Hippies

Reading about The Brotherhood of Eternal Love in the LA Times. Enlightenment at a price.

The Flight of the Intellectuals

A fascinating article in Slate about a forthcoming book by Paul Berman, called The Flight of the Intellectuals. The debate is new to me, but it centres around the figure of Anaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian author whose life is currently under threat (along with a number of other intellectuals and - for example - Danish cartoonists). Academics, it seems, are now regularly physically imperilled. Side-sniping (the kind that has been directed at Ali) is condemned and analysed, in this instance in relation to the reaction to the Rushdie affair of the 80's.

Mill on the Floss

Parallels between GH Lewes's (George Eliot's) real life and her novel Mill on the Floss, and Ian McEwan's narrative in Atonement? Quote from The Guardian:

'And so the ending, when it comes, is rushed and breathless. A terrible tidal flood has marooned Tom in the mill and, in a reversal of the usual rescue plot, Maggie rows out from the town to save her elder brother. On the way back a piece of flotsam breaks off and heads towards their small boat. "'It is coming, Maggie!' Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the oars, and clasping her." The boat sinks, taking Tom and Maggie down in that final embrace. In real life this reunion of brother and sister never took place. Instead, Isaac and Mary Ann Evans spent their adult lives apart, he on the Warwickshire family farm, she as an increasingly successful and fêted author in London.'

Pen Spinning magicians

Chinese pen-spinning wizardry:

Crash Bang Wollop

Nice, only 1,500 or so nukes to go (assuming the bubbling senate pass this). It's going to be a whole different story when we get down to the last hundread or so, assuming that ever happens. And check out this brilliantly evil quote from the North Koreans: 'Those who seek to bring down the system, whether they play a main role or a passive role, will fall victim to the nuclear strikes of an invincible army'. Gulp.

Messi'd up

Loved reading this on Lionel Messi. Knowing and caring little about football, it's articles like these that can crack open the game and reveal its true worth. Humbling too to learn that Messi is 22 years old.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/lionel-messi-magic-in-his-feet-1928768.html

Hello Miyamoto

A great article rightly celebrating Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto - designer of Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, and the rest. Bafta recently awarded him an Academy Fellowship - the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award.

Link here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/nintendos-biggest-brain-1925938.html

Yemen in Hackers

Yemeni Jews in Hackney: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/hackney-the-promised-land-for-yemens-jews-1926993.html

Sticky Insects - Hugh Raffles

Hugh Raffles Insectopedia, described by Paul Gilroy on Twitter as 'beautiful, thoughtful, original, uplifting, educative'. I nearly read an article about this the other day, but here's the link to the NYT review (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/books/25book.html). Sounds wonderful, with reflections on (rather than facts about) insects grouped together under the letters of the alphabet. Like an encyclopedia. Get it?

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

I'm enjoying reading (short extracts of) Fichte, a philosopher sometimes considered as the bridge between Kant and Hegel. Fichte more or less does away with Kant's distinction between apriori and a posteriori (although his notion of a limitation - Anstoss - comes, I understand, to play something like the role of Kant's thing-in-itself). Instead, he is the first idealist to move everything back inside the imagination (the realm of 'free', not 'determined' thinking), and to posit a unity of self-consciousness. In other words, Fichte does not rely on anything outside the 'I' to prove the validity of the 'I', or what Fichte calls the subject-object.

A second interesting thing is that Fichte, far in advance of Durkheim (or Simmel...?) argued that self-consciousness was a social phenomenon. In other words, one's own self-consciousness does not exist without the self-consciousness of other rational thinking beings. Much more to grasp here, I expect, but an interesting start.

Eagle - Eye

More on Terry Eagleton. I haven't read this properly, but I did just learn that he was forced to retire from Manchester in 2008 and that, despite arguing fiercely with Derrida during his (Derrida's) lifetime, he has defended and championed him since his death. Link here:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=410999&c=2

Robert Schiller on the financial crisis

Robert Shiller is a professor at Yale. He's written this article (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/shiller70/English) on the economic crisis, which makes some interesting (if underdeveloped) connections surrounding the idea of contingency. For example, he mentions Haiti, and seems (rightly, I think), to suggest that geographic, economic and political factors all contributed to the outcome (or, the situation which we are currently witnessing and dealing with). Outcomes, however, are somewhat different to causes: there seems, at least, to be a key factor in the Haiti affair, namely the earthquake itself. But there's little point in blaming an earthquake: we ought, in Haiti, to look to the infrastructural problems and the human error that allowed them to influence the tragic outcome of the whole thing. Likewise, with the current economic crisis, I expect there are very human lessons to be learnt, which we are in danger of ignoring if we put everything down to contingency, multiple-factors and chaos theory.

Jerry Saltz

A really good article on art critic Jerry Saltz's new book Seeing Out Louder: Art Criticism 2003 - 2009. I hadn't heard of, or read, anything by Saltz (hang on...I still haven't). But there are some nice quotations here which make you want to read the man, a critic who eschews ideology and all the art-history bollocks I had to sit through in my elective modules as an undergraduate.

Here's the link: http://www.artcritical.com/carrier/DavidCarrierJerrySaltz.html

It's just equality, for crying out loud

A walkthrough review of Michael Sandel's Justice, by Vivian Gornick. Gornick seems to suggest, at the end, that political theories of justice seem to skip something crucial between theory and practice: reality. She seems, finally, to side with Rawls (though hardly wholly), but Slavoj Zizek has pointed out - with psychoanalytic charm - that individuals seem to require those who they feel they are 'above', or against whom they can compare themselves. The idea of universal equality, assuming this to be some sort of apriori (psycho)analytic truth, becomes some sort of terrible punishment. Article here, in the Boston Review:

http://bostonreview.net/BR35.2/gornick.php

That Green and Pleasant Land

A great interview/article by Paul Taylor in the Indie. He talks to Jerusalem lead Mark Rylance about Shakespeare...and other stuff. I particularly enjoyed learning about Peter Brook's understanding of a what good adult-like state might be (I am constantly searching for this) - that the point of life is to be like 'a child with experience'. Link here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/mark-rylance-ill-play-another-woman-1927491.html

BTW: Jerusalem: fantastic.

Tula - No Name

'No name' by Tula - I heard this for the first time yesterday on the wonderful (and also recently discovered) BBC Radio 6.

http://www.myspace.com/tulatunes

Newman at the BFI - love that Ranch dressing!

An interesting article on Paul Newman (particularly if you're yet to watch any - or many - of his films and are looking for guidance). The article explores the more difficult roles awarded to Newman - the ones in which he was expected to be less likeable. He was knocking about when Marlon Brando and James Dean were, and he always ran the risk in roles like these of coming off too much like them. This quote puts it nicely: 'Newman is most comfortable in a role when it isn't scaled heroically; even when he plays a bastard, he's hot a big bastard - only a callow, selfish one...you don't believe it when he plays someone perverse of vicious [I'm thinking of Brando here in Streetcar - GL] and the older he gets the better you know him, the less you believe it' (critic Pauline Kael). The BFI is having a Paul Newman season that runs throughout April. here's the link to the article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/was-paul-newmans-acting-career-limited-by-his-charm-and-good-looks-1927486.html

The Lost Booker...found

An article about Patrick White, whose book The Twyborn Affair has been nominated for the 'Lost' Booker of 1979. Thing is, White hated literary prizes (he sent a friend to pick up the Nobel he was awarded). He'd be spinning in his grave if he knew - which makes you wonder whether it's fair to include him at all...or whether it's simply funny to. Also nominated is JG Farrell for Troubles, a novel about the struggle for Irish independence in 1919. Having just been to see a play about the blanket, wash and hunger strikes in the 70's (and having recently seen Steve McQueen's 'Hunger'), I'd be interested to read this.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/posthumous-blow-to-the-author-who-hated-book-prizes-1928014.html

Crafty Indices

Every index is wrong, because words are never referenced as they appear in the index itself. Baudrillard would have had a field day with a metaphor like this. Or perhaps that's just me hoping he would have.

Hitch a lift, Martin. Fly away Eagleton. (Sorry).

A couple of things worth reading in tandem. First, a short interview with Terry Eagleton in the New Statesman (http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/03/interview-hitchens-nostalgia) where he talks about Christopher Hitchens and his colleague at Manchester University, Martin Amis. Specifically, he mentions their shared 'Islamophobia' (though note also, Amis pops up in Hari's below article on the aged, for suggesting that euthanasia chambers be set up through out London so the pongy oldies can just drop in and drop out). Secondly, here's Hitchens in Vanity Fair, writing one of the finest articles I've read in a long time (http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/hitchens200711).

Old Wives Tales

Johann Hari debunking the myth propagated by Tory front-bencher David Willetts, in The Pinch: how the baby boomers took their children's future - and why they should give it back, that, well, what the title says. A program on the naughties, recently broadcast on the BBC (I think) claimed the same thing. Hari reminds us that 1) we are all living longer and 2) we are fitter in older age but still encouraged to retire (and then, all to often, to waste away lonely and decrepit in a retirement home some- or any-where).

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-as-britain-ages-will-generational-conflict-dominate-our-politics-1928041.html

You wood if you could

Is it a coincidence that these were auctioned in Brentwood, by auctioneer Wendy Wood, and that they're made of...and that they simulate someone with...oh forget it.

http://www.independent.ie/and-finally/200yearold-sex-toys-fetch-pound3600-2112693.html

Rudolph Carnap

Interesting article on Rudolph Carnap, who I was not familiar with before (rather embarrassingly, having studied philosophy at university). He was a member of the Vienna Circle and an exponent of logical positivism, developing Wittgenstein's notion of a 'verification principle', where by meaning is dependent on the ways we determine the truth of falsity of a claim. The claim 'there is a God', for instance, is deducible neither from experience nor analytical thinking. It is not false, but meaningless. His 1928 book The Structure of the World was extremely influential:

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1121

Tudor-f***ing-tastic

Delaroche - The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

An excellent article on 1) the ongoing fascination with Delaroche's painting depicting the execution of Henry VIII's 17 year old wife (above - on show, I think, at the National Gallery), and 2) our cultural fascination with all things tudor. The last paragraph is excellent - Adams suggests that the Tudors offer us a key insight into our own times (David Starkey once described Cromwell as 'Alastair Campbell with an axe'). Delaroche is described as being all too historical (visitors reach for the historical detail in the brochure, instead of standing in awe of the painting). But, surely, there must be something that inclines them to do this, instead of simply walking on....Adams suggests it's all in the dress, and I agree.

http://www.newstatesman.com/art/2010/03/delaroche-painting-tudor-jane

Bad Craft

Robert Winston: Bad Ideas: an arresting history of our inventions

Probably an interesting supplement to Richard Sennett's book The Craftsman. Sennett wrestles (fairly lightly) with the problem of what to do when craftsmanship goes both right, and wrong (think Oppenheimer). Really interesting to hear that the Piraha come into the book too. This was the tribe that Daniel Everett wrote about in his (very well received) book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes. (The main point about the Piraha (pronounced Pee-da-ha) is that their language shows little sign of recursion, which is how we have - since Chomsky - thought language was structured.) Described as a gentle (though directionless) wander through the orchard of our scientific past...

Romeo07

The real face of Marcus Wolf (died Nov 9th, 2006)

The British Intelligence service has an issue with sex: it seems the 'honey trap' is one of the most reliable and easily leveraged spy tactics it's possible to use (and Brits, perhaps not expecting amorous attention from foreigners - sob sob - frequently fall victim to it). Of particular interest here is the story of Marcus Wolf (5 well known honey-trap stories are outlined in brief). Wolf worked for the Stasi in East German in the early 50's. He clocked that by sending handsome spies (he called them the Romeo spies) over to West German to seduce the (countless) single women there he could get hold of information fairly straightforwardly. He later documented it in a book, Man Without A Face.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/12/the_history_of_the_honey_trap?page=full

United States of Haiti?

An article that forges some interesting links between France, Haiti and the birth of the United States. It doesn't give much space to the slave narratives - the role enforced human labour played in the establishment of the 'American experiment' - but there's information about Toussaint Louverture, the (Haitian) Revolution of 1791 and the history of what was once Saint Domingue. Links are made to the architecture in New Orleans (devised largely by Haitians) and the writing of, amongst others, C.L.R James:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/03/21/how_haiti_saved_america/?page=5

An engraving of Toussaint Louverture from France (around 1802).

3QDnacht

Bruno Ganz's memorable performance as Hitler in Der Untergang (2004), specifically the furious tirade he launches into when he knows the game is up, has been hijacked by YouTubers and dubbed over in all sorts of funny ways. Here, the 3QD lot get the (probably self-inflicted) treatment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqY7pfMvNz4

50 Cents for the Indie

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/50-cent-wembley-arena-london-1925950.html

A good review in the Independent, detailing everything what I think (we all agree) is wrong with rap-italism.