Sun Ra: Music Is a Plane of Wisdom
As Christmas fast approaches some of us may be wearying of the relentless stream of Yuletide tunes that dominate the airwaves. Some are truly great. Others are, how can I put it, downright awful.
Valparaiso: The Vertical City
Joris Ivens, the renowned Dutch documentary filmmaker, once said, “The film screen is not a window through which you look at the world, it is a world in itself.”
Last and First Men: An Essay in Myth
The German philosopher Ernst Bloch talked of the “ontology of not yet being” as the main philosophical idea of our time. Bloch sought to explore how history reflects lost opportunities as well as future possibilities. He wanted to understand why humankind has always dreamed of utopia.
Writing Is an Act of Discovery
"Ideas are like rabbits,” noted celebrated writer John Steinbeck. “You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." Except it doesn’t always work this way when it comes to your own blog…
The Same Procedure As Every Year
The stereotype has it that German’s lack a sense of humour. Even mentioning this has become a cliché in its own right. But nothing could be further from the truth. For sure, jokes don’t always translate particularly well from English into German, or the other way around.
Concentration City: How Urban Visions Shape Our Future
Cities play a key role in dystopian science fiction. Consider Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, dominated by Moloch, Jean-Luc Godard’s modernist Parisian future-scape in Alphaville or Ridley Scott’s oppressive, neon-lit Los Angeles in Blade Runner. This is hardly surprising. Projected as chaotic centres of over-crowding, pollution and crime, they are fertile grounds for dark narratives about our possible futures.
The Music Box: Torment Without End
Writing about the Greek legend of Sisyphus, Albert Camus remarked that, “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Woman at War
“One of the first conditions of happiness,” wrote Leo Tolstoy, “is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.” Icelandic filmmaker Benedikt Erlingsson might have had this sentiment in mind when he made his latest film, Woman at War, an ecological thriller second to none.
Chris Marker: Unknown Cosmonaut
Sometimes you encounter a film that is so far removed from your experience that it takes your breath away. Chris Marker’s La Jetée is one such film. When I first saw it, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
Adrienne Rich: Unclenching the Imagination
Joseph Conrad once remarked, “To snatch in a moment of courage from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task.” Arguably, he failed to complete the task. The racism evident in his famous novella Heart of Darkness, notwithstanding its critique of imperialism, is an illustration of the point.
Resistance is Fertile
The Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet once wrote:
It's this way:
being captured is beside the point
the point is not to surrender.
It’s worth reflecting on these words as humanity contends with an existential crisis…
Jacques Tati: A Democracy of Gags
Film comedies have been around since the dawn of cinema. One of the most popular genres in the early years, it remains an easy route to box office success. Why? Because we like to laugh. Because we like to poke fun at the absurdities of the world around us. And, maybe, because we need cheering up.
Invisible Cities: A Voyage to Unknown Lands
Imagination both encircles and transcends the world. This is brought vividly to life in Italo Calvino’s dreamlike novel Invisible Cities. The novel, perhaps best considered as a prose poem, consists of a series of dialogues between Kublai Khan, the 13th-century Mongolian emperor, and the young Venetian explorer, Marco Polo.
Who Knows Where the Time Goes
Sometimes a song just hits that spot. Listening to the radio earlier, Nina Simone’s wonderful version of “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” came on. I was spellbound. And completely immersed in the moment.
Why Failure Matters
Albert Einstein famously noted that “Failure is success in progress.” He was clearly on to something there. Our society celebrates positivity and makes a fetish of success. But for creative work to succeed, we need to support an environment that encourages experimentation. And which recognises that failure is not only possible but desirable.
The Place We Occupy in the World
“One's destination is never a place,” the writer Henry Miller once said, “but a new way of seeing things.” As our horizons narrow because of the lockdown, armchair tourism is back in vogue.
Caught in a Trap
Everyone has their favourite cover version, right? Maybe Sinead O'Connor’s sublime interpretation of Prince’s 'Nothing Compares 2 U'. Or Joe Cocker’s explosive cover of the Beatles’ 'With a Little Help from My Friends'.
The View From the Window: Enjoying the Simple Things in Life
Faced with a seemingly intractable range of existential challenges, it can be tempting to retreat into oneself. To pull the drawbridge up and keep the world at bay. But this doesn’t solve anything. The world keeps turning.
Pirates of the North Sea
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again,” suggested Oscar Wilde, “there is no use in reading it at all.” People often forget the books that captured their imagination when they were young. But sometimes you stumble across a long-forgotten novel and memories come flooding back.
Are the Cabin Fever Pills Working?
People are wrestling with the multiple challenges generated by the Covid-19 lockdown. And the fear of cabin fever is one of them. There’s a lot of advice out there about the benefits of sticking to a routine, taking regular exercise and keeping to a healthy diet. Undoubtedly, all of these will help deal with the restlessness, irritability or demotivation that characterises long periods of isolation.