renaissance man
Aaaaarrrgh!!! How, or why, do I nearly always miss this stuff!?
I’ve only recently discovered Paak, and have really been digging some of his music. And his drumming, and whole effervescent vibe, are just so joyful and enjoyable.
And seeing him in a big curly haired wig, wearing flares? And that huge toothy grin!? There’s a really joyful reverberation of the whole late ‘60s early ‘70s hippy vibe coming through. Which I love.
As annoyed as I am that I missed this gig, at least it’s up on YouTube:
* And their compliant human drones.
It’s kind of shocking when one learns that films like Idiocracy turn out not to be mere satire, but Über-Nostrodamian prophecies, or even just simple documentaries.
As Iain Overton says, in his book, The Price Of Freedom, and others do elsewhere (for example Sam Harris, in The End of Faith), the responses to perceived threats are sometimes more damaging – usually by dint of curtailing the freedoms of the more docile many in order to supposedly more fully control the errant few – than the threats that supposedly prompt them into existence.
So I can’t make a particular joke, quoting Count Arthur Strong, in a FB group dedicated to him, because a human will do the bidding of a robot that doesn’t understand or can’t differentiate between my innocent humour – and let’s not forget it’s a quote, so it’s not even me saying the allegedly egregious thing – and a genuine incitement to violence.
This is of course utterly ridiculous. Those intent on acting out violence will both do so, and find ways to express themselves, regardless of what anybody else does. And such folk are, thankfully, are a very small minority.
Meanwhile, a much larger and more benign majority have their freedoms curtailed, in a very real way, and to no real benefit. The idea that maybe one day we’ll be the slaves of robots is grotesquely outdoated. We already are!
And, in a tip of the reality had to the apparently ludicrous fantasies of The Matrix series of films – whose overall adolescence of aesthetics rather undercuts the more sinister and prescient ideas about what constitutes reality, and our relationships with technology – we, the soft machines, are already becoming the willing collaborators and enforcers of this joyless, soulless, brainless automaton culture.
It doesn’t bode well for the future of the species!
Little did I expect it to be a flippant and lighthearted response to a Count Arthur themed post, in a Count Arthur based group, that would bring this home so forcefully!
Adopting the CA voice, ‘Well, I mean… is it any wonder we tire of this ceaseless handholding? And you robots, you have to meet us at least halfway. Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up!’
Hmmm!? Laid up, unwell, at home. Ironically due, I think – thinking and knowing are two different things; a theme for this post? – to our 13th wedding anniversary meal, at the above pictured pub, on Monday.
Teresa’s birthday was last week, and the day after was ‘friday the 13th’. She always remarks on being grateful not to be born on the 13th. And I usually reply that it’s only a number.
So next I’m looking for a ‘lucky 13’ image for another blog post. Poss’ even the one that mentions going out for the meal? Anyway, here I am, thursday, having had to come home early yesterday, just over half way through my teaching, due to the diarrhoea I’ve had ever since said anniversary meal on monday.
Next comes the dystopian experience of trying to see a doctor locally. Even just trying to contact the doctor is so thoroughly depressing – the amount of time and effort required, to only eventually be fobbed of with a totally inadequate response – it’s truly appalling.
When I reflect on this train of events, I’m not at all inclined towards superstition. But for some reason I think that puts me in a minority. And not a happy one either. I can’t recall who said it. But someone said the most common element in the universe is not x (carbon, or whatever element from the periodic-table it may be), but stupidity. I’m inclined to agree.
This connects to another long term theme of interest to me. The ‘human condition’. Or, for that matter, the ‘animal condition’, or – why not go the whole hog? – life. What’s it all about, Alfie?
Robert Crumb’s Mr Natural is apt here: ‘Mr Natural! What does it all mean?’ ‘Don’t mean sheeit!’ Or, coming at it all rather differently, this one:
What’s the point of the pursuit of truth or greater awareness if the truth is unpleasant and greater awareness just leaves one depressed? This is obviously why the human mind/brain favours encouraging or reassuring (or in some other way utilitarian) nonsense.
But, to get back to Nr Natural, and his frequent partner, Flakey Foont, for a moment… there’s also this’n:
I’m 50 now. And without kids. For most of humanity’s brief existence on this planet I’d be unlikely to have lived so long. And what have I done? If I was anything like Crumb, I might be far more candid than I’m going to be. But unlike Crumb I haven’t turned confessionals into a form of self-therapy livelihood. So I’ll keep schtum!
But, just as with my life writ large, this post lacks focus. To try and tether it to earth and bring it back; I was motivated to post it very largely due to the dissatisfactions of certain aspects of modern life. And in particular the gulf between the whole ‘promise of fulfilment’ that the cyber-domain so powerfully exerts, and the reality of social isolation and disappointment that it all too often actually delivers.
But try as I might, I cannae help but digress (although I do feel my wanderings are all connected!)… As I move through life I see that some folk appear much better integrated into things than others. But that still leaves a great many less so. And appearances can be deceptive. One might be even worse off if compelled to appear to fit in happily if it’s just a front.
Such lines of thought are totally normal for me. And possibly just habitual. Maybe they’re even/also not useful or productive? But I seem unwilling or unable to wean myself off of them. For better or worse such thinking seems to have become my nature.
And then I think about folk I know, eg, some friends and/or some family, who appear to go at life differently. I’m thinking now of the religious believer folk. To me their belief seems like a form of madness or mental illness. It seems to totally fly in the face of easily and daily observed reality.
But I can see, sort of, why they might behave as they do. It might be – I believe it’s clearly the case – that humanity has evolved such that in order to function we need to be capable of believing utter nonsense. That in fact we might function – possibly both individually and collectively – better, or even at our best, only by labouring under delusions that bear no real scrutiny.
I have to confess I find such thoughts rather scary and depressing. But then again I also find quite a lot of life scary and depressing.
And, rather strangely, given my stance on religion in general and Christianity in particular, it makes the Biblical myth around the tree of knowledge, in which awareness/consciousness is a curse on humanity, a very apt and powerful if disturbing insight.
But then again, having said all this, maybe, as Shakespeare (and many other writers) was occasionally wont to do, I can attribute all this dark foreboding to impaired digestion? It’s certainly true, in my experience, that physical ill health is a breeding ground for the toxic germs that also feed into mental ill health.
All this rambling discursive cogitating seems to me to eternally run circles around the plethora of thoughts that teem, inchoate (I love that word!), on one’s mind!
Another prompt for this post was the state of public healthcare in the UK these days. I’ve already alluded to this above. And a similar thread, but possibly even worse, could be spun regarding dental health, as well. But that’s another story for another post.
Rather serendipitously, whilst typing this, during a quick Facebook fix, I saw a post from a fellow drummer, on a drummer’s FB Group. That post concerned the ‘black dog’. And I wanted to chip in with my ha’porth. But I decided not to. ‘Cause, although I’m a lot better (I think?) than I once was, I felt the overall current state and my ‘outcome’ might not be helpful to the OP.
Is one of the reasons I’m happier these days due to my having more or less abandoned my musical dreams? If one is continually barking up the wrong tree, at what point does one concede this and adjust, rather than battering one’s fragile ego against a hard unrelenting reality?
And – uh-oh, getting ‘deep’ – what is reality? The great thinkers and the more subtle philosophies all converge around ideas of our perception of reality as an illusion. And yet, deep down, we all know, intuitively, that, to use the parlance of the street, ‘this shit is real’.
And so my post comes full circle. From wildly discursive digressions back to my bowels! And I can’t escape the reality that right now my digestive system is screwed. And I can also see how it’s been affecting me psychologically. As well as being washed out and queasy, I’m pissed off and angry!”
Today a cinema fairly local to me is showing Casablanca.
Billed as an 80th anniversary screening, it’s a one-off. I really want to go see it on the big screen. I’ve only ever seen it at home, on TV or DVD, so on a relatively tiny screen.
Truth be told, it’s Woody Allen’s wonderful 1972 Play It Again, Sam, that is, I believe, the chief reason I love Bogey and Casablanca. And, exactly like me, Allen’s movie is 50 this year! So Casablanca and Play It Again, Sam both celebrate significant anniversaries this year.
Pity the local cinema isn’t doing the two as a double-bill. They’re missing a trick there. How I’d love to see that! I wonder if anyone anywhere is putting on such a bill? I’d be there, like a shot! (Adopts a faux-Bogey accent) So… would that be a two fingers of bourbon type shot, or a slug from a 45!?
Indeed, such is my yearning to see Casablanca on the big screen, I’m going to try and shift my Monday drum lessons around a bit and make it happen. Wish me luck!
This post isn’t the place for reviews or synopses of these great movies. That said, a few notes or observations seem fair game. For one thing, it’s fascinating how this, one of the best and most quintessentially Woody Allen-esque of all Allen’s movies wasn’t directed by Allen himself. Strange but true!
Also, it may very well be that it was Allen’s original stage play, from whence this movie derives, and of course the film itself, that have helped propagate the ‘false memory’ that the title of Woody’s works is actually a direct quote from Casablanca itself. It isn’t.
Both are terrific films. I do hope I do manage to see Casablanca later today. We shall see, I guess…
I’ve loved Thin Lizzy, and consequently Phil Lynott, ever since I was first introduced to them, somewhere between the ages of 10-12 years old, by a girl I briefly dated. Thanks, Heidi!
A cassette of a greatest hits compilation – The Adventures of Thin Lizzy – was the way I was introduced to this group. Wild One and Whiskey In The Jar were the first to really take root. Within a year or two I was collecting their albums. And now, almost 40 years later, I still love Lizzy and Lynott.
My sister got me this book for my 50th (thanks, Hannah!), and I’ve just finished reading it. I’m glad Graeme Thomson and I share a view of Lynott that appreciates his broader sweep. The ’rise and dear demise’ of Lynott’s own ‘funky nomadic tribe’ – that’ll be Lizzy – is shockingly brief, and distressingly riddled with patchy fortunes.
Like many biogs on artists in many varied fields, the most enchanting and exciting stuff is kind of front-loaded: childhood, and the ‘getting into it’ being periods full of promise. Thomson covers all this very well.
I don’t agree with all his judgements on Lizzy’s recordings – we’re probably roughly agreed on the naive and varied charms of the first three albums – but I clearly like and rate Nightlife and Fighting rather more highly than Thomson.
I’m perhaps a little more aligned with his views on the decline of the group, but not entirely. Bad Reputation is terrific. For me, and despite Gary Moore (and ‘Sarah’), Black Rose is the start of the decline. Chinatown’s not the best. But it’s not so bad.
Given that I’m a bit of a Lizzy nut, I confess I hardly know Renegade; the fact I’ve had it for decades and almost never listen to it says something!
Even though it arrived when things were already going badly, I actually quite like Thunder And Lightning. Although I have to agree with Thomson, and admit that with Sykes on boards it did all get a bit too ‘eavy metal’. But with Cold Sweat and The Sun Goes Down, it ain’t all bad!
Lynott died the day before I turned 14. I’d really only just discovered him and Thin Lizzy! I was only very dimly aware of it at the time. I was sad, I do remember that much, but I had very little knowledge of his truly grim and tragic decline. And for me he was very much alive, via the music.
Reading about this latter part of Lynott’s life is not much fun. It’s such a cliché! So sad to see a man of so much talent and such polyglot tendencies gradually reducing themselves to an unpleasant caricature.
And one always feels a mix of why didn’t folk help more? Along with a realisation that those bent on self destruction might very well be beyond help. So sad!
But, despite the inevitability of the way the story ends, I’d still thoroughly recommend this book, esp’ for the first two-thirds to three-quarters, which are a rollicking good read, documenting an exciting man and the great music he and his chums made.
Of course I’d also recommend either acquainting yourself with Lynott and Lizzy, if they’re new to you. Or, if you already dig ‘em, revisiting the terrific musical legacy they left us all.
As a footnote, another area where I think I may well differ from Thomson is regarding Lynott’s two solo records. The first, Solo in Soho hasn’t aged particularly well, to my ears. But The Philip Lynott Album? It’s a stone cold underground classic!
A recurrent theme (or sub-text, perhaps?) throughout this book takes note of how Lynott was never really the one-dimensional hard man rocker that a part of his own personal mythology might have folk believe.
Early Thin Lizzy, from their eponymous debut right up to Jailbreak, and perhaps even more so The Philip Lynott Album, show the musical magpie or chameleon that gradually faded away from the Lizzy side of the equation.
Apparently there are about 500 unreleased Thin Lizzy tracks, or demos. I’m not sure if this figure includes the many Lynott side projects and/or misc collab’s? For example at one point it’s noted that he had a bit of a private funk period. I’d love to hear that stuff!
Anyway, in conclusion, an excellent biography of an interesting man, talented artist, and, for better or worse, ‘rock legend’!
* These pics are not in Thomson’s book.
I stumbled upon Frances Glessner Lee yesterday. What an intriguing character!
Often called the ‘mother’ of American forensics, amongst her other accomplishments she created a series of 1:12 models, beautifully realised dioramas, but very unlike your typical dolls’ house.
Most of the images in this post were harvested via a visit here. That link takes you to a Smithsonian Institute webpage about an exhibition of Lee’s ‘Nutshell Dioramas’, which includes a short film, some 360° panoramic photos you can explore (for five of the 20 extant ‘nutshells’), a little essay on Lee’s life and works, and a photo gallery of the dioramas.
I won’t tell the stories that each of these scenarios depict. Some are murder scenes, some suicides, some ‘cause of death unknown’. You can visit other sites for that info.
I love these for how bizarre they are, combining a fascination with death/crime, and miniature modelling. They were, so the story goes, designed to help teach forensics, by giving the eye scenes to work over.
As the photo of Lee at work shows, she built these herself. I believe she also had help from some others. For example her carpenter helped with the manufacture of certain wooden components.
The detail is, as I hope my selection of images shows, pretty extraordinary. Once again, these recreations of actual historical scenarios differ from the chintzy fantasies of the more normal dolls’ house in that they depict real life, or rather death, in genuine domestic environments.
The detritus of everyday lives is often to be seen littering scenes: empty booze bottles, scattered paperwork, clothes and furnishings not curated for display, but in a more private disarray.
But even the stuff not associated with the demise of the bodies – and all these scenes include the dead, despite my focus on other aspects of the scenes – is lovingly rendered in terrific detail. We can see specific books, newspapers and magazines, and the interior scenes range from a rough ‘n’ ready log cabin, or a wooden shack, to a pretty large and swanky garage; from flophouses to middle class lounges.
I love models and model making. I always have. And I have a definite soft spot for oddball or artsy takes on the making of miniature worlds. France Glessner Lee’s Nutshell’s definitely meet these criteria!
There are one or two books on her, and these fascinating works of hers specifically, which, in the fullness of time and funds allowing, etc, I’d love to check out.
Here’s a full list of her mad little models:
• Attic (24 December 1946)
• Barn (15 July 1939)
• Blue Bedroom (3 November 1943)
• Burned Cabin (15 August 1943)
• Dark Bathroom (November 1896)
• Garage (7 January 1946)
• Kitchen (12 April 1944)
• Living Room (22 May 1941)
• Log Cabin (22 October 1942)
• Parsonage Parlor (23 August 1946)
• Pink Bathroom (31 March 1942)
• Red Bedroom (29 June 1944)
• Saloon & Jail (12 November 1944)
• Sitting Room & Woodshed (25 October 1947; thought lost and rediscovered in 2003[11])[6]
• Striped Bedroom (29 April 1940)
• Three-Room Dwelling (1 November 1937)
• Two Rooms (damaged or destroyed in the 1960s)[12]
• Two-Story Porch (5 April 1948)
• Unpapered Bedroom (4 June 1949)
• Woodman’s Shack (8 February 1945)
Wow! I do love YouTube, for giving us all the chance to stumble across gems such as this. Thanks also to the NFB, or National Film Board of Canada.
Bill Mason, who made this film, and ‘stars’ in it, is Canadian. I have Canadian family and ancestry, on my dad’s side. So these facts set up something of a sympathetic resonance for me.
Then there’s Bill Mason himself, the man: he is, or rather was, an outdoorsman and artist, who made, I’ve subsequently discovered, numerous utterly gorgeous and fascinating films, of which this is one of the best.
The chief charms of this are simple yet kaleidoscopically rich, like the environment in which the film is set, on and around Lake Superior.
One of the things Bill addresses, a vexed issue for me, is spirituality. This was the only note struck in this otherwise perfect reverie of sound and vision, nature and culture, that – if not necessarily jarring – gave me pause for some (Indian!?) reservations.
But I’d like to take this post as an opportunity to consider a few things, and there are many, that this film either touches upon directly, or stirred in me by association.
First there are the ‘renaissance man’ and self-reliance aspects. Bill, who formerly worked as a ‘commercial artist’, was a conservationist, famed canoeist, artist, writer, family man, and all sorts. I love all of that! I have my own aspirations to living a multi-faceted life. Richer, one hopes -not fiscally perhaps, but in other better more important ways – than the monomaniac furrows our society drills us into pursuing.
So, there are many things Bill’s example encourages: to spend more time in, and pay more attention to, nature, and indeed all our environments. Art, get up, and out, and make some. Buy or build a canoe; get out and start messing about in the water!
It was also interesting to learn that Bill’s health wasn’t terrific. A sickly child, he has severe asthma all his life. And yet he didn’t allow this to stop him from adventuring. Maybe his derring-do contributed to his early demise? But then again, maybe not? And at least he lived a rich and inspiring life while he lived.
Some might laugh reading this next bit. And it may indeed sound facile. But I truly couldn’t care less! And that’s the fact that I like his style. And I’ve gone as far as to add elements of it – some were already there, others just a little tweak in already beloved themes – to my own sartorial repertoire.
I already had the neckerchiefs (though mine are too small!), and brown leather walking boots, and many a checked shirt. But the red outdoorsman socks are new! And so too is the very particular red and black check ‘lumberjack’ shirt!
Bill’s particular style of art – he favours palette knives over brushes, and cites J. M. W. Turner as his chief inspiration and influence – is terrific, albeit not entirely to my normal tastes. But that he does it all, is inspiration. It was interesting to see that he, like myself and several artists I’ve known personally, is highly self-critical bout his work, and often destroys what others. Might regard as decent work, because he’s unhappy with it.
Then there’s music. In other Mason films he strums guitar or plays harmonica. It amazingly, one might add. And his family aren’t exactly fulsome in their appreciation (does this remind any of us of our own domestic musical life? Or is it just me!?). But for Waterwalker, the music is supplied by (?) and (?). (?) is a star in his own right. And the music totally suits the subject!
Some of it, such as the actual ‘theme tune’, might induce cringing amongst some listeners. I’d understand why. It has a ‘new agey’ earnestness. But I love it.
Another facet of the whole thing that some might find they react to differently than I do, is the whole tenor of it all. It’s definitely dreamy, romantic, and perhaps even somewhat solipsistic? And it’s no surprise such movies helped created a cult of Bill Mason. But as a ‘fellow traveller’, and sympathetic romantic introvert soul-mate, I love it all. As did critics, numerous of his films, inc’ this one, winning a variety of awards and accolades.
Also interesting to me, is how stuff like this leaches into other areas. For example, I noticed, whilst watching a recent Jack Stratton ‘Holy Trinity’ episode, on YouTube, that he had created a logo and a whole invented Vulf Films thing suspiciously akin to the Canadian NFB (National Film Board) doodad.
Just as Bill Mason’s film is simultaneously about following one’s own individual and sometimes lonely paths, it’s also about connections. Be they to nature, or each other, immediate or indirect. Love it!
On the four track Future Days, embedded amongst three giant sprawling liquid psychedelic sound sculptures, is this little gem, CAN’s only real ‘hit single’.
As usual, Jaki Leibezeit grooves like a mother. How any drummer can make such a simple part so difficult to emulate is astonishing. It’s all in the feel. Truly awesome.
Holger Czukay shows that less really CAN be more, and Michael Karoli supplies one of his best rhythm guitar parts; melodic, funky, and fairly unique in the CAN canon. Irvin Schmidt’s keys pepper the piece with perfect piquancy, and there’s a solo – a music concrete solo, no less – that is an absolute masterpiece.
And this track got them on ze German hit parade! Crazy times, eh!? Can you imagine this charting anywhere in the world now? Only in the private top-tens of the cognoscenti!
The recent news from Lewis Taylor Central, via FaceBook and YouTube and his own (rather minimal) website, of a new album due out in 2022, has got me revisiting LT’s reasonably extensive back catalogue.
And in amongst that very varied body of work, this stands out, for numerous reasons. Firstly it’s a track from his self-titled debut album (released in ‘96!). But here it’s a much more stripped down take (which, going by the accompanying artwork, came out as part of the 2004 Limited Edition release).
I don’t know that I might not prefer this version? The album recording is brilliant. But somehow this more minimal version reveals quite starkly how strong a song it is. It also sounds more vulnerable, less cocky and swaggering, than the fuller rendition (these latter effects were also amplified by the videos made for the song at the time).
Okay, the artwork thumbnail for this (and some other LT recordings) is pretty dreadful, not at all suggestive of the musical brilliance it represents. Is or was LT doing all his own art works and videos as well? Or was or is someone helping out? Some of the recent videos are superb. A great example being his reworking of the Bee Gees Night Fever.
Anyway, I’m super excited at the prospect of a whole album’s worth of new Lewis Taylor to feast upon. I think I’ll do a separate post on that, and the teaser video he’s put up that contains various snippets of some of the new material.
My only slight reservation – not with this version of Lucky, as the following doesn’t apply – is one I’ve had with his music all along, and in particular his ‘one man band’ stuff – massively impressive as it is – and that is (perhaps unsurprisingly, me being a drummer) the programmed beats.
Didn’t he have Gavin Harrison, Frank Tontoh and Ash Soan, amongst others, contribute rhythms at various times? Do the fans need to run a Patreon campaign to fundraise the budget for real drums and percussion on future recordings? … Just a thought!
But for now, re this post, and this version of Lucky, just sit back, put some headphones on, and luxuriate in the rich sonic repast LT serves up. Stunning!
This isn’t my first post on this topic. I doubt it’ll be my last. Why return to such a theme? This time it was prompted by a silly FB post by a friend about which David Bowie number, of four he specified, ‘would you rather’… etc.
Pointless silliness, perhaps? Well, yes. I.e. totally suited to and at home on FB. As, indeed, is the constant harassment of advertising. But it so happened that the most popular choice was Heroes. Admittedly an excellent song. But, for me at least, tarnished by its heavy usage in adverts.
I also recall the pride with which several drummers on a FB drummer’s forum related that they had been in that recent ad’ for a gambling sports sponsor that features hordes of drummers. I’m glad to say I can’t recall exactly which such parasitic body it was.
I’d love the exposure that might bring (well, perhaps for a few of the more ‘featured’ of the many hundreds of otherwise anonymous players). And I’m sure the nuts and bolts of actually filming it might also be fun. Did all these drummers get get paid, I wonder?
But what about taking a principled stand against the cancerous blight on our society that is gambling? Or even advertising as a whole? Or, better still, advertising as a hole… specifically, an arsehole’!
That’s r-r-r-r-right f-f-f-f-folks, I’m talkin’ ass! Now I felt this way long before I saw Bill Hicks do his anti-advertising schtick. Indeed, a loathing for advertising – and a contempt for gambling – was something I learned at home, mostly (I believe?) from my father.
But in order to keep things relatively short and ‘sweet’ here and now, let’s wrap this up with a short consideration of ‘the asshole in contemporary culture’ (sounds like a topic on a college degree syllabus!).
It turns out that some of the ugliest ideas of the worst types of racists and those dearest to many a ruling elite converge, for differing reasons, around a certain nexus of ideas. As mentioned above, I don’t intend to go into great detail on the subject(s) here. Perhaps another time?
What I will say is that there’s a culture of brashly aggressive ugliness, massively on the increase, from the politics of Trump, to the shouted egotism in rap, or the gurgling screams of extreme metal. It’s also manifest in the strident upbeat chirpiness, and even – I contend – the zombie-smiling lockstep of Nuremberg-rally style formation dancing.
The massive and very visible rise of the latter, especially obvious in advertising, had me baffled for a little while? Why the sudden effusion of such stuff? And then it struck me; we now have loads of educational institutions, pumping out hordes of glassy eyed dreamers, who have become production line product, trained in dance and/or drama.
And what’s the glorious acme of their profession most might earn a buck or two from? Depressingly, it’s advertising. I suppose some might get Butlin’s style gigs. Some might go on to teach more aspiring dreamers. But, as with Fine Arts and Music, most will have to eke out a living by other means.
Dammit! I’m still skirting around my chief focus… the omnipresent asshole! So, let’s get to it, let’s really get stuck into the fundament/als! Thar’ she blows…
Basically it boils down to this; would you be happy inviting the kind of hectoring, patronising, wheedling, insinuating assholes that one hears in advertising in off the street to harangue you in your home? ‘Cause that’s what we’re all doing, when we tolerate advertising.
Again, rather depressingly, that’s what a great deal of what I’m increasingly thinking of as contemporary serf-culture trains us to do. If you like a lot of modern pop music, which includes supposedly ‘underground’ or counterculture (but in reality totally commercially co-opted) genres like rap or metal, you’re already being inoculated in the required ‘herd immunity’ to such internalised or even self-inflicted bullying.
Anyway, enough ranting, or sounding off, or whatever it may be. For now! my thoughts on all this are fairly clear, if not, perhaps, terribly well formed. But they may change, with time, and further consideration or information. For the time being, however, I remain resolute in my disavowal of the pollution that is most TV advertising.