Happy New You!

Well, its New Year’s Eve. And it’s time for resolutions.

Perhaps knowing that everyone else is coming up with personalised resolutions at the same time, and implementing it at the stroke of midnight, sort of gives us the desire to come up with some, and to stick to it. Something like people attending Pilates classes because they can’t trust themselves to stick to it if they did it on their own.

on Playbuttons & the art of vicarious living

In the past, to be a ‘fan’ of a band was to, in some significant way, be a manifestation of what the band stood for. We could also say that bands took their spirit from the people themselves. So we had rockers, hippies, beatniks, mods, punks, etc, etc. In that sense, there was nothing really great about Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan, or Jim Morrison of Janis Joplin. They were simply a musical rendition of what the people already were in thought and spirit - and they did do much more thinking those days too. (though it has to be said that these bands/singers also helped to develop or/and underdevelop the masses as well)

What my British (student) compatriots ought to do

It’s simple really.

The best way to protect the means to an institution is boycott it. Let’s not forget that the elite rely on the continued functioning of an institution for its own higher-archically advantaged position. To grind it to a halt is to deprive said elite of the means of sustenance.

'Royal car' ‘attacked’ in protest after MPs' fee vote

That is unacceptable. Not because Charlie and his chick, Camilla, are appreciated by perspectivally-malnourished minds as ‘royalty’, but because they are human beings - though, according to John Carpenter’s movie, ‘They Live’, starring one of my favourites, ‘Rowdy Roddy Piper’ (a wrestler from the 80s), they may just be aliens bent on subjugating and exploiting humanity. How nice.

Why is China making a fuss about the Nobel?

“..the Nobel Prize, for whatever discipline, still maintains an extraordinary resonance in China.

It is linked to the pursuit of modernity, global recognition and academic and intellectual excellence that the country has tried to pursue through its educational and economic policies.”

says the BBC.

Well, yes....and a bit more than that actually.

on, on-your-butt music production

Some are quite critical about the tools available to enable one to create music with one’s computer. I had to wonder about it - as i’m inclined to about everything else.