The Hole That Consumed Itself

The Culture that cancelled itself
didn't realise that before it left
it would cancel so much besides
that nobody and nothing remained
who knew what it once was,
and the greater whole that it was once part of.

Natural and Artificial Labour?

After some recent disruptive times
with the machine
on which these blogs get written.
I was forced to muse
whilst the laptop was 'processing'
and I could not write. What came to me
how far the words 'computer'
and 'robot' have travelled over this last century.

In reports from elections in the local press
from the early 1900's the paper would say
'The count for the vote is being completed
by computers', and these were live humans
whose job it was to count things, like ballots
but other things too. One of the most boring
but lucrative short term jobs I did was one
counting Boots vouchers that had been spent
in their shops across the country.

I spent all my breaks on my own,
reading the diaries of Soren Kierkegaard,
I hated the job and the company that much
that Kierkegaard seemed like good company.

'Robot' was the Hungarian word for 'slave'
though long before the times it was coined
there were many legal forms of bonded
or indentured labour around the world.
There the labour of slaves was a currency
owned and depreciated by their masters
such that they had to top up the supply often.

In the nineteenth century the English ruling classes
used to call the English and Irish working classes
'niggers' even though they were white.
The name got used so that the Upper Classes
could set themselves apart from all they disliked
whilst being of the same skin tone.

If the upper classes had believed in evolution
they would have called the white working classes
monkeys and worse, to make out
that those who they exploited and disliked
was justified by them being a different species.

Signs Of Greater Age (49)

When I look at the videos
of the music that was made
between fifty and sixty yeas ago
I love the rich sounds I hear,
and it pleases me even more
to both see and hear the notes
being plucked from the instruments
that the bands played and to survey
the keenness of the young audiences
of the time, I wish I had flares like they had
and there were concerts for me to go to.

But with age I find myself distracted
as I wondered, who were the seamstresses
who designed and made the stage clothes
that made them stand out so whilst on stage?

Who were the army of hairdressers
who washed the lustrous locks
of all those peacock rock stars?

And at the scuzzy end of the scale,
who were the groupies who were masseurs
to the egos of stars they found hard to resist?

In other words the music was serviced
as it was presented by an entourage
without which none of it would have happened.

These people, the roadies and crew etc, matter
and they should be remembered when the music plays.  

I Blame Edward Bernays

As the media in my country
defers to the commonplace
and wallows in unnecessary obituaries
to a well kept 99 year old Greek prince
and consort who led a peripatetic early life,
after which he married into wealth and luxury
beyond the dreams of an older Greek, Croesus.

As the media maunders on before his funeral
I cannot avoid noticing when he was born;1921.

This was a few short years after Edward Bernays
made opera singer Enrico Caruso the first million seller,
Bernays was the man who reinvented deference to the wealthy
via 'Public Relations', and told the public pleasing lies 
about the Treaty of Versailles, which the press perpetuated.

Ever since then wealthy nobodies
have made themselves famous
by applying Bernays' methods
to package themselves as public figures
who worthy deeds should occupy the time
of those busy being poor, below them.

The only difference between those
whose time is taken up
and those who take other peoples time
is the size of their income.

Compatible Seeks Similar?

When people say they seek love,
as opposed to friendship or sex,
what they mean is that they are
looing for that personal chemistry
with someone else that renews itself
without them being over effortful. 

This chemistry may well be sought
but it can only be found by accident.

Once it is kindled, it is a thing of joy
that feels like forever for those in it.

But the sting in the tail
for those who enjoy the otherness
that their choice of company brings
-they have to quietly enjoy
being themselves first.

Great Turn Off's Of Our Time (26)

When ever radio presenters
talk about the death of anyone
they always put the word 'sadly'
before the word 'died'
as if every death was a sad death
both for those the departed left behind
and the departed themselves.

The breath-taking depth of assumption
behind this constantly use linkage
never fails to remind me
of those who I know have died
who I wished I'd never met
and wished I'd never been beholden to.

The Drug Of Lack Of Choice

When telling the truth
becomes the latest tactic
because all the lies
we were taught to believe
are now past their tell by date,
then it is clear and official;
they were a waste of time,
and a was of the life it took
to tell them and have them believed.

After all that waste
do not expect their replacement
to serve any great intent
if we have the energy to listen
we will be too worn down
to act with grit and integrity.