And I Thought I Was In A Vacuum

Extraordinary. Did the usual narcissic Google self-search and came across this. And here I was under the impression that I was writing in a void. Even if this comment dates from over a year ago! Nice to be noticed though...

Well, it's true that I haven't read that many blogs - I don't have either the time or the compulsion. But I think I am more right than wrong on this one.

Back to quiescence.

New blog every second

A new blog every second? 14.2 million worldwide. Well, that removes some of the disappointment about getting so few hits. There simply is not time to read them.

Back home

Back from Canada after a three week vacation, and with mixed feelings. I really liked Canada - somehow the culture there seemed slower and closer to my own view of life. It will take a while to sort this lot out.

Hmmm

The new blog, Music, has coaxed more out of me in one short week than I have managed with this one in months. I shall return here from time to time, but my energies are going to be spent elsewhere. All in a name. Amazing.

Started a parallel blog today on music

Largely to give a focus to my writing. This remains a more personal arena.

No mood

I am in no mood to go to work tomorrow. It's a dull time at the moment, rote experiments and tedious work. Plus P___ is being a royal pain in the behind. Sullen, non-communicative - a good case of an untreated bipolar disorder. I'm ready for a vacation. Soon.

Unease

Maybe things are not going so well for people in America these days. I am running into more and more people - strangers - who seem jumpy, angry and anxious. Nothing, I think, to do with 9/11 despite the use of that event for political gain by authoritarian elements. More a sense that the world is becoming more and more assertive and American power and influence are on the wane. It's difficult to come down from the top.

Farther along

Skipped right through April without a thought of this blog. Was only reminded when my friend Mary asked me what a blog was yesterday. It is a rather absurd concept.Why on earth should the personal ramblings of one out of billions of other people, a good chunk of whom are probably thinking and doing very similar things to me, be of any interest to anyone? It's basically no more than a vain conceit. But that alright.

Absolutely Free!

As I (re)-immerse myself in the culture and music of the 1960s, one artist stands out for his acute and spot-on analysis of the period. Frank Zappa is essential listening - as much as the Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, or The Beach Boys - yet is probably far less heard than any of those artists. His essential trilogy, "Freak Out!", "Absolutely Free" and "We're Only In It For The Money" are breathtakingly inventive musically (as much as anyone at the time) and provide sharper and more cutting social commentary than anyone else delivered. Only Zappa skewered both the straights and hippies, culture and counter-culture. Simply astonishing.

Roused somewhat

Re-activated my increasingly dormant blogging activities thanks to an article on Rosie O'Donnell in today's NYT - as one mught expect, the site is swamped, and the vagaries of a clogged-up Internet led to a series of duplicate posts as I responded to her musings on depression. But there you have it, she's famous enough for the NYT to devote an article to her (thereby selling a few more newspapers - this is always the way).

Paradoxically (or perhaps not), my lull from blogging has been associated with a higher personal level of thinking than I have done for a long time. I can credit the course in the music of the Beatles that I am taking as the source of it all. To know The Beatles you have to know the 1960s and to know the 1960s you have have know the social history of world, particularly America and Europe, over the entire post-war period. That is a lot of stuff to accumulate. Complex too - so many glib mythologies and fantasies have built up today about the 'halcyon' days of the 1960s that are revealed on examination to have very little substance. People often think of the 60s as the decade of peace, love and free-thinking. In reality, it is a decade of fear, violence, and angry dogmatic jousting between culture and counter-culture. The Beatles of 'Sgt. Pepper' and "All You Need Is Love" have become icons, but there is precious little underneath. Most of all, the 60s is the decade of the Bomb.

Gripped by blogging?

Hardly, judging by the time between this and my last post. And it's not even as if I was thinking about blogging and just didn't do it - blogging was completely and absolutely out of my thoughts for most of that time. That's probably a very good thing.

I'm taking an evening course on the music of the Beatles this winter/spring. It's making me reconsider their music. Much of it I like but never really loved, and I paid little attention to the many innovations they introduced.

Cold

I'm home in bed with a cold & a nagging headache, and would probably be better off shutting this laptop down and going back to sleep. In a little while. Meanwhile, I scan the tracking polls and see the race for the White House essentially even. This is interesting in itself - whoever wins cannot (although I suspect they will) pretend to lead a united country. There is too much bad feeling, and altogether too much fear, for people to happily shrug their shoulders and return to normality. At least that is what I judge. Whoever wins is also going to have to cope with the whirlwind of misfortune that has been stirred up over the past four years, and that will be an overwhelming task.

But at heart I remain optimistic. I view what has happened to America over the past three years as a necessary peeling away of a mentality of smugly cocooned superiority. The initial reactions have been very much in that vein - overwhelming force used to crush 3rd world countries. But the results have shown once again that overwhelming force is meaningless unless you win the hearts of those you oppose and conquer. That lesson has yet to be learned, but it will be. As others have said, you cannot impose freedom - and you most certainly cannot impose a Christian evangelist & materialist culture upon a society rooted in a fundamental religion as powerful, and as opposed to Christianity, as Islam.

It's America's insularity - and that insularity is built into the current Republican administration, but is really nationwide and beyond party - that is both its strength and weakness. It confers a formidable self-confidence that allows simple-minded thinking to flourish and even seem wise. Under some circumstances, it is even wise in reality. But the same insularity ill prepares the country for blows against it. Instead of seeing things for what they are, events lose proportion and take mythological aspects. Hence the frequent equation of the World Trade Center attack with Pearl Harbor - the isolated and probably unrepeatable fluke assault of a few suicidal and dedicated individuals is inflated to the same level of importance of the first single instance of a widespread and formidable attack by an entire nation. It is obvious that they are of vastly different degrees of importance and significance, yet today we are fighting a 'war' that has led to the overthrow of two sovereign governments, coincidently in two countries that are renowned throughout the history of civilization as two of the most resilient to occupation, with absolutely no way of knowing whether the actual perpetrators of the World Trade crime have been destroyed. Meanwhile, the nihilist ideals of the World Trade bombers are free to circulate among a vastly larger and more receptive pool of recruits than would have existed without the invasion of Iraq.

So I anticipate that there will be further attacks on the American homeland, probably of far less overall destructiveness - whoever wins this election - and they will lead to further societal upheaval, polarization and hostility. Then, with time and with the understanding that reality brings, those negative forces will moderate and America will finally begin to realize that is no longer a privileged stone castle built safely on a tor rising above the rest of the world, and will come down with the same crash that has brought down all prior dominant cultures. It will be a rocky ride.

Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D960

Makes a suitable soundtrack to this evening's debate which I cannot watch because hearing George Bush makes me feel ill. Better to listen to the sublime.

Continued relief

I have been feeling notably happier since the debate, more so than I expected. Seeking to understand why, I think the crucial element was witnessing Bush being pummeled for the results of his own actions. Too often, I have sensed a terrible 'with-us or against-us' mentality developing in this country. A mentality that has stifled free speech, allowed authoritarian elements to gain ground, and placed free-thinkers in a difficult position. But seeing Kerry hammer Bush in a nationwide-broadcast forum gave me a sense that it is OK to disagree with him, and not feel a social outcast for doing so. In other words, I am not alone! If Kerry achieves no more than that, he has already done good by me.

Phew!

Well Kerry did well. It is refreshing to hear a person in a position of power - and seeking more - bluntly confront Bush with his own record of error, stubborness and deception. Whether it will change anyone's mind is another matter, but at least I can feel a breath of clean air.

O Canada!

My wife asked me, as I mounted my bicycle before setting off to work, whether I would like to move to Canada if George Bush wins the election. Found myself humming 'O Canada' on the way in, and rather astonishingly realizing that I would have far fewer qualms about becoming a Canadian citizen that I would about becoming a U.S. - something I have never done despite 25 years of residence here. Now if Kerry wins...well, that might be another story because I would believe that people like me really do have a voice in the political life of what I can only judge currently to be an increasingly insular, uneducated, xenophobic and intolerant country. Tonight is the first Presidential debate - I have horrible fears that Bush will crush Kerry and seal his victory.

Kerry finds a voice

Thank God that John Kerry seems to be pulling himself out of shadowland and doing some straight talking concerning the Iraq debacle. Why did he not do this earlier - much earlier? He's going to get clobbered by the Bush MiniTru team waffling on about his changing message (which has not changed at all - unlike Bush he is capable of analyzing an issue), and I fear that unthinking folk might fall for the Bush flim-flam. But at least he got his own supporters energized for once. Maybe the fabled Kerry fighting spirit is surfacing. I hope so.

Soapboxes

My favourite rants include fundamentalists of all types who clearly embrace death more than life, Bush (such a good rant subject!), corporate culture & perfidy, people who refuse to face up to and do something about their mental health problems, and over-competitiveness. But I don't actually feel like preaching today - I'll just leave it as a list!

Glory Be

I am having a musical day today. Now am engrossed by Robert Simpsons' 9th String Quartet - a set of 32 variations and fugue on a palindromic theme from Haydn's Piano Sonata No. 41 (also used in his Symphony No. 47). A wonderful work, this is, full of invention and feeling. Variations have always been a favourite compositional technique for me, starting with a love for Schoenberg's 'Variations For Orchestra', and taking in the 'Enigma', 'Goldberg', 'Diabelli' and Haydn's own Piano Variations in F minor amongst many others.

Stress

A validating New York Times article, read while listening to Easley Blackwood's extremely unstressful 3rd string quartet. Nice quote at the end -

Career consultants tell clients to examine the degree to which they themselves are the ones cracking the whip.

"Consider the possibility that you are colluding in your own demise," said Rayona Sharpnack, founder of the Institute for Women's Leadership in Redwood City, Calif. "Suffering," she said, "is optional."

Couldn't agree more. It is not necessary to throw your life away chasing empty materialist dreams - or to use work to shield yourself from facing up to your emotional obligations to yourself, family and friends.