Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,

so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

My wife and my kids, they are packed up and leave me.
Darling, she said, I was yours to be seen.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Shirt them a-tear up, trousers are gone.
I don’t want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

After a storm there must be a calm.
They catch me in the farm. You sound the alarm.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Poor me, the Israelite.
I wonder who I’m working for.
Poor me, Israelite,
I look a-down and out, sir.

RIP Desmond.

Lose weight,

build muscle, make friends and influence people. No, not spam e-mail I received today, but the book I picked up, the Five Tibetans. These yoga rites seemingly give you the body and health you had dreamed of in 20-30 minutes a day. Without running. I shall start tomorrow and keep you updated with my progress.

Related links

The related links button on Google toolbar is a wonderful, if somewhat intriguing tool… The following are links related to Pickleparty, the entertaining/offensive (delete as appropriate) e-card site:

Wwweirdness – thousands of weird links
Alllooksame – tests your ability to identify people of Asian descent in 18 individual photographs
Ihatemen – Politically incorrect humor based site for people and others to vent their anger and frustration toward men
Bert is evil – Sesame Street character in evil shocker!
Inanyus – nice Flash e-card site

Gogol’

I’ve been thinking about dear Nikolai since my encounter with a Russian customer 10 days ago. I remember thinking at the time how difficult it is to explain his writing to a non-Russophile. Monty Python meets Dostoevskii with serious mental health issues is the only way I can work my way round it, but even that doesn’t do him justice in the slightest. Fedor Mikhailovich held him in the highest regard, of course, stating that all the Russian writers of his era had come out from beneath Gogol’’s overcoat. Anyway, if you haven’t yet (and I think both of my readers have), rush to your nearest bookselling establishment and demand a copy of Gogol’’s tales, or, if you are a Russian reader, head over to www.klassika.ru. You will not regret it. Although you may. In fact you may hate him. But try, at least once. ‘Nose’ is excellent. ‘The Overcoat’ is even better. Read him and see the prototype for the small, disillusioned men of later fiction. Or read him and laugh. Or delight in his evocation of St. Petersburg. Whatever. Just read him.

Latest five big tracks

1. Quantic Soul Orchestra – Babarabatiri
2. Ammoncontact – One For Ayler
3. Trio Mocoto – Swinga Sambaby
4. Ossie Allstars – Doberman Skank
5. Sufjan Stevens – The Black Hawk War, or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, or, “I have fought the Big Knives and will continue to fight them till they are off our lands!”

Hudba

Čechomor were rather good last night. I had feared a Central European techno-folk explosion (memories of the popularity of the Levellers in my youth still give me nightmares), but as soon as Michal wandered onstage with his violincello, these were allayed. Their music is a kind of Czech parallel to the Saw Doctors or the later Waterboys – those of us of a certain age from the UK surely remember ‘Whole of the moon‘. Rock-folk fusion, and very good it was too. I think every Czech in London betweenn the ages of 16 and 56 were there, and all of them were dancing as one. This was part of the Pulse Festival – Central European music in London, mirroring the growth in the number of Central Europeans, especially younger ones, in London nowadays. And next month there is the Balkan Fever Festival as well.

Come and See

by Elem Klimov is the film I watched this evening. An unrelentlingly grim portrayal of a young Belarusian partisan during WW2. This film contains no heroism, no trivialisation of violence, no notions of honour, no glory – the title comes from the Book of Revelation, and, having been brought up on war films starring John Mills, the pure violence and misery as depicted in this film are shocking, not least because Klimov insisted on using live rounds of ammunition, as far as I can tell, the USSR did not have any particular worries about animal protection (a cow is strafed wih machine gun fire, and a number of horses die), but the most incredible scenes are those involving explosives. There is no huge fireball for Mr Klimov – Hollywood take note – bombs/landmines cause more damage through the force of the explosion, not the fire after. The attack on the partisans’ base contains some of the largest explosions I have ever seen on screen – none of the Western Vietnam or WW2 films come close – and Klimov drops the audience into the heart of the action by simulating the protagonists’ deafness following the explosion. A truly upsetting, yet utterly compelling film.

More thoughts for me to write about

sorry for tormenting you with these, dear readers. I have been having thought upon thought about religious aspects of Soviet visual culture. Great PhD idea, I know. Anyways, here are some of my thoughts…

1. There was a concious religious revival as part of the nationalist trend under Stalin, particularly during/after WW2 – yet prior to this Soviet culture remained essentially Christian, both in terms of ritual (Gorbachev, for example was christened), but also the most strikingly Soviet visual culture, i.e. posters, parades, packaging, advertising, propaganda, films, paintings retained aspects of classically Christian art, in terms of form, content and usage
2. Russia was essentially an illiterate culture before the Revolution.
3. It then joined both the literate and the visual+literate age, whilst retaining many aspects of the pre-literate age – images were fundamental to most Soviet propaganda.
4. Ritual was also carried over – parades echo saint’s days in Catholic/Orthodox countries, Lenin’s corpse became an anti-religious artefact, icons of Stakhanovite workers replaced those of saints in houses, biography gave way to vague hagiography, especially in self-penned biographies (the short course, for example)
5. Socialist realist painters used Western Christian styles (as did the architects), yet imbued the paintings with an Orthodox iconic power. Especially the pictures of Stalin.
6. Lenin/Stalin – John/Jesus?

Customers

both infuriate and entertain me. I have just tried to help an non-Russian speaking customer who wanted a present for a friend with an interest in politics. She wanted fiction, ideally modern, but as I approached the Russian books, I was accosted by another Russian customer looking for Lukianenko. I pointed her towards the master of the vampire novel, but as I then proceeded to help the other customer, she butted in repeatedly, deriding my recommendations of Gogol and Bulgakov, and insisting that Shukshin was a greater writer than either of them. She huffed and puffed as I tried to explain Master & Margarita. She exclaimed that everyone knows Gogol and is sick of him. Pelevin was a hack. Sorokin was rubbish. And yet I couldn’t help but smile. I cannot imagine a British sci-fi fan (as she loudly proclaimed to be) having such a knowledge of and passion for (no matter how misguided I may consider it to be) English literature as a whole.

Optical mice

are wonderful. One of the banes of my life has been cleaning (hands are very dirty)/fixing mice at work. I have just replaced them with optical ones across the shop. Bliss.