The Hammershøi Paradox



I've just finished the Eno Biography which was marvellous in the first two thirds which concentrated on music but seemed to falter a little as soon as Bono and Co. started to feature. The last decade seems to have been skipped over at high speed maybe with a view to getting the book out in under 500 pages. Still, very fine on the pieces that matter like My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and classic Fripp and Eno. Now, as you can see, I am on to what looks like a glorious and intelligent investigation into certain aspects of language by Steven Pinker who has already made me think deeply about the meaning of the word "learned" (single syllable there) and promises to talk about what the meaning of "is" is. Which is quite funny because I am just listening to World Service by Man Jumping on which is a track called The Trouble Is Is. It is obviously to be stored in the Clintonian Institute. In a nice bit of circularity, Brian Eno did once say that Man Jumping were "the most important band in the world." Bet you haven't heard of them.

I managed to stifle a snigger at reading this article about the use of Babylon by David Gray as a form of torture. Because Gray is of course right - compare and contrast the use of this track in a dark, damp room, played over and over until it sticks in the mind for ever and it quietly played in a comforting environment where you have the volume control and the stop button within reach. As Gray says all we see is the novelty value of this story and not the deeper issues. And in the same week we have Christopher Hitchens insisting that water-boarding is torture after having gone through it himself, albeit with a pre-arranged signal if it got too much. You need to read the Vanity Fair article to tease out whether Hitchens actually suports the use of water boarding - I still have trouble working out which Hitchens is which - they seem to be some sort of Schroedinger's Neo-conservative/Liberal or maybe a tangled pair of sub-atomic particles where as soon as you determine the spin of one the other one immediately spins in the opposite direction.