Death, monkeys, and dancing bears

Thinking about the meaning of death in different cultures these days. My study of non-European cultures has been either so academic or so pop, so Bhagavad Gita or else Monkey!, that I have no practical idea what death means to people outside Europe. There's something rather brutal about the dominant thread we have in Europe and North America now. Centuries of training by our religion to see life as a linear progression to death and to the subsequent judgement of our selves, as we now understand our selves, by God, who we comprehend as another self. I think we still have that pattern, if you can call something so simple a pattern, in our minds. But now, for so many of us, especially in Europe, who have been repelled by the church, we've lost even the small complication of the assumption of judgement at the end - just the simple linear sentence of our selves, growing and aging and dying, and then a sudden full stop.

But in early Christian theology (well, not REALLY early - really early, it was a death and apocalypse cult) there was a conception of the afterlife that was less deeply personal. An idea that on death, we came to understand the will of God, and being in heaven was the same thing as being part of God's will. The release of one's own will, which leads inexorably to the idea of the release of the self - of our consciousnesses in any way that we can understand consciousness. Though from what I remember that's an idea that was resisted by the people who wrote about heaven, and when I listen to Christians going on about God's will they're able to contort their mind into believing that surrendering yourself to God doesn't mean not being your self anymore. Too pagan? Too frightening? I don't know. But the release of the self. Imagine that. You could spend years trying to imagine it. A lifetime. And once you did - once you could imagine that - surely you're no longer your self . . .

I think being alive is the process of being able to release your self. I think I'm very excited to be moving close to Asia and to start taking my holidays in countries and societies I don't know a fucking thing about in any practical sense. My head was full of it last weekend when we were in Brussels Far East museum - Congo-era colonial visioning of the east extraordinaire, to the tackiest effect possible, and I was standing there in the middle of all the Chineuropean fantasization, thinking - I don't know shit. I don't know shit. No cleverer than that fat corrupt shitful bastard Leopold II. I've never gone outside of my cultural comfort zone whilst travelling so I'm really not used to thinking like that. I don't know shit. A bit like death, really.

Sorry if this post is coming off as morbid or (retch) "emo". I'm actually in top form. Rather in the grip of pity for Michael Jackson, though. I don't know about iconography but I think historians will look back on him as a sort of textbook figure about what obsessive fame in our era can do to a delicate person. I was going to post a video of a "Love You Save" performance from the late 70's - that song's in the running for my 'Best Song Ever' trophy - but having just looked at it again I couldn't help but feel, as I was watching him grin and dance around superbly, that I was geeking on a dancing bear with a ring through its nose and no more memory of the wild, no conception of the bad it might do, nothing except not fucking up, not fucking up and getting burned by its trainer . . . Couldn't do it. Poor dead dancing bear. Poor thing.

In testament to pity, here's the only joke about his death I've heard so far that had nothing to do with little boys (and I've heard at least a dozen already):

A post-mortem will be held to determine which was the cause of death:

A) Sunshine
B) Moonlight
C) Good Times
D) Boogie

There are a lot of reasons to love this picture, redux

But one of them is that you can really see the kid visualizing the truck going over a landscape of strangely human, undulating hillsides. It's the sort of powerful imaginative visualization I remember from the long hours I endured being unsuccessfully catholicated as a child, which I spent pretending my hands were brontosauruses fighting a death match. That's why Italians talk with their hands, you know. It's because of all the time we spent pretending our hands were brontosauruses fighting a death match in church, while the priest blah blah blahs about crap we obviously pay the closest possible attention to, considering our 'perilously' low birth rate and the sort of revolting, hypocritical adulterous pigs we elect into highest office. And, of course, our ongoing Christlike attachment to the merciful and forgiving spirit of Fascism.

God, I love Picture Is Unrelated so much.

Speaking of Catholics, more Chaser:

Is it just me or did you do something new with your slime trail today?

Finished watching Life in the Undergrowth last night. I wouldn't say I have a thing about insects but I did spend a lot of the series feeling like there were bugs crawling around under my skin. Nonetheless it was very lovely in a Microcosmos kind of way, but more like a Microcosmos for grownups, I'd say. The slugs fucking in the first episode was to the snail porn in Microcosmos as Curvy Girls XXX is to a Miley Cyrus video, for example. I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite as pornographic as those slugs fucking. Youtube has it:



It was also an awful lot more violent than Microcosmos. The only sort of scary bit in Microcosmos, as I remember, was that bird appearing and eating all the scurrying things, but Life in the Undergrowth had a lot more gore and social upheaval. Whole little Late Roman Empires quaking around under our feet at any given moment. There are a lot of things I love about David Attenborough, but one of them is the way he makes me see nature as a massive collection of cocks and fannies and hungers waiting for an opportunity. It gives order and sense to a seemingly chaotic world. No wonder the Christians hate him.

Speaking of, another thing I love about David Attenborough is the way he drives the question of creationism vs. evolution to its natural conclusion with his it's-not-all-hummingbirds-and-orchids-what-about-blinding-parasitic-worms-in-children's-eyeballs line - that you can believe in creationism if you want, but then you have to believe God is an asshole. Which when you think about it, isn't an argument against creationism, but a psychological clarion call.

Because let's face it: most very vocal Christians do see God as an asshole. An asshole who'll destroy us all and winnow the chaff from the wheat and the wheat has to kiss his ass eternally to be allowed to not burn in hell. An asshole whose hand is in every stinking human event and who can be appealed to in every stinking human eventuality; whose overwhelming, assoholic omnipotence can relieve us of responsibility for every phenomenon which goes outside of the bounds of personal, immediate morality. An asshole, apparently, who only hits us because he loves us, baby. It's alright that the planet is heating up: God is an asshole. It's alright that Africa is dying of AIDS: God is an asshole. And I love him.

Frankly, I find that sort of vocal Christian attitude to God shocking, insulting, insupportable. I don't think God is an asshole. But then I don't have a Stockholm syndrome complex with nowhere to go that I'm trying to foist off on all my fellow 'victims'. God is what He is and we are what we are and we must all simply do the best we can.

I have confidence in free

Wow, the Open Veins of Latin America is so grim. Or rather what it describes is. I don't know if it was the translator or Galeano or what, but the way the bestiality of the colonial exploitation of Latin America is described is actually almost jokey. Sarcastically and angry, obviously, but it makes the grim reading somehow bearable nonetheless. Or maybe I'm just getting less squeamish about grim reading as I age and as my job forcibly informs me that life is grim so might as well read grim too. I don't know.

One thing I've enjoyed about the first third is his historical economic perspective - not just in the sense of how dreadful the sugar or coffee etc. monocultures, single-minded resource mining, were in the colonies themselves, but also why Spain and Portugal have always been such economic shitholes relative to other major European nations despite such riches being exploited in their overseas property. How they failed to encourage any sort of industrial means of production on their own territory, and how all that money therefore ended up in the pockets of industrially producing countries like the Netherlands and England. In the case of Portugal especially, the country failed to have any protectionism in their policies vis a vis England during the gold rush in Brazil - that lovely old free trade - which meant all the gold went to England, all the produce went to Portugal and Brazil. Which leaves Portugal, eventually, with no gold and lots of worn-out stuff, and England with gold and a working class whose consumer demands can sustain some sort of functioning economy.

It's been a question I've been asking myself for a long time - why are we so fond of free trade? Especially now, as it's costing us jobs as the units of production move to cheap labour countries; and in the beginning, as the lovely Ha-Joon Chang pointed out, the economically powerful countries protected their home industries furiously. And as silly as it sounds, until the last week or so it had never properly sunk in for me that we're so fond of it because we're English, or as North Americans we're culturally English (face it). And it has quite an auspicious history in our culture, that free trade. If you imagine the self-evidently wrong things people have a real spiritual faith in - like, that a man this criminally irresponsible and sociopathic has some authority that the Good Lord Herself gave him - then it makes absolute and perfect sense that the idea of free trade (accessing raw materials and selling finished goods our population had processed), which did make us much richer than most of our trade partners over centuries, would inspire an even more devout and widespread faith.

This is the thing, you know - at work and on the news I'm faced constantly with things that are obviously destructive, environmentally or socially - I'm faced with these incredible iniquities, and this incredibly badly functioning economic system. And I don't think it's because the people involved wish to do evil, or wish to act badly; I don't think they want to harm their fellow man, or harm their planet. I don't even think the prime motivation is to be much richer or much better than their fellow men, although that's there, and it's huge, the animal motivation to be more secure than anybody else . . . I think we're looking at faith in action, at the conviction that there's no other way. That not only that this way of organizing ourselves economically is the best, or the least worst, but that any other way of organizing ourselves economically would lead to a complete fucking disaster.

I think it's a very religious sentiment, or religious faith; that all the horrible things done to Latin American nationalist movements during the 'Cold War', for example, were okay for US policy makers and for US people (because it's not like all those dreadful things were secret) because they had a conviction, a faith that the alternative to an admittedly obviously higly exploitative economic model would have been so much worse. It's something that's been so difficult to argue with, and so many people in the US who did argue with it were condemned with a really religious fervour. There are so many rational arguments against the economic model, but framing the arguments rationally doesn't really match the spirit, I think, in which the economic model is supported. So what to do about that? Maybe it's already changing. I don't know. Latin America is going all lefty now and while there's a lot of bad noise in the media it doesn't sound like they're funding any more Contras.

Ralph Fiennes Day

Yesterday we went back to Brugge, which the F-word was anxious to do because of its fantastic art gallery with Flemish Primitives, and Bosch, and which I was happy to do because In Bruges had been one of about seven films I'd seen on planes in the past little while (and it was by far the best, though that's not much of a claim considering the other films were Iron Man, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, The Devil Wears Prada, two other completely forgettable ones, and the only other serious contender, Hallam Foe, which wasn't that serious a contender, despite demonstrating that little Billy Elliott has grown himself a really nice ass, because the dialogue was rubbish). And In Bruges, ridiculous though it got as soon as Ralph Fiennes started chewing up the celluloid, made Brugge in the winter (which it now is here, as the markets are selling clementines and it's impossible to venture outside without mulling over how easy a mulled wine would go down) look very, very sweet.

And indeed it is. I don't have much enthusiasm for winter - I've lived all over the place in my thirty years of life, but always all over the place in fucking cold countries, and now I really have had enough. But there's no doubt that a bit of weather is bracing if you wrap up properly, and Brugge braced me, with its fresh air and canals and twee little houses. And romanticization aside, going to an old city like that, a real time warp of a city like Venice or York as well, is such an interesting reminder of a time when people's identities were so much more wrapped up in their cities. It's a sensation that you still feel all over Europe, of course, particularly in southern France or in Italy - people really think of themselves as from a certain town, in a way that looks like patriotism or nationalism. But in a sweet old remainder like Brugge you can see how that would have worked, just a little bit. All the way from the delightful unified architecture to the network of religious sites to the guillotine.

And we went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which has got a bit of Jesus's blood apparently, which I found a little distressing for a couple of reasons. First, the night before we had watched The Baby of Macon (which featured Ralph Fiennes dying spectacularly, as did In Bruges, and In Bruges also featured Jesus's blood from the basilica - it's all a complex tapestry) which was about a Jesus-y type toddler who gets chopped up into little relics at the end. I had found it disturbing, more disturbing for Julia Ormond's ten minute rape than the dismembered toddler actually, and didn't like it in the least - seemed like the sort of film only a big asshole would make. But there's no doubt it disturbed me, and being invited to caress a flask of Jesus's blood by an automated voice in the Basilica while a priest smiled over it didn't help me stop being disturbed. Second, I'm in the middle of The First Crusade by Steven Runciman, which contains nasty historical details of all the people who murdered, cheated, schemed and died over religious relics, and here one was, a big one, and the automated voice was inviting us all to touch it and to give a little donation to the church accordingly . . .

Monday morning slap-a-wake

Nice weekend, though rather lazy as I recovered (mostly there, certainly there enough to show up at work today, which I'm a touch sad about). My last with the F-word for a few weeks as he won't be joining me in Canada-land. Looking forward to Canada like crazy but really at the moment sad about how he won't be there. That's the thing about the F-word. I don't just miss him when he's not there, I get homesick for him. But still very much looking forward to Canada.

Watched There Will Be Blood. Pretty damn good. Very actor-y; I bet they all got a nice kick out of that, particularly the Day-Lewis. 'I drink your milkshake' indeed. And great soundtrack. Still, not much more to say about that, it was just fine but, well, it wasn't Best in Show, which by the way we also watched, during a couple of hours of amused abstraction. What else? An episode of The Life of Birds. The whole first season of Monkeydust. I love it, though it does sometimes make me want to vomit. There's something so merciless about it, but so funny. Usually very focused on the misery of the UK but a running feature focused on the idiocy of American big budget cinema, of which the following is an example:



What else? After finishing Chain of Command (very nice), read a couple of excerpts from the John Pilger edition Tell Me No Lies to carry on in the investigative journalism stream. One from the pinko Mitford sister, Jessica - 'The American Way of Death'. How absolutely revolting and not much changed, I don't think. When my Grandpa died in England, his going-away rites were the right sort of thing, I think - no fucking makeup; viewing just by the family, and a nice speech from a preacher he'd liked. But then that was C of E, which hardly counts as a religion in comparative terms - I think Catholicism has a lot to do with Egyptian-style funerary ridiculousness. Anyhoo. It was all very revealing and gross, but it provided an opportunity to discuss our preferred way to have our bodies disposed of, which is an important talk for couples to have.

Cholera, the musical

Hell of a pisser this morning, and I'm blaming it on the combination of reading the first couple of chapters of Mosquito Coast, the shitfight at work, and this ludicrous lipstick flap in the States. Let me start with the lipstick.

On leaving North America, and meeting lots of lovely yankee expatriates who've become good friends, and being constantly mistaken for a yank myself, talking like a yankee and working at a yankee company as I do, I've struggled against the widespread European notion that the United States is a nation of fucking retards. And you know what, it has been a struggle. Especially lately, speaking to Americans at work whilst in the company of Europeans, and hearing these Americans are satisfied about the way things are going in Iraq now post-surge when those poor fucking people are getting cholera - cholera! That's a sign of things going well? Holy fucking shit! What the fuck is the matter with you? Oh Lord, the depth of Your mercy, patience and mystery that You suffer such coldblooded idiocy to blight the face of Your creation and to employ me at my present company! Fucking cholera! Holy fuck! Do you know what happens to a person when they get cholera? Fuck!

Anyways. You know what some more, lots of people are dangerously under-informed or misinformed about the horrible things their countries did or do abroad. The two most anti-American countres I've spent any length of time have been here and France. And in France, despite your typical asshole on the street having a better generalist education than most Anglos and a better understanding of international, well, everything, people generally had very little idea of their own country's relationship with Africa. And here - well, let's just say that they haven't quite got around to revamping their Congo museum yet - it remains an unironic trophy case touting how they rescued the darkies from the Arabs and brought civilization to the jungle - civilization that involved rape, murder, kidnapping and slavery on a truly staggering scale - fuck Belgium, in short. So, yeah. There you are. People are all idiotic assholes; Americans haven't cornered the market. Hence my struggle against European opinions on the intelligence and moral fiber of your typical American.

However. If this lipstick thing flies - and by this lipstick thing flying, I mean Republicans winning the next presidential election - I'm fucking done. I mean, it's right there. The stupid is right there. The lie is right there, the bullshit is right there, it's right fucking there. It couldn't be more obvious if John McCain whipped out his cock and started slapping you around the face with it. And if these unabashed crybaby liars are voted into office, I'm going to have to assume all those European ideas of Americans - too lazy, selfish and stupid to do anything but go with their ENORMOUS guts, like goldfish gorging themselves to death - are simply not worth struggling against anymore. It's right there.

Anyhoo. Moving on. Shitfights at work. One thing to say: my main problem is the disgust. Similar to my disgust at the prospect of the lipstick smear working, actually. Disgusted that the two men who are giving me grief at the moment despite having left records about how they obfuscated, fucked up - lied, in short, about the two different issues at hand have a) conveniently edited the truth out of their memories: b) no relationship with the truth, but function from moment to moment like sharks swimming through the sea, doing whatever seems right at the time, or, c) the theory that if they're loud and bitchy enough it won't matter that they're full of shit because I won't want to be confrontational. And you know what? I don't want to be confrontational. Confrontations give me headaches. They fill me with disgust. They make me feel like I'm lowering myself to some sort of adolescent level. I hate confrontation. But I'll fucking do it, and be all the more pissed off they've forced me to! This isn't a presidental election and I'm not a political party tip-toeing around, trying to get a black man elected in a racist country.

Anyways. Combine the political disgust with the professional disgust, throw in Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast, and you've got the shitty mood I'm in this morning. So far (50 pages in or so) the father, the 'hero' of the book, is the sort of insane I can feel pounding against the inside of my own chest when I get over-indignant, as I am at the moment, about all the rottenness in the world. Great, I think, cholera in Iraq, threats of pandemic stupidity in the most overarmed country in the world, and apparently I'm a fucking lunatic too. Perfect. That said, the book's pretty good so far, and I hadn't been a fan of Theroux's fiction up to the moment. He has a child's voice narrating and I think it was a good choice for him. When he uses adult narrative voices or perspectives he starts writing about sex, and his way of writing about sex is one I find to be both squicky and sterile. Like ultrasound gel.

God is a gentleman

So. Wading through the Graham Greene compilation, slowly-like; treated myself to a re-read of The Quiet American, read the Stamboul Train (that's one of his light books? Jesus, depressive fucker), and really enjoyed The Heart of the Matter. Well, enjoyed might be the wrong word. It struck a chord and locked me in, that's for damn sure - one of his Catholic books, and the most defensive, the most lapsed of them all . . . it seems he dedicated it to the very Catholic wife (and their children together) that he abandoned, the very same year as the abandonment. Charming fucker. Such a fucking selfish thing. How else is one supposed to see such a dedication as anything but 'I'm already under such mental and moral torment over my choices that I risk suicide, so don't try to make me feel any worse about leaving you for tail.'

Anyways, if artist's personalities mattered I wouldn't even want to make eye contact with a Michaelangelo, right? The heart of the matter is that it's a good book for Catholics, though not a good Catholic book. What's staying with me now in terms of the Catholicism of it all at this point is the George Orwell review I read soon afterwards. I found it very strange - very angry - very hostile, even offended. Full of little factual errors in his outline of the story, and so very literal in its sarcasm - 'he had gone to what he believed to be certain damnation out of pure gentlemanliness.' Ignoring the point that Scobie had not been a pure gentleman; that Greene had obviously not been trying to draw a portrait of a pure gentleman, but rather of a fatally weak man who could drive himself to suicide over a love affair. But then George Orwell was always so literal in his writing - sure, Animal Farm was an allegory, but have you ever read another allegory that was so laboured in making it clear who it was attacking?

Take this point: 'The central idea of the book is that it is better, spiritually higher, to be an erring Catholic than a virtuous pagan.' What an interesting reaction. As an ethnic Catholic reading the book, I have no idea how a non-Catholic could draw this conclusion. There's an idea that Scobie himself believed this perhaps - that Scobie believed his very Catholic pride and his pity for others distinguished him from the people around him. And yet Scobie, who hated the idea of suicide on an ideological level, drove himself to suicide through this pride and this pity. I couldn't think where you draw the idea of the book arguing a bad Catholic is better than a good non-Catholic unless a non-Catholic reader resents the degree of attention that Greene focuses on the process of a bad Catholic driving himself to destruction.

It seems like an offended review - Orwell suggests Greene is snobby, that he subscribes to the idea of hell being an exclusive nightclub; he sarcastically suggests that Greene's 'Catholics retain their superiority, since they alone know the meaning of good and evil.' (And he somehow maintains this defensiveness alongside an attack on Greene for making his underclass characters too thoughtful, too pre-occupied with notions of right and wrong!)

But what seems to offend Orwell is that which is the charm of the Catholic novel, and a sign not of the superiority of Catholicism (oh no, I won't way a word about their superiority, I did a runner to the Quakers and I'm glad) but a sign of what makes Catholics special: an obsession with guilt and redemption on a daily basis that other ethnic Christians have not managed (to their benefit no doubt) to hang on to. Catholics, if they're good Catholics, centre their faith around the notion of being imperfect and of apologizing adequately to God for their imperfection. The Catholic God is a forgiving and just God, but only if you can present your sins before Him, only if you can repent from the bottom of your heart for those sins; only if you want to be perfect.

And this is the tragedy of Catholics, and the tension at the heart of the Catholic novel: nobody is perfect. And believing you know what perfection is, or at least being faced with your own imperfections on a daily basis, becomes an intolerable burden. Because feeling guilty about knowing you're imperfect and pitying the victims of your imperfection isn't going to make you more noble - less tempted to lie, less tempted to fuck around, less tempted to accommodate the people you care about even if doing so is not quite kosher. It takes nobility and goodness to be a noble, good person - not guilt, not pity - and frankly I had thought it was obvious that was the point of the Heart of the Matter.

So it was interesting to read the Orwell review, which seemed to ignore that entirely. Is the tragedy of wanting to be perfect but usually managing no more than guilt and pity a particularly Catholic mental problem whose exploration would really be so offensive and alienating to other people? And how do other ethnic Christians manage to avoid this mental problem? Do all those American born-agains whose sins are washed away all of a sudden in a fucking fantastic baptism face this problem, or can such a powerful event when you're a grownup make you feel so close to God that you can ignore your imperfections in the glow of His glory? It would certainly explain the Bush presidency . . .

And how was your day, Mr. President?

So my friend from San Francisco might not move back for a variety of excellent reasons, one of which being the pile of money she was offered for the move is made out of dollars. We were talking about its plunging value, which is encouraging me to fly home via New York in October to buy a new, much lighter laptop for about half of what it would cost here or in Canada, even though it means some charm-deficient aeroport slavey will put their hands on my private areas because I look cranky and Mediterranean.

This segued into talking about this and that and the other and how fucked up everything is, including the Eliot Spitzer whoremongering. What I don't know about Eliot Spitzer could fill several volumes but I'm always fascinated with the idea of people who have so much credibility and status to lose nailing expensive prostitutes or putting cigars in interns' twats or snorting meth with their rent-boy. There's this element of perviness and exhibitionism about it that must be very exciting - knowing how much trouble you'd be in if you got caught - how much this one sexual act could completely transform your life. Sort of like losing your virginity over and over and over.

That was my perspective anyway. San Francisca thought that it was just a case of men not being able to help themselves sometimes. I can see where she's coming from, but firstly, several million men are able to help themselves so it's no excuse, and also none of the above-listed scandals were the spontaneous equivalent of having a few drinks too many and nailing someone you shouldn't because you can. Involving yourself in an established whoremongering ring, getting nasty with a cigar, finding meth and then hovering it up with your long-term boy . . . all of these have that pervy little air of thinking about the act being almost as important as the act itself. Which I, as a perv, congratulate and laugh at.

But the main reason I'd been at all intrigued by the john was that I'd just read a Washington Post article about his wife (I've been finding it hard to apply myself at work this week) which was just fucking glowing, and it made me wonder if there was already some sort of spin machine in operation about to launch her into her own national political career after she dumped her husband. San Francisca thought the political machine was possible but that the dumping wasn't; as a divorcée would never have a chance at making it far in national politics. Really? I asked, and really, she said. Really? Did divorcing really hurt Giuliani? I asked. Really, she said.

And if Hillary Clinton had dumped her husband for all his cheating, she really couldn't be where she is today? Really, she said.* This gave me something absolutely new to chew over, because I honestly don't think it's the case elsewhere in the western world that having had an unsuccessful marriage is going to fuck your political image beyond repair.

And then San Francisca shocked me further by saying she herself wouldn't support someone who had been divorced, because if they couldn't get their own lives together they couldn't be trusted to run a country. That totally blew my mind. A marriage, a presidency; it's a whole different skillset, surely. I mean, you have the qualities of honesty and communication that you'd want in both cases, so I guess I see where she's coming from. But when I get home from work I don't want the president to have a hot meal ready, to ask about my day and maybe fuck me if we're both in the mood. And I don't want my husband to have his finger on the nuclear button - I'm not Carla Bruni.

God, it's all so weird.

*Echoes of Ferraro. Her statement is more to be condemned for its utter pointlessness than its racism. None of us would be where we are if we weren't who we were. How has that not been pointed out by either campaign yet? Stupid Democrats.

Today's lesson is all about the corruption of the religious class

So Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a nice album even if the title is a little twee. But one of the things I like about Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds besides what I gushed about on Hipster's blog is their ability to communicate exclamation marks through music, so it's not so twee as all that. It's loud and lacking the cutesy prettiness of the last Bad Seeds album that had tinkly little tracks like 'Breathless' and 'Messiah Ward', but that's okay. It has its own, louder, prettiness. Especially the second track, which is still my favourite song.

Something I like to think about from time to time when I'm stuck on public transport without a book is old-time itinerant preachers and charismatics, who'd go around selling their particular version of God in barns and street corners and speaker's corners and whatnot, building up or failing to build up a following. Especially this guy, mostly because I can hardly wrap my head around the idea of German glossolalia. Can you imagine?

Since watching Jesus Camp I haven't been able to believe modern North American charismatic or pentecostal denominations have a relationship with the divine - that their religion isn't just a travesty that serves the lay people as a socially acceptable excuse to hate gays, gainfully employed women, and scientists, and serves the preachers as a way to make enough money to buy crystal meth for their favourite manwhores whilst maintaining a large family in the style to which they've become accustomed. At the time I found the movie annoying and unedifying, but what made the price of admission worth it was seeing those children educated in the art of faking glossolalia. Exactly the sort of thing that's going to make the rest of the world think they're loony, and make them feel a strong sense of community with each other. Seeing the camp director slipping in and out of glossolalia whilst pumping everybody up was pretty amazing.

I want to think that glossolalia is an actual spontaneous phenomenon - not literally that one starts spouting off in the tongue of angels, but that one manages to have an experience of such mysticism, such abandonment of the self . . . As it stands for me the Quaker way is best: shutting up for a solid hour and only speaking (with words) when you feel moved to - second last meeting I went to, one of the speakers recited from one of Leonard Cohen's more cheerful songs - maybe that's as angel-talky as it gets these days.

Anyways, I still like to imagine that my culture used to support real honest-to-goodness mystics and angel-talk and all the other fancypants pentecostal stuff in the past, when there was less money to be made off it and people didn't know enough about the wider world to be quite so scared shitless by it - that maybe there was a time when North American mystic religion was actually about religion, and not paranoia. I like to imagine it but I doubt it. A lot.

The point I was getting at is that Nick Cave and Tom Waits are two people I think would have made fantastic itinerant preachers or charismatics back in the day. If I had seen them proselytizing back in, say, 1850, and had been raised over the preceding 29 years, I probably would have joined their cults. It's a strange thought but I'm pretty sure that's what would have happened.

God and jive broads reconciled

So today I was going to write about Bill Withers and how much I love him, and how great he was before he discovered synthesizers and singing about God. I like God and I like Bill Withers, but I don't like Bill Withers' songs about God. Funny, that. Maybe I would have if he hadn't discovered synthesizers at around the same time he discovered singing about God. Pop songs about God disagree with me deeply - I can't think of a single one at the moment that I like. As far as I'm concerned it's all been downhill since 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. That's a fucking awesome song.

But before he found God and synthesizers he released songs of stupendous lyrical simplicity that are nonetheless so very, very pretty, and that make me emotional or, you know, hot. And the simple lyrics are straightforward and nice and don't make me think that listening to the song is making me stupid. Probably owes a lot to his beautiful voice, certainly in this song, where he can make his third verse out of repeating the words 'I know' 30-ish times and still be awesome:



Hmm, I guess I did write about Bill Withers and how much I love him. Just as well. I had a check to see if I had already written about it and came across this little navel-gaze about being too evened-out, mood-wise, and how I didn't like that. But I wrote that back in the wilds of 2005 when I was still single and living alone. So today I was going to write about how the single most stressful thing about being in a relationship is feeling like you have to spare your partner your well-earned bad moods - at least for me. But Bill Withers is much, much more interesting. Autobiographically, too.