Simultaneously Ancient And Modern
The more I consider it, the more I’m sure that the working life is not for me. Too much pressure, a man once said, too much pressure. I’m only a lonely serf, I don’t want to have to rush around, manage other people, snap at them, hunch my shoulders. Do not want.
It’s not this bad yet, but it’s approaching.
I want to do my degree now. kthx.
It has forgotten art’s lofty mission: instead of raising the crowd to its level, it has lowered itself to the crowd’s.
So says Honoré de Balzac, referring to the populist nature of the Italian music contemporary to the looming titular character in his Gambara. It’s an interesting sentiment, and one which I can well see defining the age-old question: what is art?
I like that it’s referring to music, for a start. This is something I can get my teeth into. And it segues nicely from the preceding Unknown Masterpiece in my edition, apparently Balzac’s desire. Both deal with the private madness and obsession of art, with perspective and opinion as central themes. I love the way that the mission of art is described here, not to dumb itself down to meet the simple tastes of the great unwashed proletariat, but to raise their level of expectation higher, to improve them. Art should make people better, should make them more aware and give them more desire to grow and become better.
Such was Balzac’s opinion, or at least that of Count Andrea Marcosini. And I’m inclined to agree. Art, in all it’s forms, should not be lowest common denominator. Though those in the book conducting this conversation were derided, sometimes I think it’s acceptable to take a subjective, hardline approach to this sort of thing. Music that is made to appeal to as large a demographic as possible is barely music any longer - that’s why X-Factor, American Idol et al, while entertaining, are essentially pointless. Music doesn’t have to be elite: witness deep southern soul, the music of the people (as Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan would probably have it), but it’s still wracked with emotion, with no edges shorn off to prevent certain subgroups getting upset.
Music shouldn’t be made for an elite, either, that’s just as bad as trying to appeal to any market area. Music should be made for its own sake, never dumbed-down or diluted, it is what it is and you have to make yourself better to appreciate it. I guess in essence that’s why hardcore music fans inevitably narrow their outlook so far that they can dismiss great things because they are more interested in searching out the better and the best, the Platonic ideal in their own chosen sphere. And that’s fine. It’s great. Art was never meant for the morons, the morons were meant to attain to the art, and that’s where the best work succeeds, and why I remain happily committed to slating sell-outs and frauds and Simon Cowell and faceless suits who churn out vacuous sounds for vacuous minds. I’m happy to remain pretentious, aloof and proud of the music I listen to, just like Marcosini, just like Gambara, just like Balzac.
Today, I lack motivation. For anything at all. I don’t want to work, to move around, to sit around, nothing. And yet, here I am blogging away like a buffoon. I don’t understand me.
Nothing on my mind today, either, in particular. Well, that’s not true. But nothing for a public blog to be discussing, that’s for sure. I’m not in this to bear all in some kind of ultra-confessional anonymous, Gossip Girl-esque fashion.
So the news tells me they’re closing down Walthamstow dogs, and as I concentrate a bit harder I realise that Dusty7s told me yesterday and Londonist told me today. The move will be supported by some; it’ll also be bewailed by a legion of fans, attracted by the glitzy pink and green of its infamous neon, the waft of camel-coat smell, the aroma of hundreds of people losing ten pences.
I’m no supporter of greyhound racing: the humane aspect of it is bad enough, but I don’t like gambling a bit - it seems a sweeping, oversimplified thing to say that betting preys on the poor, but like chicken shops, in London the argument seems to be backed up by evidence.
I marvel constantly at the preponderance of betting shops, even on my local street I can walk past a betfair, William Hill and Ladbrokes, with betfred et al not far off. I don’t understand how they can sustain their trade, but they do. Apparently, it’s these convenience-gambling stores, along with the world wide interweb that are killing off the likes of Walthamstow Dogs.
So I don’t support the dogtrack itself in any way, but if the building goes, I’ll miss it. It’s an iconic structure, opened in 1933 and still owned by the same family. As I go on mammoth charity shop runs to Epping, I pass this before getting to Chingford and it’s an epic thing to see in this otherwise unspectacular, northern expanse of E17. I very much hope that the facade is saved, the red and white art deco facade and the air of faded glory, but the likelihood is - since the track has been sold to property developers - it’ll either be gobbled up in a swathe of identikit, Barrat-esque homes or a big fat retail park with a Dixons, a Comet, an Allied Carpets and a whole bunch of other shops that can be found up and down the country.
Sad day for architecture, East End nostalgics, film trivia buffs, then, happier day for anti-gambling campaigners and animal rights enthusiasts. Mixed emotions for me.
I so rarely post about music anymore. Despite what you may believe from browsing recent posts, I’m not a political animal, I don’t like it. It’s just that I find that I find out what I myself believe through writing, often. Not about the truly essential stuff of life: but about political stances (and sorry, I don’t consider that to be indispensable), reading, food, my own education, all these things. I don’t tend to read back what I blog before I post, whether it’s a quick note, a link, or full-blown, clever-sounding essay of a post, and so my writing is a little bit of self-exploration. Or rather, it is here - elsewhere, when I write, my thoughts are distinctly more carefully considered. But I like this style of blogging, it means I keep track on the development of my own ideas over time, and as i’ve never kept anything resembling a journal, it’s quite nice.
But I don’t often post about music anymore. In many ways, it’s a better thing than politics, than the hack and slash of left vs. right, the ideologies and the theories and the conjectures. I’ve never found a single political ideology or philosophy that adequately covers this human sphere quite as completely and satisfactorily as my own christian faith, and therefore while these things are interesting, I consider myself a little removed from them, like they’re separate things, outside of my immediate vicinity.
But music. Art and creativity and emotion and soul, that which separates us from the animals. This cuts across political boundaries (or should), all divides, all barriers. Even if it’s just the Four Tet EP that was on my mind at the beginning of the post, a bounteous morass of techno, Glass-esque minimalism and outlandish drum loops. This is a far better thing than the ructions of fractious mankind and the squabbly, myopic attempts to resolve things, far better than most things, you know.
In my extremely vague self-guided research (read, Wikipedia at work) around human geography, I stumbled on Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. I love Wikipedia, you know. While it is an, at best, questionable source of facts, still it’s become so vast an enterprise that it is very nearly completely successful at self-moderation (just read the ‘talk’ sections on any article). It whiles away great tracts of prime work-avoidance time and it enables me to talk about things like Gramsci and hegemony without sounding like a complete plebeian.
Thus I can say that I agree with the lovable Italian Marxist, named after a dog on Spaced, at least to some extent. He set his mind to working out why, actually, Marx’s grand theories of communism and workers’ revolutions had not come to pass as so faithfully predicted. The result was cultural hegemony, the concept of a state or system’s influence on those within the nation or surrounding. Thusly, in Gramsci’s day, the workers had not united and revolted because they were so deeply ingrained with the idea of their place in society (a cultural setting) and even the idea of betterment (certainly a basic tenet of capitalism). Communism then did not take root outside of the Soviet Union, not because the workers were better off or the overarching systems more just, but that the cultural expectations of a capitalist society built on the race for colonialism, the whisper of the promise of rising in social standing, all this precluded a workers’ revolution because the workers thought they could do better how they were.
All a bit of a vain hope, really. The vast swathes of socially-immobile classes from time immemorial can attest that social mobility has always been a bit of a pipe dream, and Gramsci starts to look a bit correct. I can see it now with America’s global, cultural dominance but am cheered to remember that these things move in waves, and we might yet see Antonio’s theories of how to overcome this cultural impasse.
Not that I’m in entire agreement with AG, or Marxism in general. The more I put my mind to it, the more centre-socialist I get - Communism didn’t work, it didn’t make people happy, extreme politics never do. But I’m definitely left of any major party in this country, and while I don’t think it’s necessary to wage a “war of position” to beat down capitalism, I still don’t like the idea of the leadership of this country represented by an elite which with whom I have no part.
So I’m all for workers’ rights and freedom of trade, nationalisation of services and promotion of democracy. Just don’t ask me to like Boris.
Diamondgeezer has done a pretty nice job of taking a hatchet to Mayor BoJo’s latest blustering. I make myself laugh with my vaguely tree-related pun. A lot of people have come out with support for this nice-sounding policy, but I have to agree with DG, it looks like a whole lot of spin to me.
The idea is that the Mayor’s office is initiating a tree-planting scheme in 40 parts of London, planting about 10,000 trees with the proceeds of ditching Ken’s admittedly useless The Londoner. But it’s actually only a third of this money that’s going on a scheme which is planting, according to diamondgeezer, one tree per year, for every three thousand residents. So, in Boris’ first term, in my name I’ll be receiving 1/750th of a tree. Not great, really.
In recent months Haringey, the notoriously belligerent and ever-so-slightly barking Haringey council has been regenerating Tottenham High Road. Alongside the usual trick of putting in new, fancier lampposts, there’s also been… ooh, a pile of trees planted. Where they’re actual needed and helpful to the local environment. The Mayor’s scheme is hardly revolutionary then, or even slightly new. It’s all a bit meh, these policies so far. Oyster cards on trains? Isn’t that what Ken has been negotiating for the last eight years, and had just scheduled in? No booze on public transport? Isn’t that a little unnecessary, when the people who cause problems are the ones already drunk? I don’t know.
I don’t want this to turn into a political blog. I really don’t. But between Gordon Brown’s Sad-Sack act, Democratic infighting in the States, and Boris’ all mouth no trousers rip-off policies, it’s all a bit depressing.
Here, go listen to something good instead. I recommend Four Tet’s newest selection of minimalist techno, Ringer. Is good.
Ones first column is now available at the esteemed No Ripcord. I’m biased, obviously, but since the revamp it’s a really good-looking site and if I can pull my finger out and get some reviews on the go, then maybe we can make it a real contender. It’s already less ridiculous than Pitchfork, more cosmopolitan than DiS, and is back on metacritic - if you look closely, you’ll see I am classified in a “carefully-screened group of the most respected critics.” Oh yes I am.
I’ve been doing this writing business for about 5 years now. I started doing it because I didn’t know how best to keep my hand in after university, and although I get lazy now and then, I’ve not stopped. I like seeing myself on Metacritic, it makes me look legitimate and everything.
I even get a column. I like this. I like that I have a column and not a blog there. Look at me! I’m a journalist! Etc. I need to get myself a smug headshot to put next to it, then next think you’ll know I’ll be writing for the Guardian.
You can see what I thought of Mr Nick Cave at the newly-improved, and I have to see pretty exciting again No Ripcord. David, if you’re reading this, sorry I screwed up the picture.
As you may gather, I wasn’t too impressed. Less the scintillating, gorgeous sound of his records, more an aging man trying to regain his youth. Sad. Glimmers of wonder there were, but the band were woefully underused, and even Mr Cave himself didn’t seem too happy.
Today, the heat continues, the workrate diminishes rapidly, and tonight I’m spring cleaning. The joy!
Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum
In a rare outbreak of good taste, a regular contender in Facebook’s Top Five London Books is Harper Lee’s wonderfully evocative To Kill A Mockingbird. And no moment of the book is more evocative than this depiction of the Deep Southern heat.
As I write, London is baking in its fifth successive day of sunshine, cloudless skies and mid 20’s heat. While the debate will rage over whether this is BoJo’s doing, or whether the weather is playing a cruel trick at our expense, it’s unseasonably hot here, and collars are indeed melting. I’ve become accustomed to a certain degree of stickiness in every bit of me, and in everything I touch. Unusually, it has more to do with the heat than with residue of belgian buns.
So I’m in the comparative cool of the office, not relishing leaving for once. I’ve been drinking all day (water, you understand) and I feel ready to face the world but… everything’s so much effort, isn’t it? Work’s too much effort, not working is too much effort. Accursed lethargy.
So is this to do with global warming? I like to run with a sensationalist over-dramatisation every now and then, so I’m going to assume: yes. I have to confess, there are times when global warming seems a little bit distant to my life, and easily pretendable that it’s just not there. But I can’t deny that the summers are hotter these days, the winters are milder, the bananas are growing in Tottenham, soon cactus will be outdoor plants… It’s inevitable, and all our fault. It’s also easy to pass climate change off as a little irrelevant - I live on high ground, I’m not going to suffer - but in actual fact, living in this western, affluent apathy is probably going to ruin the lives of the world’s most vulnerable: those in Bangladesh, Norfolk, etc.
So I have my compost bin, I have the recycling box, I don’t use the ‘extra spin’ button on the washing machine… But surely there’s more I can do? Could I give up my car? Could I offset my carbon emissions (whatever that means)? Do I have to be vegetarian? I hope not. I’m sure I can do something though - if this keeps up I’m going to have to don the Colonel’s white suit and start mopping my brow out of habit.
