My best Christmas present this year was a juicer. Easy to set-up, quick to produce juice, and seemingly very efficient; I have also never felt better (drinking juice) than I did after my first experiment with orange, carrot, and red pepper.
This morning I had orange, clementine, tomato, carrot and celery, which was just okay. Tonight, instead of drinking myself into a stupor, I will be drinking watermelon, kiwi, blackberries, and apple juice. Laura thinks that the health benefit I feel might be psychosomatic, but it feels pretty somatic to me.
A part of me wants to take it all too far and go on a raw juice f(e)ast, like Steve Pavlina did a couple of months ago. In his case the effects were not very benign at all and he seemed to be quite unhappy by the end of it. The thinking is that by consuming nutrients in juice form your body doesn’t have to spend as much energy digesting heavy loads of fibre and cellulose. Just think what you could do with all that energy. Well, if you’re Steve Pavlina, you might want to write lengthy articles about self-development. Hmmm.
Tonight I am going to be eating caviar, writing poetry, and watching Die Hard. Hope you have a similarly fantastic start to 2009!
Imagine the situation. It’s Boxing Day and my Dad’s side of the family are sitting around the table for dinner. I am getting a glass when I hear my sister’s voice beckoning my nephew. In front of me I see my sister’s exact hairstyle — colour, length, texture — and assume that auditory and visual inputs correlate. And so, just as any normal brother would do, I decide to muss up her hair. This is just one of the tactics I could have employed. On other occasions I might have tickled her or put her into a headlock, but she is pregnant so I thought I should just leave it at that.
She turned around and, instead of my sister, I found myself confronted by my Dad’s new girlfriend (who I had met for the first time the previous day). She had been standing in front of my sister and I hadn’t realized that they had similar hair. She looked slightly unnerved by my over-familiar hair mussing, but accepted my explanation and apology.
For me, it was embarrassment at its purest. It was the feeling you get when your social ego is pricked by its inability to accord to social expectations. People don’t get embarrassed with their families because they know each other well enough not to care about social expectations. A new addition to the family circle reintroduces the possibility of embarrassment and, like a fool, I pounced on it.
In non-family situations, a person’s susceptibility to embarrassment depends greatly they are wrapped in their own ego, a construct that only exists in relation to others. At first this seems counter-intuitive: the people we know who are most often embarrassed are those mousy, tentative people not brash egoists, but I would argue that the reason they are mousy is because they worry too much about how they appear to others.
Regarding confidence, we could say that there is two types of: the kind which is based on the world’s opinion of you and the kind which is based on not caring what anyone thinks. But which kind of confidence is better? The former is more fragile and liable to send you spinning into insecurity, but it is also more self-aware. The latter is more robust, but alienating.
Finally, how can we get rid of embarrassment? Devotees of NLP will tell you to imagine watching yourself in a cinema with the embarrassing moment playing out on the screen. You should drain the scene of colour, slow it down, reduce the volume and then shrink it until it disappears. This does seem to work, but often the embarrassment will catch before you get to the box office. In these cases, I find it best to get out of yourself — try to get into somebody else’s mind and forget about your own.
Still ill and off work, bunged up and doing my best to flush out whatever virus I caught. I keep telling myself that I am building up my resistance, as Nietzsche said: Even strong occasionally get fatigued. I may have got that quote wrong. I am paraphrasing it from one of my favourite comfort movies, The Negotiator, where it is spoken by Paul Giametti to the protagonist, Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson).
I don’t know why The Negotiator isn’t better known. It is fantastic, up there with Die Hard as a high-concept action film. Jackson looks bizarre in it, like a ginger frog, but is perfect for the role of hostage negotiator framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Combined with Kevin Spacey’s career-defining performance as Chris Sabian (the characters have great names: Frost, Argento, Palermo … and Sabian, which is like a cross between the words ‘save’ and ‘symbian’).
Like Shooter (the other film that I saw today in order to lift my spirits), The Negotiator is a film about one man rising up against all odds to defeat an amoral enemy. I wonder if it unconsciously encourages my white blood cells to do their jobs better? Possibly not. Maybe I should watch a good war film, where the enemy are defeated by team effort rather than elevating the lone hero. I doubt that white blood cells are ever lone heroes.
Non-alcoholic drinks, like non-fiction books, are defined by what they are not. If black people were instead called non-white there would be uproar. Respect begins with acknowledgment and understanding. I know I am occasionally sniffy about PoMo attempts to decentre discourse, but in this instance I think life would be richer if books and drinks were described more carefully.
The notion that the novel is central to literary culture is long gone. Where once there were stacks of fiction there are now celebrity biographies and books about atheism. I would go further and consign the contemporary novel to the back of the store, but perhaps I just haven’t read any good ones lately.
More problematic is the case with drinks, where pubs seem determined to keep the amount of juices and teas down to a bare minimum. Combine that with a preference for grime and disrepair and it is not hard to see why people need alcohol.
Thinking about resolutions, I have decided that I am going to not drink anything alcoholic in January. I will document my findings into what alternatives are available.
Sheffield was nice. It has changed a lot since I was last there four or five years ago, notably the approach to the city from the station now has huge water features and there is an Andrew Motion poem there that encourages people to think ‘what if’. This blue sky thinking doesn’t much accord with the Yorkshiremen that I know, one of whom, my uncle Chris, is about thirty times more opinionated than I am.
He is currently campaigning against a Cemex fuel processing plant being built in his local village. Apparently Warwickshire county council are one of the worst in the country for recycling and so are encouraging this use of incineration to make up for the fact that they are running out of landfill. Chris made the interesting point that recycling is a complete con, reliant upon massive over-consumption of things that use too much packaging.
If you want to be ecofriendly then don’t consume, otherwise repair and reuse things rather than just chucking them away. It is something that we are going to have to get used to once we have hundreds of millions of people in Asia wanting to live at western standards and driving prices skywards. Chris Martenson’s crash course powerpoint presentation shows how difficult it is now to get copper from the ground and how the same will start happening to oil and all the other non-renewable resources.
The answer is to do and consume less in order that we might live more sustainably: the current efforts to bail out the ailing world economy is a waste of time if, as a consequence, we end up sailing over the edge of a waterfall.
Had a brilliant Christmas day with my nephews. We played Mario Kart on the Wii, charades, Monopoly and paper scissors rock. Even though they are only six and almost four, I refuse to patronize them by letting them win, preferring to let them experience the joy that comes from winning fairly and the humility of being well and truly thrashed. As happens every time I see my nephews and young cousins, I start engaging in child psychology, fascinated by how they interact with the world.
For my cousins, six year old twin girls, all the world is a stage — inspired as they are by High School Musical and Hannah Montana — and everyone else is an audience. They don’t actually practice any musical skills, like playing the keyboard or singing, relying instead on force of will to get them through. They are, however, both extremely charming.
My nephews are lucky enough to receive virtually every material possession that they could possibly want for. Ordinarily you might think this would make them spoilt, but they are both polite, good humoured and kind.
As someone who is interested in attention and focus, believing that they can immeasurably improve quality of life, I was heartened to see that the six year old could engage properly in good, old-fashioned, mind-numbingly dull game of Monopoly. His eyes were glazing over by the time I had built my first hotel on Bond Street, but still. Only when the game was insubstantial — like his Brother’s dog shaped vacuum cleaner — did his attention scatter.
Both received a Nintendo DS, which is the most antisocial toy you can imagine. Lost in a world of pixels and finger-tapping, they ignored my psychological probings. Worst thing is, that I was exactly the same when I received an original Gameboy.
In other, Child Psychology related news, I recently heard that Black Box Recorder are back together to play two dates at the Luminaire. After designing sites for John, Luke and Sarah — and enjoying all three of their recent solo records — I can’t wait to hear a fourth studio album.
Last night I met up with the members of my old band Rouser. It was the first meetup in eleven years, during which there have been marriages, moves, and not much else. We all look exactly the same, which bodes well for next year’s reunion when we plan to have a band practice; no one has gone to seed and no one appears to find such nostalgia embarrassing. You may remember that I read out my Rouser lyrics at a confessional comedy night, however rather than laughing I spent a lot of time looking on my youthful self with some kind of admiration — how intense and risky he was.
Gi-lo Smith (on the left of the image), our old drummer, was in good form, despite bringing along his wife (perhaps the greatest danger of any subsequent reformation is a Yoko figure). He proffered the theory that when you reach your late twenties you stop wanting to rebel against your teenaged self and revert to how you were then. I vaguely agreed, with the qualification that it was more like an Hegelian triadic. Indeed this year I have synthesized great swathes of the thesis of my youth without ever feeling that what I was doing was regressive.
Now I am lounging around in my Mother’s house, drinking tea and eating toast, anticipating the mayhem that will ensue when we go to see my nephews. It has been an anti-Christmas for me, the whole period has gone by in a flash, during which I have been avoiding the zombies in Argyle Street, which was really intolerable with all the bratwurst and glühwein huts.
Unlike books read, I don’t write down all the albums I listen to. Perhaps I should, because I found it difficult enough to remember what albums I listened to this year, let alone which were my five favourite albums of the year. Aren’t albums dead yet?
Limbo, Panto by Wild Beasts I went to see Wild Beasts at Latitude in an ironic way, imagining a really dull indie band who happened to have chosen an inappropriately exciting name. What I found was the most remarkable singer since Billy MacKenzie, singing about poorly performing football teams, backed by sublime bass lines. Can’t wait to see them again, my Fauvrite band!
White Elephant by The Vichy Government My future Best of The Vichy Government swelled by another six or seven songs with the release of third album, White Elephant. Technically released in 2007, but refreshed for me by Darren’s review in MusicOMH, which sums it up better than I ever could. I was disappointed to discover that the Wikipedia entry that I set up for the band was deleted. Fuck you, Jimmy Wales!
Slavoj Zizek Interview on Radio Open Source Not an album, but Zizek is always entertaining and this interview, conducted at the height of the financial collapse, was especially good value.
Everything/Everything by Simon Bookish My album of the year, by far, an exuberant masterpiece. The kind of album that Bowie could have made today if he hadn’t been killed after recording Scary Monsters. Well done, Leo!
Couples by The Long Blondes Despite disdaining everything they had done before, I thought their second album an indie disco classic. Unfortunately, the Great British public disagreed with me and they ended splitting up before they were pushed. Shame on you, British public!
To make amends, please recommend me something good. Anything considered. Any genre, any style, any era.
The following list represents an honest and truthful account of every book that I read in 2008. When you keep such a list, you occasionally worry that you are being a little slack and read super short books to keep up the numbers (the portable Dickon Edwards was very short but no less entertaining and there are some Marvel comic books listed that were read in a bathtime). I don’t know why, I would much rather see here a list of worthy books. Perhaps that can be a motto for next year — read less, read better.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
The Children of Men by P.D. James
Small is the New Big by Seth Godin
Psychogeography by Merlin Coverley
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
Why is yawning contagious? by Francesca Gould
Killing Floor by Lee Child
Terrorist by John Updike
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Miracles of Life by J.G. Ballard
Why Girls Can’t Throw by Mitchell Symons
Learning jQuery by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg
The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
Dada – Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter
The Portable Dickon Edwards by Dickon Edwards
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Everyman by Philip Roth
Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C. Clarke
Estates by Lynsey Hanley
JLA: Earth 2 by Grant Morrison
My Booky Wook by Russell Brand
Civil War by Mark Millar
Friction by Joe Stretch
Confidential by Alison Jackson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
On the Corinthian Spirit: The Decline of Amateurism in Sport by D.J. Taylor
The Butt by Will Self
A bit of a blur by Alex James
The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger
The Second Plane by Martin Amis
Earth Abides by George Stewart
The Survival Guide by Dr Angelo Acquista
Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski
Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick
The Road to Civil War by Various (Marvel Comics)
The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick
Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker
Everything bad is good for you by Steven Johnson
Panicology by Simon Briscoe
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
The Ice People by Maggie Gee
How to Live Off-Grid by Nick Rosen
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
Happyslapped by a Jellyfish by Karl Pilkington
To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank
Choosing shares by Sarah Pennells
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Boost Your Word Power by Brendan Hennessy
America by Jean Baudrillard
Icons of Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic
Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockman
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline by Theodore Dalrymple
The End of the World by John Leslie
The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke
Winning with Shares by Alvin Hall
How to be a complete and utter failure in Life, work and Everything by Steve McDermott
The Duck That Won the Lottery: And 99 Other Bad Arguments by Julian Baggini
The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil
Brilliant NLP by David Molden and Pay Hutchinson
Dress your family in corduroy and denim by David Sedaris
Dr. Johnson’s London by Liza Picard
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller
Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade by Guy Browning
El Lissitzky – Beyond the Abstract Cabinet by Maragarita Tupitsyn
Letters from the Avant Garde by Ellen Lupton and Elaine Lustig Cohen
Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
Bye Bye Balham by Richard Herring
Best Books Read
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens I started reading it this time last year on the recommendation of David Barnett and spent the whole of Christmas recommending that everyone should read the classics. I notice from my list that this was something that I singularly failed to do.
Dada – Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter I let Richter’s definitive history of Dada characters molder on the shelf for a whole year before reading it during my lunchbreaks at work. I found within it the seeds for my own aesthetic renewal — typographical nihilism, photographical playfulness, arch insidious interventions, it was an inspiration.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig Pirsig’s celebration of mindfulness and flow is a must read for anyone who hopes to inhabit both the mechanical and philosophical worlds. Whether you’re fixing your bicycle or planning to reform society, it demonstrates how simplicity and taking care of things keeps you balanced and in tune with the universe.
The Ice People by Maggie Gee Of all the post-apocalyptic novels I read in 2008, Maggie Gee’s was by far the most charming. It lacked the stark mischievousness of Oryx and Crake, the burnt out realism of The Road, the heartwarming perspectives of Earth Abides, but more than made up for it by being English and odd. It showed the world ending with a whimper, not a bang, which seems far more likely but is also far more difficult to show. Rather than go to tecnhological extremes like Atwood, Gee introduces scientific ideas subtly, making them all the more prescient.
The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil After reading so many books on the end of the world, I was ripe for redemption. This came in the form of Raymond Kurzweil, whose simple extrapolation of Moore’s law formed majestic vistas of creating a universe teeming with intelligence.
Worst Books Read
Friction by Joe Stretch I quite enjoyed sexy pseudo-robots Performance and was intrigued when the singer’s novel was compared to Houellebecq. The result was a tedious heavyhanded satire of sex toys and Mancunian nihilism. What next, Brummie existentialism?
The Butt by Will Self All of Self’s full-length novels are a bit ropey, but this one was the worst. Stick to novellas, Will. The first long short story in Liver, in particular, was great.
A bit of a blur by Alex James A bit of a twat.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami Pointless musings on taking part in a triathlon written up for running magazines and repackaged for the gullible.
Bye Bye Balham by Richard Herring Not a bad book, quite funny actually, but blighted with the worst typographical errors I’ve seen. Really, gentlemen, when you’re charging £10+(p&p) for a paperback you have to put a bit of care into making sure you understand what an apostrophe does.
I’m currently* suffering from winter melancholy, a biochemicophsyical manifestation of ennui that I can’t do anything to shake. As such, I have given up taking arms against my sea of troubles and am instead indulging them. Last night, for instance, we watched three episodes of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with as many glasses of red wine. I was comforted yet again by the sheer brilliance of the acting by the ensemble cast, so theatrical yet convincing, delivering waspish phrases in perfect, clipped English.
What I have noticed as I watched it for the third time was le Carre’s genius for naming characters: Roddy Martindale, Ricki Tarr(!), young Peter Guillam, George Smiley, Toby Esterhase, Fawn, Mendel, Lacon, Karla, Control, Percy Alleline, Jim Prideaux, brilliant Bill Haydon, the list goes on. Even the most minor characters come equipped with an appropriate name.
Whilst it doesn’t have the Dickensian social canvas of The Wire, it endures repeated viewings so much better. Alec Guinness’s circumspect glances speak volumes and with each viewing you come to understand a little more the amount of thought going on behind those thick glasses.
Another pleasure that I am currently wallowing in is Clive James’ wry podcast Point of View. James has become an Alastair Cooke kind of institution, so it is only right that he is given a weekly slot to talk about whatever occurs to him. This week he was talking about national identity in connection with Baz Luhrman’s Australia. As far as James is concerned, Australia doesn’t need to have another foundation myth: it already has Paul Hogan throwing a shrimp on a barbecue.
What Tinker Tailor shows is that your sense of national identity is formed by comparing your country to other countries you encounter. John le Carre’s cold war spies perform dangerous and immoral acts because they know that it is worth it, for England’s sake. England for them represents decency, democracy, and dedication. The Russians, by contrast, are shadowy and mendacious. Indeed, the plot turns on the fact that the mole, the traitor in MI6, despises America and the fact that Britain is so in thrall (politically and culturally) to its vulgarity: better communist totalitarianism with all its intelligence and austerity than fat American stupidity.
* This was written last Wednesday, I’m much better now.
