The Power Of Nightmares/Adam Curtis

As for the likes of Irving Kristol and "Professor" Richard Pipes, the words "please kill me" sprang to mind...

Come to think of it, where exactly does Pol Pot fit into all this?

But yes, a beautiful, confident piece of documentary making, that got me feeling all 'ahh, the BBC'.

I liked this assessment in the Times today:

If 'The Power of Nightmares' had been drafted as a play, it would be hailed as a dazzlingly thought-provoking drama. As a book, its thesis would become a debating point on talk shows round the world. Even in the form of a here-are-the-facts documentary, it is so artfully crafted, so engagingly argued, so playfully illustrated, that you happily reserve your questions and reservations until the final credits start rolling.

Here is a talented, intelligent film-maker enjoying himself and showing what you can do with an hour of television. It is deliciously spliced together, seasoned with deftly chosen archive footage from an improbale palette of sources: everything from clips from episodes of 'Perry Mason' and 'Gunsmoke', to American prom dances and Egyptian television commercials.

Apparently it was going to be trailed as long ago as the weekend before last, but they pulled back on it because of Ken Bigley.

X-post. Ahh, cool. I haven't read that.

I did like his book "Russia Under The Old Regime", so was slightly disappointed to find out he was in with all the neo-cons in the '70s. Although he did have one very annoying habit of referring to all medieval people of Scandinavian origin as "Normans".

I can't remember what the Mitrokhin Archive says about Soviet sponsorship of teroorism, but there was something. Possibly supplied by The Spy Who Came In From The Garden.

A torrent for the episode, if anyone is interested.

In the end, it was strangely calming, rather than depressing. All this will pass.

Tonight's episode was very poignant, and made me sad.

I second that. I downloaded the last two episodes last Saturday and watched them, very powerful. It's sad that there's great documentaries such as this and The White House for Sale airing on UK television, and most people in the US won't get an opportunity to see them.

Also, things that weakened his argument, such as Madrid, were kind of skipped over a bit too lightly.

Kerry seemed shoved in just in case.

Quibbles aside, top-notch television. I may even go for a month without complaining about my licence fee.

It is strange that I had never heard those people swearing as the planes hit the towers.

The cumulative effect was a kind of political version of James Burke's Connections series from the '70s. OK in shaggy dog conspiracy terms but didn't really pinpoint whether it was just the expected cocktail of bilateral incompetence, stubbornness and stupidity which led us to our current pretty pass rather than a Conspiracy as such.

I too totally agree with PJ Miller. I don't recall Madrid being mentioned at all. I couldn't get the idea out of my head that while it's fine to criticise the hysteria created by the neo-cons, (that Disney video!!), you can understand why the likes of Britain have to at least be on their guard against the kind of thing that happened in Madrid - even if we acknowledge the programme's main point that there is no such thing as monstrous Al-Qaeda.

This was the third part, part 1 was all about Afghanistan

great use of music, mind.

a) didnt really explore what Bin Laden's motivations were for trying a new policy of attacking america, going against what other islamic fundamentalist gorups were interested in (eg toppling central asian regimes*).

b) kept on repeating how the neo cons "grand mission" was some titanic battle of good vs evil, that seemed a bit suspect. are these people really solely driven by moral purpose, no matter how extreme or well, silly, that moral purpose is?

c) er i tcant think of another. but i sort of inherently dont believ things on tv when people make somewhat grandiose claims, whether they be blair, bush or some dude intoning opposing views over loads of tiny clips. it was kinda eisenstein-esque, and well, his aim was kinda totally "manipulate the viewer, worry bout factual issues later".

* interesting becasue in 2000 i was in debate with loads of russian politics students, and they savaged us about Chechnya, along the lines of "Russia is under the threat of Attack by a islamic super state, chehcnya will be the first to fall to them". We (ie a few brits) were all like, "WTF? Islamic fundamentalism? whats that? whats the issue here? quit being so paranoid!". a year later, it became a bit clearer what the idea of a threat from islamic fundamentalism might mean.

lol, i would love to hear a ken burns take on the adam curtis schtick

montage of found images set to Appalachian fiddle music

i think although obviously they're quite difft frederick wiseman's films are far more challenging and interesting than curtis

there was a piece in Vice where I think Brooker interviews him, despite liking his work (not fucking Brookers, no!) I can't think of anything much more insufferable. I would probably consider him as big a tosser as Brooker if I'd have clicked on it and read it but he doesn't seem to have much interesting to say outside of his work anyway, well based on an interview I heard on WS where he was pedalling all that usual hackneyed polarisation of politics bollox beloved of most libs.

So far I think episodes 1 and 4 are best. 2 and 3 are kind of lists in search of an overarching point and 5 is all over the shop even by his standards. 1 and 4 both focus on a tendency that the left is broadly hostile towards - individualism and apolitical activism, respectively - and gives them their due, explains where they came from, while still pointing at how they can end in catastrophe.

it's very funny to me that this thing is getting any kind of mainstream discussion/attention in your country; if this showed in the US on PBS, no one would notice

Think you might be trapped in the same bubble I was in when I logged onto the iplayer page expecting this to be the featured item - turns out it wasn't even on the front page!

It was a featured item for me, presumably because of personalisation.

but really the operative word here was depersonalization [segues into stars of the lid track]

sorry that was piss poor!

So far I think episodes 1 and 4 are best. 2 and 3 are kind of lists in search of an overarching point and 5 is all over the shop even by his standards.

Yeah that's the one - lots of interesting stuff in there as usual but just moving from story to story with no sense of direction.

damn, i wanna see these but i don't have a UK TV licence and don't want to get one. can you buy/rent it or something somehow?

you know they don't know whether or not you use iplayer?

also that if the tv license man comes round you have no reason to let him in?

if you live in the UK just click "yes I have a license" on i-player, but perhaps close your curtains as a precaution if you see the tv detector van rolling past your yard!

or just... pay your tv license 🙄

I thought having an internet connection means you are compelled by law to buy one, even if in the "I don't even have a television" category

figured they had cleverer ways to tell if you've been watching iPlayer these days, like checking if there's a TV license associated with your account, or using your IP address or something.

You don't have to have a license if you don't watcvh live or streamed BBC TV afaik.

certainly not paying for a license just to watch one show though

Not sure if UK blocks this but this is how I watched it

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtPP_-rkrT3CAPe8OmDnlZBDvaQ7baH7B

any iPlayer use requires a TV license but it’s not enforced. there is no mechanism for it.

i would not suggest not paying the license fee if youre a habitual user of the iplayer and or someone who watches broadcast tv in the uk. if you literally want to just watch one show then i don't see any issue. although the amount of media ive consumed in my life that came from "the usual sources" probably means i have a certain stance on this kind of thing that others may not share. i also hate the license fee guys who are arseholes who go around bullying pensioners and housewives

I didn't pay a license fee for years and it was handy living in an upstairs flat because if it looked like a cunt knocking I simply wouldn't answer the door. I have memories as a kid of my mum pulling the curtains over and telling us all to be quiet while some cunt aggressively bangs on the door. Lol it was a vintage b+w valve tv and the license would have probably cost a few quid.

In America, in the early 1950s
Little Rock, Pasternak
But at the same time
Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Little did the people expect
Sputnik, Zhou En-lai
Simultaneously 
Bridge On The River Kwai
But something else inside them
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle
Meanwhile,
California baseball
Five thousand miles away,
Starkweather Homicide
What they didn't foresee was
Children of Thalidomide
At the very same moment
Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur
But someone was listening:
Space Monkey, Mafia
But even as one group grew stronger
Hula Hoops, Castro
And at the very same time
Edsel is a no-go
One poor farmer had an idea:
U-2, Syngman Rhee
There would emerge a new idea
Payola and Kennedy
Just across the border,
Chubby Checker, Psycho
Meanwhile
Belgians in the Congo

brutal

Started chapter 3 tonight; gave up about 20 minutes from the end - it was going nowhere.

Turns out it's all Cecil Sharp's fault. All the woes of the C20, down to him and his bloody folk dances.

fucking morris dancers eh?

the cecil sharp stuff was weak af - there’s plenty of interesting stuff to be said about late and long victorian arts and crafts, merrie england, and the influence of pastoral on national vision but this wasn’t a useful vector tbh.

do you ever see any Morris Dancers in London? in the pre-Rona days they descended like a nightmare plague in the Holm Valley near me every summer, possibly with the ghost of Roy Castle lagging behind in his tap shoes.

Cecil Sharp stuff felt like he had just read Richard King's The Lark Ascending and decided to crib a little from that. Rad book btw, recommended to everyone. There was gonna be a special concert for it at the Barbican but then co-organizer Andrew Weatherall died and after that BAM, corona. :(

the last london open house i went on (a tiring and drizzly day in 2018 iirc) i ended up visiting cecil sharp house, at which i encountered

a) a small exbihition of punk rock sleeve art
b) a darkling panelled room its walls stiff with large elk skulls
c) being warned i couldn't stay long bcz the AGM of the morris dancing soc was just abt to start (many oldish ppl trooping, in a handful dressed as morris himself commands)

they shd let me make these documentaries *cues up eight hours of the crazy frog*

"but this was a fantasy"

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article13590383.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200b/21_Mr-Blobby-theme-park-in-a-run-down-state.jpg

I went to a night at Cecil Sharp House put on by Bob Stanley and Pete Paphides years ago. There were some bands and Stephen Duffy DJed. Lots of Vashti Bunyan and so on. Good beer behind the bar.

But little did we realise the horror that such acts would unleash etc....

do you ever see any Morris Dancers in London? in the pre-Rona days they descended like a nightmare plague in the Holm Valley near me every summer, possibly with the ghost of Roy Castle lagging behind in his tap shoes.

went to cecil sharp house library once to look up some folk song stuff. also saw a performance by “The Copper Family” absolutely wretched stuff do not deserve to carry the name of the Coppers, eliminate with prejudice.

did see a v frail Bob Copper sing in a friend’s local (The Queen’s Head universally known as Elsie’s after the 400 year old woman who ran it, who was the size of a peanut and would have to place pints on the bar reaching above her head to do so). One beer and whisky only, along with vodka which she introduced when the polish airmen were stationed nearby. that was a different matter entirely, a beautiful, frail voice singing about the nightingale and vicissitudes of the rural economy a+.

kill his epigones.

I never saw any Morris Dancers when I lived in Woolwich although I did see a jester once; Rory McGrath sat across from me somewhere on the northern line.

the moral arc of an ilx thread can be long, but it bends toward rory mcgrath

― mark s, Thursday, January 11, 2018 11:49 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2019 20:20 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

More than three years ago, I pasted this text from someone's tweet into my Reminders app:

"Cecil Sharp House is the best thing you can go to in London for under ten quid. Totally rapturous & life-enhancing."

Circumstances being as they are, it'll be some time before I complete the task, I guess.

Oops, missed the start of that. Should read:

"The Tuesday evening folk club at Cecil Sharp House is the best thing you can go to in London for under ten quid. Totally rapturous & life-enhancing."

without wishing to cast any aspersions on another’s pleasure… actually that’s exactly what i’m doing nm

i would be astonished were that the case. folkies in the round always seemed to be an awful, pedantic group of bores, with a huge tolerance for nodding and smiling at the very worst stuff. it’s an amateurist crowd which is absolutely harmless as a group and it’s fundamentally a pleasure for those involved, but presents as “the sham coy simper, the complacency, the frisson titters” in the event. ime the music is either the indigestibly twee and “folky” or poor revisiting of “i know some of you will know old Scan Tester and here’s one he used to play before the King and Queen… and many other public houses” <guffaws> etc.

go, Alba! you should definitely go. be interested to hear how it is.

Ha ha, well I'm living in New York now so it may be quite a while before I get to see who's right.

there's a female morris troop called the Belles of London (do you see?) who prance around in what looks like Victorian underwear. People seem to enjoy it. their hoss is a bastard.

(Dan from enderby's room fiddles for them from time to time)

Might watch them in slow motion so it seems more portentous than annoying.

there's a female morris troop called the Belles of London (do you see?) who prance around in what looks like Victorian underwear. People seem to enjoy it. their hoss is a bastard.

(Dan from enderby's room fiddles for them from time to time)

I see Paul Morley has met them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYUNlDdGyY

oh no

Ha ha, well I'm living in New York now so it may be quite a while before I get to see who's right.

Was tickled to read a while back that on the nite he had his Damascane punk conversion moment, viewing the Clash in Leeds 1977, Green Gartside was in full Morris get-up, having gone to the gig after an evening folk dance class.

There's a mini series on BBC Sounds called My Albion that features reflections on this stuff from the perspective of black british ppl involved in the folk scene, some Twitter Left folks show up too. Worth hearing.

oh i would like to hear that Daniel - thanks for the tip.