TOUCHED BY FIRE

this story is taking longer than I first anticipated,never the less I can console myself with the realisation that any worthwhile journey is extraordinary difficult. The history starts in the days of 60s England,not the England of fashion,style,music,protest and all the other associated "image references"which dominate the fantasy of the of the past.
This will be a walk through the history of anarchic play and the rise of youth clubs who became politically and culturally committed to resistance and education. A little known revolution was taking place in the cities of England and in the bombed out landscapes of the "inner city" Bomb spaces still existed and still manged to inflame the imaginations of young people. Street games where common ,the street wasn't a place of danger,it was a place of adventure,fun,and experimentation.It was a place where adults where,not excluded, but, rather not welcomed. Although there where occasions when adults could join in the fun these comings together where the exception rather than the norm. Communities still held a sense of identify even though those community identity's where increasingly under attack,from the encroaching modernisation of the city scape. The car was still in its infancy and travel abroad was unheard of. Modern high rise living was believed to hold the keys to a dynamic future. T,he cities where being reshaped, likewise attitudes where changing, moving away from the old certainties of street,place, and certainty's, families where leaving there old "places" communities wanted to become mobile and modern.Social mobility changed the old street loyalties.
A great amount of academic analyses observed how communities reacted to the changing dynamics of these new social upheaval's. But some other dynamic was underway ,a social anarchic movement called adventure playgrounds was taking place on the bombed sites of the inner cities.
The Child in the City a splendid book by the late Colin Ward details the importance of this history and the of play in the world of the child...Ward was an anarchist thinker, a humanist, and a wonderful teacher. The New York Review of Books wrote on reissues of the text"the authors perceptive eye for the physical environment picks up all the details that are usually missed by even the most practiced observer,but which are central to the child's world"
Colin Ward is one of those radical English radicals whose voice is quietly displaced in the post modern structures of "radical thought" I would say Ward was way ahead of his time and hie influence on the way we perceive the world is due for a reappraisal.
He was a thinker who spoke the language of people who's engagement with the world was real and embedded in a realty of struggle and resistance to the ruling elite, he did not bother with the academic posturings Coin Ward was an engaged fighter for social change and non violent struggle.His work greatly influenced the creative ideas which began to flow out of Oval House.
Play was an integral aspect behind the creative challenge offered up by Oval House.
Oval House was first and foremost a "Youth Club".It operated under the rules of Youth Clubs of the time .It had an age limit! 15 years to 24 years. You had to be a member to join. And the early days there was a form of sexual segregation. Oval House was a sports club.
The early history of Oval House is linked in with the ideology of the old English Class system(but this is another history). Oval House evolved during the 60s 70s 80s.It was never a theatre although theatre played a hugh role in its history, it became a site for play and improvisation and challenge.It also played a role in the development of community theatre and education,but it always retained its "anarchic values" .Oval House was a playground for experimentation and play.

goodby to the season of greed

its coming to a close,the season of greed is at last entering its final days,and,at last it would appear that the public are becoming awear of the utter awfulness of this Coalition experiment.
I'm still amazed how this chaos is being played out in the media.Most commentators speak about the public wanting a coalition.I don't think so,I don't know of anyone who went into the pooling booth and voted for a coalition..its a stupid assumption but there again we have stupid media.
BUT on a pleasant note,today I wandered over to buy a book in my favorite second hand bookshop,just off Russell Sq. The name of the bookshop is SKOOB. What I was seeking out is a book telling the story of the Highland Clearances,one of those books I buy then lose.
Igot talking to the guy who owns this wonderful shop.We spoke about the Highland,the West Coast and various other magical places off the beaten track.
It transpired He used to stay in the same tiny cottage I used to stay in,a marvelous little place that sat on the edge of the viaduct spanning the glen across Glanfinian.A dream place.how wonderful to find the person who runs one of the best book shops in London also enjoyed the magic of that little bothy.

christmas

Its that time of year ans soon it will be over!!!then I can focus on what I want to focus on.
I really do dislike this period of the year.Its that same old gripe about what the hell is going on in our heads and why do Keep hearing the same chat that I heard last year,and why are we all like lemmings jumping over the cliff in order to escape the nightmare of our the oncoming nightmare...looks like Iv answered my own question.
Was Christmas ever any different? Maybe.
But the amount of neurotic rubbish being poured out of the TV as never been worse.We certainly know how to enjoy ourselves at Christmas.Somehow the news on TV,represents one large shopping update,which informs me that people are shopping in Birmingham but not in Preston.Somehow I entered a strange world of shopping malls where men in long overcoats and red scarves speak about the volume of shoppers shopping at the last moment.Its still snowing way up in Scotland. and don't go out unless you have to.
The Kingdom is going pear shaped and the thieving scum who have turned us all into depressed loons are having a moan about having to tell us,the people who saved their skin,how much money they are making at our expanse.Whilst our gutless Government tells us to grin and bear it.I'm under the bed cloths for the day!!

xmas and touched by fire

Sorry to keep everyone waiting re Oval house but I got a bit diverted on other matters even so "these other matters" are related to the project in hand.The politics in the Kingdom of greed will over the coming years become bitter and divisive.The country is heading into a unknown destination without a plan.Our strange league of men are on a path with only one objective self seeking glorification driven by a warped agenda made up by bankers and even more warped out of touch Etonians and their Elite.
We are confronting a group of men who don't have a clue where we are going. BUT as long as they sense they are at the forefront of history,as long as they fulfill their weak idealisation of the self the whole Kingdom will suffer.
The experiment we are being subjected to will not go any where.
But its time the cultural class started to join the movements which will and are slowly starting to wake up to the awful onslaught which is all part of the war being waged on people.As iv said this is not a planned attack this is simply being carried out by weak cowards.
The Arts world is silent 'more concerned with its own persona.its own new found celebrity.
It is wake up time for the Arts in the Kingdom of Scum and Greed. The box ticking days and comfort parties are past.

touched by fire...IAN HINCHCLIFF

Today Judy Knight "ARTS ADMIN " informed me of the death of the unique Hinchcliff.He appears to have drowned whilst fishing in America.Hinch..was truly brilliant,wild,dangerous,unpredictable,annoying,self disruptive,completely nasty,loving and a true friend. He is a legend and a myth.A great artist who was punk before punk,in fact the Sex Pistols ,so it is rumored were afraid to appear with him on stage,this is one of the many "stories" surrounding the wonderful Hinch.
He was completely and utterly individualist, completely anti authority.
He was a good musician and a great story teller,unfortunately Hinch was a one off he left behind only the memory of his wild imagination.
He will be appearing more on this blog.His performances created havoc, joy, fun , and a splendid sense of having been in the presence of some screaming with emotional pain.
He cut himself on stage before cutting oneself became a performance of necessity. See yer my long lost Friend

TOUCHED BY FIRE

The students haven't done with the demo resistance yet,they are teaching us a lesson in how to mobilise and keep the authorities unnerved.The media have completely missed the point on this one.It seems to me they are more concerned with highlighting the importance of the coalition rather than highlighting the damaging consequences of lying to young voters.This is one of the many issues which go right to the heart of this terrible Con Coalition.They lied and that's it.
But there is another factor which needs to be of concern,its a question which must be brought to light,but the media comes from the same brood as the Elite who now are hell bent on dismantling all that is of value in this country ,and the media wont want to go where I'm suggesting they should go.
Why is it whenever we have a Conservative Government does the country sink into disobedience and civil unrest.The last time this happen was during the rampant years of Thatcher.Remember the Brixton riots?Remember the "inner cities"exploding before our eyes?
Let alone the strikes.the Industrial destruction,the awful mayhem meated out on the coal mining communities.The Conservatives are wreckers not builders They have non understanding of society or community values.
It was under these circumstances that Oval House set about the creation of its Carnival programme.This development was an extension of its highly regarded Community Arts Policy.
Carnival came about,at the Oval ,because we recognised the importance of artistic engagement with those organisations who where on the "front line"Carnival was/is a means of reclaiming the streets.The community arts policy at that time was about resistance/imagination/creativity/engagement. A melting pot of competing values and ambitions it soaked up the notion of artistic individuality and demanded a sense of community togetherness and support.A challenge was laid down where by the arts world had to embrace the values of a "collective concept which operated within the confines of a "republic"responsibility.
Creativity is messy and confusing,to the controlled mind it does appear frightening and untamed.Never the less it was these attributes which drove the ideas of community arts foreword.It placed demands on groups and individuals by allowing those elements to take on the roles of leadership and facilitators.WE took our skills and knowledge to the streets and the esates whilst at the same relearning and reshaping our own values and skills.
All around the Conservative momentum was apparently unstoppable,values where simply being trodden over without care or reason,history was being rewritten and community arts was at the forefront in keeping that spark of hope alive.

just a thought on resistance

Why is it when ever we have Con Government civil disobedience erupts on the streets.The scale of unrest so far is containable,but the police are already talking about the use of water cannons.But the question must be,why is it always the Cons who over see such uprisings on their watch? The conservative media wont bother answering this question,in fact it wont even make any attempt to look into the dysfunctional attitudes which seem to encompass Con thinking concerning social cohesion.
This robotic mimicking talking up "progressive policy's"is becoming offensive .But the coalition is offensive any way.So we cant expect much progressive thinking on the part of this outdated bunch of hypocritical moronic liers.

students setting the pace

Keep being waylaid by the resistance of the young and the students.And i keep wanting to start writing about creativity,but politics and creativity should sing from the same song sheet. What is happening on the streets of London and other English cities proves the richness of direct action.Earlier in the day I ask a 30 something young man who teaches theatre at the Arts Centre I will be talking about if he would be supporting the student Demo,this simple question open up a gulf between my generation,the new generation and his generation.What I received was an excuse about why demonstrations don't work.And they only function on a platform of middle class angst.He cited what he believed to be "failed" demonstrations.Missing out on the obvious realities of what most demonstrations achieve in the long haul of street struggle.
This,present,activity among students and school children is proving extremely successful. One the one hand they are high lighting the retaliatory methods of an over zealous police force who fell it right to kettle children for hours in the freezing cold whilst claiming they are protecting human rights.Well they are nit protecting human rights they are protecting property.
But the important point of this resistance is the ability of the students to articulate the lies told to them by members of the Conservative Coalition The Lib Dems signed a pledge to abolish student fees.This is the argument.A political party lied through its teeth in order to gain a stronger foot hold in the political establishment.Once they achieved the objective all considerations and obligations and promises where scatted to the winds.
The media allowed his to happen,under the banner of a new politics the media simply informed the public that this coalition was the only way forward for the country and "hard"decisions had to be taken in order to achieve the necessary objectives which the coalition laid out in its plans.
Well lying to the voters may be a good way to govern the country foe a tired elite but for a large group of people who voted on the belief that a signed pledge was binding this out dated arrogance simply is not good enough.
These Demos have servely damaged the party who made the promises,they haven't a clue what to do except accuse anybody who doesn't agree with them that "they don't under stand"that's the problem the students do understand so much so that they now have this Coalition on the ropes.
Also,the students are using very creative tactics to out maneuver a police force which looks confused about what it should be doing.This police force is very good at kettling young people but it doesn't appear to be able to achieve much else.
The day was freezing cold,with snow and ice cold winds adding to a picture of chaos and confusion.Some times the combination of ice cold wind and blistering snow made it difficult to observe just what was going on.But I'm glad to have been there for a while.

resistance..Touched by Fire 2

another demo on Wed.Is this the start of a inevitable processes of resistance to a political/cultural disruption which may bring about a new dimension of Utopian idealism? young people,students are leading the campaign against a political elite which is now way out of touch with the reality of every day life and attitudes. We are forced to believe that the age of "mass" mass air travel,mass supermarket expansion,mass advertising compensates for the corruption of a financial system which is all but out of control.A system which reduces countries to poverty is nothing short of criminal.But we might be witnessing a"cut through moment"where by character-defence arguments which for the past decade forced us to believe nothing could be done,a system which wanted us to withdraw into conformity and privacy is about to turned on its head and the old hypocritical way of living is coming under attack from group of young people who had been written off as lazy and self indulgent.This is an unfinished revolutionary moment.
The 60s "radical movements2where more to do with a form of street theatre functioning at a level which attacked the pre war accord and emphasised the idealism of hedonistic youth over the society of our out mod ed cultural attitudes.
Under the guise of a deeply unpopular war the young took to the streets to advertise their new found self confidence,in many ways this out pouring of individual as against collective identity open the doors for the new right to enter on to fertile ground laid down by the demos of the anti war movements.
France was and is a different argument,although I will be arguing at a latter date,that we now have a great deal to learn from the French idea of "the street".
The sixties youth rebellion was self defeating because it tended to be ignorant of political and economic realities,it was to headlong in its rejection of the past and indiscriminate of Western traditions.
Today's student/young people are fully aware of the impact the banking system as had on their futures.They are attacking the fabric of a complacent political ideology which appears to hold most people in contempt.

cats cradle might have hit upon something

On my last outing Istarted exploring the idea about resistance in popular culture,this was meant to be some kind of introduction to my quest into the alternative arts movements which flourished during the 60s,70s,80s, in London and other parts of England. But this morning whilst going out on one of my wanderings in the gloom of London watching the Themes flowing past and listening to the seagulls I realised that I had opened up a can of worms for myself.The history of resistance is not a simple this,that or the other,it is essence concerned with a shifting tide of movements which over spilled into a sort of historical fog.
There is a difference between demos and resistance so before I start on the history of alternative rebellions I will put something up tomorrow re resistance.
Sorry about the delay in all this folks...

resistance..Touched by Fire

Looking back on last weeks demo highlights some interesting comparisons with past street out breaks of democratically motivated out break of civil disruption.Ive highlighted in the past how memory plays tricks with our perception of reality.We exist in a media dominated environment a site where the past is instantly reproduced in some ordered presentation of nostalgic encounters.Something akin to land marks are laid down as a means of identifying with events we had nothing what ever to do with.The image becomes the focus point of an historical moment with out the discourse of narrative.
If we go back into the past we see images of the Jarrow Marches,we have some idea of what this march represented.But what did that march achieve?What was the actual political climate of the time?Who took part in the march?What happened to the men when reached London?How did they get back home?Did they stay in London and how long for?Did the march achieve its objectives?Did the men return to work?
These are questions which remain unanswered within the popular understanding. Yet the images conjure up powerful emotions of those days.The march is embedded in the history of "marches"But are we looking at resistance to a Coalition Gov,or, are we observing an event which is more nuanced than we have painted in our minds.
We can move foreword into the 50s and gaze upon the the grainy pictures of the early CND gatherings in Trafalgar Squ onwards towards Aldermaston.Here again we gaze upon the images rather than the actual political conflicts of the time.Where is the discourse concerning the end of Empire.What we get imposed over the images is the first introduction of popular culture via the introduction of music which reflects the age.The fear of nuclear annihilation is leached out of overall understanding of why CND was so important.Also,the concerns of American hegemony and Russian expansion is pushed into the background, suddenly we are served up a mixed dish of music and dramatic visuals which highlight our own sense of nostalgic yearnings.Memory/history becomes a form of entertainment.We are comforted by the black and white interpretations of a bye gone aspect of our decline within the Post Empire period.
The argument concerning resistance doesn't enter into the debate.
Its when we enter the 60s things start to go into overdrive.Popular culture takes centre stage and the image plays alongside the impact of popular music.Nostalgia/memory clash and invent a period of history which is non existent except within the manic confines of a dominate media.
The 60s where really a period of ambiguity/aggression.They where not a period of resistance except in the questioning of the role of the family.(but this is nothing new in English history).
The 60s where a period of youthful exuberance rather than an attempt to change the the status quo,look carefully at those images and you gaze upon a small,geographical,location London,London and Soho,Kings Road,Hampstead some how become confused with the whole of Britain.Poverty is non existent.When we arrive at the Grovesnor Squ demo we arrive at a gathering of people out for a party.This is not to undermine the very real anger surrounding the Bombardment and slaughter in Vietnam,never the less the event was hijacked by the celebrity engagement who needed to show their radical potententials.We see the likes of the Rolling Sones and the Beatles hanging out with the new radical left.This was an outing for the new elite. The real struggle for social change and resistance was taking place elsewhere.

been away and coming back

been away for a while,living in hope that the idea of resistance to the savagery of this Government's assault on the poor might be coming under some direct action from the young/students.Last week 50,000 students took part in a well organised demo which ended in an attack on the offices of the Tory Party.Then some nut took into its head to throw a fire extinguisher from the roof of Millbank Tower into the crowd below.
Of course the media went into over drive,which is to be expected,sometimes I live in hope.
The following night I slept out rough on Spitafields Market in support of Centre Point and its campaign to help young homeless people who will be sleeping rough over Christmas. It was cold,windy and damp.350 people turned up to support the event.Most of these people were young people.It felt good,it felt like the young where finding their voices and leading the fight back.
Then today we have the news that this Kingdom will be having a royal wedding some time next year.All day long the media have been standing outside the big House talking about a united nation.Will be back tomorrw with toched by fire!!

FLANEUR 2

"The figure of the "flaneur "pre figures that of the detective.The "flaneur" should find social legitimation for his behaviour.It suits him perfectly to see his indolence presented as a facade behind which the sustained attention of an observer never letting his eyes off the unsuspecting criminal"

"The "flaneur"emphasises the individual.The "flaneur" indulges in non rational pleasures"

Baudelaire was sometimes forced to compose his poetry while walking.

Flanerie is more specific than strolling.It is a spatial practice of specific sites; the interior and exterior public spaces of the city.These include parks,sidewalks,squares and shopping arcades or malls.
Flanerie is public and "other"directed.The Flaneur is out to be seen.The crowd is the audience.Flanerie is a"crowd practice" the art of doing crowd behaviour.

The Stranger is thus a foreigner who becomes like a native,where as the flaneur is in ones time and home is most probably a virtue.More than this,it is a state of melancholic grace opening up the vistas on the human lot.

The "flaneur"is like a detective seeking clues who read peoples characters not only from the physiognomy of their faces but via a social physiognomy of the streets. The image and activity of a " flanerie " is tied to the emergence of the popular genre of the detective novel and also the literary practice and social justification of labour time of journalists who,like the "flaneur",put their observations both for sale on the market and wish to pursue their own purposes.

Forests are never virgin,except metaphorically.
The fuller implication of this term is that land or forest in question is unclaimed or unconquered within the the discursive formation of European expansion.

FLANERIE 1

Flanerie can, after Baudelaire, be understood as the activity of the sovereign spectator going about the city in order to find the things which will occupy his gaze and thus complete his otherwise incomplete identity; replace the sense of bereavement with a sense of life.
Flanerie is the doing through and thanks to which the Flaneur hopes and will be able to find the truth of his being.
It is away of going on because it is ultimately so utterly futile.

FLANEUR: emerges as a new sort of hero, the product of modernity.He is the spectator of the modern world.
The Flaneur enters history along with capitalism.

cats cradle

I'm having a small Head space trying to get my head around the latest madness being explored by our Conservative Coalition. I'm going to explore some ideas re walking and thinking.
So for the next couple of posts its a little journey around me and my walking,then its down to the continuation of expreimental theatre. This is short a brief,my mind is a bit like a maze trapped in a blanket of mist and anger.See you tomorrow.

catscradle walking and thinking

"Britain's culture is defined by a violent contact with foreign peoples"

"A fundamental problem with oral testimony:that it is not"the voice of the past" but rather the way in which people, influenced by their own histories, by how they imagine the world and how the incidents described have been discussed publicly,structure their memories of the past"

"Truth exists only as a product of historical becoming"

"We relive or revive our childhoods to make them sweeter"

"the eternal recurrence of the same"

"where ever you are is called here"

"the new regime knows how to protect itself from everything but its own stupidity and brutality"

"Visual symbolism is taking over the role of language"

"It was during the 80s that people started to conceive of their identities through what they consume"

TOUCHED BY FIRE..the business of giving...

Ask any City or New York headhunter and they will tell you the talent is moving its focus.In New York, Manhattan is showing the way from simply investment in banking or in in the media conglomerates.The bright young thinks are turning their gaze into the heart of Harlem in order to get a foot hold in the door at the Clinton Globe Initiate.

Alogside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Google,org. C.G.I stands at the forefront of the latest trend in wealthy giving:Philanthrocapitalism. A fashinable form of High value charity that as now crossed the Atlantic and started to catch onamong Londons more socially minded plutocrats.Indeed under New Labour the multimillionaire philanthrophists Jennifer Moses was appointed by Gorden Brown as an advisor to influence Gov thinking in the realm of"giving" But a little knoen pamphlet by the philanthropic guru Micheal Edwards warns the grandious claims of philanthro-capitalism both over play its results and masks its more naferios effects.....

creativity and depression1

"What,though,might be the biological origin of mania?One possibility is that it related to happiness,which is clearly adaptive as it encourages one to do things that are rewarding.Thus mania could be malignant happiness.It may also be related to creativity. The existence of a link between madness and genius is an idea both old and controversial. If it were true,would it not be possible to see, perhaps, the positive virtue in depressive illness? It is just such a question that Kay Radfield Jamison has explored in depth in her book "touched with fire"

Aristotle praised melancholy, since he thought that all those outstanding in philosophy,poetry and the arts were Melancholic. It was an ancient Greek view that, as Socrates put it, "madness", provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest "blessings", for it was thought, that inspiration was the only obtainable in particular states of mind, of which madness was one.The Greeks recognised the distinction between those mental illnesses which were detrimental to artistic achievement and the "sacred"madness of inspiration. There was also a fashion for melancholy in the Renaissance.

But to what extent is there really a relationship between creativity and psychiatric illness? Literary scholars have considered this question and Lionel Trilling has commented that the idea of artist as mentally illness "one of the characteristics notions of our culture". Like the Greeks, he emphasises that health is also essential for creative work, as is discipline and sustained effort.
Note here,and in most of what follows, the discussion of creativity and genius is confined almost entirely to the arts-writers,poets,painters-as if only they are creative. The relation of creativity in science,business and politics for example is barely touched upon.Yet it is hard to take seriously the idea that creativity is associated with the work of those in the arts.

Anecdotal stories about creativity and mental illness will not suffice. This has been recognised and a number of scholars have tried to find direct evidence of a link. A study of the biographies of a wide range of modern artists found that the highest rate of mental illness was in poets; almost 20per cent of those studied had committed suicide. Composers also showed high rates of mental illness,particularly depression. In general the mood disorder of artists were at least three times greater than among other professionals,including scientists and businessmen.

Jamison investigated the mod disorders of poets in Britain and Ireland born in the hundred years from 1705 to 1805 Within this group are famous figures like Lord Byron, Samuel Johnson,William Blake, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelly, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. There was a strikingly high rate of mood disorders.These poets were, compared to the general population,30 times more likely to suffer from manic depression and five times more likely to commit suicide. Studies on a group of 30 modern writers confirm these results in general. Almost 80 per cent of this sample ha a mood disorder.

Jamison interviewed a group of nearly 50 British writers and artists, all of whom had won at least one prize oer reward that recognised their distinction in their field. Most were men the average age was 53. What she wanted to to know was the role of moods in creativity. more than a third had been treated for a mood disorder and most of these had been for manic depression or depression.The artists and writers had suffered from their depression but not their mania; virtually all said that they had experienced intense, highly productive creative episodes. Almost all reported a reduced need for sleep just prior to these intensely creative periods. There were reports of mood change with descriptions of ecstasy and elation; one reported a "fever to write".Others experienced feelings of anxiety. For most,these moods were integral to their work.

It seems that the artistic creativity can benefit from a variety of experiences, including visions, fears and melancholy.Perhaps the struggle to come to terms with emotional extremes supports the creative endeavour. Profound depression can change an individuals beliefs about the nature and meaning of life. Writers, artists and composers have described how, having struggled with a depressive episode and come through it, they have used the experiences in their work.The poet
Anne Sexton used pain in her work and said that "creative people must not avoid the pain they get dealt"

While it seems easy to understand why mania, with its surge in energy and confidence, should help with creativity, it may be less easy to see why depression could be helpful. As just mentioned, depression might put into perspective thoughts and feelings that had been generated in a more manic phase. It might serve,as Jamison puts it, a critical editorial. Depression can force one to look inward and ask very difficult questions about oneself: what is it all about, what is the purpose, and who and what am I? Herbert Melville wrote that, "in these flashing revelations of griefs wonderful fire, we see all things as they are; and though when the electric element is gone, the shadows once more descend, and the false outlines of objects again return; yet not to with their former power to deceive" The poet Anton Artaud exaggerates but makes the point:" No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modelled, built or invented except literally to get out of hell."

Some manic-depressive illness can apparently give a touch of fire to an individuals work. Since it has such a strong, genetic basis could it also, perhaps be, at times, an adaptive characteristic in the evolutionary sense? It seems implausible, particularly since manic depressives are so prone to suicide and the disease is so disabling.

THANKS TO LEWIS WOLPERT "MALIGNANT SADNESS" The Anatomy of Depression"

Touched by fire..admin 2

Like aspects of the Post Modern,the Cultural Industries rapaciously consumes marginal identities under the guise of plurality and respect for"otherness" The Cultural Industries have created a working environment which mocks the reality of otherness. It is totally disengaged from its own ego,and devoid of a self confidence to engage in the realm of radical negotiation because of the deep rooted fear that the "other" might,in reality,rise up and challenge the existing order and demand a change in the power structures of the privileged order.Hence a system of forced communication,which is non communication,is devised by introverted administrators resigned to,rather than revelling in their experience of alienation.

This cynical abuse of language is a means of not engaging in the world of human emotions and all corresponding uncertainties which are activated by involvement with fellow human beings.This is not just an avoidance,a sort of turning away from the chaos of life, rather its an attack on the problems and dangers of creative engagement.What is going on here is an attempt to live in a world of anti engagement,an imprisoned limbo akin to the corporatist dependency on creating for the consumer a desire for inner comfort.The outside "real" is reduced to nothing more than interiority and the abnegation of the real.

In this inward looking,frightening world we encounter those other worlds,two of which are represented as "enlightened false consciousness" and the "passionate attachment".Two sates of emotional unbliss which arise from the desire of the unobtainable.

The Enlightened false consciousness is concerned with the resurgent interest in mystical accounts of the world and the return of the ritualised concern with sentimentality,a form of dysfunctional personality within the community of sentimentality..A return to the false occult and the seeking out of the conservative exploration of the irrational in popular culture,the embrace of the authoritarianism which is at the heart of the"psycho-technic" rhetoric in the corporatist propaganda and publicity,the publicity of the essentially event less.

...publicity,situated in a future continually deferred....experience is impossible within it.... everything publicity shows is there awaiting acquisition...all hopes are gathered together,made homogeneous,simplified,so that they become the intense ,
yet vague, magical yet repeated,promise offered in every purchase....publicity is the life blood of this culture....

The passionate attachment....that emotional drive which makes our lives uncomfortable yet at the same time satisfying, the strong urge to forget reason is dangerous.
To forget reason is to forget,or for ego rationality.Passion drives the motivation of rational thought into areas of transgression;it leads to an ill defined logic,whereby the act of passion unites both parties in an embrace which logically will end in bitter separation.

The separation will cause catastrophic complications for all those involved,either directly or on the periphery of the relationship. The passion will involve and eventually devour all those parties caught up within the relationship.This all consuming emotional relationship serves as a warning to the naivete of greed.Passion becomes a shared emotion,a locked embrace at the expense of the external world.

Post Modernity collapses the disjunction between aspiration and reality;it annihilates the difference between the possible and the reaching out for the impossible,the very locality of art. It is this reactionary acceptance of the moment which as led creativity in to the hands of the publicity machine.Art is no longer used as a means to rebel against the censorship of our "big other"the bigger super ego.The Dionysian forces which push to extreme satisfaction, the subconscious thrust of excess have been sacrificed on the alter of banality,tragedy is reduced to living in a state of the ever present;there is no space in which to ventilate our instincts.

Dionysus,in Greek mythology provoked excess.He transcended into animality and chaos.He sacrificed himself and was torn apart. A restrictive reality principle circulates the domain of the impossible.We are dominated by the tyranny of the script and a false dream for the desire called normality.

touched by fire...administration

ADMINISTRATION ONLY MAINTAINS THE STATUS QUO...

The bureaucracy within the institutions which makes the Cultural Industries have acclimatised themselves,and,wholeheartedly embraced the totalising language of the Market place,and in so doing have debased the "artist" of her/his Socratic right-to reject conformity,inevitability and unoriginality. There are no democratic choice systems within the market ideology.The essence of the marketplace and its ideology is essentialist,which effectively denies the possibility of engagement and its proximity to real change.People,or,customers/consumers,are subordinate to its temptations which,in turn,gives force to the authoritarian nature of the system and creates the illusion of democratic participation.

The Cultural Industries have nothing to do with creative discipline, but every thing to do with power.Power starts from a defined system which denies the anarchic scope of creativity.No matter what it says in its defence, the industry and its bureaucrats fail to embrace the actual chaos which emanates from the process of creativity and experimentation.It only real concern is the normalisation of difference..Its reality is a system which beneath the ornamentation offers only a standardised,monitored,streamlined attraction more suited to entertainment and immediate sensation rather the disruption of the"now".

The "now" creativity desires the acceptance of the new establishment and the new elites.Of course,the deeper understanding of the terminology associated with "establishment has been debased by a language of over use and attraction.We have a tendency to re brand meanings in order to justify the existence of individuals or groups who are in power at any given period,most notably those individuals we envy the most.

The idea of the "establishment"is concerned less with the actual exercises of power than with the the established bodies of prevailing opinion which powerfully, and not openly,influence its exercise to exist.The "establishment"is not a power elite in the imagined terms of its impact on our envy.If its members have any connections with power blocks in culture or society,it is not these connections which give them their particular influence. If they represent actual interests,it is not their representation of these interests which make them members of the "establishment". Indeed I would go so far as to suggest is that the one significant fact about the "establishment" is that it represents nothing in the national life.It as its roots in no class,gender or race;it responds to no deep seated national instinct.It is this rootlessness which is seen by its defenders as its main virtue, and by its opponents as its most distressing fault.Its defenders have of course found a euphemism for this rootlessness:they refer to it as disinterestedness.It must be disinterested,they argue,because it represents nothing.

touched by fire ENVY

"The attack for its own sake on the life and goodness of another person is Envy.
In order for the infant to survive, the primordial self directed form of destructiveness has to be dealt with in some way-urgently and immediately.Melanie Klein observed that the first method the infant uses is to direct its hatred of life towards another object that stands for life and liveliness-and especially the object that seeks to keep the baby alive. Such an object is represented in the first instance by the mother,or mote specifically for the infant,the bit of her that it knows best,the breast. This immediate externalisation of the death instinct results in fantasies sucking the life out of something,scooping out the goodness in a form of raiding,stealing,breaking and entering.
In relationship to creativity,Klein's ideas can be seen in the lack of originality expressed via the growth in stealing other peoples ideas...A distressing admission of a lack of individual originality and even more distressing and ultimately self denying and self destructive force is the idea that it doesn't matter....In the end the inner self becomes a site for self loathing.

toched by fire..postmodern

"life should have a flow;water which doesn't flow becomes stagnant"

A simple definition of the Post Modern.It is an existence which avoids the conflict between the personal and the political.Post Modernism creates a society without tradition,without past,without continuity,reduced to modernising the already modernised.Absent of feeling,without time and space-just like the inner experience of psychosis.

The Post Modern embraces the Hegemony of the capitalist interests and is, to all intents and purposes,in the grasp of the emotionless,bureaucratic, officialdom,which views "The Great Leap Backwards"to re establish the quota patronage which demands the construction of an all embracing apparatus for the control and direction of art.

Like most of the "new"institutions,the Cultural Industry, without blinking an eye,has presided over a cultural disintegration and social alienation,by embracing the existence of,and reinvention of the BOOK KEEPER.

Touched by fire..romantics

"to be free is nothing;to become free is very heaven"FICHT (1762-1814)

"Failure is nobler than success.Self immolation for a cause is the thing,not the validity of the cause itself,not some intrinsic property of it...These are the symptoms of the Romantic attitude.Hence the worship of the artist whether in sound,or word,or colour is the highest manifestation of the over active spirit and the popular image of the artist in the garret,wild eyed,solitary,mocked at,but independent,free,spiritually superior to his Philistine tormentors.

This attitude has darker side too;worship not merely of the painter or the composer or the poet,but that of a more sinister artist whose materials are humanity-the destroyer of old societies and the Creator of new ones,no matter at what human cost;the superman leader who tortures and destroys in order to build new foundations-Napoleon on his most revolutionary aspect.

It is this embodiment of the Romantic ideal that took more and more hysterical forms and in its extreme ended in violent irrationalism and Fascism.
Yet this same outlook bred respect for individuality,for creative impulse, for the unique, the independent,for freedom to act in the light of personal, undictated beliefs and impulses and principles,for the understated emotional needs,for the the value of private life,for individual conscience,for human rights. The positive and the negative.. ISIAH BERLIN...

TOUCHED BY FIRE

Popular culture, in the guise of the media,is now hosted into a notion of history which offers our gaze a place of safety populated by people just like ourselves,yet at the same time untouched by the reality of the past.Like Heritage Culture,this contrived vision,entwined with the problem of perspective that a way of life that as come down to us,with all its disturbances and distinctions,is linked to a place and a time,an object, a building which allows us a sense of pleasure, a homesickness for better times linked into the past.A remembrance of the past which is manufactured for our gaze in the studios of the corporate media institutions.Popular history, in the guise of serious investigation and Heritage Culture are the results of an increasingly conformist society seeking out a release from a normalizing sensation and delving into a sentimentality, a regretfulness for better times in a better place somewhere in the past. The future is lived in the ever present whilst reality becomes a horror show. The past is not reconnected with its disappeared shadow.
We, the passive observer,are fed information and sensation filtered through a dominate system which entraps our attention in order to offload the commonality which yesterday as become.
It is also a propaganda technique which subtly appeals to the emotions.In propaganda as in advertising the important consideration is not whether information accurately describes a objective situation but whether it sounds true.History like art ,now,represents part of the mass production of commodities in ever increasing abundance which demands a mass market to absorb them.History and Art are now dominated by appearance.
"in the period of primative accumulation,capitalism subordinated being to having,the ME value of commodity's to their exchange value,as a commodity's capacity to confer prestige-the illusion of prosperity and well being."when economic necessity yields to the necessity for limitless economic development"writes Guy Debord"satisfaction of basic and generally human needs gives way to an uninterrupted fabrication of pseudo needs.Propaganda of commodities serves a double function.Its up holding of consumption turns alienation itself into a commodity..
CHRISTOPHER LASCH.
This is a victory of conservative centralisation over the examination of a more mysterious procedure....the very act of creativity itself,the act concerning the process of creation,rather than its effects,on motives rather than consequences;and as a corollary of this "on quality of the vision" on the state of mind or the soul,of the acting agent-accurate correspondence of the given,the emphasis on the activity and the moment,those actions that cannot be reduced to static segments.
These are the sentiments of the Romantic movement,which gave rise to to Modernity.As the sensiblities interact,where does one begin and end,where does the end close?History is not dead,it is simply redefining itself in the methodological reflections of the Great Leap Backwards.

touched by Fire

PEOPLE ARE THEIR MEMORIES,THEY ARE ACCUMULATED EXPERIENCES AND THIER DISCRIPTIONS OF THEMSELVES IN THE WORLD.THE ANGLO SAXONS DEFINED HUMAN BEINGS AS THE VOICE HEARERS.IF YOU DEPRIVE SOMEONE OF THEIR VOICE,YOU DEPRIVE THEM OF THEIR HUMANITY.

There are individuals within the administration of the Cultural Industries who ask very big things for themselves,not of themselves. This attitude is not only confined to the Cultural Industries. The spread of the bureaucratic society and its entrance into language of the everyday has opened the way parallel oppositions,notably democratic individualism versus corporatism;the citizen versus the subject.
We are entering,or re-entering the mindset of the darker side within us and within society;the battle of language versus propaganda and the consciousness versus the unconsciousness.This is what is implied by the expression the "The Great Leap Backwards". It doesn't only apply to an historical time map of the 1930s,it also concerns itself with our leap into the unconscious beloved of the subject:"who existing as a function in any one of the tens of thousands of corporations-public and private-is relieved of personal,disinterested responsibility for his society"
Permanent human patterns have to exist and in the end battle against the temporary.We are reminded of what Tocqueville observed when writing about America attempting to escape the intangling influence of the past "they imagined their whole destiny is in their own hands"
Social conditions Tocqueville wrote severed the tie that formally united one generation to another. "the roof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced.Those who went before are soon forgotten:of those who who will come after,no one has any idea:the interest of man is confined to those in close proximity to himself"

CATS CRADLE 3

Before moving onto the history of alternative theatre I want to continue outlining my thoughts re the "cultural industries"There will be some odd references like "the big other"hope you mind folks,but I will leave this to one side for now,its slightly difficult concept to outline so for now,if you don't mind I'm going to move onto my ideas about re culture.
I'm suggesting that it is in the twin sites of domination and authoritarianism which is the foundation of the core of the cultural industries.My own generalisation is that the cultural industries are rotten at the core.Its a system embraced by a conservative mindset and the values of the corporate state.Its liberal exterior hiding behind a controlling interior, its a dangerous set of systems geared towards monitoring difference in order to set targets and ever more impossible quotas.Administrators define the agenda for creativity and in so doing have created an aura of mass ornamentation. We have come to an age where by the application form is judged higher than the process of creativity.We have entered the age of "The Great Leap Backwards" a term of reference first highlighted by John Ralston in his book "THE UNCONSCIOUS CIVILIZATION"
The authoritarianism secreted within the Post Modern Condition will be come more visible as this introduction unfolds.Irrationanalism is all part of the on going debate re the actions which govern the state of corporate identity and control,its almost akin to a mystical anarchism,we the citizen invest the corporate state with a personality which defies reality.We have allowed administration to acquire a monopoly over all manifestations of our cultural life we are looking down the barrel of a very nasty weapon,because the administration of culture relates to a concept of creative exclusion.

TIME AND SPACE ARE NECESSARY FORMS OF THOUGHT...Kant

When analysing the rise and decline of cultural movements and radical politics during the 60s,70s,80s through to the cultural hegemony of the Cultural Industries of the 90s and the new century one must be aware of the dangers inherent of revisiting the recent past,more so when we are exploring the problematic of radical politics and radical cultural engagement.There is a danger that ones own "personal"memory becomes problematic.The journalist Melissa Benn writing about Susan Brawnmiller the American feminist suggested:

"Amnesia and caricature, distortion and forgetting are the greatest dangers facing
the history of any radical social movement"

Memory is selective,restrictive and contaminated.When we explore our memory we give ourselves no peace,we are our own memories and in reality we create our own myths.Our experience will never entirely be absorbed by theory and outside observation,but it is a wide open to abuse and obliteration by others who view aspects of the recent past with envy,distrust, and personal ambition by walking over other peoples histories.. I aim to give back the history and the voice to all those groups and individuals whose idealism,creativity,courage,hard work and humanity have been conveniently air-brushed out of reality(history).Eventhier ghots and shadows are nit allowed to contaminate the superficially created inclusiveness and individualism of todays corporative empiness.

TOUCHED BY FIRE 2

CONTINUED:

I intend to pose many questions without coming to any conclusions,this is a journey of ideas and experimentation,rather like Oval House was,in many respects I want to experiment with conclusions once held dear to me but now seem out dated in so far as they were events only remembered by me at a moment in my own personal,creative suicide(more about this latter).This is an introduction without a map.Its going to be a scatter gun set of opinions and remembered arguments with a good does of dream scape added to raise anger and frustration.Some said to me the other day"we don't seem to do anger no more",it seems a valid observation to me.This reality,this strange frightened world gives the appearance of being out of sync with its own shadows.Anger is reduced to frustration and then violence, there is no room for that space in between,that small space where its safe to express feelings with out appearing unusual
One of the overriding philosophies which drove Oval House to challenge the boundaries of our "elders" was tied up in the belief of the right fail,the right to make mistakes and not have to worry about the impact of the big other,that sense of dominating super ego for ever telling us what we cant or can achieve ,we offerd a place of safty in which the" other" was respected and creativty was was seen as site for challange. We gave leadership simply by being who we where and being there.We were concerned with our status infact we sort to undermine our status in order to give others a sense of being.
My first quistion "Why is that all inclusive theories of economic inevitability
have distracted us from the shift of legitimacy to specialist
and interest groups"
What Oval House never foresaw was the arrival of the non invovled specialist who was hovering just out of sight,waiting in the shadows.People who would arrive and trample on memory and other peoples achievments.We had become distracted by our own sense of direction,but for me the directon was leading to a place without a home ,and for a lot of indivduals the fight to change society had become to much of a bitter night.We exhausted our dreams.
Now is the time to return.The suicide went on to long,the silence of memory contaminates the present.A fight back to reclaim past acheivments and memories begins with a quote from Horkeimer "our consequent incarceration in the "iron cage"
of bureacratic rationalization and technical domination"
It is with this quote in mind,this one isolated little gem that ignites my sense of injustice.I allowed myself to trample on my achievements,that was my action to undo the past,but I do have a responsibility to all those folk who mad Oval House into a dynamic challange against"anything"which came to mind.
Oval was a youth club in a community,we never ever forgot that.

TOUCHED BY FIRE 1

IMAGINATION AND MEMORY ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING...Thomas Hobbes

HE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HISTORY IS DESTINED TO REMAIN A CHILD...Cicero

Welcome to this introduction,which is part of many introductions,and which forms the basis of a Cats Cradle research project embracing,history political theory,scatter gun ideas ,venom,personal experience,and part of a history of a youth club turned creative arts centre,community centre,and educational centre plus much else.Its agenda is unravel what happened during a critical political and cultural period which affected the destiny of cultural,community politics in England during the 70s,80s,and early90s.Its a history hardly spoken about because most of the people involved in the evolution of of this wild and exciting project still maintain a sense of moral honesty in so far as they refuse to trample over peoples experience,creativity and memories.This fist introduction will critically analysis the growth of authoritarianism within today's corporate Post Modern/Cultural Industry Society.

coming down very fast!!

I can feel the old horror making its return,depression will never give up.Like Iv said before "it knows how to wait".Its not worth the space trying to explain this sense of bewilderment,anxiety and tiredness. My eyes feel tired and painful I'm frightened of sleep because it wont be a sleep the mind will hang heavy in the dream scape of another reality. i was hoping to explore an idea which floats around and nags at my consciousness its a sort of personal challenge/almost an attack on the recent past. Nostalgia is the new radical ideology,the problem is people who use their life experience as the experience of reality are only indulging in a conservative return to a past lived in the narrow confines of nostalgic sentimentality.We look back on our recent past as if there really was going to be a social revolution,some people even believe there was a revolution.Well there was some kind of revolution it is called market forces.
People who where there at any given time look back on their experiences as if they were the most important experiences ever to grace the history of experiences.Nostalgia works on our sense of something lost holding out the possibility of a return to then.The "then" is that place logged in our minds which tell us that "then" can be regained.What happened in the past happen in our minds,our memories are us.But memory is contaminated,it plays games with what we were to all we are now.We may have been at some event in the past,but how we remember that event is about how "we want to remember"that event.My observation is different from your observation.The present is the site of painful reflection.The past is romanticised to keep at bay the power of nostalgic returns.It up to poets to explore the desires inherent in nostalgic reflections.the past is not a place of social change, unless real social change takes place.The sadness of our returns is they are instant and conservative. We are in the age of instant history without truth.my past was better than your past and my depression is darkening my mind the solitary prison is beckoning.....

from the mouth of the pig

Have just received a massage from a close friend of mine regarding Kelvin McKenzie him from the runaway Sun days.Kelvin is viewed by the liberal elite and the right elite to be a bit of a "bloke"a diamond geezer sort of guy,you know where you stand with Kelvin,he speaks his mind always up for a joke
OK?
Well Kelvin says there is nothing wrong with phone tapping. Now we know.
He speaks the mind of the Aussie boss.The Aussie who is now an American.One time a long time ago an American President got done for phone tapping.
East Germany lived under the boot of a vile organisation who took phone tapping to new heights.Kelvin speaks for a thug who hes no moral compass.The Murdoch Empire,like all Empires exists in a state of permanent paranoia,and greed.

where now the arts?

Yesterday I heard a Coalition Member talk about funding the Arts in a climate"of Global slow down"..note the terminology"global slowdown"once the Cons referred to Browns recession,now they have stolen power they are shifting the playing field...its not our policy which is going to mess up the kingdom its all the fault of those other factors.
Anyway, this Coalition Member suggested the Arts need to go back to the 1930s!!
Lets take a step back and think what this means.
We already know the Unions are going to be decimated(unless we the citizens rise and take matters into our own hands), so know we ere getting some idea where we are heading.What about the Arts?Indeed lets ask a deeper question, what about culture. Where is this Coalition heading and where is it taking us.
Well the arts really did sell out,if the funding is slashed then I will shed no tears,what we have now is a candy floss culture which sneers at the values of the collective ideals which set out a dynamic map in the 70s/80s.The so called left wing thinkers and writers of those years set out on a path FOR THEMSELVES.
Real cultural activists and writers where pushed to the side,their creative ideas stolen,their radical interpretations trodden on,a sense of permanent resistance mocked,and the arguments and dreams of communities watered down and turned into as spectacle of respectability.
Go look at the South Bank.
Liberalism took over from pure radicalism and embraced the sensations of the free market by peddling guilt rather than deep anger.Style became reality.The book trade took on the culture of a country fair a site of privilege and the collective exclusion of the other in our midst.The corporate mind set dictated the import of a post modern elitism into the the critique of the alter native.There was no alternative,the whole became the business.
Creativity/culture succumbed to the liberal spotlight.If you did not fit into the corporate image you had no way of presenting your values or your ideals.Without the excepted style and liberal guilt your work suffered in a market of conservative evaluation.
The Arts acted as conduit for liberal dissatisfaction.They offered nothing in the way of dramatic cultural transformation.Indeed change is the last thing the Arts want.Only when the political /community is introduced into a cultural determination will the arts be able to revitalise its self .to attack from the outside is the only way to destroy the carnage coming our way.
A wild interpretation of pure radicalism is needed on one hand and a radical reinterpretation of the dynamics of cultural/communnity engagement is needed on the hand.the rejection of the stupidity enclosed within "the Big Society"must be the conservative ideal to be dismantled,then we can start to attack this surface authoritarism called style.Should be exciting times.But dont shed to mant tears for the Arts establishment.theyb are our enimies.

PART 2

The question is why the neglect from the media?Part of the answer can be found in the mentality of media reporting.Carnival is a resistance to a middle class mind set.When Carnival first appeared on the streets of Notting Hill the area was a slum owned by slum landlords,now its a place of privileged upper class families,who prefer to party in some one elses back yard for instance Reading or Glastonbury,safe havens where the amount of mud in the field is just as important as the musiac being delivered.
Carnival is about disruption,its mindset demands high octane fun and in your face partying,also there is a history of confrontation with authority.And its in this historical context that Carnival and the media has to be viewed.
Carnival is a collective act taking place within an atomised ,cultural ,climate.The participants are not seeking a celebrity exposure,they are enjoying the collective moment.
And remember these are the very people who keep the welfare state functioning,these are the unsung heroes who's art is more authentic than most media driven quest for instant fame and individual self glorification. And these are the people who are about to reap the carnage of the Conservative Coalitions onslaught into the very fabric of our life....

peoples art

Another year in the history of Carnival goes by without so much as a nod of appreciation in the media.Why is this?Is there something resembling snobbery in our sense of what real popular culture means.Carnival is the only time street theatre actually take to the streets on such a scale ,its the only time an event focusing an actual working class culture expresses its self on this level of commitment,maybe its the only true democratic art form which offers up any resemblance towards resistance to excepted "norms" of conventional cultural industry constructs.Carnivals total lack of respect from the established cultural mind set must mean its importance as an act of working class commitment to a democratic art form still posses the ability to disturb the values of a predominately bourgeois ideal of art and social representation of the other.
Carnival is an historic event born out of a struggle to combat racism and to inform the stus quo,that the days Britain's imperial role was coming to an end.Carnival celebrated the arrival of a new world. Its survival as a celebration of cultural struggle and class counteraction continues a struggle which began at the near end of empire phase of this Islands history.So why the neglect

whats dave up to

the kingdom appears to be led by a man with a serious personality disorder.Dave,our needy leader, gives the impression of a man in need of a life.For some unknown reason he wants the nation to view him as an "action man"and a loving father.The fact he looks a complete idiot seems to have by passed his vanity.Even the slushy photo of him gazing into the face of his new born child doesn't really have the air of authenticity.What is behind the facade?
Well we only need to look at the photos of him jogging with our boys in Afghanistan.Certainly he looks daft,buts its the expression on the faces of the men he is jogging with which gives the game away.Look closely at their gaze.What is amusing is a mixed sense of bewilderment and anger which is in evidence in their looks towards the great athlete they are privileged to be running with.What we don't know is how much this boys own adventure cost the tax payer.Because the guys Dave is jogging with are not your regular "Tommy".No way,those men would have fully pumped up SAS trained killers and they don't come cheap.
Dave running around in a compound somewhere in Afghanistan was a sick publicity stunt.What goes on his head?Theres a bloody awful war going on and He decides to have a jog! He looks oblivious to the reality he is in that moment in time.For Dave its all about "his moment"Its a complete act of Narcissism,he is oblivious to other individuals external existence.He operates with his own inner vision and needs desperately to project that vision of himself onto the outside world.He is a demanding child in permanent need of reassurance.

apologies for the last post

MASSIVE APOLOGY FOR LAST POST...IT WAS WRITTEN WHEN I HAD A SPLITTING HEADACHE IT READS LIKE A MESS IT IS....MIGHT HAVE TO REWRITE THE WHOLE BLOODY THING.....................HELP

TV Culture

Seems like Iv been away for ages I have trying to get my mind around this Government. its time we got real and stop referring to the present bunch of fanatical monetarists as the Conservative Gov.the idea of a coalition is simply stupid and a con.Their concept of culture is balanced by a need to pacify the rising interest of the of "culture" among the young middle class voters.Basically its depply Conservative and doesent show any sign of improving.What appears to de happening is an exceptance of the status quo,what we see now is nothing more than a reash of previous cultural ideas only now they have been coloniesed by this heavy involvment of TV which appears to dominate most of the "debate"around "culture"Its nothing more than old constructs dressed up as something new.Culture becomes nothing more than a gloosy magazine presentation which elevates supposed popular values above experimentation.
The other day I made some attempt at watching the Culture Show on BBC2,it was nothing more than an advert for the Edinburough festival which is nothing more than a tourist attraction.Its value as an event remains unquestionable, and this is a problem,this inability to question is,and must be seen as a dangerous turning point regarding the value and substance of creativity.
Creativity is now associated with fashion and the lastest Hollywood Blockbuster,cultural shows on TV rely on slick presentation and celebratity with the occasonal nod towards "Brit Art".This state of affairs must be a good thing.Culture grows ,TV and media in general represents the influx of money into creativity,this influx undermines the urge to challange,sometimes destruct the values of the prevailing culture,money and presentation bock out any notion of challange.
We must have the couarage to explore and question with the dominance of desire and money hovering in the shadows.Creativity must go underground again.Without the voice of reistance culture will be dominated by a class of indivduals who seek only a gap year of pleasure and cultural tourism with knowing the value of culture...

money

artists,true artists,must under stand the power of capital,no artist can work outside the mechanism of the financial empire which is destroying this culture,to turn away from a critique of finance is to turn away from the reality of the mind and the struggle inherent within the political reality.After all we are all born into a political world and the world will become more political.The right is rampant at the moment,Liberalism is nothing more than right wing ideology in sheep's clothing.Brit Art is creative abomination. A gulf is opening up and creativity needs to rekindle its focus and energy into a force of resistance and rediscover its spiritual energy.Its not to late.Something called a fight is needed,Brit Art was never a fight,it was a sham...

dave in India and more bad news

Dave strolls around in India mouthing off in that awful "I know best "tone much admired by our cringing media,for some reason its to referred as speaking "his mind".He sounds more like an over enthusiastic bully more in love with his ego than having anything of value to say.
So what about this weird trip,what did it achieve?Dave and the chaps have sold India a few bomber jets,which means India can now bomb its own people ,you know those people , people who don't like being kicked off their land,those people who have no rights at all in any part of the so called miracle,people who represent the poorest in the world,people we in the west don't see.
All we see is a replica of our selves,a small elite who suck the the life blood from the land and make dreadful films and are plain greedy.India is a mirage.
And what about our economy?This week the Baltic Exchange Dry released its forecasts and it isn't good,in fact it looks pretty awful.the recent rise in out put was down to the construction industry,ie school building plans and affordable housing. Osbornes cuts have put a stop to that little blip.Seems like Osborne and Dave are sharing the same ego maddness.Problem is we are going to suffer and they wont.Yup we are all in this together!!!

class and the arts

today a group of film makers expressed outrage at the the Coalition for cutting one of their major grant bodies!!Will will what did they expect?Are these luvies not part of the real world?Obviously not,having spent years attacking the hand that fed them(for all the wrong reasons) our luvie Friends must have expected that the Lib element in the coalition would protect from the harsh realities of the real world.Well now is the time to get real,duckies,Liberals are nothing better the Tories in sheep's clothing,this is the problem with the luvie kingdom,they are simple minded fools with over inflated egos,idiots without values.
Surly they didn't expect to live in cloud cuckoo land for ever?
The coming battle will be about class,most of the luvie element are by birth from the same background as their counter parts in the liberal party,they had better get real and stop this "upset"and start making films which reflect reality and not some invented landscape.People are going to suffer,come on down and join the coming storm and stop crying,this is a true class war enjoy the storm and learn about reality

peace camp

2am and the invasion of the peace camp begun and after a few hours it was over,well that's what the Gov hope,not content with attacking the camp this Gov want to close down ALL demonstrations on or near the,so called, green
So much for the new politics.The big society was launched yesterday and that was that stupid and out of touch.What did we expect from the toffs?Common seense? you must be joking. power and arrogence will be the undoing of this very creepy bunch of idiots

anarchy in Lib Dem/Con Gov...

we see the reality of this deranged Gov,led by a self confessed sales man,we are now having to suffer the truth.The truth is that endless search for meaning,its a painful path to tread,and ho boy are we treading a painful and dangerous path.Perceptions are important in the age of declining post modern ideology, I've always been deeply concerned about "the post modern" its lack of political engagement was always going to welcome the return of regressive political archetypes and impractical social solutions.
corresponding identification is what gels this coalition.Hypocritical credentials are important to present an equal vision of that something called progressive politics.In fact what we are witnessing is a great leap backwards into a regressive recognition of individualism over community values.
Last week the kingdom witnessed the totality of this backward,post modern reality,the Health service is going to be given over to the private sector without any consultation with professional health bodies or with the public.Already this gov is presenting two images to the public,one represents a Gov.with no respect for the public will,and importantly,It throws open the idea that the Gov is afraid of the people.Either way we are in for a very dangerous time.
This Gov is arrogant before it is settled into the real task of hard work.Its elitist background,and ,birth,hasn't prepared the male dominated front bench to the actuality of delivery.In order to govern a sense of reality is needed,this boys club will implode under its class structure, because it is knotted at the hip to its own enclosed ideologies,there is no conceivable method for this class structure to confront the coming storms without resorting to extreme violence.Anarchy does have its positive attributes never the less at rote anarchy can embrace violence and this Gov is showing all the signs of wellcoming a violent confrontation with people whom it percieves as being the other..we are the other

time to start again

The heat played havoc with my mind,my sleep and my depression!! Yup summer is here and i ain't complaining,why should i its my depression,so for this of you who read this little,please except my apologies.My depression is all about me,what this foul,spiteful,group of elitist bullies are doing to the kingdom is all about us! Soon,a depression will descend on the kingdom and the bullies will say " don't worry we are all in this together" now is the time for the people in the kingdom to tell these privileged millionaires to simply" piss off".They are garbage with no sense of human dignity.Power is what they want and now power is what they have got.
These people will turn the clock back,they know only the values of their own sad lives.Its time to kick shit right back into their nasty right wing faces.
The right is anal retentive,a spite group of little people with over inflated egos for to long this group of third rate bullie boys are cowards and spitful,mini ,Nazis.The right needs to be put on the defensive and the only way to acheive this agenda is by going on the attack!!

middle england

where do we discover this state of mind,or better still where is this place ,is there a geographical location,an identifiable part of the landscape where we can point to and say "that is middle England"Middle England defines the political debate,it is the political landscape.So what is it?Is it simply the middle classes,if so why not refer to this definition as the middle class rather than some other identity,is it wrong to call middle England "middle class"?By defining a group by their class does the media raise the dreaded class debate,if so would the media understand what class is?middle England is a place out there,but the out there is non seen,it is only spoken about,yet the spoken word seems to undestand what this unseen place represents,middle England is refered to with "understanding"It represests something,but again this something is unspoken and unseen,never the less it appears knowable,but only to those who know it.
Middle England is an invention by which we pass judgement on the country.
But dose it exist?Some one explained to me their understanding of middle England,"its all that is decent about England"what does that mean?

it takes time

it takes time,but the truth is emerging,the budget is a disaster for the poor,we never learn the historical lesson ,the tories only ever look after their own.We only have to look at the make up of the front bench 18 milionaires,15 Oxbridge graduates and 13 educated in private schools, and what did this elite give us? A blood bath on the poor.
This is an ideologically_motivated Gov,with a salesman at the helm,they are plundering the public purse simply to push foreward unaccountable,risk prone,profit driven economic programme....the same programmes which gave us this mess inthe first place.
Simply we need a programme of mass moblisation,forget what we read in the press about the "riots " in Greece,these are mass protests which put fear into the hearts of the elite.
Can this country rise to the challange?
So far the sun and the football have worked its magic and drugged the populance into a sleepy summer day dream...it might start to cloud over very soon.We must join the the battle

the day after....

So now we know exactly what the coalition had in mind,you see I believe this set up occurred during the election.We have been coned by a class coup and what we have now is an attack on the whole welfare state.This is all about privatisation.this country will under go some kind of experimentation,a form of shock therapy.Behind the fine words is the iron grip of privatisation.The Welfare State is going to be dismantled and sold of at a cheap price. A budget designed to show the city that the country is open for the super sale of the country's assets.This budget is a sell off budget.We are becoming more and more American in our social out look.But we must be honest,New Labour began the process,now the blood bath is about to descend.
Low pay, no union representation,no workers rights,backwards into the distant past.
this country is ruled by a cabal of unelected individuals who's claim to fame is predicting the mystical flows of the market place,economics is not a science.Its a dodgy a theory which manages to convince sane people that it is based on fact!!

cat in the park

this afternoon I spent a wonderful time in Myatts Fields Park,a community event organised by a group of artists in conjunction with Stockwall Good Neighbours.Icouldent help thinking about what the Gov is going to hit us with on Tues.Was I looking at an event which is going to be the last of its kind or was I witnessing some new kind of community gathering.
The Cons and the Libs are going to carve us up,will we allow that to happen ? I think not.Maybe the people know more about action and togetherness than I give them credit for Alphi

once upon a time

once upon a time in the kingdom an idea took hold which said that working in the public sector was a noble cause and then came along a group of aliens who said the only way to be human is to make lots of money and sod everyone else.
And that's what happen,then one day things went all wrong and the kingdom had no money and the aliens blamed the workers,whilst at the same time they themselves still made lots and lots of money,but said the aliens the workers are hopeless and need to vanish......that's what happened

bloody Sunday

At last the truth is out!! the cover up is exposed. No one on the main land understood what was going on way back then.In many ways this was the last throw of the dice by the British Empire.It was murder on a vast scale.what now the right wing press who never wanted this murder enquiry to go ahead ?
Even this morning they where arguing about the cost of the whole proceedings. The fact that 12 innocent people where shot dead doesn't enter their warped sense of self righteousness.

the says "dont get fooled again"

Something stinks in the lib/con coalition.Something about treating us, the people,like simpletons.When did the agreement really take place?Suddenly Clegg gives the impression of a man who,at last as found his true home.Politically the Libs are neo cons.There is no denying this reality.But worse still they are locked into a coup.
This Kingdom is now ruled over by a group of privileged white men.Millionaires and privately educated these men live under the impression that they SHOULD rule over us. And lets not hold back on the truth ,these cuts need not happen.this is a coup!!We are under the rule of men who have no idea who we are or what we think and feel.
This is an experiment to undo the welfare state.These people live in fear of the bankers and the IMF,they don't know the meaning of reality.Neither does England.We have gone backwards.

How do I use the Blogger Reading List?

How do I use the Blogger Reading List?

cats in the theatre

Earlier in the day I was asked a very simple question,whats the value of theatre? good question.In today's tinsel town ideology I would argue that theatre is of value.But what meaning does it have? What is theatre in a market driven culture? Does it have meaning?What ritual does it perform if any? I'm going back to talk with this young man, I need to understand why he is asking this important question.
There was mention of "management"Culture and management should not co exist art and management is more suited to this present cultural atmosphere,theres something of the individualistic,conservatism which informs today's discourse around the notion"art".Culture as been consumed into a meaningless concoction of fantasy side shows which appears to embrace any thing under the label of cooperative entertainment
Art and culture are separate enteritis,never the less they should have one over riding ambition in common and that is to question society,even to the point of educating society.Art should be outside the norms and values of the existing elite,even though the elites will attempt to dominate the "outside"Culture is better placed to question the values of the elite.
Culture is fluid,its should reclaim its original meaning,and that is to nurture,Where does nurture fit into the values of today's atomised,globalised societies?Nurture is an act of survival it is also an act of rebellious confusions...More latter Im offto a Carnival jump up!!

cat in the countryside

On Monday 31st may I attempted a walk from London to Brighton nice try and a fun day walking through Middle England .Culture stands still in the country side,but this is the image people visualise when England is mentioned. The thatched cottage we know about,but its the other world we for get,the world of difference,the world trapped in its invented histories,and the world blinked by its whiteness.
On the walk was a guy from Zimbabwe he noticed the sideways glances first,the ultra polite
smile,the cold look,the expressed surprise about walking in the countryside.
We where walking in a strange land.England is a divided land.

the cat and the diggers

Art takes on a new angle down in Westminster a small group of activists have taken over the so called "Green" and set up a peace camp facing the Gothic Horror called Parliament.Now this is art, this where culture should be heading.A glorious reenactment of Gerald Winstanleys Utopian collective,a group who went by the name of "Diggers" at last art and culture is colliding into a direct confrontation with the elite classes who for the past 15 years have produced only advertising techniques parceled up into a box of wealthy treats.Something wonderful is taking place outside that decrepit monster.Something called chaos,something which disrupts the sensibilities of lorry drivers,public, and politicians,its a true protest and its authentic agit prop!!
A wonderful mish mass of ideology and hand me down propaganda.An improvised adventure playground which seems to know exactly where to aim the shit.Above all this is a dream scape with a mission.It wants to inform the public about US.US the people,we the people who have been sleep walking into our own private nightmares,this is ART and reality.Its a free platform.You may not like it but at least its got guts,naivety,commitmentment,honesty and human dignity.This should be the new direction.
The tourists don't mind it one bit.On the continent they do things differently.Maybe they appriciate the true value of cultueral action.

dreams from the cat

Maybe the truth is out at last.Art and Culture sold out to the greed and ugliness of the past 20 years.Bleak and self satisfying cliques formed elitists coalitions in a sickening scramble for recognition from an even more demeaning elite, the stone faces of dysfunctional billion and millionaires.
Brit Art is dead !! An advertising movement created by an arch conservative offered nothing to society The media loved the whole spectacle.It wasn't political,was simply naughty,it was a movement with no sense of history,mostly patriarchal and very suburban and very right ring.Anti intellectual sentiments played into the lazy post modern formula which almost embraced the surface only mentality of "fashion fascism".
In its rush to be seen as being anti elitist Brit Art worshipped at the shit encrusted feet of the old establishment. It offered nothing original except self promotion and new advertising techniques.

one idea

Three o'clock in the morning and a simplistic fact drifted through the sleepy,dreamy ,anxiety.The Kingdom is ruled by two men who are really very dysfunctional,and ,no matter what their buddies suggest in the media,are not good leaders. Cameron should have walked the election,his ability as a salesman are good,but they are not brilliant. He had an open goal,and missed the opportunity,Why?
Well the media,which had a bad election,wont go into any serious analyses,they didn't get the result they wanted,and now give the impression of floating on a becalmed sea waiting for life support to appear on some distant horizon.
What about Cleeg?In reality he lead his party to a very bad result indeed.Why is there no talk concerning "what went wrong?"The Libs must know they fared badly,one ok performance on tv doesn't make a half decent leader
This love in concerns class and education and privilege,may be the history books will uncover a dirtylittle secret,the deal was done during the second week of the campaign.?

the summer of love

This unnatural love affair being played out in the public domain by the over hyper political buddies reminds me of the summer of love.All very dreamy and other worldly.Then along came Charlie Manson and the world turned upside down.Maybe Ashcroft is lurking in the shadows.How does he feel?He spent millions on raving nutters getting into Parliament and wakes up to find hippies in his bed!!Shit this is hell.
Hats off to the toffs.Old money rules again!
Always remember,most hippies where privileged bastards playing at revolution,they slummed in the mud of music festivals and played with drugs in Nottinghill Gate before going home to mum and dad.The reality became to real for them.Now their off springs are making out they are just like us.Indeed some of those off springs are ruling over us..Oh God.Hell really is empty.Its a fine day in the Highlands.Work that one out!

strange times

so the collation goes on,more a upper class love,two men from the same social class,two white men unrepresentative of a modern democracy, once opposed to each other,now bonded by the will to power.This is a class coup.Its a minor revolution gone unnoticed in the media.What is the future of this coming together?Suddenly politics is about class.Just because these two men give the appearance of being very amenable,dosent suggest the future is going to be all a public school boy get together.Icant see this stitch up continuing in its present state.

dont worry

Don't worry folks this is only the beginning.Osborne and the Lib Dems are really going to give to us.This is pay back time, the liberal elite are going to show their true colours.Forget the idea about how nice the liberals are,or,where,this lot are a cut from the same cloth as their new masters.They will soon be no different from the Cons, in the end power corrupts all people,but the weak soon give into its seductive embrace much faster than those who believe they are in titled to rule over us.
The Leb Dems may even be far worse than Cons.
Why not?Its power stupid.

same story.No change at the top.

Spent the past few days enjoying the mess of the new politics more like "the big tent"idea.Still the media enjoyed another round of "lets make fantasy exciting.I simply love the way they stand in empty streets imagining what might be going on behind closed doors.
But lets ask ourselves a question,these people got ,almost, everything wrong during the media campaign,that's a fact.Now, how comes they ear still in work?
These creeps attack M.P.s whilst themselves clinging to there creepy jobs.
Self important nerds will have a ball for the next few months making up more gossip,then, hopefully, they may start to vanish into what ever sewer they crawled out from.
Lots of my friend's are depressed because we will have to put up with Big Head Cameron for the next few years.Shit these people dont know what depression is.GET UP AND FIGHT!!
Come on these pamperd creeps should be made mince meat.they are lead by a sad man seeking reality from yhr only job he ever held,and that was"a sales man"Image mangement" soon turns into a nightmare...Watch this space

democracy and we still dont get it

spent some time watching the news.Why bother.We still don't get it.Times are changing,but our friends in the old time media still live by the old script.Mostly self obsessed middle aged white men blowing hot and cold coming out with very odd ideas whilst standing in front of closed doors and imagining what might be going on behind them.Mad,Surreal,and arrogant.
And I don't remember a thing these over inflated egos spoke about.It was all about them.Who listens to them any way.The echo chamber still echos to the sound of its own voice.Next time the media holds one of its debates bring in the other party's.London isn't England and England isn't Britain.
The talking heads need to understand this little reality.God why are they so boring.

we still dont get it

So the great debate continues and we still don't get it.Cameron and clan are stuck in some space between disbelief and disparate disquiet,they simply don't get it!The people don't trust you lot your to arrogant you try to hard to look and behave like the rest of of us and it don't look right, you see birth still counts in this country,and you lot are to privileged to think in normal terms.
But still large sections of the country wanted you lot in, so something is not right!
Oh well let the struggle continue.
Smug bastards still might rule over us ......are we really thick?

its over for now

So the media party is over.
Is it me,maybe it is me,but if i was member of the Cons i wouldn't be over joyed with last nights results.
They don't get it.Never did never will.They will never, ever ,understand the idea of radical change.Just look them at and cry,not out of pity, rather out of false hope.These Cons wont know what the coming storm will deliver. Arrogance will undo there sense of entitlement.
But look at the media.Its old and past it sell by date.Yet we listen and watch and believe they have some deeper insight into the secrets of the political landscape. The media is more out of touch than the politicians...more on this at a latter.I don't feel as bad as i thought i would feel.The Cons cant be to happy,labour isn't yet dead and the Lib Dems still live in cloud cuckoo land!
Our system isn't, yet, coming to terms with the changing attitudes of the population Maybe the population haven't come to terms with its own ability to effect CHANGE...I don't know I'm tired.

soon the end will here!

for some truly bizarre reason Cameron spent night the meeting people.Gimmick ? This is the problem with Cameron he is trying to be everything to everyone.He aint real,in fact,he is starting to look like Blair in
the final days of his rule over us.The big problem with Cameron is WHO is he?
He is starting to come across as a extremely shallow man.
Maybe its my depression, maybe depression heightens a sense of introspection which is projected onto those individuals who themselves might have might have some deeper emotional trauma.We all see Gordon Brown and we all see the fatal flaws in his personality,but ,this raises the issue of honesty,we tend to turn away from people who display their traumas on their sleeves,Brown becomes more interesting in the light of his struggle with his demons. What we see with Brown is a man struggling with a personality which is not suited to public scrutiny.
Brown becomes more interesting when we understand the mechanisms of power within the British state operates.Brown is confused about the role of power and the changing culture in which this culture operates.Brown represents the last of the old style leaders. Blair set an example in media leadership values.Brown had no way of matching that con trick.Brown is an old style intellectual,leader out of place in an environment he cannot emotionally grasp. In many ways the state doesn't have to change,its the individuals within the structures of the state who must change.But they have to change in that other culture which is becoming more and more dominate within society and that culture is the media.Brown is not yet media friendly.
Browns world is the world of the closed door.MORE LATTR

a change in direction

In the media the temperature is rising,the politics is in mad land over drive and sanity is out of fashion its a joke and no one in media land can hear themselves above their hysterical shouting.Its a wild,manic over drive and I'm convinced they ain't on drugs which makes the circus more frightening,if these guys and galls were smashed out of their skulls we would have more insight into the minds of the media freaks.
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK.
Now,tomorrow,I'm off to start up business.A charity. a walking,running charity, a fun charity.more on this latter.My friend Richard will be working in partnership with me!!

Drill Baby Drill

Lets here it from the wild west show out there in Gods own country!!Drill Baby Drill.We need to pollute the whole the goddam world if its in the name of God!
Come on Sara Palin lets here it one more time Drill Baby Drill and lets all have a mad hatters tea party and blame Satin and the Muslim conspiracy and all those folks we hate(like the whole wide world)
Crazy Yanks.Crazy Land.Dangerous Empire.
What idiot gave the drilling rights to B.P.? The company with a great history in protecting the environment. Dont get all uppity you folks out there this is profit so shut it!

coming soon..anew blog re art and culture

Coming soon a new blog dealing with culture and art in the meantime just keep reading what comes up on this one.Eventually this blog will concentrate on politics and society.A new message wil appear soon talking about artist and shakers who dont get the attention they deserve.See you latterA

crashing down fast

The other day i was strolling around Euston Station watching people spending money in the vast shopping complex which calls itself the terminal,good description for the future i thought.Something is not right.This is collective addiction.We are hot wired to plastic and spending like crazy just wait until the party closes its doors and we are left with nothing except our unfulfilled desires.Addiction is a killer. Before it strikes addiction allows us to participate in a delusion of displacement activities.What most people don't know about addiction is, it knows how to wait. Its a silent assassin.
We are spending in the hope that tomorrow will never arrive.Unfortunately tomorrow does arrive and in this case our whole being will be turned upside.Will we know what to do when we wont have the money to spend on goods we could afford last week but cant afford this week.Don't call on lady luck our luck is run dry.Have we really become a culture addicted to commodity?If we have then we are heading for a mental health car crash.There is no short cut out of addiction,you cant master it .Addiction takes over your whole life.Its not a minor aliment .Its life in some kind of desperate hell.
Maybe I'm being pessimistic but my take on this crises coming our way is we have misjudged the culture which this England has embraced over the years.Being hot wired into commodities we don't need is the path into addiction.The crack up might be silent,but its going to be awful and cruel,like depression addiction induces silence in the individual who is going through a very personal horror trip.We still don't have a clue in this country about the silence of deep emotional suffering people endure.
Economics is cruel ,its a rapacious beast,we have brought into the image of the beast,the party was all part if the shadow left by the beast,now people will be devoured by the monster.And the wise men and women who created this monster our smirking at our discomfort.They really have got away with something morally repugnant and we the people let them eat their cake and spit out into our faces...Lets start getting real..The road from addiction is painful and its a wake up call.."And God Sent Noah The Rainbow Sign No More Water The Fire Next Time"

america x

The other morning my eyes caught sight of a large,hair brushed poster,announcing yet another arrival of a poor me American war series.American men,in these porno adventure stories always give the impression of carrying the burden of destiny on their shoulders.This is the Empire projecting its image and values into our living rooms.Here we have the lone hero in some far flung shit hole of the world defending the civilised world from the gathering storm.
What is interesting about this poster is the impact of the image and what it actually tells us about the projection of a new masculinity.
But first look at what is going on in the background.Its the tell tale weaponry portrayed to brutalising effect in Apocalypse Now.Helicopters and burning villages.We are in the territory of war is hell for the American Hero.but for the foreign other,hell is what they have coming to them
So we know the plot without having to sit through the violence.Maybe the production values will be high,this concept only enforces the the underlying cowboy story lines which ,in reality is all these war interpretations are about.
Something else is going on in this poster and that is the image of the man,a clean cut American with designer stubble and Californian Beach bum good looks is gazing at us.But what is he representing?What war is he fighting in?Because at a glance, this image is saying something interesting
Are we looking at a Roman solider on the fringes of Empire Because without doubt this air brushed image is presenting a series of mixed messages.The lone Roman legionnaire facing the corruption of an Empire and the dangers of Barbarian infiltration, was toyed with recently in the Gladiator,the ultimate historical geezer adventure,
Are we now being feed with the image of America on its mission to defend the civilised world alone.The last of the Romans in a landscape of feminine Greeks.History is a playground for Hollywood. The Westerns invented the notion of strong individualism and moral certitude.Now we may be witnessing another Western on a grander Historical scale.
The poster and its message could also imply the deep uncertainty which lies at the very heart of the American Empire.After all the Roman Empire feel apart at a time when nobody believed it could, and once it started to unravel the whole edifice proved to be a landscape ruled over by bullies and crooks.
Just an early morning thought