Potent as the First Verse

I'm thinking about these festivals for this summer:

http://www.larmertreefestival.com/
LARMER TREE - DORSET - 15-17 JULY

http://www.hebceltfest.com
HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL - LEWIS - 13-16 JULY

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/
GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL - PILTON - 24-26 JUNE

http://womad.org/festivals/event.lasso?festival_id=24&section=overview&-session=womad:1FC860FECF66C8B3AB0AA229E4DC2F2D
WOMAD - RIVERMEAD - 29-31 JULY

So I suppose I'd better sort my leave out now...

Underneath the Blister

So I played bass for the first time in my life on saturday night. It were great. Apart from the great big FO blister on my thumb (we were short a pick). Fortunately, I remembered one of my great lessons - that of pain.

When I was about 16 I necked most of a bottle of vodka at my mate's house and then spent 2 or 3 hours regaling his parents' friends with my singer-songwriter improv on an acoustic guitar. As I don't play the guitar this was probably very 'special'. However they put up with me until I managed to teleport myself home somehow. Passed out.

I woke up and went and lay down in the bathroom at home. As you do. I then noticed that there was a huge swelling on my right thumb. It was white and I was curious so I bit it off. I then spent the next 24 in almost the worst pain of my life. I was so drunk that I couldn't sleep so I had to lie there in agony as the exposed dying raw red bloodshot flesh screamed my stupidity at me.

So I left this blister be.

Pain is a great teacher.

In this savage garden we all play

Humanity's child in the crumbling decay
Counting
Scrambling
Spreading dismay
In this garden that we created

Surrender your soul
It drains us all
Surrender your soul
It drains us all

No Mercy to those on their knees
No Compassion for their tearful pleas
No end to these hateful decrees
In this environment we created

Born into this with no chance to escape
You're a part of the machine - no alternative
But to act your role, assume your
Identity
as the Empire thrives

No way out
No way to escape the evil seed
That drags us all
Drags us further down
Into this abyss
The abyss
That steals
Our souls

Steady

Well - more mandatory lurking today. I'm now waiting to go to the pub having just been in the pub. It would have just been easier to stay there but it doesn't seem work that way.

So instead I've come back to abuse from my colleagues.

Which is simply outrageous.

The Father of Lies

So, I finished Xenophon and bought Herodotus' Histories to follow up.

It looks promising. But I want to track down Diodorus of Sicily as well - apparently book 5 has some good stuff on the peoples of the west. It might have some extra on the Carthaginian 'dimension' which I'm interested in as I'm still working on my game 'Shekels, Shophetim and the Sea' which is all about Carthage and trade in the pre-Punic Wars era. Herodotus must talk about it a bit at least.

I have had some thoughts about why Xenophon and Thucydides don't talk about Carthage:
a) They're not Sicilian or Magna Graecian, and so it all seems a bit far away
b) Xenophon might be lumping Carthage in with the Persians so that they suffer from his 'Medizing' process where he simply doesn't discuss those that tried to ally with Persia, unless they're the Thebans
c) Carthage was recovering from its earlier wars with Syracuse
d) Xenophon and Thucydides don't talk about Massilia, Egypt, Cyrene and a whole lot of other places as well as Carthage. So no big deal

It does trouble me somewhat that there are only two or three references to the Carthaginians in both authors. It somewhat undermines my view of Carthaginian dominance in the Western Med at the time. But I think it simply didn't cross Xenophon or Thucydides' bows. Let's hope Herodotus and Diodorus are a bit more forthcoming. Otherwise I'll have to start on the Roman historians and they'll be even more biased.

Xenophon's Hellenica

Just finished reading this today. It ends with the inconclusive battle of Ephorus, which saw the Thebans pitted against Sparta and Athens. The whole Peloponnesian war seems to be a history of side-switching and diplomacy even moore mind-boggling and confusing than the Wars of the Roses. Which is pretty impressive.

I read Xenophon as I'd enjoyed Thucydides so much, but I'll have to ask my Classics mates for someone to read on the last stages of the war and the beginning of Macedonian domination.

There's definitely a megagame in all this reading I've done.

Another exciting part of the text was the involvement of the Syracusans, who seem to have stayed loyal to Sparta after the disastrous Athenian expedition to Syracuse under Alcibiades. They send several forces to support Sparta and her allies, and one of these forces includes 'Celts and Iberians' which says a lot about the use of mercenaries in the western Med. What I find difficult to understand is why the Greeks didn't use the Carthaginians as allies, like they did the Persians. Perhaps both Thucydides and Xenophon were a bit embarassed about it. Xenophon certainly didn't like those that trafficked with the Mede...

Sideways motion

I saw Sideways last night in Chelsea. 'twas a good film, with agood lead male character with serious depression and confidence issues. He and his best mate (an actor) go wine tasting in California as a stag week.

Good study of the wine-tasting culture and the obsessiveness of winos. Or perhaps I should rather say 'conneisseurs'...

Would recommend it. There's some brilliant moments and the story is strong.

Time, Strings and Branes

I just can't seem to get enough.

It's funny, I've been reading a lot recently, including New Scientist, which is not a normal behaviour and I've seen some references to braneworlds, and how our 4D world (3D plus Time) may just be floating in some quagmire of 9D reality. The reason we are still here is that 4D braneworlds can avoid most of the other 'strings' or 'branes' and 1D and 2D are not enough for Life to get very far on. But one of these days we'll hit another braneworld and explode.

Sounds like too much acid having its insidious effect on an otherwise stable and productive mind.

But I suppose it's plausible. In the absence of anything else. And it's almost as much fun as the particle universes theory that Carl Sagan liked so much (every particle is its own universe and to the next few levels up we look like an atom).

Somedays I'm glad I'm not a scientist.

Wilhelm Reich

As part of some reading I did on the post below (Matrism, Patrism and Intellectual Fascism) I came across Wilhelm Reich.

This was one interesting character. He did a lot of research on energy released from decaying matter, and developed a theory of orotone energy, around which he built several other theories, including the building and selling of cabinets which he claimed had extraordinary healing factors. It was this last that brought his downfall by the FDA in the US - he died in prison after having many of his papers burnt by the US legal system. I find the burning of scientific documents, no matter how dubious, to be utterly inexcusable.

Reich did a lot of thinking about sexuality, social psychology and nuclear holocaust. He had studied under Freud in Vienna and fled Germany when the Nazis took power, due to his links with the socialist movement in Germany. He settled in the US having been persecuted across Europe by both 'sides' and was finally brought down by his failure to obey an injunction.

His will (http://www.orgone.org/wr-vs-usa/wr70308a.htm) shows partially how paranoid he had become, but that's not surprising - the FSA and FBI were out to nail him by the end and even placed agents inside his research centre. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Like Einstein in his later years, Reich was obsessed with his theory to the point of negating his own obvious ability, and his own political views made him an enemy of the hard right in the US much as it had in Germany.

Fascinating.

Patrism, Matrism and Intellectual Fascism

A bunch of my friends from Chestnut Lodge are having a big online discussion about what defines total or world war. It's now mutated into a bigger discussion about the violence inherent in early human society. And about whether early man was governed under a matriarchal system which encouraged non-violence.
Also if the Saharasia theory (http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia.htm) of the spread of 'patrism' under Arab and Turkish armies might have some validity.

My view is that any of these theories may be true, but it's utter lunacy to try and 'prove' anything from 6000BC on scanty archaeological evidence. My Professor at Cambridge always used to say that lack of evidence doesn't prove anything. Many of these arguments seem to be based on the lack of violent deaths in the archaeological record pre 4000BC. So what? What kind of mad society would our descendants postulate from shreds of our physical culture in 6000 years time? I dread to think.

Also in my view, trying to attach any over-arching one-sided theory to history or culture such as feminism or masculinism (also Marxist theory) is ALWAYS going down the wrong road. You can use over-arching theories to give you ideas, a starting point, or even as an illustration, but to say that the whole of history has been characterised by male violence and female non-violence is pretty unhelpful.

But that's the problem with pre-historical history.

Light Inside Nahargarh

Light Inside Nahargarh
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

I took this photo in one of my attempts to catch the beauty of light. This rarely works. In fact, this time it only did so because my hand shook under the pressure of imminent photographic history. The results are of course well known as the runner-up in Dark Hunter's jammy photo award for 2005. This is from a fort just north of Jaipur in Rajashtan in NW India.

Abyssmal perform as the Neuromantics

Abyssmal perform as the Neuromantics
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

This is a belated photograph of our first gig from back in January. It's a little blurred, but that's probably a good thing. I definitely felt pretty blurred!

Oops

Have just told my colleagues that I built this site today.

I guess from their expressions this was not a confession that I wanted to make.

Mea maxima culpa.

What was lost

On my original geocities website were several pieces of genuine genius amongst the sea of mediocrity that is the www. Most of it was rubbish, though.

The best of the best (sir!) were probably:

I can't forking forget you - my tribute to Above All, one of the greatest bands to come at the end of the golden era of heavy, thrash-influenced rock before the rise of nu-metal. It was all a bit tragically fanboy (I was 17-18 at the time), but surprisingly incisive given my lack of training as a music journalist. I heartily recommend their first and only album, Domain. I'm also rather proud of my t-shirt and demo tapes of theirs that I've still got.

Replica was the covers band that Phil, Grimm, Nick and I were in at school, and remain my only band apart from my current joy, Abyssmal, that Phil and Grimm are both in as well. I wrote a stunning and cutting self-critical narrative of our practices (hilarious), one and only gig (at school - shocking) and the after party (my 18th - memorable). Probably the best page on my website purely for its novelty value.

Words, words, words - I also had a series of links explaining my most-used words as a teenager. I think this was seriously groundbreaking in its scope and vision. Not.

My low-walled life - about the dark gaping void in my soul (I was 17, remember). Was hilarious the last time I read it 4 years back. My favourite part was the sheer melodrama of it all. Wow. I should have written a play - it would have been brilliant. But totally awful at the same time.

That's it. The rest of it (all 30-40 pages) was rubbish.

Even my ambitious music links pages. Of which there were 20 sub-genres.

Third time lucky?

OK, I might as well go for the hat-trick of posts on my first day.

The sad thing is, I don't really have anything to post about. Which is unremarkable in itself. In fact, I'm sure I could post dozens of times every day for the rest of my life to tell myself (?) that I don't have anything extraordinary to say. So take it as a given. Rather than having to read this post over and over again.

Actually, I do have something to say.

"It's better to burn out than to fade away"

Lurking Further

In fact, just to clarify further for those that may have had their interest piqued by my opening description, the actual reason why the 'mandatory lurking' thread has stuck in my head is that I once pronounced it 'mandantory', much to the amusement of my less than sympathetic schoolfriends, particularly James.

So my thanks to him for helping me remember. Otherwise I would have had to call this blog something really rubbish like 'Being beyond being', or 'Seasoning the Abyss'.

First Post

Ok. So this is it. I've been without a permanent presence on the web since about 2001 when yahoo dumped all the geocities websites. I can't even access the material to rescue it.

So I'm going to start all over again. But not from the beginning.

I hope it turns out better this time.