Sunday 29 August 2010

Ginsberg Archives

 

Filched this from the New Statesman last week.  Allen Ginsberg snapped in 1953 by his old mate William Burroughs on the roof of his Lower East Side apartment.

allen ginsberg0001 - Copy

It’s taken from ‘Beat Memories: the Photographs of Allen Ginsberg’ by Sara Greenough.  It’s just out and haven’t managed to get a copy of it yet; security at the local Waterstones is currently tight so may have to buy it off Amazon…

Snapshot

 

glorious rustbelt box

Friday 27 August 2010

Alaska Unlimited

The wonderful world of dofollow has now been embraced; Lepou is braced for the worldwide [incl. Alaska]aftershock.  Come hither, cast down thine gauntlet, and doth bespoil me!!!  Or something along those lines...never really been able to get the hang of Trad. Eng. grammar, all those thys thines thous and other ths.  Whatever here's something pleasant:

Lisboa
[Mark Reed 2009]

Genovian Jetsam

Genoa is one of those Italian cities that, steeped in history as it is, is generally off the tourist track and remains all the more wonderful for that.  It is a working city; the bustle is characteristically Italian, but being a northern metropolis it has a distinct edge of more urgent, cooler Latin  efficiency.

It was for over a millennia the archetypal city-state and it’s former wealth is apparent in the abundance of it’s renaissance set pieces and there is nothing more life-affirming, than strolling down the Via Garibaldi in the early evening luxuriating in the opera music drifting down that sedate, narrow street.

image
Yet it is still a city ‘in business;’ a frenetic expressway may separate the city centre from it’s port but there is always Corsa Italia beyond the Fiera de Genova, where you can sunbath on the rocks that cascade into the Mediterranean and promenade in the fashion of any traditional Italian seaside resort.  Then there is the medieval warren of alleys and dead-ends to [quite literally] lose yourself in, in the old city.  I have had a love of this city for over twenty years; it has more balls than Venice, more architecture than Milan and more culture than Rome [ancient, unused relics don’t count].
                                         
It was in the marina behind the Fiera that I saw a yacht moored called ‘The Mordant Choice,’ and in a shoe shop, was served by a young man who snapped out of a languid indifference into amazingly deft efficiency, as he expertly packed a pair of shoes and elaborately gift wrapped them by moving nothing more than his hands, whilst puffing on a cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth [remember those glorious days, when even shop assistants smoked?]. 

It was in a dangerously over-packed club along the Via Giacomo Buranello that I first saw Music Entablature.  The Via GB is a scruffy street in a grimy part of town by the port, distinctive in that for most of it length, it’s north side is a large wall/viaduct punctuated by occasional road tunnels, along the top of which the metro lines run.   The experience was electrifying; the euro-electronica clash with 70s glamstomp was original, utterly bonkers and complete genius.  We left the club- where sweat was quite literally running down the walls- a few pound lighter in weight and exhilarated, strolling through the dark streets of Genoa’s seedier underside, filled with a lost innocence that had as its cornerstone the belief that Ziggy Stardust really could save the world, that European integration is a reality worth working for rather than  a dream to ponder and dismiss, and that Genoa is perhaps one of the most under-rated of European cities, an urban gem in which we may just be transitory flotsam and jetsam in it’s timeline, but we are all the more enriched for being so no matter how inconsequential our own impact has been.

Wednesday 4 August 2010

The artifactus of Dissensus

New format, new boots,and that shop The World of Leather as an experience in Lacanian confusion/dissent as you wander around it, looking at the sofas and easychairs with fold out drinks tables in the arms and wonder about this World of The New in which we live; have we really got into a contemporary situation not where we have gone too far, but have done everything there is to do, and there is no where else to go?

Red leather in particularly can have an arousing effect on me and within the premises of Commercial Retail Outlets this can be an exciting if potentially embarrassing experience. I had to leave the World of Leather under a cloud of taunt, unrequited lust. It had a certain delicious quality of denial and despicable restraint but I was too weak to face the possibility of police questioning, as intriguing as that may have been...

Jacques Rancière's idea of dissensus being at the core of true democratic practise is an alluring concept; it's diametrical opposite, consensus, is of course the default position for most western democratic establishments from the late 20th century onwards. We are led to belief that we are governed by consensus; focus groups, poll takers, survey administrators, blog pages, a million posts on thousands of ISP and other media message boards, all point to us as being able to Have Our Own Say. We live with this illusion, believing we truly are now part of the democratic process- we clearly are listened to, a majority is assessed and its wishes acted upon- when in fact it is just another establishment technique to do as it wishes, but with the added twist that it can make the population believe that it guided it's course of action, that the government is only undertaking the people's wishes. A focus group told us to do this; got nothing to do with us, guv.

In this way an illegal war in Iraq was executed; the folly of Afghanistan was embarked upon [although interestingly when public opinion reverses itself and opposes the position it once took, the Government/Establishment find it very easy to ignore this form of consensus]. Consensus is therefore a sham, a media Exploitor of National Socialist proportions. It is a meaningless political concept, which is no doubt why it is so popular with the now ubiquitous neoliberal elite which runs the world economy. Welcome to Super-Cannes.

Dissensus- the principle of conflict, argument and the pursuit of political self-determination, voice and action outside of [and therefore at times legitimately opposed to] the governance of a dominant elite is not only communally affirming, but vital for the development of harmony and equality in our society, without sacrificing diversity. At first laugh at anyone who says they wish to manage/govern through consensus, then undermine them. The aim is not to then have the last laugh, but to dismantle one more cog of neoliberal dogma in the edifice of global capitalism. You no longer need to burn party cards; shoplifting from Toys 'r Us and surreptitiously scratching the side of police cars with a carefully concealed key will suffice. For now.

Iain Banks in his latest novel 'Transitions' promotes the idea of a multiverse, through which a central body- The Concern- flits it's operatives in order to maintain order. He describes this particular world we live in, along with other materialist realities that exist parallel to it- as 'Greedist' societies. This is of course an accurate assessment.

This is Iain Bank's first book that attempts to fuse his 'mainstream' literature with the science fiction of his Iain M. Banks persona. It only partly succeeds; only his -at times obscenely- quite brilliant literary ease at painting environments and describing concepts through conversation, pulls one through to the end of the novel. This is not something I have ever experience with any other of Bank's work. It reads more like a manifesto of a couple of his political science ideas melded with a strain of speculative hard science,without any hint of a plot, and could be a third of its length. Of course few writers these days can pull this off and keep people reading and Banks is one of these, but this does not excuse him bouts of laziness and self-indulgence such as are apparent in this book. Yes, I am a hard taskmaster...the bitter sweet taunting denial of the World of Leather still fugs my senses...I need to pursue some further investigations into the strictures and idea-shifts of the hauntological movement...I'll get back to you on that one.