tiny vices

Pictures; This is one i like by a guy called Jaret Penner



There's a website i've been spending some time on lately tinyvices.com. It's a collection of various artists work, and some if it's really pleasant and nice to view while listening to music.

Song for the Day!

I haven't been keeping up with this too much, despite listening to more music than i ever have before, I certainly haven't been working anyway. Today i got around to listening to a band i haven't listened to in aages, you may have heard of The Velvet Underground, you may not(!). Either way they invented R&R cool, on top of having a pretty huge musical influence and really defining alternative or indie music culture. And of course they are aces to listen to. Actually choosing a song of theirs to put out here is painfully difficult but not that important, because if you've heard them you've heard them all, and if you haven't then you're going to want to listen to them all, so anyway i'll go for Candy Says

Nocturnal Republican Anxiety Disorder

This is the way Republicans think it should be held

This is a crazy late rage induced post. I watched the daily show showing clips of the 'Conservative Woodstock', which is some big meet-up between US republicans in Washington DC. The clips showed conservatives bashing almost every progressive, humanitarian and in any way good section of society/politics/people and declared that they are openly oppossed to them. All this with the obligatory complete lack of knowledge and massive contradictions that appear a neccessity for any would-be repulbican speech. Including one who claimed his party were against "liberal neo-monarchists" (?!). I don't know whether to embrace apoplectic rage or passively give in and accept democracy as failed. It's difficult to tell what kind of an impact these speeches and events are having on the US public and i suppose we'll have to wait until the next election to find out, but if the republicans were to return on a tirade of unbridled hate-mongering racism then i think the time will have come for us to finally sever all ties with the colonies.

RIP Howard Zinn

There haven't been many historians who have been truly inspirational, it's not always a job that requires it. Thucydides and Herodotus get mentions for inventing the career, and there have been various great historians through the ages which have been remarkable for their accuracy, hindsight, insight, persistance and eloquence. For me, my personal history hero (that looks so sad written down) is Howard Zinn, who passed away in January. Zinn was a kind of anti-establishment 'against the grain' rebel figure, possesed of a charisma which very few historians have had. I read his book (his magnum opus) A Peoples History of America a few years ago and it really was unlike any history book i'd ever read. While it could never be described as a perfect work of history, a far from unbiased book as it is, the quality and passion visible in the writing, and the amazing obscure quotes Zinn dug out really brought his work to life in a way i've never quite experienced in any other piece of literature. The pages themselves smelled of America. Zinn spoke at rallies and branched out into various fields of the media world and really is quite a legendary figure for those of us who like to view history of something more relevant than a series of events long since passed.
His backstory was that beautiful story of the working class Brooklyn boy who came good, served in the forces and had his eyes opened wide to world. I can even imagine a film being made about him, and it wouldn't be such a bad thing if awareness of him and his work became alot more common.
In his words "You can't be neutral on a moving train"

Bad Pollution

Thinking about alot of the recent scepticism about climate change data, how reliable, accurate or relevant it is. I think we can all see and feel that pollution in any form is bad for the earth, be it seeing litter in the countryside, the stinking fumes that vehicle exhausts and factory chimneys release, or seeing an abandoned car rusting in a field. We can all see how our man made products jar and contrast uncomfortably with nature, and that they clearly aren't doing it any favours. If nothing else we're inflicting asthetic pollution, but i think we can all feel the damage caused is much less superficial than that, even without taking into account scientific studies and surveys.

Song for the Day!

Somtimes i like to pretend i'm sitting in a blue and white stripey deckchair, sipping a cocktail and pretending it's the 1960's. Beach House are a fantastic band to do this to, Norway is from their latest album Teen Dreams. And also Lover of Mine, which is possibly even better!

Herb Brown Is A Painter

As much as i don't really want to sponsor it too much, Vice magazine had an article up today about a painter called Herb Brown that's well worth reading (more so than 95% of Vice content, it's one of their rare genuinely informative articles). Back in the 60's he painted over subway adverts, posters and even tv sets, with some pretty explicit spontaneous imagery. At the grand old age of 87 he comes across as the best kind of cantankerous old fella', there's a few of his paintings above^. Apparently his stuff is on display in Nu yoik at the moment, which isn't very practical for me, but if i was there i would most certainly give it a look.

I'm pretty thrilled that Beirut are going to be at Green Man, the thought of hearing their jaunty pseudo-european-folk (surely there is no better definition) ringing throughout the hills of the Brecon Beacons makes me tingle in my happiest and most intimate areas. Forks and Knives!

Picture; Umami - how unbelievably lame

The trend in obsessive food culture is pretty uninspiring, it encourages people to waste their time (and inevitably money) believing they can be satisfied by what they put in their stomachs at the neglect of the world around them, outside of their own body. Sure it's good to eat healthy, good to eat nice food etc, but to let it dominate their lives as some people do is not a path to a full and happy existence. At it's base eating is just something we do to stay alive, I don't think nature intended it to be a platform for snobbish excessary and a replacement for actual interests and personality. Witness the arrival of 'Umami', the apparent 'Fifth' flavour, the lack of which has been the void at the centre of all our lives.

Song for the Day!

Holy Fuck may posses a dubious name and the shoddiest website in the business, but the Canadian folk make good music, listen to Lovely Allen

I'm a believer

Thinking about religion and spiritual beliefs in general, and how my automatic response to finding out somebody is a (bona fide) Christian is to assume they're a slightly unhinged virgin, i came to the conclusion that i'm being slightly pessimistic. Firstly i'm no atheist, i like to believe there's more to existance than science can explain and to reduce it all down to numbers and algorithms is depressing in the extreme, and I don't see how conscious life can adequately be explained or understood by the application of science. I also came to the conclusion my closest equivalent to a definite religious or spiritual belief would be my belief in LOVE. I'm a highly cynical person and i don't fall in love easily (or at least not that easily), and most of my life's experiences have gone some way to undermine the concept, but still, against almost any rationale, i believe in it. Maybe i need to, as pathetically and dependently as someone who can't get up in the morning without knowing there's a God. My concept of love is possibly different from most peoples, I'm including both platonic and sexual love when i say it, I also understand that love isn't required for sex, and that it isn't the same thing as simple commitment, that it rarely works conventionally, and that it won't always last (passionately) for a long time. But despite all it's flaws, believing it exists is still probably the only reason I get out of bed in the morning. Well that and cake. And alcohol. Tea...

Song for the Day!

Sufjan Stevens said he plans on making an album for every state in the US, being as he's due to turn 35 this year and has so far only covered two of the 50 that might not be feasible. However, if the ones he does make are as fine as Michigan and Illinoise then nobody will realy care. This is Jacksonville from the latter.

I went for my usual walk

I went for my usual walk up Hergest ridge, a regular occurrence when i'm home. I saw various people walking up it, walking their dogs and with their families and so on, and passed people in their living rooms on my way back through Kington. I got to thinking that for most of these people whatever they were doing as I passed them was probably what they do every sunday, and how comfortable but predictable this must be. Variety is important. Does the security which we ('we' speaking in generalities) strive for in our lives, the safety, shelter, warmth and rest easy which we gain from it, really satisfy us? It's a delay on the inevitable, and if we think that the inevitable is, of course, inevitable, then surely a search for happiness, so usually the spawn of change and variety (excitement), is a more important goal for our lives. Even if it may come at some loss to security, and maybe even a shortening of the gap between us and the inevitable, it must be worth it, rather than repeating each day in the same obscure comfort. I'm aware this line of thought is nothing original and has been heard, said and written down many times before, and that anyone who is alert, conscious and intelligent has probably thought it already, but i still think there's value in saying it again, even for my own benefit if nobody else's.

Morning with Thoreau and song for the day

I haven't posted anything for a couple of days due to lectures recommencing, and the ensuing earlier mornings and nights that follow, and my tired mind really hasn't thought of much worth saying (or writing) out loud. To quote Henry Thoreau; "Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly aquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells"
Song for the day is No Name #1 by the late Elliott Smith, he makes music perfectly attuned to the tired mind.