Category: The Arts

Escaping Anxiety by way of Singing Nervously

On By Tony TaylorIn History, Music, Philosophy, Politics, The Arts, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The powerful, the ruling class of any historical period has spread fear as an essential element in the maintenance of its social and political control. Hence I’m stretching a point to suggest that we are living through an unprecedented era of Anxiety. And yet, even today, I’ve been warned to beware a possible proliferation of epidemic-catalysing viruses, all given the COVID script being existential threats, and instructed to fill the larder with supplies sufficient to last 72 hours in case of war.

We imagine the world as unsafe, and then we dream the world as unsafe, and then feel in our bodies that the world is unsafe. And this is an inverted order of things, the opposite of how our bodies come to knowledge. Rhyd Wildermuth

Sometime, perhaps never, I will seek to explore the contemporary phenomenon of algorithmic- created anxiety. For now, in the past few weeks I’ve sought to escape being suffocated inside the virtual by way of being scared of reality, namely giving another solo concert in my Cretan village. The nerves did indeed jangle. If you are kind enough to watch the two videos below you might well discern my tension. In terms of the songs themselves, it’s most obvious in my rushing through the Schubert composition, ‘Der Leiermann’, losing on the way much of its ambiguous mystery. Next time…….

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

A couple of people have asked for details of the latest programme. If I wasn’t so nervous about singing in the correct key I would relax and say more about the songs at the concert itself.

1. 0 Waly, Waly 

Somerset folk song

2. Somewhere a Voice’s Calling and Smilin’ Through

American Parlour-Songs recorded in 1914 and 1919 by John McCormack, the famous Irish lyric tenor and sung by me as a boy soprano in 1957!!

3. Unbelievable,  The Nearness of You and  Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

American classics and often jazz standards – Livingstone, Carmichael and Rodgers

4, Hands, Eyes, Heart  and Tired – Vaughan Williams and Now Sleeps the Petal – Quilter. 

English Art Song

5.  I am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger

North American folk song and spiritual

 6.  Ti eínai aftó pou to léne agápi from the Boy on a Dolphin, If I Loved You from Carousel and Summertime from Porgy and Bess

Songs from film and musicals – Morakis, Rodgers and Gershwin

Interval.

7. Im  Wunderschönen Monat Mai – Schumann, Das Wandern  and  Der Leiermann – Schubert

German Lieder 

8. Danny Boy

Irish folk song

9. My Funny Valentine, When I Fall in Love  and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 

Classic Love songs –  Rodgers, Young and MacColl

10. Whither do I wander – Vaughan Williams, Sea Fever – Ireland and Come Again – Dowland

English and Elizabethan song

11. One Little Quarrel and Guilty 

Tribute to Al Bowly and 1930s dance bands

12. Πάμε μια βόλτα στο φεγγάρι or Let’s take a walk to the moon

Greek classic – Hadjidakis

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Our village kafeneio, H Elpida, the cafe of Hope

There seems little doubt, in my mind, that preparing for and giving this little concert, despite the blemishes, kept me out of what Anthony Rella calls the ‘psychic pollution’ infecting our relation to the internet and social media. OK, I admit, the warbling kept me away only for some of the time. Certainly I would suggest that prioritising time away from the screen in all its forms is a necessary form of resistance to the Machine. Lately I’ve gone back to printing off copies of stuff I’d like to read and taking them to peruse in the village kafeneio. A precious bonus is that Georgos brews a fine cappuccino and I get to pass the time of day with our village’s motley characters.

I must close by thanking Ken Carpenter for filming and editing the videos – all out of the goodness of his heart.

The sad death of the inspirational Benjamin Zephaniah

On By Tony TaylorIn History, Literature, Music, Politics, The ArtsLeave a comment

Why I am an anarchist: Benjamin Zephaniah

Thanks to Autonomies, where I found this ‘powerful’ testimonial.

A testimonial by poet and writer Benjamin Zephaniah

I got political after I suffered my first racist attack at the age of seven. I didn’t understand any political theory, I just knew that I had been wronged, and I knew there was another way. A few years later, when I was fifteen a marked police car pulled up to me as I walked in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, three cops got out of the car, they pushed me into a shop doorway, then they beat me up. They got back into their car, and drove off as if nothing had happened. I had read nothing about policing policy, or anything on so-called law and order, I just knew I had been wronged. When I got my first job as a painter, I had read nothing on the theory of working class struggles or how the rich exploited the poor, but when my boss turned up every other day in a different supercar, and we were risking our lives up ladders and breathing in toxic fumes, I just knew I had been wronged.

I grew up (like most people around me) believing Anarchism meant everyone just going crazy, and the end of everything. I am very dyslexic so I often have to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to make sure I’ve written words correctly. I was hearing words like Socialism and Communism all the time, but even the Socialists and Communists that I came across tended to dismiss Anarchists as either a fringe group, who they always blamed if there was trouble on demonstrations, or dreamers. Even now, I just checked a spellchecker and it describes Anarchism as chaos, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder. I like the disorder thing, but for the ‘average’ person, disorder does mean chaos, lawlessness, and mayhem. The very things they’re told to fear the most.

The greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself is to learn how to think for myself. I began to do that at an early age, but it’s really difficult to do that when there are things around you all the time telling you how to think. Capitalism is seductive. It limits your imagination, and then tells you that you should feel free because you have choices, but your choices are limited to the products they put before you, or the limits of your now limited imagination. I remember visiting São Paulo many years ago when it introduced its Clean City Law. The mayor didn’t suddenly become an Anarchist, but he did realise that the continuous and ubiquitous marketing people were subjected to was not just ugly, but distracting people from themselves. So more than 15,000 marketing billboards were taken down. Buses, taxis, neon and paper poster advertisements were all banned. At first it looked a little odd, but instead of either looking at, or trying not to look at advertising broads, I walked, and as I walked I looked around me. I found that I only purchased what I really needed, not what I was told I needed, and what was most noticeable was that I met and talked to new people every day. These conversations tended to be relevant, political, and meaningful. Capitalism keeps us in competition with each other, and the people who run Capitalism don’t really want us to talk to each other, not in a meaningful way.

I’m not going to go on about Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but it is clear that one thing they all have in common is their need for power. Then to back up their drive for power they all have theories, theories about taking power and what they want to do with power, but therein lies the problem. Theories and power. I became an Anarchist when I decided to drop the theories and stop seeking power. When I stopped concerning myself with those things I realised that true Anarchy is my nature. It is our nature. It is what we were doing before the theories arrived, it is what we were doing before we were encouraged to be in competition with each other. There have been some great things written about Anarchism, and I guess that’s Anarchist theory, but when I try to get my friends to read these things (I’m talking about big books with big words), they get headaches and turn away. So, then I turn off the advertising (the TV etc.) and sit with them, and remind them of what they can do for themselves. I give them examples of people who live without governments, people who organise themselves, people who have taken back their own spiritual identity – and then it all makes sense.

If we keep talking about theories then we can only talk to people who are aware of those theories, or have theories of their own, and if we keep talking in the round about theories we exclude a lot of people. The very people we need to reach, the very people who need to rid themselves of the shackles of modern, Capitalistic slavery. The story of Carne Ross is inspiring, not because he wrote something, but because he lived it. I love the work of Noam Chomsky and I love the way that Stuart Christie’s granny made him an Anarchist, but I’m here because I understand that the racist police who beat me have the state behind them, and the state itself is racist. I’m here because I now understand that the boss-man who exploited me to make himself rich didn’t care about me. I’m here because I know how the Marrons in Jamaica freed themselves and took to the hills and proved to all enslaved people that they (the Marrons), could manage themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love books (I’m a writer, by the way), and I know we need people who think deeply – we should all think deeply. But my biggest inspirations come from everyday people who stop seeking power for themselves, or seeking the powerful to rescue them, and they do life for themselves. I have met people who live Anarchism in India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and in Papua New Guinea, but when I tell them they are Anarchists most will tell me they have not heard of such a word, and what they are doing is natural and uncomplicated. I’m an Anarchist because I’ve been wronged, and I’ve seen everything else fail.

I spent the late seventies and the eighties living in London with many exiled ANC activists – after a long struggle Nelson Mandela was freed and the exiles returned home. I remember looking at a photo of the first democratically elected government in South Africa and realising that I knew two thirds of them. I also remember seeing a photo of the newly elected Blair (New Labour) government and realising that I knew a quarter of them, and on both occasions I remember how I was filled with hope. But in both cases it didn’t take long to see how power corrupted so many members of those governments. These were people I would call and say, “Hey, what are you doing?”, and the reply was always something along the lines of, “Benjamin, you don’t understand how having power works”. Well I do. Fuck power, and lets just take care of each other.

Most people know that politics is failing. That’s not a theory or my point of view. They can see it, they can feel it. The problem is they just can’t imagine an alternative. They lack confidence. I simply blanked out all the advertising, I turned off the ‘tell-lie-vision’, and I started to think for myself. Then I really started to meet people – and, trust me, there is nothing as great as meeting people who are getting on with their lives, running farms, schools, shops, and even economies, in communities where no one has power.

That’s why I’m an Anarchist.

Next Cretan Chatting Critically meeting, Wednesday, April 26th

On By Tony TaylorIn The ArtsLeave a comment

STOP PRESS – NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATE TO WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26th

I must apologise for my dull sloth. I intended to post a report on the first Chatting Critically meeting, which took place in Gavalohori on Tuesday, March 25th. A combination of being under the weather and making a trip back to Wigan has meant putting off the task. However, this evening’s jangling Easter Week church bells have woken me up.

Back then, on a bright, cold morning I made my way tentatively down the steep slope, my head swimming from a still mysterious allergy, concerned to be first in the kafenio. Indeed I was, being greeted warmly by young Giorgos, who has in recent months transformed the classic men’s retreat into a much more open meeting place. And to be fair, the blokes don’t seem to mind, taking it all in their collective stride. I was thrown briefly when Giorgos nipped next door for a haircut, confident fifteen minutes would do the trick. He was right, returning just in time to take the orders for coffees and juice being placed by the arriving would-be Chatters.

Following brief introductions by the ten of us present [3 men and 7 women] we threw ourselves into a wide-ranging discussion, which began with the question of what constitutes Truth, going on to explore amongst other things what information and disinformation continue to influence our understandings of the COVID pandemic and the spectre of Climate Change. To everyone’s credit, the challenging exchange of opinions was cordial and respectful. There was a consensus that our next gathering should be more focused in its content and intent.

Thus it was agreed that we should meet again on Wednesday, April 26th in the H Ελπίδα kafeneio, Gavalohori at the same time of 10.30 a.m, aiming to finish by noon. We were grateful to Phil Harrison for agreeing to lead off our next debate, which will explore the state of the Creative Arts in the third decade of the twenty-first century with particular regard, given Phil’s career, to the music scene.

All are welcome but it would be helpful if you could let me know if you are intending to be present – tonymtaylor@gmail.com. Last-minute arrivals will still be greeted with open arms!

Other topics suggested for future meetings include:

  • Given most of us are migrants, how do we understand the ongoing issue of immigration, refugees and government responses?
  • Where is the drive to a cashless society taking us?
  • What on earth is the Great Reset?
  • Are we living in an increasingly intolerant and divisive culture, which threatens the very basis of Freedom of speech?

Crossing fingers you might make it on the 26th.

SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR THE MIX-UP OVER DATES

Tony