I’ve described myself to some folk, over the years, as a misanthrope. I’ve always done so out of a vague notion of what that means. So I decided to look it up today.
I find that the Wikipedia entry on Misanthropy resonates with me in many, albeit not all, particulars.
One typically assumes that most folk would view misanthropy with scorn and disdain, as it’s not an obviously positive or helpful outlook. And that’s the kind of view of the outlook or philosophy portrayed by the Brueghel painting above.
One of the chief areas in which I might not be a misanthrope is in relation to sex; apparently many misanthropes are antinatalist. Well, I can see that humanity is somewhat overstocked, which appears to adversely effecting the planet and everything in it (inc. ironically, humanity itself!).
But like nice wine, sex – whether for reproduction or just plain fun – is one of our few solaces. So I’m all for lots of it, whether it produces offspring or not. Though I feel compelled to confess that the misanthrope in me does wish that there were a lot less humans on the planet.
And now, having read most of the Wikipedia entry on Misanthropy? I actually feel more not less inclined to self identify in that manner.
PS – The inscription at the bottom of Brueghel’s painting reads (acc. to Wikipedia):
Om dat de werelt is soe ongetru, Daer om gha ic in den ru
‘Because the world is perfidious, I am going into mourning’
Brueghel’s painting suggests this makes the misanthrope a fool. He’s having his purse pinched by a figure representing vanity, and is blindly walking into some ‘caltrops’ (little spiky things humans invented, with which to hurt each other, lame horses with, etc. *). Meanwhile a shepherd in the background contrasts with the misanthrope by humbly going about his business.
The weather right now, as I’m typing this post, is cold, windy, and raining. Perfectly reflecting my spirits.
Or is it?
It was sunny 30 minutes ago. And, perhaps rather astonishingly, it’s going that way again. The rain has stopped. But the dripping continues. And the visible part of the sky, from where I’m laying down, is a clean pure brilliant blue. I imagine there’s a beautiful rainbow to be seen somewhere. Wish I could see it!
That little passing cloudburst reminded me of the Donald Fagen Sunken Condos track/lyric, The Weather In My Head.
I guess I ought to take solace in how quickly that little cold wet blast lasted? So now the Dear Prudence lyric seems more apt: ‘The sun is out, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you…’. Much better!
But that said, although my mood is fluctuating a lot. The dark clouds in my mind seem to hang about much longer than those that are currently scudding through the skies.
These days I try and avoid the political. Or at least I kind of do. It’s just sooo depressing! Butt, for some reason I can never quite shake an interest in how and by whom we are ‘governed’.
One thing that I really hate to hear, is the über lazy cop out of ‘it makes no difference who’s in power/office’. I do appreciate that politicians of all types can be wearisome, and may at times seem to share many regrettable qualities. But I strongly disagree with the idea they’re all exactly the same.
Labour gave us the NHS, the Tories (or at least large powerful sections thereof, sections that are also usually in power at the time) have always wanted rid of it, and have acted – albeit slowly and surreptitiously (aware that is a much loved national institution) – to undermine it, as a prelude to dismemberment and privatisation.
One of the greatest ironies in all of this is how the Tories, and their sickening allies in the billionaire non-dom owned press, continue to stoke fears of Socialist Bogeymen taxing us all to oblivion.* When in fact the Tories are both taxing everyone more than ever (oh, except for the wealthiest pensioners), and borrowing on a totally unsustainable scale.
Aye-aye!
* Some of the insanely bizarre crap I’ve heard working class Tories say beggars (buggers is much more apt) belief. Such folk are so obviously parroting propaganda they’re fed, day in day out, by a press in cahoots with the country’s ruling Tory elite.
The greatest irony of all is that actually the Tories – supposedly (ie according to their own much trumpeted hype) good with money – are actually totally fiscally incompetent. Should that come as any surprise? They are the (a)morally if not fiscally bankrupt heirs to the traditions of Serfdom, and Royalty, ie they remain the ‘robber barons’.
They got rich, just as they continue to get rich, not because of skill or intelligence, but thanks, mostly, to inheriting wealth and power, and/or ‘insider trading’, corruption, bullying, and plain old-fashioned theft.
The Covid pandemic, during which our government ought to have been looking after the most vulnerable, was used as an excuse for an orgy of state-organised larceny. And the right wing capitalist ideologues ‘masterminding’ this short-term grab for the greedy even openly talked of the benefits of Covid ‘culling elderly dependents’. Nye Bevan, founder of the NHS, was absolutely correct: Tories are lower than vermin.
Hokusai’s Wave is a beautiful piece of art. I’m choosing it for today’s post because it represents the tidal wave of sh!t I’m currently facing.
The politics of this obscure it’s personal resonance!
My tip-top favourite political satirist, Steve Bell, has done this great scatalogical reimagining of Hokusai’s masterpiece. The specific topical political baggage with this image – King (Tony) Cnut trying to face down a literal (Gordon) Brown tsunami – somewhat obscures my more generalised reading of it.
My only defence!
And how am I to stave off this towering wall, this fast-flowing fecal apocalypse? Naturally enough, with naught but a sticking-plaster. A Band-Aid. Well, it does say it’s ‘water-proof’!
It has to be confessed that I’m not having the best time of my life right now. I woke up, after some very interesting dreams, felt mighty sick. And pretty shortly thereafter, barfed.
I’m not sure the fish and chips dad and Claire kindly bought us last night totally agreed with me. But the neither am I sure that this was plain ol’ food poisoning.
I’ve been suffering from hyper anxiety and agitation just recently. And a disturbed mind can manifest in many ways physically (please note, this is not an endorsement of Louise Hay’s insane ideas)
Simon, Teresa, and Claire, Sunday evening.
I spent almost the entire day today in bed. Feeling thoroughly wretched. I had ‘cotton mouth’ the entire day, despite eating next to nothing and drinking lots of water.
There’s some shit going down in my life at present that I’m keeping to myself. Maybe just for the time being, maybe forever. But it ain’t pretty.
And today it culminated in a mammoth visit to the A&E at Peterborough Hospital. Mammoth in the sense we were there from 3.50-10.20pm… six and a half hours!
And, glory be to our ultra-capitalist society, not only am I there as an ill person, I also have the joy of paying £9 parking for the privilege of this exhaustingly long visit.
Our Tory Overlords sure know how to milk us Serfs.
But back to the Joys of Spring: acid-reflux, bloated stomach, wind. Eyes red and puffy from a mixture of disturbed sleep and all sorts of other shit. This weird upper respiratory bullshit that’s been bugging me now for three or four years straight!?
Let’s do the show right here!
It’s enough to make one sooo miserable one feels compelled to write a musical, and make everyone else’s lives a misery as well.
It seems my cup o’erflo’eth with naught so much as bile. Will I even make it through this week? Past evidence suggests I will. But that doth not fill me with The Joys of Spring.
This is both a book review (my first zero stars one!) and a polemic, I guess. It also touches upon troubled familial relations.
Many years ago my mother gifted me a copy of Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. I read the first half, and found it asinine. But, in essence, I agreed with Hay; thinking positively is healthier than thinking negatively.
But the second half of the book? That was another matter entirely. And it is in that part of her ‘work’ that Hay’s true colours are shown to be, not to put too fine a point on it, a motley flag of insanity. Insane, and very dangerous for anyone taking her advice to heart.
I have, I suppose, some unresolved issues with my mother, around both the break up of our original ‘nuclear’ family. And, subsequently, being treated less equitably than other siblings. Re the latter; when my sister lived abroad, my mum visited Spain far more frequently than travelling the few miles to us (I’ll leave it at that, for now).
Anyway, back to the main topic of this post. Her having bought me this book, whilst in part motivated by good intentions, perhaps, revealed a deeper – I might say unstated, except it wasn’t/isn’t – view of her apparent opinion of my life circumstances.
What it boils down to is what is nowadays referred to as ‘victim blaming’. In this case it’s the ancient pre-scientific idea that illness is a form of punishment for ‘sin’, wrongdoing, evil, or just a bad attitude. Call it what you will.
When I first read You Can Heal Your Life I put it down in absolute shock, horror and disgust, when I read Hay’s moronic assertion that the disease Polio is caused by ‘Paralysing jealousy. A desire to stop someone.’ She has an A-Z, or, more accurately, an A-W, of similarly ridiculous ‘explanations’, for everything from Abdominal Cramps to Warts! [1]
The impact of polio on my family’s lives is huge. Polio killed my grandmother on my father‘s side, contributing to the consequent disruption of his life (he and his brothers were brought up in foster care, as orphans). Polio also disabled my maternal grandmother, meaning she lived her adult life on crutches, and eventually in a wheelchair. My mother had issues with family, quite possibly related again, in part, to the knock-on effects of this disease, running away from home very young (so I’ve been told), and ultimately into the arms of my father.
Does she really and truly believe that these two ladies got polio as a kind of cosmic or psychic punishment for ‘Paralysing jealousy. A desire to stop someone?’ Such views are horrific; they are obscenely offensive, and totally unfounded. The actual cause of polio is, as should be universally known now, a virus, identified in 1909, transmitted for the most part via water contaminated by human faeces. [2]
Something that struck me very forcibly when I decided to research this post is the total mismatch between endorsements and critiques in relation to Hay. Everybody , from Wikipedia’s entry on her, to the Guardian’s obituary, simply parrot Hay’s own completely unsubstantiated ‘personal history’. There’s no mention at all of any sceptical views of her anti-scientific ideas and claims.
I find this deeply shocking. Does her financial success make her immune to proper evaluation? Apparently so. The only objective or balanced critiques I could find were those of individuals, pointing out what dangerous nonsense she grew rich peddling, sometimes in the context of the death of a loved one who’d followed her crackpot advice.
It’s a great shame, I feel, that so many people – millions, perhaps, if sales of her stuff is any indication – are suckered into uncritically adopting her bullshit. Even if only thanks to the positivity aspect of her ideas. It smacks of a blinkered desperation. I can understand that. Having chronic ailments myself, I recognise that deep longing for some kind of simple solution to what might otherwise appear to be intractable problems.
It has been demonstrated – the placebo effect, for example – that the mind can be very powerful in relation physical health. But to adopt Hay’s alleged position (her own life needs to be thoroughly investigated, as to the truth of her own claims/actions [3]) is to fly in the face of the findings of all modern medical science.
It has been medical science, not New-Age quackery, that has dealt with my psoriasis and related arthritis, and manages both my physical pain and mental ill health. We can thank (or curse?) developments in public hygiene, in light of this hard won knowledge, for creating the conditions that have allowed for humanity’s demographic explosion.
I thought about giving this book half, or maybe even just one star, for the first part, about the benefits of positive thinking. But the issue is that these come attached to the second part, which, in my view, is poisonously bad. Evil, in fact. The rose here is attached to an enormous stinking turd that really cannot be ignored.
It has oft been said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’d be damning enough if one were to know how many desperately ill people have died as a result of taking Hay’s unfounded nonsense as truth [4]. That people will have died following her advice is sadly inevitable.
But, just as bad in my view, is the pernicious and completely bogus idea that illness is the fault of and consequence of the sufferer’s thoughts and/or actions. This adds self-righteous condemnation to the arsenal of the healthy, and unnecessary guilt and self-condemnation (how ironic, given the alleged healing of loving oneself Hay professes to peddle!) to the afflicted.
My mum needs both her hips replacing. According to Hay’s worldview this is somehow my mother’s own fault, on some negative psychological level: ‘Fear of going forward in major decisions. Nothing to move forward to.’*
This would be laughably preposterous applied to a car; do my tires regularly need replacing because, A) they have a ‘Fear of going forward in major decisions. Nothing to move forward to.’ Or B) due to physical wear and tear?
If your local garage mechanic said ‘You don’t need new tires, your tires just need to truly love and value themselves. Here are some affirmations for them to repeat.’ Would you pay them, or go back there in future?
Not the cartoon I wanted. But the same idea.
In her lifetime Hay profited monumentally from peddling her dangerous brand of nonsense. Her personal claims are all totally unsubstantiated. And her broader claims fly in the face of medical science. Why – other than the toxic marriage of hopelessness to comforting BS – has she not been taken off her pedestal? It has to be the present day sanctification of success. She’s made lots of money, so she must be right.
Louise Hay (source: wiki)
* These quotes are lifted from the appalling second part of You Can Heal Your Life. It ought to have a Government health warning: New Age BS is no substitute for scientifically grounded medicine.
NOTES:
[1] Her ‘explanation’ as to the cause of warts would be hilarious, if it weren’t so frighteningly vacuous: ‘Little expressions of hate. Belief in ugliness.’ Her list reads like a dotty New Age analogue of horoscopes; arbitrary, open to wide interpretations, and based not on real knowledge of understanding underlying facts, but a vague even whimsical form of associative imagining. Warts are in fact caused by a virus. Not by the mind of a person who may have them.
[2] Tragically, under our current Tory rulers the potential return and rise of such diseases is being increased by the total disrespect shown to both the environment and the humanity it sustains, by their rampantly capitalist ideology. Brexit is part of this downward scramble towards private profit-motivated deregulation.
[3] As far as I’m aware none of Hay’s autobiographical claims, from the alleged facts of her childhood, to her ‘miraculous’ curing of her self from cancer are in any way reliably documented.
[4] I need to re-find the quote, but one of the few critical things I found about Hay included a comment from a bereaved man whose wife died whilst following Hay’s imbecilic ideas.
Well… ‘least said soonest mended’! As several of the ‘downstairs’ characters in You Rang, M’Lord were always saying.
Without giving too much away, I hit some sort of crunch or crisis point this evening. Not a pretty sight.
Thankfully some things were in place to minister to a mind in turmoil. And I appear – for the moment at least – to have weathered this latest storm.
It’s been brewing a while. I kind of knew it was coming. I’m hoping it was like a pressure valve releasing. Fervently and devoutly wishing for better days ahead!
The two R. Crumb pics illustrating this post are chosen purely for their ‘poetic truth’; they aptly get across where my head was at today. Melt-downs and explosions!
I’d kind of like to get into some of the nitty-gritty. But I’m too close to it right now!
Black eyed dog he called at my door The black eyed dog he called for more A black eyed dog he knew my name A black eyed dog he knew my name A black eyed dog A black eyed dog I'm growing old and I wanna go home, I'm growing old and I dont wanna know I'm growing old and I wanna go home Black eyed dog he called at my door The black eyed dog he called for more
Never been a dog person. Much prefer cats! But a little yappy terrier called Insomnia is barking and biting at my heels again. Put the little fucker down, I say.
And in the hallway, in the shadows, his darker more vulpine cousin can be heard, panting and drooling, occasionally pacing the few meagre feet of corridor. Depression is that mutt’s name. I can smell his stink from here.
I’m not listening to it literally. But the words and melodies of Drake’s ‘Black Eyed Dog’ are circling like carrion in my spent and careworn brain.
I'm growing old and I wanna go home, I'm growing old and I dont wanna know
Can I get an a-men? Too right! Ah-bleedin’-men! Can I get a hallelujah? You must be fucking joking! Tired of scrabbling in the dirt and dust in the peripheral shadows. Stop the ride, I’m sick and dizzy, and I want to get off.
I had wanted to get this in time for the 2022 Yuletide season. But I didn’t. But, with gift voucher funds from Teresa and Patrick, I did finally get it after Xmas.
Speaking frankly, and especially as I’ve loved Guaraldi’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown for years now, I can’t believe it’s taken me over a half a century to get around to buying this. A truly terrific recording, this gets my occasional – and reserved for only the berry vest – six stars. It’s just utterly wonderful.
It’s one of those instances where less is more. Much, much more, in this case. Jazz is a musical style in which sometimes the tempos can be high, the vibe intense, and the notes hyper-abundant. This collection, however, belongs to a mellower more Chet Baker-esque jazz world. A musical universe of pretty melodies, and spare pared down playing. I love it!
And it’s not just Guaraldi’s own playing and composing that benefits from this approach. The sidemen here* are, for the most part (a little less so on one or two of the added bonus tracks at the end; we’ll get to them later), the essence of tastefully restrained.
‘Linus and Lucy’ is revisited on this recording, and is a case in point: the main theme is just piano – a beautifully rumbling train like piano – against very minimalist drumming, with the bass dropping out altogether. But the keys and drums duo sound is remarkably full. The bass appears when they go into the B-section, sometimes bossa, sometimes swing; but the vibe remains resolutely Spartan. Fantastic!
Apparently Guaraldi’s ’earthy’ style garnered him the nickname Dr Funk, on the local music scene of his native San Francisco, where he came to fame playing with Cal Tjader. And, whilst talking about learning more about this dude and his music, I’m definitely keen to find out if more of Guaraldi’s work, Schulz related or otherwise, is as good as the two Charlie Brown themed albums I now have. And to that end I intend to check out this NPR show on him:
Looks interesting!
One of Guaraldi’s drummers, Jerry Granelli, is either still going, or only recently passed. I remember watching him not long ago, online (YouTube, no doubt), including in a trio performing Guaraldi’s Peanuts stuff. It struck me that Granelli’s kit looked like an Ayotte, a Canadian drum brand of which I have a beautiful example.
Guaraldi himself passed away quite young, aged just 47. He was busy musically till the end, working on further Peanuts stuff, gigging, skiiing, and then boom… killed by a massive heart attack! Sad, really.
Back to the CD, and happier thoughts! The material is a mixture of trad Christmas stuff, from O Tannenbaum to Mel Tormé’s evergreen classic, The Christmas Song, with some Greensleeves, and a brief but beautiful Fur Elise, by Beethoven, as well as a good fistful of superb Guaraldi originals.
The liner notes to the CD are good, and talk about Guaraldi’s modest self-appraisal, and his desire to make pretty music, and be loved for it. Well, I agree with the liner notes author; you did it Vince, and we love ya!
A few pieces have vocals from a children’s choir, which just adds to the festive charm. The Choir of St Paul’s Episcopal Church do themselves and the music proud.
If you’re interested, you can read more on the Peanut’s Yuletide special here. Rather like the two page comic strip ad for the special itself, that Schulz produced (which finds Charlie Brown lamenting the commercialisation of the season), all this stuff, the music included, had a beautifully gentle and lightly wistful edge to it.
Utterly lovely! Can’t recommend it highly enough.
* Apparently Guaraldi wasn’t the best at keeping accurate records of who performed on his dates. Which has lead to some confusion over personnel credits.
For sheer innocent sentimental sweet beauty, this is a corker!
Wow!? How hard is this!? It might be easier to pick my top few artists? Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits are no brainers. After that it gets tricky.
This one is etched into my being; melancholy beauty, at its most powerfully maudlin.But I love For The Roses as well!
This all came about when I wanted to pick a ‘top five albums’ list, to illustrate a private posting on cataloguing my CD collection. it rapidly became clear that it was not going to be easy! Perhaps not even possible?
J-Fusion at its slick funky glossy and melodic best.
If it were my current top five that’d be different. My most listened to CD right now, for example, is Casiopea’s debut(pictured above). But I’m also listening to a lot of Sons of Champlin, right now, and I’m not as sold on them as the other artists that I’m featuring in this post.
I know it might seem weird, but as a historic top five disc, Trout Mask Replica is definitely up there (with Lick My Decals Off in hot pursuit!). Not music I’d listen to all the time. And my honeymoons with these discs were many, many moons ago. But I have an abiding love for them.
Slabs of sound, wafting through space and time, all floating atop Leibezeit’s incredible grooves.
Can’s Future Days also has a special place in my musical heart, closely pursued by Tago Mago!).
Memories of this on constant rotation are bittersweet.
And whilst I’m thinking in the longer term, like this, then I suppose Steely Dan and Donald Fagen figure very large. Aja, Katy Lied and The Nightfly all being rave faves.
Ah, The Don. An almost perfect record!Mad cover! Great album.
Apart from the Casiopea one, so far these are all song-based albums, of a broadly speaking Pop nature. If I were to pick some Rock albums, Thin Lizzy, Zep and Van Halen would be right up there (poss’ even Slayer’s Reign in Blood, perhaps?).
It’s close with Lizzy, ‘twixt this…… and this. Still In Love With You is Divine!!!
Takes me back to my childhood. After Status Quo, and with far more earnest interest, Lizzy were the first group I really got into.
Likewise with Zep, is it this one…
And, thanks to both my dad, and my first drum teacher, Bernie ‘Boogie Man’ Pritchard, Zeppelin soon followed Lizzy on to my dad’s ol’ (then new!) Technics Stereo.
… or this one?
With Zep I was equally taken with all of I, II and III. I only got into IV later, and – as brilliant as it is – (Stairway alone is priceless), it didn’t have the same visceral impact the first three had.
And then there’s Jaaazz…
This was massive for me in my mid-teens. Still love it.
I could go on like this. Should I go with Caravanserai, or Welcome, for Santana? With Herbie, is it Fat Albert, Headhunters or… Coltrane’s Love Supreme is up there, as is Davis’ Kind Of Blue (or back in my late teens, ESP).
And what about Brazil? Jobim, Joyce, Marcos Valle… and on it goes!
I got lost in the deserts with this one!This ought to be a guilty pleasure. But I have no shame!
I’m finishing with one that really isn’t anywhere near the top. But to be fair to Slayer and the album, I’ve listened to it tons. Rather like true crime and serial killers – the kind of dark subjects with which Slayer themselves were obsessed – I find it hypnotically compelling. If Van Halen’s 1984 is a ‘guilty pleasure’, this is a ‘dirty secret’!
A dirty little secret…
Anyway, I can only conclude that picking my top five favourite albums is pretty near impossible! I mean, The Beatles Rubber Soul, a biggie for me around 16-18, didn’t even get a mention ‘til right here, at the very end!
Conclusion? I can’t pick just five albums. Just too limiting!
