learned that lesson back in the 1930s, thanks to Keynes and Roosevelt.

For some months now we've even had the International Monetary Fund - never a hotbed of progressive liberalism - gently nudging Cameron, Osborne and Clegg towards a Plan B, and the engagement of some common sense in their economic policies. For 'common sense' read 'lack of willful stupidity and ignorance'. Even the IMF, which runs the whole globalised economy hand in glove with the World Bank, recognises that the last thing the world needs is for one its important engines of finance and potential economic growth (ie GB PLC) to crash even further into depression at a time when the worldwide economy needs reflation and growth.

What the IMF may not recognise, however, is that Cameron and Osborne, and their little chum Clegg, are acting out of an ideological conviction that cares little for world stability and economic growth. The limits of their ambitions are to ensure the prosperity of the City of London's financial institutions, and therefore of themselves and all their fat cat chums -  protected, supported and even further enriched in the face of the shitstorm that's already happening.

Contrast this with the more sensible and honest conservative leaders of Europe and the USA (i.e. Merkel and Obama) who have a real concern with the proper long-term functioning of the international capitalist system. For fuck's sake - these European conservatives are even implementing a Tobin Tax on financial transactions. Obviously our Tories will have nothing to do with this tax since it's something their pals in the City have told them they must never do.

Meanwhile the banking scandals have continued, with Barclays being busted for their criminal manipulation of Libor, RBS busted for helping drugs cartels to launder money, and now Standard Chartered busted for their well-paid assistance to Iran to avoid financial restrictions and sanctions. Ethics? In Britain? In Westminster and the City of London? Don't make us laugh.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/25/brand-osborne-is-over-recession

...........................................

Now where was I? Oh yes - the summer of television.

Euro 2012 took place between June 8th and July 1st. England, as expected, were pathetic, and were knocked out as soon as they came up against a decent team. Spain, as expected, were the winners, beating Italy 4-0 in the final.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html


Wimbledon took place between 25th June and July 8th, and ended with Roger Federer's record-breaking win over Andy Murray. Roger's a phenomenon, and almost an honorary Brit. We love his decency, self-control, thoughtfulness, modesty, and of course his brilliance.

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/index.html


The Tour de France took place between June 30th and July 22nd. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Frome rode brilliantly, and finished in first and second places. Mark Cavendish, the other star member of the first British team to win the Tour, was also phenomenal - even though his team's support for sprint finishes was necessarily minimal, since winning the General Classification was the stated aim of the team. However, Cavendish was strong enough and fit anough by the end of the tour to win a sprint finish immediately before the final Time Trial (won by Wiggins by a mile) and also able to win for a record 4 times in a row on the final sprint-finish stage on the Champs Elysees.

http://www.letour.fr/indexTDF_us.html


And finally - the Olympics. The games took place between 27th July and 12th August. Having been drawn into compulsive watching of the Olympics four years ago by the Beijing opening ceremony, it was anticipated that these 2012 Games in London would also be addictive and compulsive. And so it turned out.

http://www.london2012.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/london-2012-beautiful-utopian-collective-dream

Bearing in mind that Oxzen is not a sports fanatic, usually watching very little in the way of live football, cricket, athletics, etc, and doesn't subscribe to any premium sports TV channels - it's been a very odd and very enjoyable summer. And there's still 10 days of the paralympics to come. In short, it's been distracting, fascinating, refreshing, relaxing, often exciting, and a lot of fun.

I was about to write something about last night's abysmal and embarrassing Olympics closing ceremony, but on reflection I won't. No point in ending this particular piece on a negative and sour note.

Laters.

...................................

Random tracks of the day, thanks to Media Player:

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown
Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds
Happiness is a Warm Gun - John Lennon/Beatles
Blues to Elvin -  John Coltrane
Work  -  Bob Marley

Layer 338 . . . Tom Jones Revisited, More Music, Equal Opportunities, and Developing Talent

.
Further to Oxzen's recent musings about Tom Jones, the latest Observer had a whole page on the man, his life and his career, including the news that Praise & Blame has become Britain's best-selling album. At 70 Tom is the oldest male musician or singer to reach No 1 in Britain - taking over from Bob Dylan and his album Modern Times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/01/profile-tom-jones

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/28/tom-jones-album-charts-praise-blame

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/22/tom-jones-praise-and-blame-cd-review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/25/tom-jones-praise-blame-review

It's appalling when someone like Tom Jones is described as "not much good at school", which means only that he didn't do well "academically". What they're trying to say is that the pupil was a bit, or plenty, thick, when the reality is that the school was hopeless at finding someone's talents and developing them - and in fact the school never even tried to do so, which was probably the case.

Here's an example. My old secondary school is a school Listed by English Heritage. (My old Primary school is too, but that's another story). What that means is that it can't be mucked about, or its original form changed, which includes its outdoor areas. It had, and still has, a large number of games pitches, and a proper athletics area which includes facilities for both track and field events. In a school like that there's at least a possibility that some of its pupils will be seriously encouraged and enabled to do well in sports and athletics.

By way of contrast, a similar school built at roughly the same time on the opposite side of the city is not Listed. Some years ago at least 50% of its sports fields were sold off to a property development company, and those previously open areas and sports fields are now covered with bijou houses. So what kind of message does that give to the local community and its children about the value the school, or society in general, places on children's physical education, or encouragement for achievement in sports and athletics?

In this country we throw money at "elite" athletes whom we think might win medals in high profile competitions like the Euros and the Olympics, having identified those so-called elites from club competitions, but the reality is that most kids don't get any proper opportunities for proper coaching in a school context, so that only those who join clubs have sustained contact with trained coaches, facilties for practice, and the excitement of regular competition. It's not too difficult to guess which kids get to join the clubs outside of school, and have eager parents driving them to and from their clubs and competitions.

It's the same story with tennis, of course, which is why twats like Tim Henman and the odd character like Andrew Murray are Britain's sole high-achieving representatives at the Wimbledon championships, which are said to be the biggest and best tennis competition in the world. In some other countries even the smallest villages have decent public tennis courts.

It's somewhat different with music, since it's possible to own an instrument and become proficient at playing it through hours of practice at home, with or without lessons from paid professionals - not that this happens very often.

The crying shame, however, is that music as a school subject is on the whole taught in a tokenistic "academic" way and not thorough regular instrumental lessons by skilled teachers and tutors of musical instruments, except for a small minority of kids who have been picked out as having gifts and talents, or who get access to instrumental tuition because they have pushy parents, who probably, in addition, pay for private lessons.

It's not hard to imagine how much potential talent goes undiscovered and undeveloped, mainly because as a society we don't set out to develop it and don't fund such activities - leaving it to ambitious and dedicated parents to buy the instruments and the lessons if they want their children to have the joy of playing an instrument, either solo or in a band.

Because of this lack of opportunity most people in our society don't own an instrument, and have never known the pleasure it gives to play well and to play in bands, and we don't as a whole appreciate what developing musical talents does for children - especially those kids who find it hard to succeed and build their self-esteem through "academic" work.

Even if a child never does well enough and isn't talented enough to make and sell albums,  or perform in public, the pleasure that's to be had from playing an instrument, or being able to sing well, is incalculable. The number of undiscovered, frustrated and underachieving musicians in this country must be massive - with huge consequences for individuals, communities, and the country as a whole - both in terms of individual fulfillment and enjoyment of life and untapped commercial potential.

Just ask people like Wynton Marsalis what music does for the soul and the spirit. Many of us get some benefit from just listening to music. Being able to create and play music gives a whole other dimension.

Other countries see and do things differently. Schools in places like Japan, Korea and China set out to offer all kids, and not just the 'elites', a proper musical education - seeing it as integral to the development of character. It's the norm. It's not unusual.

...................................................

SRE

Talented writers, whose books have been shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, are apparently no longer writing about sex. So says an article by Tim Adams in the latest Observer. Mr Adams has in the past written extensively on this subject in Observer 'specials'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/sex-british-novel-chatterley

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sex/story/0,,818295,00.htm

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/bodyuncovered/story/0,,1067744,00.html

Adams reminds us that DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', following its eventual publication in 1961, sold around two million copies.

So why are there no novelists writing about sex and human sexuality in the 21st Century? Surely the subject hasn't lost any of its interest? Surely novelists still have something to say about sex and relationships?

Apparently Andrew Motion thinks novelists are afraid to describe sexual encounters because they fear they'll end up being nominated for the Bad Sex Award. Quite right too - they've learnt a lesson that most descriptions of people having sex are rubbish. They're either stupidly full of inappropriate metaphors and similies, or they simply fail to convey the true essence of positive sexual experience. Quite possibly too many of our writers, who tend to live quite solitary lives, have had too little in the way of sublime, satisfying and fulfilling sex, and therefore find it difficult to say anything about it with an authentic voice that speaks of knowledge and wisdom.

However, it's not as though sex isn't a basic and integral part of most people's lives, since most people recognise that sex is rather wonderful, especially when you're young and prone to falling in love. What one might call transcendental sex is surely an essential part of a life well lived, since the urge and the instinct to have sex is hard-wired into all, or most, of us. And whilst the sex drive diminishes as one gets older, that doesn't mean that sex loses its potential to give pleasure and to provide an amazing intimate connection with those we most wish to be intimate with.

At the very least sex provides physical, emotional and spiritual release and stops us accumulating stress and tension to the point of exploding. Wilhelm Reich wrote about this decades ago in a book called The Function of the Orgasm.

DH Lawrence set out to tell the truth about sexual desire, and sexual needs. Lady Chatterley represents all women who have sexual needs but have great difficulty in expressing and satisfying those needs, thanks to personal inhibition and the restrictive conventions of society.

According to Tim Adams, Lawrence also set out to legitimise the word 'fuck'. "Lawrence had striven to cleanse it of its furtive, contemptuous and expletive connotations, and to use it 'in the most simple, natural way: one fucks'."

.................................................................

Sex and the City told stories of New York women fucking their way through life in a search for Mr Right, so that they could settle down and live happily ever after.

There was a three page article in yesterday's Observer - in the New Review section - which also dealt with writing about sex. In particular, with women writing about sex.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional

True confessions in new women's lit

Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City columns inspired some dire chick lit, but also a generation of more serious young writers

The piece takes issue with the whole genre of chick lit and so-called 'confessional' writing, which has no artistic merit and does nothing more than entertain and titillate. Of course it also makes a hell of a lot of money from people who are desperate for a bit of entertainment and titillation.

As for serious writing about sex and relationships . . .

"For all that she might get annoyed by those high-heeled women on the sidewalk, without Sex and the City, there would arguably have been no Emily Gould. The 28-year-old has just published her first confessional memoir, And The Heart Says Whatever. In 11 pithily written essays, Gould, a former co-editor of the Gawker gossip website, charts her experiences as a young adult in New York, working in jobs she loathes, facing up to failed relationships and going to parties attended by people she dislikes. Her debut has already attracted praise from the likes of Jonathan Franzen, while Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of American Wife, has hailed it as a modern-day version of The Bell Jar. Gould is one of a new generation of female confessional writers who, according to Sittenfeld, "speak, in our often phoney and cheesy culture, to the truths of women's lives".

"Gould decided "very consciously to let go of whether or not anyone likes me". In And the Heart Says Whatever, she deliberately resists the urge to mould each story along a neat, narrative arc with a cleverly packaged ending. "I don't tie everything into a little bow and say: 'That's what I've learned'," she explains. "I think a lot of women writers go around apologising, saying: 'Oh stupid me, oh the goofy things I did when I was young and didn't know any better' but I set out specifically not to do that… I just want it to be OK for women to be complete people, to have sides to themselves that aren't whitewashed or palatable."

Meghan Daum, another of this new wave of serious 'alternative' writers who focus on sex and relationships, apparently

"sees her writing as a corrective to the tradition of women's magazines that talk about relationships, diet or body image in a redemptive fashion, plotting each minor self-improvement along a wider trajectory of personal growth. "I tend to be very honest and my goal is to identify something people think but are afraid to say," explains Daum. "That's not the general cultural expectation of women."

The article concludes,

"It's quite scary to men to know what [a woman] is thinking. It's much more convenient to imagine that they aren't really people", says Emily Gould.

In the same way, one imagines it might be easier to dismiss the work of female confessional authors as being somehow facile and glib because, on the surface, they deal with the small moments of everyday experience rather than dealing with the grittiness of big ideas. But this would be to do them a disservice. By engaging with their readers and speaking to them on their own level with humour and candour, Gould, Daum and Crosley seek to illuminate broader truths. They might not always succeed but at least they aim for something bigger; for something that is hopefully a little more nuanced than the endless search for Mr Right and a world viewed through the bottom of a Martini glass.

What a wonderful thing  it is to have writers who seek to question common assumptions and to challenge the status quo, who also set out to illuminate broader truths and spread a little enlightenment.
.