Whatcha reading?

[101Walterton]

Who'll be laughing when my very slight knowledge of the Earl of Bute's relationship with the young George III somehow comes in very handy?

Blame Corbyn for this. It was him that made me feel the need to catch up on the Labour Party (I wasn't going to have some shithead University educated journalists on twitter know more than me. I learnt they were instant comprisers) and then mainstream Brit politics in general. I had it reinforced, like the Kanye song, nobody should have all that power. On the plus side, this could never be comprehensive like the Prez Project. There's too many obscure Premiers that even dusty old Tories haven't written biographies on them. My plan is to read the greatest hits and then all the guys after Thatcher. Who I've already got lined up.

Are you seriously going to read that book about John Major.
I hope there are a lot of pictures because I don’t know what else could fill up all those pages

You better believe it.

I can only see him as the grey Spitting Image puppet.

[BitterTom]

Today I started When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock. (I'm unimaginative and can't do fiction.) I read it 7 years ago and remember being extremely impressed but depressed as well. It's very well written but he was one of the many tragic clowns. Hilarious on screen/radio yet a completely different character off. His raging alcoholism was shocking to read about, as was the state the man must have been in when he decided to end it all.

Happy Christmas all.

[Silent Majority]

Today I started When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock. (I'm unimaginative and can't do fiction.) I read it 7 years ago and remember being extremely impressed but depressed as well. It's very well written but he was one of the many tragic clowns. Hilarious on screen/radio yet a completely different character off. His raging alcoholism was shocking to read about, as was the state the man must have been in when he decided to end it all.

Happy Christmas all.

I read a half decent bio of Hancock some years ago, can't remember the writer. He's a minor character in a lot of the classic light entertainment books that's a quiet interest of mine. There's a monument to Tony in the centre of Birmingham where a lot of rowdy homeless drunks convene. Fitting, and funny that he'd hate that.

[Silent Majority]

Anyone got a line on a ebook of Bill Carter's the Late Shift? My usual hunting grounds are only bringing up the War For Late Night, which I've read.

[Dr. Medulla]

Anyone got a line on a ebook of Bill Carter's the Late Shift? My usual hunting grounds are only bringing up the War For Late Night, which I've read.

Check your PMs, you stinking scrounger.

[Dr. Medulla]

Finished Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division last night. There's nothing there, really, that adds to the story, if you've read any of the other histories or memoirs of participants. It's not a bad book by any means, but rather just more of the familiar. Still, it really hit me, as it always does, that IC's suicide is that circling vulture over the band's story. We know that's how it ends, but it dominates the narrative in a way that obscures other aspects of the story. That is, it's not about post-punk and figuring out where to go from punk, or Factory's independence, or working-class kids' success, or just the energizing nature of the music. That the story ends in such a bleak manner is always there, looming larger and larger as the we get closer to May 1980. Which is such a goddamned shame. Maybe I'm wrong, but does Nirvana's story have that same shadow?

[Silent Majority]

Finished Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division last night. There's nothing there, really, that adds to the story, if you've read any of the other histories or memoirs of participants. It's not a bad book by any means, but rather just more of the familiar. Still, it really hit me, as it always does, that IC's suicide is that circling vulture over the band's story. We know that's how it ends, but it dominates the narrative in a way that obscures other aspects of the story. That is, it's not about post-punk and figuring out where to go from punk, or Factory's independence, or working-class kids' success, or just the energizing nature of the music. That the story ends in such a bleak manner is always there, looming larger and larger as the we get closer to May 1980. Which is such a goddamned shame. Maybe I'm wrong, but does Nirvana's story have that same shadow?

I don't think so. It's wrong to talk about inevitabilities, but that story seems helplessly geared towards that conclusion.

[Dr. Medulla]

Finished Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division last night. There's nothing there, really, that adds to the story, if you've read any of the other histories or memoirs of participants. It's not a bad book by any means, but rather just more of the familiar. Still, it really hit me, as it always does, that IC's suicide is that circling vulture over the band's story. We know that's how it ends, but it dominates the narrative in a way that obscures other aspects of the story. That is, it's not about post-punk and figuring out where to go from punk, or Factory's independence, or working-class kids' success, or just the energizing nature of the music. That the story ends in such a bleak manner is always there, looming larger and larger as the we get closer to May 1980. Which is such a goddamned shame. Maybe I'm wrong, but does Nirvana's story have that same shadow?

I don't think so. It's wrong to talk about inevitabilities, but that story seems helplessly geared towards that conclusion.

I was trying to think of other music narratives that have that tragic conclusion that ends up dominating the whole story. Sid Vicious? Maybe, tho not especially for me. Nirvana? Again, maybe, but they achieved such immense fame that it counters the awful ending. John Lennon's story isn't governed by his murder, nor Elvis his drug-addled decline. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix—not them either. But Joy Division keeps coming back to the idea that this is a story of a band whose singer killed himself.

[Silent Majority]

Finished Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division last night. There's nothing there, really, that adds to the story, if you've read any of the other histories or memoirs of participants. It's not a bad book by any means, but rather just more of the familiar. Still, it really hit me, as it always does, that IC's suicide is that circling vulture over the band's story. We know that's how it ends, but it dominates the narrative in a way that obscures other aspects of the story. That is, it's not about post-punk and figuring out where to go from punk, or Factory's independence, or working-class kids' success, or just the energizing nature of the music. That the story ends in such a bleak manner is always there, looming larger and larger as the we get closer to May 1980. Which is such a goddamned shame. Maybe I'm wrong, but does Nirvana's story have that same shadow?

I don't think so. It's wrong to talk about inevitabilities, but that story seems helplessly geared towards that conclusion.

I was trying to think of other music narratives that have that tragic conclusion that ends up dominating the whole story. Sid Vicious? Maybe, tho not especially for me. Nirvana? Again, maybe, but they achieved such immense fame that it counters the awful ending. John Lennon's story isn't governed by his murder, nor Elvis his drug-addled decline. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix—not them either. But Joy Division keeps coming back to the idea that this is a story of a band whose singer killed himself.

No, I don't feel it with Sid, either. There's no palpable sense of time counting down to the end there, in the same way Joy Division's history does. Maybe there's some of that with the dudes in the plane with the drunken monkey pilot who inspired that dull Don McLean song?

[Dr. Medulla]

Maybe there's some of that with the dudes in the plane with the drunken monkey pilot who inspired that dull Don McLean song?

Yeah, that might be. I'm not super into the mythos of Holly and Valens to know whether their stories are treated as lives leading to tragedy, but I could see it.

[Silent Majority]

Maybe there's some of that with the dudes in the plane with the drunken monkey pilot who inspired that dull Don McLean song?

Yeah, that might be. I'm not super into the mythos of Holly and Valens to know whether their stories are treated as lives leading to tragedy, but I could see it.

I think for most people, particularly for Buddy Holly, but with Valens, too, the feeling is that their story of an amazing talent getting obliterated before it had any chance to mature. You'd be familiar with the Stephen King short story "You Know They Got A Hell of a Band" about how creepy he found it that all these young artists kept dying.

Googling to get the title right, seems there's a cheap TV adaptation here.

[Dr. Medulla]

Maybe there's some of that with the dudes in the plane with the drunken monkey pilot who inspired that dull Don McLean song?

Yeah, that might be. I'm not super into the mythos of Holly and Valens to know whether their stories are treated as lives leading to tragedy, but I could see it.

I think for most people, particularly for Buddy Holly, but with Valens, too, the feeling is that their story of an amazing talent getting obliterated before it had any chance to mature. You'd be familiar with the Stephen King short story "You Know They Got A Hell of a Band" about how creepy he found it that all these young artists kept dying.

Googling to get the title right, seems there's a cheap TV adaptation here.

And, in part thanks to Don McLean, the notion that their deaths represented the end of real rock n roll, that it was so much bigger than a few people's (and an unqualified monkey pilot's) deaths.

(Nightmares & Dreamscapes is a helluva good short story collection. Generally speaking, I prefer King's short fiction—more focused, less flab than in his novels.)

[Flex]

Syd Barrett era with the Floyd. Not death, but his impending non functionality.

[Dr. Medulla]

Syd Barrett era with the Floyd. Not death, but his impending non functionality.

Yeah, definitely. Any discussion about the Barrett era is clouded by the understanding that this kid is going to lose his mind.

[Dr. Medulla]

Bedtime:

Just re-released. Quite short, a series of brief essays on what conservatism means in terms of many facets of life (family, religion, nation …). The real interest is in contrasting this with the tire fire that modern conservatism represents, whether its libertarianism that further empowers the wealthy or white nationalism.