1May
1. On anti-merkinism
We really do worry about Justin Webb. Here's a commentary on his Q and A about anti-merkinism:
The US [sic] does not kill civilians as a matter of policy.
Except it does; see Hiroshima, see the 1973 revolution in Chile, see many little targets in occupied Iraq.
I think foreigners are sometime perplexed by the relative success - particularly economic success - of the US [sic] and like to believe that it has come by accident.
Mr. Webb is confusing the current situation with the end of history. He sounds like the sort of person who would have written in the nineteenth century about how working every hour that god sends has made the British into the permanent rulers of one-third of the planet. The lack of a credible opposition to rampant capitalism is unfortunate, particularly as proper communism (as opposed to Stalinism) has never been tried for more than a few years.
You do not have to give up your Texas lifestyle but you do need to accept that other lifestyles might be equally valid and worthwhile. Sometimes it comes down to a matter of tone, nothing more.
Good point, well made.
The US [sic] represents, I suppose, a set of ideas about human conduct which makes approval or disapproval of its behaviour much more important to Americans.
It claims to hold certain values, but the actual day-to-day expression shows that these are just idle words on pieces of paper. For all their problems, France and Venezuela (to take Mr. Webb's preferred counter-examples) translate their grand words into concrete deeds, and do so on a daily basis.
2. Promm-ise
The programme for the BBC's token commitment to live music, the Promenade concerts, has been announced. It's Nicholas Kenyon's last summer in command of the concerts before he yields to the utterly useless Roger Wright. Standout programmes include:
- A late-night Latin mass, 17 July
- A French concert, 20 July
- The Blue Peter
prom is presented by Peter Duncan, 21-22 July
- Vexations and Deviations
, a choral piece about reality television, 22 July
- Inter-war British music, 26 July
- Boulez and Birtwhistle, 31 July
- Bards to Blues, 8 August
- Nitin Sawhney, 10 August
- On the Town
, 14 August
- Sibelius, 15 August
- Rite of Spring
, 17 August
- Michael Ball, 27 August
Yes, that is the same Michael Ball who has been a mainstay of musical theatre for the past two decades. His concert has come in for criticism from some of the more snobbish classical critics, but they overlook two salient points. One, Mr. Ball is a well-known name amongst people who don't usually listen to classical works. Do the snobs want to attract new listeners or not? And two, he's a far more adventurous choice than Roberto Alagna / Russell Watson / Hayley Westernra / Katherine Jenkins. Mr. Ball is out of the Classic-FM comfort zone, and that's to be encouraged.
Jessica Duchen's Pick of the Proms. Not 'arf!
3. A bad joke
Bookworld is having a shot at The Artist's Way
. (1, 2, 3.) Or, as we oh-so-cunningly renamed it some years back, The Surely Impossible Way of the Artist. D'ya see what we did there? Oh. Please yourself.
Anyway, Bookworld wonders if a suspension of disbelief is an adequate substitute for actual belief. Very probably; the point would appear to be give this thing a chance, rather than do this or you will never be able to write anything more complex than a shopping list ever again.
We've glanced over TSIWotA, but figured that what worked for Mrs. Cameron won't work for us. We who walk everywhere, and who don't listen to our inner censor (just our inner editor), rarely find the creative juices drying up.
