Engaged with today

Miles Davis - Milestones
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage
Takashi Miike - Audition - as shocking as the first time I saw it.
Benjamin Kunkel - Indecision - clever, but not particularly good. I shall return to work on my novel in which there is no particular reason for the protagonist's questionable mental state - why do these novels always have to have a trauma or Wendepunkt?

The Poincaré Conjecture

seems to have been solved by Grisha Perelman, a Russian mathematician, who, as you can see from the report is somewhat of an outsider within (surely that should be without, as in the hymn we used to sing at junior school) mathematical circles, and has refused the Fields medal. He will also, no doubt, turn down the prize from the Clay Institute (those of you with better memories will remember that I posted about this conjecture as one of the Millenium Problems), and for this and the purity of his mathematical and inquisitive spirit I salute him. My mother would question as to why, if he can solve a problem like this, he can't do the basic maths to work out that a million dollars would be good for his bank account, but what can you do?

Carnival

This weekend. I will be avoiding it like the plague. Too many police. Too much control. And the sound systems have to shut down at 7pm. I will be helping my brother string up disco lights for his pub tomorrow, but tonight I am relaxing with the latest Good Times compilation filling me with the carnival vibe. I shall leave you with the wonderfully distorted Channel One Sound System and 'Conspiracy':



Irie?

National Express

I took the coach down to Portsmouth on Monday night after work - I think for the first time ever, although I may have travelled back via London from Manchester after visting the universities there as a 17 year old.

Anyway, after only using the train/car for the last 12 years, the journey opened my eyes - not only do you take a number of backstreets to get from Victoria to Putney, pass through Richmond, Kingston and Tolworth, but then also stop in Guildford (another place I used to frequent in my youth), then back on to the A3(M) - and usually direct into Portsmouth, but the coach turns off some 20 miles out of Portsmouth and uses the old London Road.

As we crawled down this road, I saw parts of Portsmouth I had either not visited or seen for years - as children, our summer holidays always began with a trip up this road on the way to Scotland or anywhere else. It was fascinating to see how little place like Cowplain, Purbrook and Widley had changed in the intervening 20 years. They seem to have been frozen in time as the traffic has deserted them entirely. They still have small parades of shops, newsagents, tea houses, and the assorted slightly bizarre specialist shopping experiences you tend to get away from the main shopping areas - caravan showrooms, old-style cake shops, etc... There must be masses of these places, with businesses slowly going bankrupt across the UK as larger roads are being built, shopping centres become ever larger, and supermarkets diversify their product ranges ever further. Whither the spirit of British capitalism? A nation of shopkeepers has become a nation of factory outlet visiting credit card users...

Back in Ealing

Away for the last three days - I'll catch up on my day off tomorrow.

Happiness

is not a cigar called Hamlet - it is browsing the London Transport Museum photo archive. Relive your youth. Look at your old Tube station. Be amazed at the art-deco glory of Boston Manor station. Or not.

Orthodoxy

Now, as some of you may know, I have (more than) a passing interest in the history of the Orthodox Church - I think it sprang originally from my interest in Dostoevskii, Solov'ev, Rozanov, Leont'ev and any other non-rational Russian thinker of the 19th/early 20th century you care to name.

As those of you who have studied Russian thought know, the writing about it, especially by Russian scholars is overly tendentious, taking either a strongly Soviet line, or a strong emigre anti-Soviet line.

Unfortunately, the histories of the Russian church I have delved into have had this same tendency (one shared by a great many of the conservative thinkers in Russia at the moment, step forward Mr Solzhenitsyn) - that is an overt romanticization of the pre-Soviet past, of Russian history, of the Romanov family, of the Orthodox church and of Russia's role within the world. Nothing new, you may say - romanticization of the past seems to been a genetic defect amongst not only the Russians, but amongst most nations that have experienced trauma (of whatever form), and there are clear intellectual antecedents in Russian history, and in modern Russian culture for this romantic messianism.

Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church is a magnificent introduction to the Orthodox church in general, and I wish there were an equivalent for the Russian Orthodox Church - in English, ideally - I have just picked up the 4 volume History of Russian Christianity by Shubin, but the fact that he has written, travelled and translated widely within this sphere slightly fills me with dread.

You've got to have a job...

Gwen Guthrie in classic 1986 style, thanks again to thebestlegaladvice.com. One of my favourites to play out, this, especially when I'm in a rare groove kind of mood. Or there are lots of drunken women/homosexuals.

U can't touch this

How to become a man of genius

If there are among my readers any young men or women who aspire to become leaders of thought in their generation, I hope they will avoid certain errors into which I fell in youth for want of good advice. When I wished to form an opinion upon a subject, I used to study it, weigh the arguments on different sides, and attempt to reach a balanced conclusion. I have since discovered that this is not the way to do things. A man of genius knows it all without the need of study; his opinions are pontifical and depend for their persuasiveness upon literary style rather than argument. It is necessary to be one-sided, since this facilitates the vehemence that is considered a proof of strength. It is essential to appeal to prejudices and passions of which men have begun to feel ashamed and to do this in the name of some new ineffable ethic. It is well to decry the slow and pettifogging minds which require evidence in order to reach conclusions. Above all, whatever is most ancient should be dished up as the very latest thing.

There is no novelty in this recipe for genius; it was practised by Carlyle in the time of our grandfathers, and by Nietzsche in the time of our fathers, and it has been practised in our own time by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is considered by his disciples to have enunciated all sorts of new wisdom about the relations of men and women; in actual fact he has gone back to advocating the domination of the male which one associates with the cave dwellers. Woman exists, in his philosophy, only as something soft and fat to rest the hero when he returns from his labours. Civilised societies have been learning to see something more than this in women; Lawrence will have nothing of civilisation. He scours the world for what is ancient and dark and loves the traces of Aztec cruelty in Mexico. Young men, who had been learning to behave, naturally read him with delight and go round practising cave-man stuff so far as the usages of polite society will permit.

One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: ``The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.'' Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age.

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Bertrand Russell

News you may have missed

while that plane sits on the runway in Boston:

Redheads have more sex.

Human cultural difference caused by parasite.

Oh yeah, I have a verruca (sorry the Google image search for 'verruca' turns up some of the most revolting images I have ever seen) and some Bazuka, and I have gone over to the beta version of Blogger, so please tell me if you notice any difference.

No Room For Squares

Mr. Mobley in imperious form - thank god for Blue Note - late night listening at its very best. Empyrean Isles to follow, I feel...

The 1980s

were the era of Thatcher, the miners' strike, riots, the collapse of communism, the rise of hiphop as a cultural institution, and a lot of bad pop music. You can relive your youth through the glut of 80s videos over thebestlegaladvice.com.

Here is my particular favourite, Musical Youth, seemingly still performing, with Pass the Dutchie - all together now,

This generation
Rules the nation
With version

Music happen to be the food of love
Sounds to really make you rub and scrub

I say: Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

It was a cool and lovely breezy afternoon
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
You could feel it 'cause it was the month of June
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
So I left my gate and went out for a walk
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
As I pass the dreadlocks' camp I heard them say
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

So I stopped to find out what was going on.
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
'Cause the spirit of Jah, you know he leads you on
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
There was a ring of dreads and a session was there in swing
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)
You could feel the chill as I seen and heard them say
(How does it feel when you've got no food ?)

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

'Cause me say listen to the drummer, me say listen to the bass
Give me little music make me wind up me waist
Me say listen to the drummer, me say listen to the bass
Give me little music make me wind up me waist, I say

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

You play it on the radio, a so me say, we a go hear it on the stereo
A so me know you a go play it on the disco
A so me say we a go hear it on the stereo

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

I say east, say west, say north and south (on the left hand side)
This is gonna make us jump and shout (on the left hand side)

Plotki

for those of us with an interest in the central and eastern parts of Europe.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

OK. The 'a' on my keyboard has not worked properly since I put it back together having tried to salvage the data on the harddrive when the laptop died a couple of weeks ago - I try to catch them when blogging, but they do slip through, so the heading for this is the missing 'a's for the last couple of weeks - some were down the back of the sofa with 16p in change, whilst the others were in the washing machine with two socks I had thought were lost forever. God, my life is tedious, and now I post it up here as well to bore you all with.

Open All Hours

I've been avoiding doing a major food shop for the last couple of weeks, picking up milk or whatever from Tesco Express on my way home.

This has had a two-fold effect - firstly it has compelled me to go through the cupboards and become increasingly creative with my cooking (I wish I had had this magical conjuring ability with food when I was a student - I now spend about the sme as I did 10 years go, yet I seem to have at least twice as much food).

However, these supplies have finally been exhausted - I had to give up on my fish risotto after the third night of servings, and this has, tonight, lead me into concerns about the healthiness of what I have left to eat.

I picked up some potatoes at M&S while at work, and had a couple when I got in from work. I am now, however, pondering whether the peppers in the Polish pate I have in the fridge count as real vegetable (they certainly taste it), and so if I can then count them as the final of my five a day, which will stop my slight guilt about not having a balanced diet.

I vote yes. This means I can retire to bed and read Indecision (blissful, a review soon, hopefully) without feeling like starving or guilty.

Urethra

Franklin - Live At The Fillmore West now on the stereo, while I hoover, clean, blog and so on. My God, that girl can sing:

Krokodil

in English.

The next six hours

of music have been completed (last night), and, as I spoke to my brother about it, it dawned on me that I actually find the more populist strain of DJing difficult - I can (as you all know) be wilfully obscure with my selections - I think the CDs I send out are testament to that, but once the music needs to pass into the realm of drunken popularity, as it must do when playing for punters in a pub or bar, I find myself limited.

Maybe I simply have fewer bridging tracks amongst the popular tunes - maybe there simply is less crossover potential between 'pop' classics than there is between my usual fare of jazz/soul/funk/reggae/hiphop. Or maybe there is, yet my ears are not attuned to it in the same way - the DJs at the 80's clubs of my youth seemed capable of playing this stuff without the jarring change of song or genre I feel when I try to do it. Maybe I am also too conservative in my view of drunken punters - maybe they are more open-minded after six shandies than I give them credit for?

What are the song(s) you cannot help but get up and dance to after drinking?

The Machinist

is a magnificently unsettling film delving into the effects of psychological and existential trauma. Despite being very much set in blue-collar America, Dostoevskian motifs permeate the film - epilepsy, insomnia, hallucinations, guilt and redemption, fallen women, yadda yadda yadda. Watch it, if you haven't already.

So the summer

is over, in Ealing at least. A strange autumnal dampness has descended, and walking back last night, I realised that it could have been mid-October or November - leaves are falling from trees, conkers and other fruits are appearing in ever greater numbers, and the windows are cloaked in the spatterings of general London drizzle.

Some Nietzsche for you

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.

Ascension

by John Coltrane on the stereo now - not easy listening by any stretch of the imagination - this was the album on which he made the final step away from the (already very stretched) outer limits of the jazz/blues tradition.

Solitude

“It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it”

Rilke

The real cost of terrorism

"Eight hours without an iPod - that's the most inconvenient thing," Hannah Pillinger, a 24-year-old at Manchester, said.

Stumble Upon

is a wonderful extension for Mozilla - you can get hold of it here - it is basically a web browsing tool that picks random sites based on your preferences and other Stumblers' recommendations. It has lead me to plethor of intriguing sites, some very interesting maths ones, especially the Funny Math section of haha.nu:

The Crown Prince

of reggae, Dennis Brown on the stereo now, and on Youtube in a 1979 stylee:

Six hours

of music take a long time to compile, especially when you delete your first 4 hour selection in a fit of pique at 3am, then your PC runs out of memory when you only have two left to finish. But they are done now, and will be delivered in a couple of hours. Earning money for it does tke the joy out of it, I have to say. I guess I don't deal well with deadlines in relation to things that are important to me. And tomorrow I shall start again - no last minute efforts this time...

Exiles

Saw Joyce's Exiles @ the National Theatre last night - second night, tickets for £10 - it was well worth joining. This is the first production in the UK for 30-odd years, and the play has generally been (unfairly) slated since its first production.

It was written before Ulysses, and at time you can see the nascent wordplay and love of language he was to explore in his later works, but the play focusses much more on the psychological dimension of relationships, and specifically the roles of freedom and infidelity - there are a great many echoes of Joyce's own life and his relationship with his (younger, less educated) wife within, and also, tangentially a lot of the more general social issues and concerns within early 20th century Ireland - the role of Catholicism, intellectual life, nationalism, notions of identity for the educated, English-speaking middle class. The influence of Ibsen is also clear in terms of the theme and its treatment (and the length of the play - 2h55 with interval).

Free Fantasy Football

courtesy of Metro. Get over there and sign up - here is my team:

GK E van der Sar MU

DF JA Riise LIV
DF G Heinze MU
DF S Hyypia LIV
DF G Clichy ARS

MF S Gerrard LIV
MF T Rosicky ARS
MF D Duff NEW
MF A Lennon TOT

ST J Defoe TOT
ST R van Persie ARS