The Virtual Stoa

“Although I argue vehemently against modern pop music, on grounds of its musical incompetence, verbal impoverishment and general morbidity, narcissism and salaciousness; although I fiercely object to disco dancing as a sacrilege against the human form and a collective rejection of civilised courtship; although I defend reels, minuets, galliards, sarabands and (as limiting cases) waltzes and polkas as the only ways in which ordinary humanity should dare to put its sexual nature on festive display, and although I regard the 12-bar blues and the flattened subdominant seventh as the lowest forms of vulgarity in music, I find rock’n'roll in general, and Elvis in particular, irresistible, and would happily dance away the night to it. I cannot explain the thrill of delight with which I hear the first bars of Jailhouse Rock or the eagerness with which I at once search the vicinity for a partner: but there it is, appalling proof that, despite all my efforts, I am human.”

[tehgraun]

Elvis Presley, died thirty years ago today, 16 August 1977.

Five excellent Elvis tracks (no particular order):

Please list your favourite tracks / records / films (!!) / etc. in the comments.

From Conan O’Brien [via]:

Stephen Pollard isn’t just an expert on cycling (”the team element is missing”, etc.). He also has sophisticated opinions on postwar European cinema. Here he is, for example, discussing the films of Ingmar Bergman. It’s already been labelled “the dumbest thing I’ve ever read” by one of the cinéphiles over at the Criterion Forum.

I should say that I’ve not seen much Bergman: Wild Strawberries once upon a time, and lengthy snippets of The Seventh Seal. So it’s just, just possible that I might agree with Pollard were I to see the rest of the oeuvre (which I’d like to do). But given that he lumps Bergman in with James Joyce and Harrison Birtwistle — my favourite novelist and one of my favourite living composers respectively — somehow I doubt that he and I are going to end up seeing eye to eye on this one, as on so much else. [Yo, bro.]

UPDATE, UPDATE: The same brother reminds me I’ve also seen Bergman’s Magic Flute (and it’s stupid of me to forget this, as I’ve got the DVD at home), which is just fantastic. And it probably has the best Pantomime Walrus in cinema history. YouTube clips over here, though I’m not sure they’ve got the PW in there.

2d UPDATE: And here he is, the darling:

[images nicked from over here]

From the end of what may be the greatest scene in the greatest film ever made: Rouget de Lisle teaches the Marseillaise to the people of Paris, in Abel Gance’s Napoleon:

The British Film Institute has just released its triple-DVD set of Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films, and this is what Marina Warner has to say about it in tehgraun:

“26 extraordinary works so far, they unfold his artistry and his preoccupations with rare richness, and have been annotated by an admiring group of critics and film historians.  So this set of short films is a marvellous and invaluable collection.”

Yes, indeed, yes indeed - Svankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue may be the best short animated film that there is, and many of the others are not bad at all - and there are special reasons at the Stoa for celebrating the release of the set:  it’s been assembled, put together, produced, hand-tooled (I’m not really sure what the appropriate verb is) by my brother Michael. So well done him.

My goodness. They’ve been talking about me and boxing in last week’s Observer:

The film [Blue Blood] is effortlessly stolen by a cameo appearance from [Chris] Kavanagh’s philosophy tutor. ‘He asked if I could go and watch him get his face smashed in, but it was short notice and I was busy. Usually am,’ says Chris Brooke, who is also the author of the highly recommended blog Virtual Stoa.

‘Everyone who watches the film thinks he’s absolutely hilarious,’ says Kavanagh, ‘and the sort of person you only really find at Oxford. He’s from this incredibly aristocratic family yet is a socialist. He just wanders around being Chris Brooke. He’s a legend.’

And one who has now been immortalised in, of all things, a boxing movie which, thanks to Riley’s direction and the charm and passion of the contestants, is that rarity - a film set among a privileged elite that does not grate but inspires.

I’m glad I’m keeping people entertained.

There’s a fine moment in the film when I say something incomprehensible, and the camera cuts away to a shot of Chris K rolling his eyes. He can’t have been rolling his eyes at that particular comment, as there was only one camera in the room, but it’s nicely done.

[Thanks to dsquared in comments below for the tip-off.]

Was this year the first time the French have entered a song with Anglo lyrics in the Eurovision song contest?

(You can tell that I’m brooding over the issues that matter.)

A bunch of my friends went off to Helsinki last week. They said they were going to attend the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium of Political Research. But were they just too embarrassed to say that that they had tickets to Eurovision 2007? It’d be nice to think there were several analytical political theorists in the audience. Perhaps one of them was holding the much-filmed “Where Is Andorra?” placard?

Just as the separation of Montenegro and Serbia came suspiciously close to last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, Tony Blair’s resignation was clearly timed to try to increase the chances of the Eurovision electorate casting any votes at all for the UK entry, but in the end only Ireland (7) and Malta (douze points!) co-operated. (Perhaps we should hand out the George Cross to foreign countries more liberally than we do.) Still, I was glad Scooch got something. 2003’s Jemini deserved nothing, and Flying the Flag For You was far better than that. Ukraine was robbed, though.

Is all of Eurovision ever on Youtube? There seems to quite a lot of it, anyway, as searching for things like “Eurovision 1957” is generating quite a lot of clips. But I won’t plough through them just yet.

And if we are stuck in the era of Eastern domination and shameless regional bloc-voting, please can all the North African countries in Eurovision get over their hang-ups about Israel, at least to the extent of sending in their official entries, in the interests of living in a more multi-polar Eurovision large geographical area? And the Italians should return to the fray. Just because they’ve got their very own San Remo festival doesn’t mean the rest of us think it’s OK to opt out of Eurovision.

(I was surprised Sweden didn’t do better.)

Over here [thanks , NB]

Tribune reminds me that it’s the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Jarama. Lots of different versions of the song; these are the words sung by Woody Guthrie. You know how it goes; sing along:

There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It was there that we fought against the Fascists
We saw a peacful valley turn to hell

From this valley they say we are going
But don’t hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free before we’re through

We were men of the Lincoln Battalion
We’re proud of the fight that we made
We know that you people of the valley
We’re remember our Lincoln Brigade

You will never find peace with these Fascists
You’ll never find friends such as we
So remember that valley of Jarama
And the people that’ll set that valley free

All this world is like this valley called Jarama
So green and so bright and so fair
No fascists can dwell in our valley
Nor breathe in our new freedom’s air

James Joyce liked birthdays, if I remember rightly, and he’s 125 today.

(I think he’d have liked the cubed nature of that number, too.)

Apparently Pete Seeger is still alive. Who knew?

How did the old song go?

“They gave him his orders at Party headquarters,
Sayin’, “Pete, you’re way behind time –
It is not ‘38 but 1957,
and there’s been a change in the Party line.”

Something like that, anyway.

I don’t really think of myself as someone who goes to many live performances of the so-called popular so-called music, but of the very few I’ve been to, it seems that one of them was almost one of the “twenty five best gigs ever“, according to the Observer (though there don’t seem to be 25 on the linked page; perhaps you’re supposed to buy the magazine or something to get them all. I don’t know.)

Anyway, there on the list: Mano Negra at the Town and Country Club, in 1989. I say “almost” as I don’t think I was there then; memory tells me I saw them there in 1990 or 1991, so maybe that’s because they were quite good in 1989, and got invited back or something. So perhaps it doesn’t count. Anyway: they were very good on that occasion, and great fun.

If I were to make a list of the 25 best concerts that I’ve been to, that one would certainly make the cut, though it would end up being quite a lot lower down than, say, Anne Evans singing Isolde at Covent Garden around 1993. That was really good. Splendid, even.

As I get older, I get less and less interested in painting and more and more interested in architecture. Is this usual, or is this just me?

Oh, I’m very pleased to see this again:

From tehgraun’s OBO, as the England 2d innings begins:

If Freddie pulls this off, it will be his greatest feat as a captain so far, but then the only competition for that title is his use of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” to motivate the team into coming back to win the final Test in India earlier this year. I wonder what Johnny Cash tune he’ll be playing now? “How high is the water mamma? three feet high and rising” that is the best the man in black has to say about this sorry business.

He’s got a tapedeck in his tractor
And he listens to the local news
He finds out where the bass are bitin’
While he’s plowin’ to the country blues.
He was a cowboy and he knew I loved him well,
A cowboy’s secrets you never tell -
No, there’s nothin’ like the loving
Of a hard-drivin’ cowboy man.

He’s got a tapedeck in his tractor
While he’s plowing up his daddy’s land;
He’s got more horse sense
Than I ever seen in any man.
He was a cowboy and he knew I loved him well,
A cowboy’s secrets you never tell,
No, there’s nothin’ like the lovin’
Of a hard-drivin’ cowboy man

On Saturday nights we go dancin’ in town,
And all the boys’ll order up another round;
In the summertime,
We look forward to the rodeo.
On Saturday nights we go to town,
And all the boys’ll order up another round;
When he rides saddle bronc
I wait to hear that whistle blow.

He’s got a tapedeck in his tractor,
I can hear him when he’s comin’ home.
Then he holds me in the rocking chair
And sings me the love song.
He was a cowboy and he knew I loved him well
A cowboy’s secrets you never tell
No, there’s nothin’ like the lovin’
Of a hard-drivin’ cowboy man

No, there’s nothin’ like the muscles
Of a hard-drivin’ cowboy man.

Spotted at the IMDb Reviews of Borat section:

Cheap Kazakhstan propaganda! Borats claim that Kazakhstan produces the best potassium in the world is totally unsubstantiated. It is well known in the countries of the former Soviet Union that it is Uzbekistan that produces the highest quality potassium not Kazakhstan! His claim that all other countries in the world are ran by little girls is also easily dismissed. Many former Soviet Union countries are run by grown men! Although the U.K was once run by fire breathing dragon woman Margaret Thatcher you could never call her a girl! Borat is the possessor of a terrible singing voice. How can he sing great patriotic songs with a voice like that?

LONG LIVE UZBECKISTAN! Uzbekistan for all your potassium & patriotic song needs.

[via Michael]

The Departed: Jolly. Much better than the deeply crappy Gangs of New York.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Quite enjoyed it; made me want to see Michael Collins.
Borat: The reviews describe the good jokes pretty well, so you don’t actually have to go and see this.
La Tourneuse de pages: very well acted; great fun.

I suppose I’m really just marking time, while waiting for Casino Royale to open.

“… I’m saying that Stonewall Jackson was trash himself. Him and Lee, and all the rest of them Rebs. You, too.”

Jack Palance, RIP.

The UK number one single on the day I was born was “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool” by Jimmy Osmond. I think I knew that, but it’s good to be reminded. [here, via]

And, just to branch out into relevant adjacent territory, here are three key remarks about wigs from the philosophers who matter. Two of these have appeared on the Virtual Stoa before, but if you minded about that sort of thing you’d have stopped reading decades ago.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on his “reform”:

“The moment my resolution was confirmed, I wrote a note to M. de Francueil, communicating to him my intentions, thanking him and Madam Dupin for all goodness, and offering them my services in the way of my new profession. Francueil did not understand my note, and, thinking I was still in the delirium of fever, hastened to my apartment; but he found me so determined, that all he could say to me was without the least effect. He went to Madam Dupin, and told her and everybody he met, that I was become insane. I let him say what he pleased, and pursued the plan I had conceived. I began the change in my dress; I quitted laced cloaths and white stockings; I put on a round wig, laid aside my sword, and sold my watch; saying to myself, with inexpressible pleasure: “Thank Heaven! I shall no longer want to know the hour!”

Immanuel Kant explains why wig-makers, but not barbers, should have the vote:

“He who does a piece of work can sell it to someone else, just as if it were his own property. But guaranteeing one’s labour is not the same as selling a commodity. The domestic servant, the shop assistant, the labourer, or even the barber, are merely labourers, not artists (artifices, in the wider sense) or members of the state, and are thus unqualified to be citizens. And although the man to whom I give my firewood to chop and the tailor to whom I give material to make into clothes both appear to have a similar relationship towards me, the former differs from the latter in the same way as the barber from the wig-maker (to whom I may in fact have given the requisite hair) or the labourer from the artist or tradesman, who does a piece of work which belongs to him until he is paid for it. For the latter, in pursuing his trade, exchanges his property with someone else, while the former allows someone else to make use of him. But I do admit that it is somewhat difficult to define the qualifications which entitle anyone to claim the status of being his own master.”

Karl Marx:

“I may negate powdered wigs, but that still leaves me with unpowdered wigs.”