Electronic - Getting Away With It


Depeche Mode - New Life


Fats Waller - Your Feets Too Big


Truman Capote

O Come

Best arrangement of a carol, David Willcocks' O Come All Ye Faithful (tune Adeste Fideles). Particularly the descants on the last two verses (starts 2m15s in).

Favourite song.

It matters little whether we call him Allah, Buddha, Christ or Jehovah. He belongs equally to us all.

URBAN GUERRILLA CONCEPT

"Urban guerrilla warfare is based on the analysis... that when conditions will be ripe for armed struggle, it will be too late to prepare for it". Red Army Faction in 'If you want peace prepare for war', Stoke Newington Eight Defence Group, p. 9

"Is the left never prepared to adopt a particular tactic if it entails escalation? Is it content to remain a purely reactive force, even when the state is on the verge of introducing Emergency Powers Acts here and using its army against its own people? (How many Derrys will it take till...)" p. 11

"If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action." (Ulrike Meinhof)

EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER...

No tour for you.

More time for cinema.

Since leaving employment at my local independent art-deco establishment and finding myself having to pay to watch films, I have returned to my discerning ways. My usual utter disappointment in films that are not only overexposed and overrated by film magazines and critics but were shoved down my throat through ticket sales and daily performances has finally abated.

I saw a couple of films at the BFI London Film Festival. The first was Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, the subject matter of which is of such interest to me that it was never going to disappoint. In fact it far exceeded my expectations. An important moment for me was when Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (leader of the National Anti H-Block/Armagh Campaign) described the hunger strike as a cycle of death and grieving. This links in with Allen Feldman's description of the hunger strike as a production line of corpses, a conveyor belt, which I touched on in my dissertation.

The second film was part of the Gay & Lesbian film festival. I had meant to see a different film but got the wrong day. I was miserably hungover. We got to the BFI with about 10 minutes to spare and then found out the film was showing at Vue, Leicester Square. So hungover and having slept in contact lenses I then had to dash over Hungerford Bridge (following the massively tall JW whose pace is about 2.5x mine). I was ready to give up and go home but I persevered. The film was a South African film called Skoonheid, or Beauty in English, and it was incredible. One of the best films I've seen for a long long time. I really hope it widens its audience from the gay & lesbian market which it was obviously promoted to at the BFI LFF, because it should have a much broader appeal.
Here is the trailer:




I also saw Tyrannosaur which was brilliantly acted, scripted, directed. It was horrific, peculiarly British, raw and moving. It felt real.

Last week I went to see Throwing Muses in a rare London appearance. I have a few TM albums but do not know their entire back catalogue. The set was diverse (although thin on Real Ramona stuff) and seemed to miss out the Tanya Donnelly songs which was a shame as 'Not Too Soon' is probably the perfect pop song. A few other hits were missed out (Counting Backwards, Snakeface) but it didn't even matter, because Kristin Hersh's voice is just incredible.

The way it is.

It's a hard life for historians.

History books are always on the top floor of the library. Is it some academic in-joke about the study of history being an uphill struggle? Or perhaps a deterministic conception of historical progress? Either way, my lungs and knees don't appreciate the struggle.

Health is a bourgeois concept.

"To be healthy thus means to be expropriated and exploitable."

#2. Illness being the totality of conditions of capitalist relations of production is the productive power par excellence for capitalism.

#7. Illness is the veiled unemployment and in the form of social security contributions being imposed illness is crisis-buffer par excellence in neo-capitalism.

#11. Health is nothing but an ideologistic-fascist figment of the mind.

(SPK: Turn Illness into a Weapon)

The system and the capitalists physically weaken you and psychologically damage you through belittlement and criticism, and money is no fair compensation to this treatment.
SPK state that illness is the currency of capitalism and its method by which it can sustain its dominance. It sickens you into compliance, until you are made to be grateful for its assistance in numbing your pain.

"A new economic space has been delineated - the bioeconomy - and a new form of capital - biocapital."
"...our somatic, coporeal, neurochemical individuality has become opened up to choice, prudence, and responsibility, to experimentation, to contestation, and so to a politics of life itself."
(Nikolas Rose 'The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century')

Letters on Historical Materialism

“nothing is absolute and everything relative”

FREEDOM ONLY COMES IF YOU TAKE IT!

All historical experience confirms that men might not achieve the possible, if in this world they had not, time and again, reached out for the impossible. - Max Weber

Freedom only comes if you take it! - Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

The Grapes of Wrath.

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.

Subterranean

Peter Taylor made a documentary for Panorama in 1981 from the Maze Prison


It's incredible not just because he is broadcasting from within the H-Blocks, but because he outlines the strict IRA army council rules around hunger strike and its strong hierarchical structure, negating an interpretation of the strike as an assertion of autonomy or individual identity (and ultimately proves the political intent by binding them together). The interview with Gerry Adams indicates that the IRA army council was against hunger strike and only supported it when the prisoners were intent on commencing, which most historians accept. This throws up interesting, conflicting issues of voluntarism inside a severely disciplined (fatal for the disloyal) organisation. Debates surrounding individual-focused activist networks compared to traditional formation of campaign groups like trade unions have recently come to the fore in light of student and anti-cuts protests (see Adam Curtis' criticism of UK Uncut).

Gerry Adams also claims towards the end of the clip that the hunger strike will end when the prisoners see fit, which is an incredibly contentious issue. This is disputed in Richard O'Rawe's account of his time as Press Officer for the PIRA in the Maze, the book Blanketmen, in which he claims the prisoners wanted to call off the strike before the death of Joe McDonnell as the government had provided an acceptable offer. Bik MacFarlane (who currently works for Sinn Fein and gave a recent Q&A at the Phoenix about the hunger strike) disputes this. Interestingly, O'Rawe claims this shows that responsibility, not power, had shifted back to prison leaders, with the army council retaining the final say on when the strike should end. In some ways this splitting of hairs has an underlying intention to blame the republican movement for unnecessary deaths - considering the disastrous premature end of the 1980 hunger strike, it is understandable why the IRA army council did not trust the British government to deliver a satisfactory offer. What is more intriguing is whether or not the army council had the final say, and what this meant for the prisoners, the hunger strikers' autonomy in the act of self-sacrifice, and the republican movement and its passage into representative politics via the peace process.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, Peter Taylor has kept an eye on Northern Ireland, and another on the new terrorist threat in the form of Al-Qaeda that has almost seamlessly taken over from the IRA as the main source of fear and panic. He made this recent radio programme about Brendan Duddy (the 'Mountain Climber' who enabled top-secret negotiations between the IRA and the British government), undercover cops and spies working within terrorist cells. The danger Brendan Duddy was in seems incredible, considering the potential overlap between members of the British security services and loyalist paramilitaries who no doubt wanted to scupper plans to get the British and the republicans around the table.

I was fascinated to read this news story on an Irish republican museum in a secret location. The fact that the toilet roll holder from the room where Bobby Sands died is there as an exhibit is particularly significant. I hope in some way to get there on my upcoming trip to the six counties.


This song makes me lose all concept of time, and makes my cat purr:

At Edinburgh Fringe was an exhibition called 400 Women. It consists of portraits of women killed in Mexico, whose killers will never see justice because violence against women is so rampant and the police do not/cannot act. It was incredibly sad, disturbing, poignant, there were portraits of girls aged nine, women in their sixties, many the victims of violent rapes, beheading, torture. Each portrait was by a different artist resulting in an appropriate variety of approaches. I didn't expect it to be quite as moving as I found it to be.

Also in Edinburgh...
Beautiful old tearooms
















Teapot shaped like knitting needles and yarn
















Whisky shop with a doggy in the window
















Bethan swearing at Adam Smith
















MY BLOODY VALENTINE - BY THE DANGER IN YOUR EYES

DocFest

The contrast between an aesthetically harsh but warm and friendly industrial city and hordes of smug media types and fi lm-makers was expressed perfectly at Sheffield DocFest. Many of the films were not full since most delegates were there to schmooze and talk amongst themselves, allowing the pu blic to watch films for free. There were two big hitters – Senna and POM Wonderful: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Senna was packed with a long standby queue. The attraction of POM was Morgan Spurlock’s appearance on the opening day for a Q & A. The security staff at the Sheffield Showroom (named after its previous incarnation as a car showroom) were told to not allow anyone into the cinema just leading up to the Morgan Spurlock event. Unfortunately they were not told to allow Spurlock in and the American creator of Super Size Me was left standing in the harsh winds of Sheffield phoning the festival director in order to get in. POM, much like Super Size Me, is a light-hearted critique of the extremities capitalism, this time investigating the branding in the film industry. Spurlock creates a $1.5 million film exclusively financed through product placement. The 100% pomegranate juice POM Wonderful is one of the products appearing in the film, and either by chance or design it also happened to sponsor DocFest, with POM ambassadors thrusting bottles of purple juice into your hand at every possible moment. This created a strange discontinuity between the point of the film and the patrons’ acceptance of obvious product marketing.

There was a fantastic variety of documentaries and an excellent showcase of British social commentary as well as hard-hitting political films and music documentaries. Many of the political documentaries were about climate change and environmentalist groups, or legal and judicial issues at home and abroad. The film Hell and Back Again documented the recovery of Nathan Harris, an American marine injured in Afghanistan. Throughout his recuperation, footage of him in Afghanistan was spliced in, effectively linking his physical and mental agony with sounds of gunshot and bombs. Crucially the film showed not just the daily violence of warfare (“Do not forget” says one officer, “we are experts in the application of violence”) but the painful, stilted and awkward negotiations between army personnel and local Afghan villagers. The local Afghanis were being moved out of their village to remove them from the line of fire, their houses were searched and entire stocks of crop used as hiding material for troops. There were embarrassing scenes of old village elders being body searched whenever they came into the village. This was contrasted with footage of Nathan Harris receiving physiotherapy treatment back in Jacksonville, North Carolina and explaining why he was so desperate to go back and fight – because of his certainty that the US troops had to be there. In Harris’ explanation, the neo-colonial motivations behind the war are exposed, its purpose is claimed to be liberating Afghan people from living in their primitive way of lives in mudhuts. This attitude is accentuated by the village meeting called by the US soldiers in order to foster good relations with the local community, which comes over as a way to explain their actions and strategy. What they present to be a chance for both sides to present any issues is clearly just a way to demand the Afghans follow their orders – they have no option. The Americans ask if there is anything the villagers need and their only request is for the Americans to leave, to take with them the fight against the Taliban to stop them being targets. Astonishingly, the sergeant tells them that they don’t actually want to be there, they are only there because the Afghans want them to be; they don’t do what they want, they do what the Afghans want them to do. The footage of Harris in Afghanistan is much clearer and professional looking than footage of warfare on the news. At one point, we see a soldier killed and the rest of his team pile what is left of his body onto a stretcher, a truly horrific moment. Footage of Harris shooting Taliban in the distance is spliced with footage of him in North Carolina playing his favourite computer game, Halo, in which he has to find and kill the terrorist enemy. Asked why he wanted to join the arm as a teenager, he said because he wanted to kill people.

The film festival, although in Sheffield, was noticeably distant from the city itself. There was no showcase of local talent and delegates stayed around a small area, talking amongst themselves with no real appreciation of the city itself. There were lots of other artistic events and installations on the fringe of the festival, one being a carousel built from scrap from Chernobyl, some of which was radioactive. My favourite piece of the whole festival was Blast Theory's Ulrike and Eamon Compliant. Participants took on the persona of either RAF terrorist Ulrike Meinhof or IRA supergrass Eamon Collins, and were given mobile phones through which instructions were given. As I walked the streets of Sheffield fulfilling my deepest, darkest fantasy, I was instructed to look at everyone I passed and think about their lives, and how I could make a difference. It led me down alleys and I didn't know who or what knew what mission I was undertaking. At the end I was instructed to follow a woman dressed in black, who took me to a room and interviewed me. I answered the questions from the heart, but found the persona of Ulrike Meinhof coming out as the interrogation wore on.

It is not hard to catch a glimpse of the genuine artistic efforts of the city which is almost always community-focused. The 19^th century steel manufactory centre The Portland Works (left) was the first place to manufacture stainless steel. Portland Works still produces steel as well as being used by local artists and artisans – metalworkers, craftsmen, engineers, furniture makers and musicians. The landlord wanted to close it after 130 years of activity and sell it to turn it into luxury flats but after negotiations, he agreed to sell to a social enterprise which will manage, preserve and run Portland Works. The Industrial Provident Society needs £750,000 for this, in the form of shares and donations. Like The Rex, the restored art-deco cinema where I currently work, it is not a great money maker for investment, but an investment in a valuable piece of the past and future and a chance to strengthen the local community and artistry. The 90-year-old Art Deco Picturehouse (right) on Abbeydale Road is in the process of restoration, run by a local community group who are raising money for its restoration.

One event that was unmissable, despite being filled by wanky Southern media wine-drinkers was the BBC Adam Curtis interview. Adam Curtis creates the most incredible political documentaries. His use of BBC archive footage, fast and slow cuts and background music coupled with his calm voiceovers deliver such watchable footage that the content is almost irrelevant. Curtis picks narratives that fascinate and engage – previous themes include Freudianism throughout the 20^th century (The Century of the Self), the simultaneous rise of Al-Qaeda and US neoconservatism (The Power of Nightmares) and theories of liberty, power and control in contemporary Britain (The Trap). The interview in Sheffield’s beautiful Lyceum theatre was a wonderful insight into his documentary technique, his narrative and his political views. Importantly Adam Curtis explained the limitations of the documentary medium; that it is generally boring and passes on information you already know. Accepting television as a form of propaganda, Adam Curtis aims to put forward an argument, fusing “trash comedy”with “posh, pretentious stuff”. As such, Curtis demolishes the notion that documentary is neutral, and – particularly with science – presents facts in a neutral way.

In Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self, he establishes his understanding of the form of individualism that exists today, an individualism that has been informed by the preceding century’s theories of the self. Curtis maps the journey from radical Freudianism, to radical psychotherapy through to lifestyle consumerism. Curtis emphasises that our idea of individual freedom is not a natural state but an ideology. This ideology – market individualism – reflects the strange, atomising form of democracy that we occupy, what he calls “google democracy”. In this system, individuals are seen as part of networks that must be kept stable, and politicians see themselves as managers of the system that they must do their best to maintain and look after. This leans to static politics, where people are afraid of change. This ties in to Adam Curtis’ understanding of ‘hauntology’ – the idea we are completely trapped by past our past and culture; we are re-working past decades, and at the same time establishing the very modern concept of individualism.

If I had wealth I would travel to Sheffield daily just to eat at the Blue Moon Café:

Tory totty.

This is a low.

This news story appeared in the Guardian on Saturday, about the end of British shipping tax subsidies for Irish lighthouses. Lighthouses are especially beautiful but this is sad for other emotive reasons.

Firstly, one of the lighthouses protected by the Commissioners of Irish Lights is one near Malin Head, featured in the shipping forecast. Also, in Blur's This is a Low:

On the Malin Head
Blackpool looks blue and red
And the Queen, she's gone round the bend
Jumped off Land's End

Secondly, according to the Guardian article, it's one of the last organisations to work on an all-Irish basis. Now the CIL will only be responsible for lighthouses in Northern Ireland. Rather than withdrawing a colonial hangover from the 18th century, the government has reaffirmed our 20th century colonial meddlings by maintaining the divide between the six counties and the republic. By absolving the UK of responsibility towards Eire, but maintaining responsibility in Northern Ireland, we are further encroaching on the rights of Irish people to self-determination. I say: all or nothing. I imagine that Irish lighthouses are important for ships docking in the British Isles as well as Ireland (just as the Spanish Armada) and an obsessive realist attitude neglects the intergovernmental and transnational trade, movement, education, culture that is a benefit of globalisation. Irish lighthouses are as important to UK docked ships - perhaps even to English, Welsh and Scottish citizens - as they are to Dubliners.

Sadly, the saving of £12million seems to be the overriding factor. So will the Irish government pick up the bill? It's saving UK docked ships' lighting dues, but somewhere across the ocean the tab will need to be picked up. Savings are nothing more than a shift of responsibility, in this case from a struggling economy to a completely bust economy. The genius behind this move is Mike Penning, Hemel Hempstead MP and Transport Minister. Needless to say, as a Tory minister, Mike Penning doesn't understand that 'efficiency', 'savings', 'cuts' are simply shifts in responsibility that have to be picked up elsewhere, often by those less able to take on high costs.

DAVID ON THE GUILLOTINE

"The kind people have a wonderful dream
Margaret on the guillotine"

DIE GROSSE WEIGERUNG

I am part Austrian. German nationalism has affected me in an obvious way, but perhaps my Germanic heritage has subtler influences too.



Deutschland über alles



Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977

















Women in this society do not need to be expelled in order to be rendered politically impotent.

In sickness and in health.

Shelley likes to walk over my notebook.













Next to the pawprints are some notes on 'Turn Illness into a Weapon', the program of West German patients front SPK (Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv).

SPK understand illness as a condition and result of the relations of production in capitalism. Not only that capitalism produces and relies on docile bodies and subjectification to undertake its shabby, meaningless acts, but that it implicates us all in a cycle of suffering since the rules of capital (most urgently alienation) are ubiquitous and inescapable. (In this sense, illness is similar to the first Noble Truth of Buddhism, Dukkha.) Illness is identical to capitalism, and is the greatest hope in thwarting it. "The power of the body corresponds to the exercise of power over it. Hence the possibility of a reversal of that power" (Sheridan on Foucault). Biopolitics and somatic resistance therefore provide examples of what SPK describe as the protest of life against capitalism and the revolutionary productive power par excellence.

In the introduction, Sartre quotes Engels' view of the world created by capitalist industrialisation as one "in which only that species of mankind is able to feel at home, which is dehumanised, degraded - both in the intellectual as in the moral sense - sunken down and humiliated to the level of a beast, somatically ill".

Illness is the method by which capitalism is able to sustain its dominance. It sickens, weakens you into compliance until you are made to feel grateful for its assistance in numbing your pain.

This is Holger Meins being captured by West German police.














Holger Meins was imprisoned along with Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, and died in Stammheim prison after a hunger strike during which he was force-fed. The image of his emaciated cadaver, which is viewable on the internet, reminds me of John Lennon's bed-in.

gathering dust pt 5

russian dolls

gathering dust pt 4

lighthouses (and a windmill)

gathering dust pt 3

penguins

gathering dust pt 2

records

gathering dust pt 1

pez dispensers

Herbert Marcuse.

"Subjugation to a constantly expanding production machine has been seen as the precondition for progress."

I was making myself the usual cup of tea when the doorbell strangely rang