Saturday, 13 August 2011
The Invisible Committee - The Coming Insurrection (2005)
The sphere of political representation has come to a close. From left to right, it’s the same nothingness striking the pose of an emperor or a savior, the same sales assistants adjusting their discourse according to the findings of the latest surveys. Those who still vote seem to have no other intention than to desecrate the ballot box by voting as a pure act of protest. We’re beginning to suspect that it’s only against voting itself that people continue to vote. Nothing we’re being shown is adequate to the situation, not by far. In its very silence, the populace seems infinitely more mature than all these puppets bickering amongst themselves about how to govern it. The ramblings of any Belleville chibani contain more wisdom than all the declarations of our so-called leaders. The lid on the social kettle is shut triple-tight, and the pressure inside continues to build. From out of Argentina, the specter of Que Se Vayan Todos is beginning to seriously haunt the ruling class.
The flames of November 2005 still flicker in everyone’s minds. Those first joyous fires were the baptism of a decade full of promise. The media fable of “banlieue vs. the Republic” may work, but what it gains in effectiveness it loses in truth. Fires were lit in the city centers, but this news was methodically suppressed. Whole streets in Barcelona burned in solidarity, but no one knew about it apart from the people living there. And it’s not even true that the country has stopped burning. Many different profiles can be found among the arrested, with little that unites them besides a hatred for existing society – not class, race, or even neighborhood. What was new wasn’t the “banlieue revolt,” since that was already going on in the 80s, but the break with its established forms. These assailants no longer listen to anybody, neither to their Big Brothers and Big Sisters, nor to the community organizations charged with overseeing the return to normal. No “SOS Racism” could sink its cancerous roots into this event, whose apparent conclusion can be credited only to fatigue, falsification and the media omertà. This whole series of nocturnal vandalisms and anonymous attacks, this wordless destruction, has widened the breach between politics and the political. No one can honestly deny the obvious: this was an assault that made no demands, a threat without a message, and it had nothing to do with “politics.” One would have to be oblivious to the autonomous youth movements of the last 30 years not to see the purely political character of this resolute negation of politics. Like lost children we trashed the prized trinkets of a society that deserves no more respect than the monuments of Paris at the end of the Bloody Week- and knows it.
There will be no social solution to the present situation. First, because the vague aggregate of social milieus, institutions, and individualized bubbles that is called, with a touch of antiphrasis, “society,” has no consistency. Second, because there’s no longer any language for common experience. And we cannot share wealth if we do not share a language. It took half a century of struggle around the Enlightenment to make the French Revolution possible, and a century of struggle around work to give birth to the fearsome “welfare state.” Struggles create the language in which a new order expresses itself. But there is nothing like that today. Europe is now a continent gone broke that shops secretly at discount stores and has to fly budget airlines if it wants to travel at all. No “problems” framed in social terms admit of a solution. The questions of “pensions,” of “job security,” of “young people” and their “violence” can only be held in suspense while the situation these words serve to cover up is continually policed for signs of further unrest. Nothing can make it an attractive prospect to wipe the asses of pensioners for minimum wage. Those who have found less humiliation and more advantage in a life of crime than in sweeping floors will not turn in their weapons, and prison won’t teach them to love society. Cuts to their monthly pensions will undermine the desperate pleasure-seeking of hordes of retirees, making them stew and splutter about the refusal to work among an ever larger section of youth. And finally, no guaranteed income granted the day after a quasi-uprising will be able to lay the foundation of a new New Deal, a new pact, a new peace. The social feeling has already evaporated too much for that...
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Reading The Riots: 5 Books That Told Us What Was Coming
The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.” - J G Ballard, Kingdom Come (2006)
Many people seem to be struggling to comprehend the UK riots. They gaze at trite aphorisms on Twitter and Facebook, listen to clumsy, inappropriate and leading questions from news reporters, frown at the exasperated cries of shop keepers and wince at the hollow and image-conscious scripts of politicians. None of these sources are providing clear, decisive or useful answers. The message is lost in the medium.
Perhaps we should turn to books instead. There have been many warnings in literature by writers and thinkers who have been aware of, and to some extent predicted, the likelihood of the events of the past few days. On reading these books, the riots are less of a surprise, as all the ingredients that have coalesced to become an insurrection have clearly been fermenting in policy and society for decades.
J G Ballard - Kingdom Come (Penguin Books, 2006)
Ballard was a tireless observer of society and behaviour. He wrote 18 novels and many short stories in response to contemporary culture. Towards the end of his life he became pre-occupied with the underlying collusion between consumerism and fascism. He argued that consumerism creates an insatiable demand that can ultimately only be satisfied by violence. This novel perfectly illustrates how an alienated class can be whipped into a wild frenzy by the relentless advertising and promotion of unattainable consumer products. The novel ends with a local community invading, looting and destroying their only ‘cathedral’, a shopping mall. If all we have to offer today’s young people are relentless instructions to buy consumer goods without providing the means to do so, perhaps the outcome is inevitable...
A great list and particularly good to see Owen Jones' book included...
Many people seem to be struggling to comprehend the UK riots. They gaze at trite aphorisms on Twitter and Facebook, listen to clumsy, inappropriate and leading questions from news reporters, frown at the exasperated cries of shop keepers and wince at the hollow and image-conscious scripts of politicians. None of these sources are providing clear, decisive or useful answers. The message is lost in the medium.
Perhaps we should turn to books instead. There have been many warnings in literature by writers and thinkers who have been aware of, and to some extent predicted, the likelihood of the events of the past few days. On reading these books, the riots are less of a surprise, as all the ingredients that have coalesced to become an insurrection have clearly been fermenting in policy and society for decades.
Ballard was a tireless observer of society and behaviour. He wrote 18 novels and many short stories in response to contemporary culture. Towards the end of his life he became pre-occupied with the underlying collusion between consumerism and fascism. He argued that consumerism creates an insatiable demand that can ultimately only be satisfied by violence. This novel perfectly illustrates how an alienated class can be whipped into a wild frenzy by the relentless advertising and promotion of unattainable consumer products. The novel ends with a local community invading, looting and destroying their only ‘cathedral’, a shopping mall. If all we have to offer today’s young people are relentless instructions to buy consumer goods without providing the means to do so, perhaps the outcome is inevitable...
Murdoch Hacked Us Too
A day or two later, I was walking across the South Street newsroom when I ran into a young Australian reporter on the staff, Jane Perlez. You must know something about Rupert Murdoch, I said, feeling quite upbeat about our white knight from Down Under. Jane would have none of it. “He’s bloody why I left Australia!” she replied...
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Hell in Paradise (1978)
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Pat Ivers @'Stupefaction'
'If you're as much of an ephemera or original source geek as me, you'll be happy to see this photo of the actual tapes from the Nightclubbing collection of that infamous show.'
Chelsea Hotel changes hands, closes for renovations
“The utopia is gone,” said Michele Zalopany — a resident of the Chelsea Hotel for 22 years — as she stood outside its plaque-ridden façade on the afternoon of August 1. Later that evening, the hotel was finally sold (in a deal reportedly worth around $80 million) to real estate mogul Joseph Chetrit.
The hotel currently has a sign on its front door announcing its “temporary” closure (which occurred on August 2, to make way for a year-long series of renovations). While the exterior of the world-famous building at 222 West 23rd Street is officially landmarked by the city — as well as having been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the federal government — Chetrit has the latitude to remodel the interior as he sees fit for future business (a process that began almost immediately after the building changed hands).
With almost no indication of the impending sale (stalled for weeks due to Chetrit’s difficulty in financing his purchase of the building from the previous owner, BD Hotels, LLC) and with no prior warning, management began removing short-term guests from the hotel on July 31. A state of confusion reigned as tenants and union workers watched the mass exodus of first-time tourists and perennial visitors. Some did not go quietly.
Jeffery Stewart, a British actor who had just attended the Manhattan Film Festival (where he won the award for Best Actor) and was scheduled to stay until August 2, felt as if he was being hounded. After being woken at 9a.m. on August 1 by phone calls from the front desk and pounding on the door from security, Stewart called the police for protection — but was forced to leave after a manager read him the fine print in his reservation contract. The fact that he was reimbursed for the cost of two nights in exchange for losing his last was little consolation.
“I’ve been coming to the Chelsea for ten years,” Stewart said as he checked in at the Savoy Hotel down the street. “The word sad gets used for so many things, but honestly, this is just incredibly sad...”
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Sam Spokony @'downtown express'
♪♫ Alejandro Escovedo - Chelsea Hotel '78
Carmine Street Shop Makes Guitars From Hotel Chelsea's 'Bones'
...In (Rick) Kelly's 42 Carmine St. shop, he turned wood from both sites into a guitar for former Chelsea Hotel resident Bob Dylan, he said.
"[Dylan] loved the combination of Chumley's body wood and Chelsea Hotel neck wood," Kelly said.
Mark Duggan death: IPCC 'may have misled journalists'
The police watchdog has admitted it may have misled journalists into believing police shooting victim Mark Duggan fired at officers before he was killed.
Mr Duggan, 29, was shot by officers last Thursday in Tottenham.His death sparked the initial riots in London which were followed by disorder in other English cities.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission later released a statement to make it clear that Mr Duggan did not fire a gun at police.
Ballistic tests found that a bullet which lodged itself in one officer's radio was police issue.
In other developments surrounding the riots in England:
- A 68-year-old man who was critically injured while he tried to stamp out a fire during riots in west London has died. A 22-year-old man has been arrested.
- A clearer picture is emerging of the people who were involved in rioting and looting as magistrates' courts continue to sit throughout the night in London and late into the evening in Birmingham and Manchester. An Olympic Games ambassador and a care worker are among those in the docks
- Association of Chief Police Officers president Sir Hugh Orde has denied a rift with ministers, saying it was the police and not MPs who devised the "more robust" approach that restored calm after four nights of rioting in England
- Ed Miliband has blamed the riots that swept English cities on a "me first" culture and accepted Labour must share the blame for creating it.
- More than 1,000 arrests have now been made in London alone and more than 1,500 across England since the unrest began on Saturday
- An 18-year-old man from Salford is charged with criminal damage, recklessly endangering life after a fire at a Miss Selfridge store in Manchester city centre.
- The inquest into the deaths of Haroon Jahan, 21, Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31, will be opened and adjourned at Birmingham Coroner's Court later
- More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition calling for anyone convicted of taking part in the riots to lose any benefits they receive - becoming the first such petition to be considered for a Commons debate
- The government has launched a website with advice to the public on how to cope with the unrest
Police-issue bullet It said the IPCC's first statement made no reference to shots fired at police.
But it said: "However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged, as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital.
"Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident."
Mr Duggan was a passenger in a minicab which was stopped by police near Tottenham Hale Tube station.
A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to one that shoots live rounds, was recovered close to the scene of his death.
The bullet lodged in the police radio was a "jacketed round", a police-issue bullet consistent with being fired from a Metropolitan Police Heckler and Koch MP5, the IPCC said.
An inquest into Mr Duggan's death, which opened at North London Coroner's Court in High Barnet on Tuesday, heard the father of four died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
@'BBC'
The Squarest Rock Acts of All Time
Huey Lewis wouldn’t even think of arguing if you accused him of being square — he labeled himself with the epithet back in ’87, with the hit “Hip to Be Square.” The song is such a yuppie anthem that it earned a place of honor in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, with finance exec/serial killer Patrick Bateman pointing out that the song is “not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it’s also a personal statement about the band itself.” We couldn’t agree more.
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And to think they rose from the ashes of one of the coolest bands of all time. 'The Shamrocks' who backed Elvis Costello (pre Attractions) on 'My Aim Is True' were actually Clover!!!
'Neville' tells it like it is (Clapham Junction)
Always trust a man in a Liverpool tracksuit top...:)
Ableton Preset: Mattel Synsonics
Of course, since it was a "toy", few artists took it very seriously - with one notable exception: Kraftwerk.
Unlike the more insectile sounds coming from the Roland and Korg boxes of the same era, the sound of the Synsonics was vaguely reminiscent of the Simmons SDS-V or Pollard Syndrum. The toms had an aggressive vibe that few products from that time could match - and the cymbals were glorious blasts of white noise.
About a month ago, I pulled my Synsonics of its shelf in my studio, fired it up and started sampling. The results are in this Live 7 compatible Drum Rack. Hope you dig it.
TECH NOTES:
- I'm posting the patch within a Live Set, as opposed to a Live Pack or single preset, so you can hear the patch with example clips and twist the macro knobs to see what's what. If you like it, then hit the preset save button on the macro and add it to your Library.
- The patch will run on Ableton Live 7.0.18 or higher.
- What you see/hear is what you get. I tested it on a couple of systems and the Zip file works as expected.
Download
(Thanx Shocklee!)
HA! I still got one of these...
Friday, 12 August 2011
Wullie Blake - Last Words (featuring William S. Burroughs)
Artwork by that 'self confessed sex pervert' Robert Crumb who recently cancelled his Australian visit due to ill informed comments by sanctimonious khunsts out here!!!
We Need To Talk About Kevin - Trailer
Such a great book by Lionel Shriver & Jonny Greenwood has scored the film & it has Tilda Swinton *sigh* in it too!
The Sunny Side of Smut
It used to be tough to get porn. Renting an X-rated movie required sneaking into a roped-off room in the back of a video store, and eyeing a centerfold meant facing down a store clerk to buy a pornographic magazine. Now pornography is just one Google search away, and much of it is free. Age restrictions have become meaningless, too, with the advent of social media—one teenager in five has sent or posted naked pictures of themselves online, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
With access to pornography easier than ever before, politicians and scientists alike have renewed their interest in deciphering its psychological effects. Certainly pornography addiction or overconsumption seems to cause relationship problems [see “Sex in Bits and Bytes,” by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld; Scientific American Mind, July/August 2010]. But what about the more casual exposure typical of most porn users? Contrary to what many people believe, recent research shows that moderate pornography consumption does not make users more aggressive, promote sexism or harm relationships. If anything, some researchers suggest, exposure to pornography might make some people less likely to commit sexual crimes...
With access to pornography easier than ever before, politicians and scientists alike have renewed their interest in deciphering its psychological effects. Certainly pornography addiction or overconsumption seems to cause relationship problems [see “Sex in Bits and Bytes,” by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld; Scientific American Mind, July/August 2010]. But what about the more casual exposure typical of most porn users? Contrary to what many people believe, recent research shows that moderate pornography consumption does not make users more aggressive, promote sexism or harm relationships. If anything, some researchers suggest, exposure to pornography might make some people less likely to commit sexual crimes...
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Melinda Wenner Moyer @'Scientific American'
UK riots: police round on government
Tim Godwin, acting commissioner of the Met, said: "I think after any event like this, people will always make comments who weren't there."
Both the home secretary, Theresa May, and the prime minister, David Cameron, were on holiday when the riots erupted last Saturday. Cameron only broke his holiday and arrived back in Britain after the third night of rioting.
There is anger at the Yard over the savaging the police received in the House of commons from the prime minister and May.
Godwin was speaking as he left this mornings meeting in Whitehall of Cobra, the government's emergency committee. One source told the Guardian that there was anger at the Yard after the PM's statement, adding police chiefs there were "appalled" by the remarks.
Godwin said he was receiving support "from a lot of quarters" when asked whether he was receiving the full backing of the home secretary.
"What I can say is that with the unprecedented scenes that we found in London, I have got some of the best commanders that we have seen in the world … that showed great restraint as well as great courage," Godwin said.
"As a result of that we were able to nip this in the bud after a few days. I think the issue around the numbers, the issue around the tactics – they are all police decisions and they are all made by my police commanders and myself.
"As a result of that we have now got a lot of public support, we are working hard to identify all the offenders and we will continue to work relentlessly if it takes us months."
Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, rejected Theresa May's claim that she had ordered the "more robust" approach that quelled rioting in English cities.
Orde said tactics had changed because more officers were made available. The fact that MPs had come home from holiday was "an irrelevance".
May had "no power whatsoever" to cancel all police leave, Orde said. "The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics," he told BBC's Newsnight.
Relations between the Conservative-led government and police chiefs are at an all-time low according to some sources.
Orde defended the police after David Cameron used an emergency debate on the riots in the Commons to critice their tactics.
Meanwhile, a 22-year-old man has been arrested over the murder of Richard Mannington Bowes, the 68-year-old who was attacked as he tried to put out a fire during riots in Ealing. Bowes had been in hospital with critical injuries – his death was announced early this morning.
Four other deaths that took place during the riots are being investigated by police. A man was found shot in a car in Croydon and three men were hit by a car in Birmingham.
Courts again sat through the night on Thursday as magistrates heard charges against many of those arrested during the four nights of violence. The Metropolitan police have made 1,047 arrests since the rioting began on Saturday, with 584 people charged. West Midlands police have arrested 445 people and 178 have been arrested in Manchester and Salford.
Police had faced an "unprecedented situation, unique circumstances", Orde said in the BBC interview.
"The fact that politicians chose to come back [from holiday] is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing. The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics."
Cuts to policing budgets would "inevitably" lead to fewer police officers, he said. "We need to have some very honest conversations with government about what we stop doing if we are to maintain frontline service delivery at current levels.
"It's the 20% cuts in the present spending period that will lead to less police officers, we should be very clear about that."
Vikram Dodd and James Meikle @'The Guardian'
UK ‘riot’ culture: What does research say?
The rioting that broke out in London on the 6th August 2011, and then spread to other parts of the UK over the following week, saw extraordinary levels of crime, looting, and rioting for the UK.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that action will be taken to restore order, but in the long-term questions about the power of police, the role of gangs in society, and the socio-economic impetuses behind the disorder all need to be taken into account. The public perception of the UK as a safe society has changed dramatically.
Research from Routledge explores these issues further. The articles are all FREE to access for a limited time
HERE
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that action will be taken to restore order, but in the long-term questions about the power of police, the role of gangs in society, and the socio-economic impetuses behind the disorder all need to be taken into account. The public perception of the UK as a safe society has changed dramatically.
Research from Routledge explores these issues further. The articles are all FREE to access for a limited time
Tory MP Louise Mensch calls for blackout of facebook and twitter
johnprescott John Prescott
.@LouiseMensch You used parliamentary privilege to make false accusations about @piersmorgan. Why stop others free speech? #handsofftwitter
The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom
David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off...
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off...
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Peter Oborne @'The Telegraph'
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