Category: Society

“The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Cockroaches, Clubs and Clocks: An Academic in Africa

I have missed being here, and it is good to be back.  I think I have missed the life and the people rather than the place itself though.  The familiarity which has made it so easy to settle...

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Idiot Wind: The Eternal Politics of the 1970s

Unpopular wars drag on, gas prices erratically rise and inexplicably fall, as clouds of cynicism, dark as Richard Nixon’s perpetual five o’clock shadow, brood over the length of the U.S....

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The Tyranny of Novelty

We hear it over and over again (even though it is not yet precisely true): people don’t want to pay for recorded music. And what is recorded music? Music that has been thoughtfully written and...

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“By Imbeciles Who Really Mean It”: Lost Verities and Dirty Hippies

Regardless of the dissembling of corporate state propagandists, free market capitalism has always been a government subsidized, bubble-inflating, swindlers’ game, in which, psychopathic...

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Astral Projection and Ableton: Mono/Poly Interview

Paramatma is about the supersoul.., I got it from a Vedic scripture and it talks (about) having the omnipresent god-spirit inside of you, that it’s (Paramatma) the observer and you’re the doer. -...

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Fight! An Academic in Africa

I did not really understand about how he owed N20,000 to some sort of workers’ co-op on campus. ...

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Dying Empire Bebop

Outside my apartment window, across a wind-blown courtyard, the crimson leaves of a white oak are falling into a swirling breeze, revealing the gnarled limbs and stark branches of the time-battered...

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Riots and Rods of Iron: An Academic in Africa

It is both a curse and a blessing that we don’t know what other people think of us. I am much better than I used to be, but I know that I still spend much of my time in conversation with an...

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The Degree To Which You Resist Is The Degree To Which You Are Free

I've noticed a meme beginning to fester among liberal insiders who are positing that the Occupy Wall Street movement is starting to "distract" the citizenry from the wicked machinations...

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It’s Called Viral for a Reason

In the relative blink of an eye, we have culturally swallowed a crazy idea: that the capacity to grab people’s attention is more important than what is being done to grab their attention. We...

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The Police State Makes Its Move

Retaining One's Humanity in the Face of Tyranny For days now, we have endured demonstrably false propaganda that the fallen soldiers of U.S. wars sacrificed their lives for "our...

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Kids in Glass Houses – Interview

Kids in Glass Houses, as their names suggests are obviously not the sort of band that you’d expect to be particularly forthcoming or vitriolic on any topic. Not least because they appear to be a...

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Driven to Distraction: An Academic in Africa

The rage has been building. For the last few days I have been incapable of driving here without the stupidity of it all getting to me.  This morning, for example, I was genuinely nearly...

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Film Review: Guilty of Romance

Sono's Hate trilogy fizzles out with a whimper...

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Everything Looks Like a Nail: The “Social Music” Fallacy

I was listening to an album on Spotify the other day when I heard an ad between tracks that was promoting Spotify itself, focused on how “social” the service is. Because after all, as the ad...

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Capturing the Moment – Bill Hale Interview

For over 30 years Bill Hale has captured the hairs and prayers of a generation of rock and roll players. the Metallicas, the Megadeths, the Slayers......

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I was always closer to rock´n roll (Nils Frahm)

Interview with Nils Frahm 2011...

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King Mob and Bermondsey Joyriders: Live

Punkemon: elusive punks finally sighted and captured. 17/11/2011 – 229 Portland Street. There is a section of the punk community, born too late to see any of the bands in their prime (and in...

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Denial and Addiction

Punching a Hole in Bubbles of Denial and Addiction: Late Capitalism and Its Discontents of the American Autumn The global designs of the neo-liberal agenda have met the living architecture of a...

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Monkey Kung Fu Fights – An Academic in Africa

“So who would win, a man who knew kung fu, or an adult male chimp?” “The chimp would kill you.” “Even if the man knew kung fu?” “It would not matter if he...

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Opeth – Live, Brixton Academy

Sweden's Opeth have come a long way in the past twenty years. Starting out playing death metal with growling vocals on the heaviest songs, their ambitious music mixed light and shade from the...

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Abdul’ll Fix It – An Academic in Africa

For the last six weeks I have lived in Nigeria as an illegal immigrant.  My visa (which I don’t think ever technically allowed me to work here anyway) expired on the 6th of June, and no...

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Supersonic festival 2011 – review

Begin transmission: Supersonic is the probably the greatest festival or true music lovers in the UK, perhaps further afield. Stop. 21st to 24th October. Attending Supersonic 2011 felt like being...

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Why OWS Has Already Overcome

Police Repression, Official Mendacity and Why OWS Has Already Overcome Until recent events proved otherwise, the hyper-commercialized surface of the corporate state gave the appearance of being too...

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Servants, Scrapes and Situations – An Academic in Nigeria

Deprived of cultural stimuli we appreciate every cultural artefact in a much more intense way.  Saturated with cultural stimuli that intensity, in one sense, is diminished. That’s not to...

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We would go totally apeshit (Splatterheads)

Trebuchet interviews Sly, vocalist and guitarist for The Splatterheads, about their history and tentatively, the future of the parochial Australian rock labourer....

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Anglicanism, animism, atheism and assessments. In Nigeria

News of my atheism seems to have spread.  I’ve not exactly been evangelical about it – in fact I’ve barely mentioned it.  But when a colleague with whom I have never even...

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iconAclass: Powers that be interview

Powers that be: Will Brooks, hip hop’s transgressor and previously dälek, steps into the light as iconAclass.  Hip hop that referenced musique concrete and My Bloody Valentine,...

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Rome Wasn’t Burned In A Day: Wall Street 2011

Replacing Liberal Timidity With Leftist Passion Why is it that self-termed progressives are in full retreat (and have been for decades) from the witless army of angry clowns and hack illusionists of...

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Occupying the Heart of the Beast: Wall Street Protest 2011

Occupying the Heart of the Beast: Observations, Amid the Multitudes in Liberty Plaza where both the winged spirit of commitment and the rag and bone shop of the heart abide. The ongoing exercise in...

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