Monday 27 June 2011

Critics Writing Manifestos

I spent an enjoyable early evening at the residence of one Mr. Gareth Vile discussing, amongst other things, the nature and purposes of art criticism which culminated in the idea of critics writing manifestos on where they feel the present spirit of art is going wrong and what they think it ought to be doing in order to improve and 'get it right'

I now have an idea for an article to develop on the future of Musical Theatre.
I am very crtical of musical theatre in its present state, not because I hate the medium but because I love it. I have a clear picture of what I think contemporary Musical Theatre could be doing and see what musical theatre could and should be doing today (alongside the present forms in which it exists if not instead of them) and know how wonderful it would be to see it doing that so I will enjoy pontificating on the concept and receiving (even being influenced by) the feedback of others on those ideas. Watch this space.

Sunday 26 June 2011

petty dictator

she's a little dictator that tells everyone what to do and how to do it all the time and that makes everyone around resentful towards her but she blames them and denegrates their character for not observing her ways.

she won't take advice she only gives advice
constantly
any opportunity she gets she gives advice

thing is

if all her idiotic rules and routines made her a happy person I would be the first to volunteer as an apprentice to learn her magical ways of freedom and happiness... but the fact remains that she's the most miserable person I know, so she's the last person whose example I'd follow.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Chillin like a villain, all good in the hood

So I'm just chillin' at the university mature students' union, typing up notes after notes trying to reduce the massive accumulating pile of papers, half papers, and the like that always seem to rapidly be accumulating around me into some digestible printed-out version that can actually be used towards such ends as writing articles, books, plays, or who knows.

It feels good throwing old bits of paper away, I can reduce 2-5 into a side of printed A4, nice one.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Regulations

In reference to the acts passed by government I find the term “regulation” is problematic for several reasons.

Firstly, the term “regulation” is question-begging of itself. That is to say, it assumes of itself the legislation is going to succeed in “regulating” (or regularising) the behaviour of this or that thing, but it is not always the case that regulations succeed in regulating (or regularising.) They don’t always work or achieve what they are meant to achieve. Sometimes they have been observed to have the opposite effect from what is intended. An example is the fact that the financial industry was the most regulated of all industries at the time when the banks collapsed and the recession started (and remains so). People are now calling for “more regulation” of the financial industry, and certainly it seems that that is due, but clearly it is not the quantitative amount of regulation which is the key factor but the quality and nature of the regulations in place.

All a “regulation” can really do is draw a line in the sand which says “You are not allowed to do X. If you X then the consequences will be Y.” This is may often be justified, for example: “if you pollute the environment (X) then you will have to pay to clean up the mess in addition to what is deemed a suitable penalty (Y),” where Y is jail time or a fine or both.

So regulations don’t necessarily regulate anything, but they do set up boundaries which cannot be crossed without repercussions. (If they get caught!)

Perhaps then a fairer term than “regulations” is “controls.” Although this may present some of the same problems in implying that the control works, but the word is meant to be implied in the sense of exerting control over behaviour and in that way circumvents the rhetorical device.
In so far as making explicit the exertion of control the term also side steps another rhetorical device in that the term “regulation” euphemises the use of force (forcing someone not to do X by threat of punishment Y) as applied by the state.

Sometimes that use of force is an execution of the general will, sometimes it isn’t. More often than not regulations are dreamed up by people in or connected to established industries who want to make it as complicated and expensive as possible for new companies to crop up and jeopardise their market share, therefore you need x, y and z licence, and this safety check and a qualification in that course, and this and that and that and this. You’ll need to pay a lawyer just to be able to understand all the checks and balances, and probably an accountant to make sure you haven’t slipped up anywhere. That is the trick that is used by big companies so often to reduce competition and keep their profit margins, they need lawyers and accountants anyway so it’s not big extra cost to them but it is to an upstart.

There is a general assumption that regulations stand to benefit the public but often they are conceived by policy-makers and think-tanks associated to the established “big boys” in industry.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Blogging and "Fish and Moose"

I have this new blog so I guess I should do what blogs are for and blog
I just don't think I'm as pretentious as I was when I got livejournal as a teenager, I always seemed to have something I at least thought was very insightful to write back then.


So I've been a busy little bee

Monday Stuart came over to talk about Close and Faraway the play I am composing music for, and hear what I'd got so far which is a few melodic themes with accompaniment and variations thereupon XP more work soon.

Tuesday night I went out to a creative writing open mic during the West End Festival at Partick Library and heard some people read out poems and bits of prose. I also read out The Pragmatist and recited A Musical Poem which inspired me to post those up here, as well as a couple of other bits and pieces you can check out if it pleases you:

Heart of Matters
The Pioneer
Nympholepsy 

Afterwards Finn came over to work on Fish and Moose which is a sitcom-esque play we started writing maybe a year ago (which is now looking more like a screen play.) FIND OUT ABOUT IT BY CLICKING HERE. The interesing thing about this piece of writing is it started out life as an extensive list of jokes that we had coined over the course of several nights out. Us having a few different strands to our senses of humour, characters began emerging through the jokes as you could think "well that line could be said by the same person that said that line" ...and then storyline started to weave itself around the development characters. It has shown out to be a really cool, interesting and original way of writing, consistently funny, with some very unexpected results regarding the depths of some of the characters. Lots of happy coinicdences and subtext that was coined without preconception.

Today I'm off to Jonos to complete editations on the new Illich sketches, so hope I can post the new one up in the next day or two.

Monday 6 June 2011

The Pioneer

comedy song from 06/06 .... 5 bloody years ago!!!

The Pioneer (July 2006)

I was working on the time machine in 1984
I set the relays up and jacked the flux capacitor
Then all of a sudden they had broken down my door
My team was stunned and one by one they fell down to the floor
Next thing I remember I woke up upon my back
I didn't know how long ago since everything went black
The smashed my lab and took my plans and my time machine was gone
I've never seen my team again or got the damn thing done, you see...

I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!

then in '89 I built a metal man of steel,
Automatonic Automaton Automatically real!
My greatest work complete / compete my rivalry could not
With the copyrighted trade-mark reservation that I bought
I tried to guard my patents / They were blatantly revoked
Robbed of my intellectual property and taken for a joke

Now he's working for the CIA the Rothschilds and the pope!

I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!

In 1999 I built a fusion power plant
Such a grand design / to find wrong those who said "You Can't!"
We would have cleaned up nuclear energy - our fission days were done,
But the Saudis and the Bushes didn't find the prospect fun...
They appropriated all my workings on atomic combination,
And they tried to hush me up to hide my research from the nation,
Now they track me with a microchip to make sure I don't tell,
And they've designed a stinking nuclear-fusion powered oil well!
I tell ya...

I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!
I was a pioneer - They stole my idea!

Sunday 5 June 2011

Current News

Hello out there mr/mrs (delete as appropriate) read-y person, sorry if this blogish thingy looks a bit clinical so far, I just set it up today and backdated some posts with haste so they might be a bit minimal in content but they're doing their job of archiving my shiz.

What am I doing?

- Right now I'm writing music for seven-piece ensemble to accompany a production of Stuart Marshall's Close and Faraway which will be staged in September by Attune Theatre,

please stay attuned eh-em for more news on this and possibly previews of some of the stuff I'm working on.

- I'm also working with Mr. Finn Townsley on a project (play? screenplay? sitcom?) called Fish and Moose. Click the link to read about it.

- Illich Sketch Show rages on, despite the evil machinations of the Villainous Dr. Haber who plans to put a stop to it all.

- I don't know if I should really mention this because I'm not sure I will be making updates on it but I'm working on some kind of novella called Beyond Reason which is a platform to entail anystrange philosophical insights I am gleaning from life or inspired by books I'm reading. Just some kind of big mash-up we'll see.

Today was mostly spent chilling at an abode in the care of one Mr. Gareth Vile of The Vile Arts Radio Hour (which strangely always seems to run for two hours - go figure) speaking of life, the universe plus anything and everything under the sun ranging from art, theatre and music to philosophy, politics and relationships, all over about half a million roll-up cigarettes and filter coffee. afternoon win.

Saturday 4 June 2011

Recording the new Illich Sketches

Well it's official, with the post of Episode 5 of The Illich Sketch Show we officially ran out of archived material last week.

Today Euan Sinlair and I went up to see Jono at the Soular Power Suite to record the new episodes. Much hilarity and corpsing ensued  and we're particularly keen on the new episodes so stay tuned to the channel, those of you who may have been watching anyway. (subscribe even ;-) ;-) )

I ended up at the flat party of my friend Madz last night who is the most dashing of Madzes
and was introduced to a (perhaps clinically) insane individual (said with the warmest affection) who introduced me to her amusing website Captain Bucko (.com) check out the SIr Gertreude section for a laugh.



Things got emotional later on as Evonne hugged mr. Euan Sinclair goodbye and bid him well on quest to pasures more eastern over in Mongolia where he is set to travel for an indeterminate time. Euan has been my flatmate and closest friend for most of the last year so it's going to be a whole new life when he's gone. We bid him well and a final farewell at his going away party on Friday near Nairn.