.
Hats off to our blessed BBC again. Last night’s schedule on BBC4 was a brilliant piece of programming. Thank goodness the state of childhood in contemporary Britain is coming under more and more scrutiny.
I was too late getting back from the funeral gathering in Ruislip to watch the 8.00pm programme, Child of our Time, but will catch up with it on BBCi later this evening, or tomorrow. And how great is that? - being able to catch up with great programmes on the Internet, any time you like. (Virgin TV also has it on Catch Up)
A Revolution in Childhood was 90 minutes of discussion by a panel of experts about the preceding programme, and about whether childhood in Britain really is ‘in crisis’.
The most memorable contribution was about the ‘commodification’ of childhood by parents, teachers, and society as a whole. And we all know this is true: many children are deprived of experiences that adults regard as merely ‘play’ or a ‘waste of time’, and only allowed experiences that adults regard as ‘investments’ with a clear ‘pay off’ in terms of their contribution to measureable achievement or attainment.
The most memorable statistic concerned the numbers of children who are allowed to play outside the home or the garden these days. Hardly any. And virtually none are allowed to venture beyond their own street. In other words, children have no freedom. They’re deprived of a human right. All in the name of their own safety and well-being. And who’s to say this is wrong?
Does it matter? Of course it bloody matters.
I recall the freedom and fun of my own childhood. I went to school on foot, on my own. I went to the shops on my own. I walked to and from the shops through a corner of the local woods that adjoined the estate, that were full of bluebells in the Spring.
We roamed freely throughout the estate, and sometimes beyond, especially when we reached the stage of having bikes. There were various parks, playgrounds and open spaces, and we used them all, from breakfast to tea time. We played cowboys and Indians with guns and bows and arrows, in and out of the shrubberies, across the open plains, and all around the great lakes - or ponds, as our parents called them. It was brilliant.
We didn’t go to music tuition, or have music tutors come to our homes. We didn’t have tutors coming to our homes for extra maths and English. We didn’t go to swimming classes, judo, dance, drama, or after-school playgroups.
We didn’t have computers or multi-channel colour TVs in our bedrooms (or our homes).
Yes folks, we were deprived. Except . . .
We had freedom, and fun, and we were allowed to play, just play, unsupervised. We had our human rights. We had our imaginations, and our freedom to create - dens, hideouts, go-carts, tents, ‘track’ bikes.
The unsupervised bit was important, as the programme highlighted. These days adults - parents and teachers alike - assume they need to be more or less constantly in attendance on children, ready to butt in and intervene at the first sign of disharmony, and at great cost to the emerging social and emotional intelligence of the children.
------------------------------------------------------------------
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896
Into my heart on air that kills
Into my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
Blue Remembered Hills is a unique TV drama written by Dennis Potter, the blessed Dennis Potter, in 1979. Adult actors dress up in shorts, knee length socks, tank tops, snake buckle belts and braces and play the roles of children, playing and freely roaming in the fields and woods of rural Shropshire. I remember well watching it when it was first broadcast - the sheer audacity of this innovative drama, and its incredible insight into the world of children with all its cruelty, naivety, hilarity and pathos.
Well done BBC for thinking to broadcast it again near the end of this evening about childhood.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/housman.html
http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/potter/bluehill.htm
-----------------------------------------------
The final programme of the evening was a rendition of Shostakovich’s Symphony #10 featuring Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. (Shostakovich - crazy name, crazy guy.)
It seems a quarter of a million children are currently learning to play a musical instrument in Venezuela, thanks to The System.
Young children are given a musical instrument of their choice, and allowed to play around with it, get to know it, and experiment with getting sounds out of it. If they like the instrument and want to keep it, and if they’re keen to learn how to play it, then they’re given free tuition.
As soon as a child attains some level of proficiency then they’re encouraged to share what they can do with absolute beginners. Skills are cascaded from peer to peer.
If they don’t like their instrument and can’t make progress with it then they can chop it in for a different one. And so on. Brilliant.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/15/MNGS4N006J1.DTL&feed=rss.education
-------------------------------------------------------
There’s a guy who works with inner-city kids in a part of South London where there’s an epidemic of gangs and stabbings, who teaches them to play brass instruments from about the age of 8. Lets call him Fred. As soon as the kids can play a few notes they become part of a brass band. The band is funded by a charity, and the lessons are free.
Fred says that his life was changed forever the day someone gave him a trumpet and he discovered he could play notes on it as well as all the kids who were academically successful. In fact he could play better then the ‘bright’ kids.
Hugh Massakela tells the same story, only his was set in South Africa, and the guy who gave him the trumpet was Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, of anti-apartheid fame.
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/solidarity/huddlebio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Masekela
We’re still working towards equal opportunities in our country. We’re still feeling the effects of the abolition of free music lessons in most State schools. We no longer consider there’s time for learning to play instruments during the school day in most of our test-oriented, target-chasing State schools. Learning to play an instrument is either an optional extra, or just not an option at all.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Recently a good friend of mine told me about an encounter she’d had with a very large, very tall young man in a school playground where she was collecting her child at the end of the day.
The young man politely introduced himself as someone she had had the misfortune to try to teach at a time in his young life when he was pretty much unteachable. Many’s the day she was almost reduced to tears of despair.
This guy was desperate to be a footballer, but unfortunately he was not very good at it. He went through secondary school making himself and other people very unhappy, because he couldn’t take what the school was offering, and the school couldn’t give him what he needed.
But there came a day when someone invited him on to a basketball court, put a ball in his hands, and he suddenly discovered he could dribble, pass and shoot better then anyone else. Bingo.
He got better and better, keener and keener, and grew and grew in confidence and self esteem. He soon applied for and was given a scholarship to learn how to be a basketball player in an American university. He’s now studying for a degree, and doing well with a whole range of subjects.
He apologised to my friend for the hard times he’d given her. She apologised to him for the way in which the education system had let him down for so many years, and very nearly condemned him to a lifetime of failure.
------------------------------------------------------
Not all of the BBC’s brilliant output is serious, educational and informative.
The News Quiz on Radio 4 this evening was back to its very best, like it was in the Linda Smith day. The blessed Linda Smith, dearly departed, far too young.
Have I Got News For You this evening was also superb - incredibly funny. Some of it trenchant satire, lots of it lightning-fast wit and word-play. Fabulous.
---------------------------------------------------------
Bo Diddley died this week. The blessed Bo Diddley, instigator of chugging, hollering rhythm and blues, inspiration to hundreds of singers and guitarists, including the Animals, who did a whole song about him on a mid-sixties album, a track called The Story of Bo Diddley. RIP, dear Bo.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-diddley3-2008jun03,0,5485671.story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhuEV17YZes
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e4654e1b-ea07-41f5-ab79-a9cf1f74a438
The blessed John Peel was back on BBC TV this evening as presenter of Rock Family Trees, just his voice - his unique voice, his dry wit and his deadpan delivery. I miss him so much. Someone else who made a major contribution to the culture of the nation and the enjoyment of millions. Someone who was loved by those millions, who died far too young.
A wonderful late-night BBC4 programme to end the day - an hour of the blessed Mark Lawson talking to Alexei Sayle - enfant terrible and pioneer of ‘alternative’ comedy. I love his new relaxed intellectual “Marxist Father Christmas with a foul mouth” looks and persona - “I just think we should make the world a better place”. Amen to that.
He’s someone else who says, “God bless the BBC”.
And he still maintains that it’s all about “Satisfaction with yer werk”, and not popularity as such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Sayle
------------------------------------------------------------
And finally . . .
More synchronicity. Yesterday I cleared a batch of old tax discs out of the holder in my car. About seven years’ worth. This evening’s ‘guest publication’ on Have I Got News was Velologist Magazine. Velology is the collection and categorisation of expired tax discs. People pay money to have them in their collection. Weird.
Having recently mentioned Parade magazine in a blog I then discovered that people pay up to £40 a pop for old copies of this terrible little mag. Weird. Wonder what a tax disc is worth.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Layer 50 Funerals, Fascists, Ties, Drips and Plumbers.
.
I don’t know anyone who gives a damn about international motorsport, or its governing body (the FIA), or the FIA’s president, a certain Max Mosely, 68 years old son of former British fascist leader and prominent Hitler supporter Oswald Mosely. Nor does anyone I know care about Bernie Ecclestone, billionaire dwarf and egomaniacal dictator of the Formula 1 Grand Prix circus.
So why bother writing about them? I find the politics of these very wealthy individuals and organisations very interesting. This Max Mosely must be some guy. As indeed must tough guy Bernie. It’s always hilarious to see Bernie, who must be 5ft 3 and in his seventies, still with his seventies haircut, strolling around a Grand Prix grid, linked arms with some fit young amazon. Go Bernie! The Hugh Hefner of racing drivers.
To paraphrase Mrs Merton, “Tell me Miss, what is it you find so attractive about billionaire Bernie?”
Ever since he was exposed in the tabloids for his enjoyment of sado-masochistic sex with groups of prostitutes dressed as Nazis, Mosely’s sanity and suitability to be the head of an international organization has been somewhat open to question. So much so that the FIA was forced to hold a vote this week as to whether he should continue as its president.
Now I can see that it may not have been easy growing up with, and living with, the thought that your dad is, or was, a prominent Hitler-loving fascist. Especially in a country that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives and most of its national wealth in defeating Hitler and the Nazis.
And the idea that some old boy should use some of his wealth to purchase some harmless private fun/therapy in an SM dungeon isn’t so bad when you consider there’s no actual crime taking place and apparently no victims. Seems like some perfectly legitimate wealth redistribution. He may even have been very generous with his girls.
But it’s interesting that there were several F1 teams who have said very loudly that he should be put out to pasture, or be forced to resign, to spend more time with his Nazi whores, if that’s what he enjoys. The more vociferous and anti-Max of those F1 teams appear to be Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ferrari, Honda and Yamaha. So that’s the entire set of the former Axis countries, Germany, Italy and Japan - lined up against fascist nutters and dictators being in prominent posts and positions of power and authority.
I don’t see this as something ironic, and I don’t suspect there’s anything hypocritical or anti-British going on here. I do think that Germany, Italy and Japan have had to go through decades of shame and self-flagellation as a result of their fascist, militaristic and brutal past. They’ve needed to think deeply about their politics, and about political systems that transgress human rights and decent human values. And they recognise that for ethical and moral reasons no-one should associate himself with even the trappings of Nazism and fascism if they wish to retain any credibility and integrity, and be considered suitable for responsible and representative roles in society.
Even a thicko like the party-loving squaddie and ‘war on terror’ enthusiast Prince Harry now gets this particular point. But not our Max, apparently. He’s decided to brazen it out, and he’s apparently got the support of the overwhelming majority of FIA members, who voted for him to remain in post. Well - better a fascist you know, whom you like and trust, than one you don’t.
What do these people require of their leader? Probity? No. Integrity? No. Though he may well have lots of these qualities, in many ways, for all I know.
People in power, for the most part right-wing rich people, mostly require their leaders and representatives to be hard-faced, stony-hearted tough guys who know how to play hard-ball in their interests. I guess Max fits the job description, and they can’t bear to let him go.
Or maybe I’m being very unfair. Maybe he’s just a very clubbable and hospitable old boy who has lots of like-minded friends with fascist leanings, friends and associates whom he’s cultivated over the years, who are standing by him in his hour of need. Sieg Heil!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to synchronicity. I was listening to a news report just now about the number of men wearing ties in the US dropping to 6%. Sales of ties have apparently fallen by 50%. Those tie-wearers must be buying them by the hundred to maintain even 50% of sales, by my reckoning.
Yesterday, for the first time in months, I needed to think about ties, in order to find my black tie, to wear for a funeral. I’d forgotten where my tie collection is currently located. Literally forgotten, ever since I carried out my last domestic re-organization, all those months ago. And I’d also forgotten how many of the damned things I still have hanging around the place. I’m sure I’ll never wear more than 3 or 4 of them ever again, if that.
Time to think of 101 uses for an old tie. I reckon Max Moseley could think of a few. Or maybe I should just throw them away? But hold on. I bet there’s a new generation of youngsters coming along who will think wearing antique ties is really funky, once there have been a couple of generations who have stopped wearing them.
Maybe I’ll have a grandson one day who will appreciate grandad’s silk ties. I remember a time in the 1960’s when I was happily tie-dying and recycling my grandad’s old button-up vests! I was wearing them with pride, as shirts, thinking I looked really cool. And thinking about funerals, I must sort out my will, and put the ties into the care of a Trust.
I feel a song coming on. The Ties They Are A’Changin’. Tie Waits For No Man.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The funeral gathering was blessed with beautiful sunny, warm weather. Everyone was able to sit out in the garden and enjoy the return of the sun. It would have been very different if we’d had the previous day’s cold, dull, wet weather.
My friend’s family are all delightful people; incredibly warm, humorous, thoughtful and civilized. It’s so interesting how the actual funeral in the morning can be so full of mourning, grief and the pain of loss, but in the afternoon, when good people who rarely see one another are gathered together en masse and able to chat and enjoy one another’s company, it becomes a completely different, a completely opposite sort of gathering, full of laughter, positive energy and high spirits. Which is how a funeral ‘wake’ ought to be.
When my three cousins lost both their mother and father within months of each other a couple of years ago I made up my mind that we should try to meet up as a group as often as possible. We’ve done it a couple of times, but not often enough. I need to get back to instigating those gatherings. I really like my extended family - my many cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts and uncles. We’re all far too ‘busy’, and we live too far apart these days, but I really don’t just want to see my family together at funerals.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
In the middle of the funeral gathering, in the middle of the afternoon, someone noticed there was water dripping through the kitchen ceiling. Immediately the cry went up, “Who’s in the bathroom? Who’s left the tap running?”
As it turned out, no-one was, and no-one had. There was no evidence at all of any water leaking or overflowing in the bathroom above the kitchen. Panic. What the hell was going on? Meanwhile the drip had turned into something much more sinister - a great sagging blister of water, threatening to burst and to collapse the kitchen ceiling. The kitchen had been the hub and the nerve centre of this food- and drink-focused afternoon.
The family carried out a quick audit of those present to see whether anyone was qualified to take charge of the situation. Nobody was. There was an electrician, but he didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “Call an emergency plumber!” “No - call the insurance company!” “Take all the food and drink out of the kitchen!” What to do?
In the event an elderly neighbour somehow appeared on the scene, an uninvited guest, armed with spanners, a stepladder, a sharp knife, bits of timber, etc. Everyone stood back deferentially. Thank God - someone with some practical skills and know-how.
We had journalists, educationalists, hairdressers, musicians, students, cabinet makers, professional fund-raisers, and lots of retired people representing other professions - all useless. I tried to make myself useful by emptying out a dustbin in the garden and positioning it under the leak.
Eventually the ceiling came down, of course, and the dustbin was at least useful for carrying away the debris, bit by bit. Maybe it was better that it happened when there were lots of family and friends around to share in the disaster, caused, as it turned out, by a badly-soldered pipe in the ceiling whose leakage had chosen this particular day to announce its long-term insidious effects.
As someone said, we’ll all look back in the future and say, “Remember the day of the funeral, when the ceiling fell down?” And laugh.
-----------------------------------------------------------
And finally, the boy who cried wolf . . .
It turned out that one of my friend’s nephews, who’s known to be a bit of a joker and a piss-taker, a lad with lots of wild, frizzy hair, had seen some drips coming from the ceiling the previous day, and had mentioned it to his mother . . .
I don’t know anyone who gives a damn about international motorsport, or its governing body (the FIA), or the FIA’s president, a certain Max Mosely, 68 years old son of former British fascist leader and prominent Hitler supporter Oswald Mosely. Nor does anyone I know care about Bernie Ecclestone, billionaire dwarf and egomaniacal dictator of the Formula 1 Grand Prix circus.
So why bother writing about them? I find the politics of these very wealthy individuals and organisations very interesting. This Max Mosely must be some guy. As indeed must tough guy Bernie. It’s always hilarious to see Bernie, who must be 5ft 3 and in his seventies, still with his seventies haircut, strolling around a Grand Prix grid, linked arms with some fit young amazon. Go Bernie! The Hugh Hefner of racing drivers.
To paraphrase Mrs Merton, “Tell me Miss, what is it you find so attractive about billionaire Bernie?”
Ever since he was exposed in the tabloids for his enjoyment of sado-masochistic sex with groups of prostitutes dressed as Nazis, Mosely’s sanity and suitability to be the head of an international organization has been somewhat open to question. So much so that the FIA was forced to hold a vote this week as to whether he should continue as its president.
Now I can see that it may not have been easy growing up with, and living with, the thought that your dad is, or was, a prominent Hitler-loving fascist. Especially in a country that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives and most of its national wealth in defeating Hitler and the Nazis.
And the idea that some old boy should use some of his wealth to purchase some harmless private fun/therapy in an SM dungeon isn’t so bad when you consider there’s no actual crime taking place and apparently no victims. Seems like some perfectly legitimate wealth redistribution. He may even have been very generous with his girls.
But it’s interesting that there were several F1 teams who have said very loudly that he should be put out to pasture, or be forced to resign, to spend more time with his Nazi whores, if that’s what he enjoys. The more vociferous and anti-Max of those F1 teams appear to be Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ferrari, Honda and Yamaha. So that’s the entire set of the former Axis countries, Germany, Italy and Japan - lined up against fascist nutters and dictators being in prominent posts and positions of power and authority.
I don’t see this as something ironic, and I don’t suspect there’s anything hypocritical or anti-British going on here. I do think that Germany, Italy and Japan have had to go through decades of shame and self-flagellation as a result of their fascist, militaristic and brutal past. They’ve needed to think deeply about their politics, and about political systems that transgress human rights and decent human values. And they recognise that for ethical and moral reasons no-one should associate himself with even the trappings of Nazism and fascism if they wish to retain any credibility and integrity, and be considered suitable for responsible and representative roles in society.
Even a thicko like the party-loving squaddie and ‘war on terror’ enthusiast Prince Harry now gets this particular point. But not our Max, apparently. He’s decided to brazen it out, and he’s apparently got the support of the overwhelming majority of FIA members, who voted for him to remain in post. Well - better a fascist you know, whom you like and trust, than one you don’t.
What do these people require of their leader? Probity? No. Integrity? No. Though he may well have lots of these qualities, in many ways, for all I know.
People in power, for the most part right-wing rich people, mostly require their leaders and representatives to be hard-faced, stony-hearted tough guys who know how to play hard-ball in their interests. I guess Max fits the job description, and they can’t bear to let him go.
Or maybe I’m being very unfair. Maybe he’s just a very clubbable and hospitable old boy who has lots of like-minded friends with fascist leanings, friends and associates whom he’s cultivated over the years, who are standing by him in his hour of need. Sieg Heil!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to synchronicity. I was listening to a news report just now about the number of men wearing ties in the US dropping to 6%. Sales of ties have apparently fallen by 50%. Those tie-wearers must be buying them by the hundred to maintain even 50% of sales, by my reckoning.
Yesterday, for the first time in months, I needed to think about ties, in order to find my black tie, to wear for a funeral. I’d forgotten where my tie collection is currently located. Literally forgotten, ever since I carried out my last domestic re-organization, all those months ago. And I’d also forgotten how many of the damned things I still have hanging around the place. I’m sure I’ll never wear more than 3 or 4 of them ever again, if that.
Time to think of 101 uses for an old tie. I reckon Max Moseley could think of a few. Or maybe I should just throw them away? But hold on. I bet there’s a new generation of youngsters coming along who will think wearing antique ties is really funky, once there have been a couple of generations who have stopped wearing them.
Maybe I’ll have a grandson one day who will appreciate grandad’s silk ties. I remember a time in the 1960’s when I was happily tie-dying and recycling my grandad’s old button-up vests! I was wearing them with pride, as shirts, thinking I looked really cool. And thinking about funerals, I must sort out my will, and put the ties into the care of a Trust.
I feel a song coming on. The Ties They Are A’Changin’. Tie Waits For No Man.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The funeral gathering was blessed with beautiful sunny, warm weather. Everyone was able to sit out in the garden and enjoy the return of the sun. It would have been very different if we’d had the previous day’s cold, dull, wet weather.
My friend’s family are all delightful people; incredibly warm, humorous, thoughtful and civilized. It’s so interesting how the actual funeral in the morning can be so full of mourning, grief and the pain of loss, but in the afternoon, when good people who rarely see one another are gathered together en masse and able to chat and enjoy one another’s company, it becomes a completely different, a completely opposite sort of gathering, full of laughter, positive energy and high spirits. Which is how a funeral ‘wake’ ought to be.
When my three cousins lost both their mother and father within months of each other a couple of years ago I made up my mind that we should try to meet up as a group as often as possible. We’ve done it a couple of times, but not often enough. I need to get back to instigating those gatherings. I really like my extended family - my many cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts and uncles. We’re all far too ‘busy’, and we live too far apart these days, but I really don’t just want to see my family together at funerals.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
In the middle of the funeral gathering, in the middle of the afternoon, someone noticed there was water dripping through the kitchen ceiling. Immediately the cry went up, “Who’s in the bathroom? Who’s left the tap running?”
As it turned out, no-one was, and no-one had. There was no evidence at all of any water leaking or overflowing in the bathroom above the kitchen. Panic. What the hell was going on? Meanwhile the drip had turned into something much more sinister - a great sagging blister of water, threatening to burst and to collapse the kitchen ceiling. The kitchen had been the hub and the nerve centre of this food- and drink-focused afternoon.
The family carried out a quick audit of those present to see whether anyone was qualified to take charge of the situation. Nobody was. There was an electrician, but he didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “Call an emergency plumber!” “No - call the insurance company!” “Take all the food and drink out of the kitchen!” What to do?
In the event an elderly neighbour somehow appeared on the scene, an uninvited guest, armed with spanners, a stepladder, a sharp knife, bits of timber, etc. Everyone stood back deferentially. Thank God - someone with some practical skills and know-how.
We had journalists, educationalists, hairdressers, musicians, students, cabinet makers, professional fund-raisers, and lots of retired people representing other professions - all useless. I tried to make myself useful by emptying out a dustbin in the garden and positioning it under the leak.
Eventually the ceiling came down, of course, and the dustbin was at least useful for carrying away the debris, bit by bit. Maybe it was better that it happened when there were lots of family and friends around to share in the disaster, caused, as it turned out, by a badly-soldered pipe in the ceiling whose leakage had chosen this particular day to announce its long-term insidious effects.
As someone said, we’ll all look back in the future and say, “Remember the day of the funeral, when the ceiling fell down?” And laugh.
-----------------------------------------------------------
And finally, the boy who cried wolf . . .
It turned out that one of my friend’s nephews, who’s known to be a bit of a joker and a piss-taker, a lad with lots of wild, frizzy hair, had seen some drips coming from the ceiling the previous day, and had mentioned it to his mother . . .
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Layer 49 Zen Cat, the Ox and the Chartered Accountant
.
Summer reappeared today, with blue skies and warm sunshine. It was there, casually hanging around, as I emerged from an hour’s meeting with a certain chartered accountant. By which time I was in dire need of therapy, or therapies. I hit the nearest café with tables out in the sun, and helped myself to a large dose of sunshine and a double shot of espresso. Mmmm. They felt good. I also needed a strong cigarette, of which I must say I heartily disapprove, dear reader, but needs must.
The fourth element in my self-medication was to take out the Zen player and fill my head with the masterful sounds of His Bobness. Ah yes,
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed.
I have a friend who never, ever, heard music through headphones till she was well past 40, and this is someone who’d been in her twenties in the 1960s. How could the delights of the finest quality hi-fidelity stereo sound delivered direct to your ear drums have passed someone by, throughout the entire heyday of rock and soul? Music as it’s meant to be heard. It beats me.
Lot of water under the bridge,
Lot of other stuff too
Don't get up gentlemen,
I'm only passing through.
How well I remember her lying on a Spanish beach, inserting the earphones for the first time, and ‘turning on’. Freaking out, more like. I’m not sure what she was expecting, but when Ry Cooder’s ‘Get Rhythm’ sprang like a noisy tiger into her head she reacted like the proverbial startled rabbit, and jerked bolt upright, convinced that the entire beach was being blasted with Ry’s most rocking sounds. Oh, how we laughed!
Some things are too hot to touch,
The human mind can only stand so much,
You can't win, with a losing hand.
Of course she was hooked instantly, once she’d calmed down and realized that the music was inaudible to anyone but her. In the same way that I became hooked after donning headphones for the very first time, circa 1968 - at home, in my student flat. There were no mobile music players of any description in those pioneering days.
"There must be some way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief."
And yet way back then the masters of rock, Dylan and Hendrix, were already producing masterpieces that have proved unsurpassable over the intervening 40 years or so. I like to keep both their versions of All Along The Watchtower on the Zen, and play them virtually every day, for reasons of pure pleasure, as well as therapy.
I have to say that Jimi’s version has the benefit of some brilliant sound engineering, albeit using prehistoric analogue equipment, so that the various guitar and percussion layers swirl and swerve around the inside of your head when you hear them through headphones. Still amazing after all these years.
"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that,
and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now,
the hour is getting late."
The surrounding sounds of the city are annoying and harsh. They make a walk in the city far less agreeable than it could be, without the aural irritation. I much prefer silence, and if I can’t have silence then I’m damn sure I want a soundtrack of my own choosing, rather than the racket that someone else is making. I want the very best, the most beautiful and the most pleasing sounds ever created. With those sounds in your head, the city seems transformed. It rocks.
--------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, back home, White Cat is on the roof, curled up in the sun. She may be stupid, but she’s not an idiot. I think we can learn a lot about living a Zen life from observing animals. Their unalloyed instinctual intelligence, undiluted and uncorrupted by alien thoughts and misconceptions, guides them through a life of just being what they ought to be.
Summer reappeared today, with blue skies and warm sunshine. It was there, casually hanging around, as I emerged from an hour’s meeting with a certain chartered accountant. By which time I was in dire need of therapy, or therapies. I hit the nearest café with tables out in the sun, and helped myself to a large dose of sunshine and a double shot of espresso. Mmmm. They felt good. I also needed a strong cigarette, of which I must say I heartily disapprove, dear reader, but needs must.
The fourth element in my self-medication was to take out the Zen player and fill my head with the masterful sounds of His Bobness. Ah yes,
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed.
I have a friend who never, ever, heard music through headphones till she was well past 40, and this is someone who’d been in her twenties in the 1960s. How could the delights of the finest quality hi-fidelity stereo sound delivered direct to your ear drums have passed someone by, throughout the entire heyday of rock and soul? Music as it’s meant to be heard. It beats me.
Lot of water under the bridge,
Lot of other stuff too
Don't get up gentlemen,
I'm only passing through.
How well I remember her lying on a Spanish beach, inserting the earphones for the first time, and ‘turning on’. Freaking out, more like. I’m not sure what she was expecting, but when Ry Cooder’s ‘Get Rhythm’ sprang like a noisy tiger into her head she reacted like the proverbial startled rabbit, and jerked bolt upright, convinced that the entire beach was being blasted with Ry’s most rocking sounds. Oh, how we laughed!
Some things are too hot to touch,
The human mind can only stand so much,
You can't win, with a losing hand.
Of course she was hooked instantly, once she’d calmed down and realized that the music was inaudible to anyone but her. In the same way that I became hooked after donning headphones for the very first time, circa 1968 - at home, in my student flat. There were no mobile music players of any description in those pioneering days.
"There must be some way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief."
And yet way back then the masters of rock, Dylan and Hendrix, were already producing masterpieces that have proved unsurpassable over the intervening 40 years or so. I like to keep both their versions of All Along The Watchtower on the Zen, and play them virtually every day, for reasons of pure pleasure, as well as therapy.
I have to say that Jimi’s version has the benefit of some brilliant sound engineering, albeit using prehistoric analogue equipment, so that the various guitar and percussion layers swirl and swerve around the inside of your head when you hear them through headphones. Still amazing after all these years.
"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that,
and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now,
the hour is getting late."
The surrounding sounds of the city are annoying and harsh. They make a walk in the city far less agreeable than it could be, without the aural irritation. I much prefer silence, and if I can’t have silence then I’m damn sure I want a soundtrack of my own choosing, rather than the racket that someone else is making. I want the very best, the most beautiful and the most pleasing sounds ever created. With those sounds in your head, the city seems transformed. It rocks.
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Meanwhile, back home, White Cat is on the roof, curled up in the sun. She may be stupid, but she’s not an idiot. I think we can learn a lot about living a Zen life from observing animals. Their unalloyed instinctual intelligence, undiluted and uncorrupted by alien thoughts and misconceptions, guides them through a life of just being what they ought to be.
Whilst we poor humans, confused and corrupted, baffled and bewildered, used and abused by other people’s weasel words and ideas, often don’t have a clue. We’re the dumb ones, thanks to our ‘intellect’.We run around doing crazy and unnecessary things every day, when we ought to be lying in the sun, pleasurably absorbing its life-enhancing power.
Ludwig Wittgenstein said, 'Explanations come to an end somewhere', and "How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life!", which I discovered through the music of minimalist and philosopher Steve Reich. And it also takes only one or two idiotic and self-defeating thoughts, either deliberately implanted or self-absorbed, to guide vulnerable lives towards disaster. Like ‘an eye for an eye’, for instance. Like ‘don’t let anyone give you no disrespect’. Teenagers are dying on the streets thanks to those evil seeds having been absorbed and having taken root.
White Cat, on the other hand, goes with the flow, and does what comes naturally. These days she couldn’t chase another cat out of the garden even if she wanted to, she’s become so old and feeble. On the other hand she’s left alone by the other cats, who come and go, see that she’s no threat, and mark the territory as their own.
White Cat doesn’t care. She eats and she sleeps, either inside in the winter or outside in the summer. She goes with the flow. She’s slowing down and getting herself ready for the Big Sleep. Why should she worry about anything? Why should she care?
Why do any of us care? Lots of us care about things that we shouldn’t pay any attention to. We waste time on ridiculous things that should be of no consequence. And we fail to care about things that we maybe should.
The bodhisattva understands that in many ways “life is but a joke”, but cares very much that many of those around us are suffering, and need help in order to live well and to avoid needless suffering. Much suffering can be avoided if we can only become our true instinctual zen-like selves, and if we can only transform the ways in which we order our societies and re-order the ways in which we and other people live.
These days White Cat can’t even be bothered to take a dump in another garden, let alone cover it over with earth. She’s turned my garden into a turd minefield: you go out there at your peril. I go out there from time to clear her unlovely stink bombs, her minefield of muck. We humans crap all over our planet, and stink the place out. And we don’t even have the excuse of senility and feebleness. We just don’t care.
I’ve also been observing my daughter’s dog, and its doggie ways. It’s part of a Staffordshire terrier’s nature to want lots of affection from time to time. It also needs to be active and to go out for long explores regularly, just like Pooh. It needs to walk, and run, and find whatever stimulation it can in the surrounding territory. If it doesn’t have that opportunity it will tear around in hyper-active circles, chasing its own tail; bored, frustrated and somewhat crazed. And then, of course, there’s sex . . .
We humans often don’t allow animals to be themselves and to do what nature intends them to do. And we damned sure have plenty of difficulty in figuring out what nature intends for ourselves. Too often we live by the mores, expectations and exigencies of others who have our well-being and our happiness very far from the centre of their concerns. Or else they have a very fucked-up idea of what well-being consists of.
Each of us has to transform ourselves, and then assist others who are looking for help in transforming themselves, looking to find their own Way, their own Tao. It’s hard work, and very often impossible without a helping hand or two. Ox-herding is far from easy. Even just finding the Ox or the Tao can be next to impossible. Realizing the impossibility of possessing the Ox, or completely determining your own life, can be an impossible task in itself. Understanding that life, the Ox, will of its own accord offer you the benefit of its limitless power and its unstinting support if it so chooses - ah yes . . . that’s another matter entirely. We all need to meditate on that and to remind ourselves of that on a regular basis.
It’s like Kahlil Gibran’s ‘Prophet’ says,
“Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”
Maybe he could as well have said, “Think not that you can direct the course of life, for life . . .”
The issue is all about being worthy. And that’s all about being true to your true nature: finding your true nature, and being true to yourself. I'm pretty sure this is the Way of Zen.
http://adventuresinmusic.biz/Archives/Interviews/stevereich.htm
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Victory!
History was made in the early hours of this morning, London time, when Barack Obama made a stirring speech and claimed victory in the race to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States of America. It was a thrill to see the speech in real time, in full. Wonderful!
Read the full text and see a video of part of the speech here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7434843.stm
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