Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?



UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis

John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.

Another fascinating episode shows how things have fallen apart in the culture wars of the USA. Jon Ronson, who has written some wonderful books including "The Men Who Stare At Goats" was himself embroiled in the fiasco, due to his book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed".

8. A Mock Slave Auction

An incident of racist bullying on Snapchat is currently tearing apart a small town on a lake in Michigan. As the ripples spread, practically every conflict we’ve encountered throughout our series rears its head.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0012s7g

Thankfully, I am glad I live in a more inclusive Britain.

If anybody in the USA can get the BBC Sounds app, a radio app, THEN they should listen to this explosive analysis of QAnon.
It shows how a viperous thought from 4Chan can evolve into a lie that in the States was be believed to be true.

4. Q Drop

In Oct 2017 Donald Trump says something weird in a room full of military figures: “Maybe this is the calm before the storm.”

A few weeks later a poster on 4chan who calls himself Q starts to tell a crazy story about a coming storm, in which Trump is engaged in an epic battle against a cabal of satanic paedophiles who have hijacked the American Republic.

A group of bloggers mainstream the theory and it starts having a life of its own with real world consequences. Qanon is born. But who is directing it?


5. Blowback

A British spy is hired to dig dirt on Donald Trump’s Russia connections. His sources tell him Trump is a Russian agent, a puppet of the Kremlin.

America is gripped by this story. Half are convinced the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in order to defeat Hillary Clinton. But the other half believes the investigations into Russian collusion are a hoax, a conspiracy by the establishment to unseat a democratically elected president.

The QAnon community takes up this second narrative, in which a renegade General becomes a martyr and a figurehead.


6. The Usual Suspects

Donald Trump’s fantasy about a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 election merges with the fantasy of QAnon, about a looming showdown against the deep state cabal of satanic paedophiles.

After the storming of the Capitol in Washington DC, major figures from the QAnon movement gather in Dallas, Texas. Gabriel Gatehouse gets inside their conference to try to figure out who is now controlling this parallel reality. And he confronts General Flynn who is calling for his ‘digital soldiers’ to take over the country from the bottom up.

7. Welcome to The Future

The Q Shaman, the man with the furs and horns who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is in jail. The movement he came to symbolise appears defeated. But in a small South Carolina seaside town, ‘establishment’ Republicans are fighting a losing battle for the soul of their party, after one of the bloggers who mainstreamed the QAnon conspiracy theory has been elected to a powerful local position.

Across America, people who believe Donald Trump’s parallel narrative about a stolen election are trying to take over the levers of democracy. Was this the plan all along?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds

My fellow friends in the USA you must try to see this radio analysis for yourself.

No more signs of Xmas. All the cards are down, and the wall looks bare and sad. I might have to put up a few of my paintings of mine there or some posters.

I watched a programme today on the surrealist and self-promoter Salvador Dali. It was quite fascinating to see critics and art historians analyze his art in previous art documentaries.

Monday is quiz day for me. Counterpoint, the music quiz is back airing on BBC Radio 4 and this evening on the telly we had University Challenge, Only Connect and Mastermind.

I am selling my Ralph McTell LP – his début one on Transatlantic – so if anybody is interested in buying it, it is six pounds plus postage.

Back to the art documentaries now.

Just goes to prove how mad and crazy the US of A is, esp, with these evangelical nutters - no wonder being an atheist is the best way to keep out of this religious turmoil that sickens our world. The series on BBC Radio 4 specifically talks about the culture wars and is called Things Fell Apart.

2. Dirty Books
Things Fell Apart
Episode 2 of 8

1974. A church minister's wife in West Virginia learns of a brand new curriculum being introduced into her children's school. So she decides to read all 325 new textbooks herself. What she discovers horrifies her so much she instigates a Statewide insurrection. But were some of her concerns based on a misunderstanding?

Yes, I say because she did not understand nuance and interpretation, and that saying the Bible is the only book you need to read is total shit in my opinion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011ldn

Here is some background information -

The Kanawha County textbook controversy was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.

In 1970, West Virginia's Superintendent of Schools signed a proposal for funding to ensure the training of teachers to "induce change" so that children in the state's educational system could elevate and expand above their own cultural surroundings the state views as limited. On 12 March 1974, the English Language Arts Textbook Committee of Kanawha County, West Virginia recommended 325 books and textbooks to the school board for use in Kanawha schools ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. The books were selected by the Committee based on state guidelines that had been set, including but not limited to some that books should be "multicultural in content and authorship". An English teacher on the committee stated that although she held strong conservative values, she felt that removing books that showed opposing opinions would be equivalent to "telling lies by omitting ideas I know exist". So, clamping down on debate and forcing a singular conservative view. I found it disgusting! But then is the good old USA!

These textbooks were part of a new state curriculum that included for the first time the concepts of multiculturalism and egalitarianism in textbook writing. Most school board members saw no reason to question the state's decision. That is until this insular closed-minded conservative Alice Moore stepped in.

Alice Moore had previously campaigned against sex education being taught in the county and was elected as the only member of the Kanawha County School Board that did not have a college degree. Moore also had four children attending county schools. Moore was concerned by the term dialectology, which implied the teaching of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English as "equally correct" dialects. Historian Carol Mason writes that Moore did not want White children to learn the language used by African Americans with the belief that it would cause the White children "to speak in ghetto dialect!
She requested and received all 300 textbooks, and claimed that she found unsettling quotations from Allen Ginsberg, Sigmund Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex, and convicted Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and by George Jackson. She even took offense to a poem by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's "End Of The World".

She even wanted to ban the acclaimed poet Langston Hughes! In an interview with Jon Ronson on this program, she says in reply to Jon's question "Do you remember an author called Langston Hughes?", "I remember these names. I don't remember exactly what Langston Hughes wrote". That already damns her as being an ignorant insular person!

That is why I find extreme right-wing people so dangerous.


This is another fascinating series from the radio.

Sometimes I love to watch what road movies people put on, especially if it places you never been to such as Laurel Canyon.

Los Angeles Driving Tour: Laurel Canyon





Laurel Canyon is a neighborhood and canyon located in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains,

Laurel Canyon

Around 1920, a local developer built the Lookout Mountain Inn at the summit of Lookout Mountain and Sunset Plaza roads, which burned just a few years after opening.[citation needed]

Now a vacant lot, the corner of Lookout Mountain Avenue and Laurel Canyon Blvd (2401 Laurel Canyon Blvd)
is where the famous 1915 "Log Cabin" mansion stood, with its 80-foot living room, floor to ceiling fireplace, bowling alley and indoor sunken swimming pool.

It was once occupied by silent film star Tom Mix

but spent years on the rental market. In 1968 it was rented by Frank Zappa who turned it into a recording studio and celebrity hangout.
However, Zappa moved out after six months. The house burned to the ground on Halloween 1981.

Directly across the street, at 2400 Laurel Canyon Blvd., is site of the home, long-gone, that magician Harry Houdini may have rented around 1919. It was originally the Walker estate.

Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.'s rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa; Jim Morrison of The Doors; Carole King; The Byrds; Buffalo Springfield; Canned Heat; John Mayall; members of the band The Eagles; the band Love; Neil Young; and Micky Dolenz & Peter Tork of The Monkees. Tork's home was considered one of Laurel Canyon's biggest party houses with all-night, drug-fueled sleepovers well attended by the hippest musicians and movie stars of the era.

John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas took inspiration from their home in Laurel Canyon in the song "Twelve Thirty" a.k.a. "Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)", released in 1967.

In 1968, John Mayall recorded and released Blues from Laurel Canyonbased on his experiences on a vacation earlier that year.

Famed photographer Henry Diltz was also a resident and used the scenic Canyon backdrop for many of his historic photos of rock musicians casually socializing. Several of his photos became iconic representations of the 1960s & 1970's West Coast music scene and many others became famous album sleeve covers (such as CSN's debut album: Crosby, Stills & Nash - photographed in nearby West Hollywood).

Joni Mitchell, living in the home in the Canyon that was immortalized in the song, "Our House" (1970), written by her then-lover Graham Nash, would use the area and its denizens as inspiration for her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970). Crosby, Stills, and Nash are reputed to have first sung together in her living room.

Musician J. Tillman has said that his output under the moniker Father John Misty was partly inspired by a relocation to and personal reinvention in Laurel Canyon. The song "I Went to the Store One Day," from his 2015 album I Love You, Honeybear, recounts the story of how Tillman met his wife, Emma, in the parking lot of the Laurel Canyon Country Store.

On July 1, 1981, three members and one associate of the Wonderland Gang, so-called because they were based at 8763 Wonderland Avenue, died in the Wonderland murders (also known as the "Four on the Floor murders" or the "Laurel Canyon murders"). Salon reports: "The massacre took place just down the street from what was then the home of Jerry Brown, who was California’s governor at the time. And 8763 Wonderland Ave. itself is said to have been inhabited at one time by Paul Revere and the Raiders."

Another fascinating short music documentary -


How Jonny saved the Ondes Martenot



In this video, Bruce tell the fascinating story of Jonny Greenwood's relationship with the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument most famously used in Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. After its creator's death it was in danger of disappearing, but the spotlight Jonny shone on it have helped completely reverse its fortunes.

Well, here is a 1994 documentary.

Meredith Monk: A Documentary, by Sidsel Munsal (1994)




In this 1994 documentary, Monk shares her process and we see behind-the-scenes footage of her rehearsing and working with members of her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble on such works as "New York Requiem", "Do You Be", and "Vessel".

I have her ECM album "Facing North"

Time for some sounds from another world perhaps - and some documentaries -

Maryanne Amacher - Remainder [excerpt]



Delia Derbyshire - Blue Veils and Golden Sand



Eliane Radigue - IMA Portrait documentary



Her life journey has been remarkable. At the end of the fifties, she studied in Paris with musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, whom she also assisted, notably for the premiere of L'Apocalypse de Jean. During the sixties, she began composing with primitive electronics (feedback and asynchronous tape loops), but found little recognition for her research in France.

In New York in the early seventies, she found understanding and emulation, exploring emerging minimalism with James Tenney, Charlemagne Palestine, Phillip Glass, John Gibson, and Steve Reich. Her absolute allegiance to electronic sounds began during this period. Since then she has composed on the best synthesizers of the time: Buchla, Moog, Serge, and then ARP, which would become her fetish instrument. She collaborated with Robert Ashley, who sang on Les Chants de Milarepa. She has composed about two dozen works, which she has presented and continues to present at numerous prestigious venues and festivals in the United States and Europe.

The Delian Mode - Delia Derbyshire documentary



The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009) is a short experimental documentary revolving around the life and work of electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, best known for her groundbreaking sound treatment of the Doctor Who theme music. A collage of sound and image created in the spirit of Derbyshire’s unique approach to audio creation and manipulation, this film illuminates such soundscapes onscreen while paying tribute to a woman whose work has influenced electronic musicians for decades.

ENJOY

Here is a fascinating documentary on Ursula K le Guin.