"a Simon Reynolds level culture blog" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"my brain thinks bloglike"
Monday, November 01, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
"But it's amazing what you can achieve when you just go for it. In James May's Man Lab we built our own pub – from the bar and the pumps to the flock wallpaper"
Is that bathos, or pathos? Or both?
And then on his idea of creating "an ideal gentlemen's club", somewhere blokes can bring their DIY and fix-it-up projects and share tools:
"You do a bit of woodwork or metalwork and have a beer at the same time."
Sounds a bit dangerous!
Still this is something I have wondered myself in recent years: like, do people still have hobbies? Or does leisure now consist overwhelmingly of social networking, fandom,knowledge-nerdery, etc etc i.e. entirely textual/cultural... When I were a lad, seemed like a lot of people (kids and adults) made models, whittled wood, inserted miniature ships inside bottles, etc etc. It's hard to imagine anyone still engages in these pastimes, but perhaps there's a whole underworld.
In amidst the anecdotes about building bodged-together frankenstein-style bicycles and remote-controlled aeroplanes May ventures some social analysis:
"There's a generational difference at work here. Basic mechanics and woodwork were common currency at a time when Britain was much more of a manufacturing nation. I spent my formative years in South Yorkshire, where a lot of people's dads were employed in industry, and making stuff with your hands was just seen as a natural extension of the culture of the area. And yes, with the disappearance of those industries, the skills, too, have disappeared to some extent."
A good point. In a postproduction society you're going to have more and more people who aren't good with their hands, they're good with information. Code-work, net-navigation, pattern recognition, semionautical skills, etc etc
Is that bathos, or pathos? Or both?
And then on his idea of creating "an ideal gentlemen's club", somewhere blokes can bring their DIY and fix-it-up projects and share tools:
"You do a bit of woodwork or metalwork and have a beer at the same time."
Sounds a bit dangerous!
Still this is something I have wondered myself in recent years: like, do people still have hobbies? Or does leisure now consist overwhelmingly of social networking, fandom,knowledge-nerdery, etc etc i.e. entirely textual/cultural... When I were a lad, seemed like a lot of people (kids and adults) made models, whittled wood, inserted miniature ships inside bottles, etc etc. It's hard to imagine anyone still engages in these pastimes, but perhaps there's a whole underworld.
In amidst the anecdotes about building bodged-together frankenstein-style bicycles and remote-controlled aeroplanes May ventures some social analysis:
"There's a generational difference at work here. Basic mechanics and woodwork were common currency at a time when Britain was much more of a manufacturing nation. I spent my formative years in South Yorkshire, where a lot of people's dads were employed in industry, and making stuff with your hands was just seen as a natural extension of the culture of the area. And yes, with the disappearance of those industries, the skills, too, have disappeared to some extent."
A good point. In a postproduction society you're going to have more and more people who aren't good with their hands, they're good with information. Code-work, net-navigation, pattern recognition, semionautical skills, etc etc
Saturday, October 30, 2010
it gets significantly better than this
but i've flipped my opinion on the Furs
they had Style
people have various complaints about what got left out of Rip It Up, the notion that a book is necessarily Finite doesn't seem to occur to them, but out of the "by your own definition, this fits" objections, the ones that do strike me as having some pertinence are:
Why not The Clash? (yeah yeah they made lots of postpunk-y/even PiL-y moves - dub,funk, rap, world-y -- but too rock'n'roll aren't they?)
Why not The Police? (yeah yeah, innovative, the punky reggae thing, live did all this improvisational stuff stretching out the songs, guitar-as-texture, drums-as-lead, Very Serious Political Lyrics, also anticipating New Pop with their characterful videos etc etc -- but they are part of the phenomenon, which is worth coming back to, of Crypto-Prog New Wave/Ex-Prog Infiltrating New Wave)
Why not The Stranglers? (I totally agree actually... they even went New Poppy/synthpoppy with "European Female", an easy transition what with them already being synthrock).
And then the Psychedelic Furs, who were Peel faves circa the singles that led up to the first album, and did also make the transition, rather effectively one concedes in retrospect, to New Pop with this Visage/Japan remodelling of sound and image. although it didn't succeed as New Pop in the U.K. (none of those songs were hits, i don't think) but only in the USA as part of the Second British Invasion / MTV wave.
going back to the Peel-fave era and the first album (which I bought at the time), this was my favourite of those three early Furs singles. and it is entrancing as an exercise in vapid yet compelling atmosphere/mystique (very much a la Bolan/Banshees actually)
but i've flipped my opinion on the Furs
they had Style
people have various complaints about what got left out of Rip It Up, the notion that a book is necessarily Finite doesn't seem to occur to them, but out of the "by your own definition, this fits" objections, the ones that do strike me as having some pertinence are:
Why not The Clash? (yeah yeah they made lots of postpunk-y/even PiL-y moves - dub,funk, rap, world-y -- but too rock'n'roll aren't they?)
Why not The Police? (yeah yeah, innovative, the punky reggae thing, live did all this improvisational stuff stretching out the songs, guitar-as-texture, drums-as-lead, Very Serious Political Lyrics, also anticipating New Pop with their characterful videos etc etc -- but they are part of the phenomenon, which is worth coming back to, of Crypto-Prog New Wave/Ex-Prog Infiltrating New Wave)
Why not The Stranglers? (I totally agree actually... they even went New Poppy/synthpoppy with "European Female", an easy transition what with them already being synthrock).
And then the Psychedelic Furs, who were Peel faves circa the singles that led up to the first album, and did also make the transition, rather effectively one concedes in retrospect, to New Pop with this Visage/Japan remodelling of sound and image. although it didn't succeed as New Pop in the U.K. (none of those songs were hits, i don't think) but only in the USA as part of the Second British Invasion / MTV wave.
going back to the Peel-fave era and the first album (which I bought at the time), this was my favourite of those three early Furs singles. and it is entrancing as an exercise in vapid yet compelling atmosphere/mystique (very much a la Bolan/Banshees actually)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)