A Day Not Reading - #Oktoberfest #19 - Starbucks - A

Yesterday I sort of didn't read, I had finished the 400 page "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins which I have passed on to a friend and this morning I have started Philip Pullman's "The Secret Commonwealth" clocking in at close on 700 pages. After "The Illuminatus Trilogy" (800 pages) it seems I have been taking fairly hefty tomes to read.

The odd thing about "The Secret Commonwealth" is that it is the second in "The Book of Dust" Trilogy , the follow up to "His Dark Materials" but "His Dark Materials" is bookended by "La Belle Sauvage" and "The Secret Commonwealth" , this is not a problem , just unexpected.

I'm actually telling a fib because yesterday, as a respite from big books, I dipped into "Ten Years In An Open Necked Shirt", poetry by The Bard of Salford John Cooper Clarke which is always entertaining.

#Oktoberfest continues with a brand name that is generally associated with coffee, but sell anything they can these days, that is Starbucks. The song is "Starbucks" by the band "A" from the album "Hi-Fi Serious" who with a name like that are impossible to search for on Google (a bit like "!!!") . The song is more about the company's dodgy employment practices rather than the product but the product association will do for my #Oktoberfest sequence.

Books

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is finished and I had my eyes on three books to read next:

1. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
2. Brief Answers To Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
3. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard
4. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

That was roughly how they had ordered themselves in my mind so of course I chose "How To Stop Time" by Matt Haig. I started reading it and thought this sounds familiar, I then dipped into the various parts of the book and it came back to me. I have read it before. It's a great story, pure Matt Haig , but I don't need to read it again. I either must have another copy or I have given it away to a friend or charity shop. I'm sure someone else will benefit from this great book.

So next on the list was the Stephen Hawking book , his last published work and it is remarkably refreshing even with the forewords from Eddie Redmayne and Professor Kip Thorne the Hawking stars writing.... about stuff I do find difficult getting my head round but the analogy I have to use after "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" is like I've been swimming in the weeds and rubbish at the bottom of an undredged canal, yes it's interesting and keeps your attention but is probably the lyrical equivalent of bog snorkelling, then coming to the Stephen Hawking book is like surfacing ing into clear , warm water that brings joy if unfamiliarity. There is still work to be done but it has become a lot more inviting and pleasurable.

The book is only 230 pages so will be finished this week but everything I have read by Stephen Hawking is always easy to read if not to understand. It makes you think and that is always and pleasure.

For some reason the song "Back To Life (Back To Reality)" came to mind so obviously that is what we will continue with on this beautiful Sunday.

Reading

Nearly finished the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and if anything they are madder than the main part of the book itself. Conspiracies and mysticism fantasy with maybe the odd sprinkling of truth with recognisable names and images. I has been a wild and wacky ride and hopefully this will be the last time I mention it, but probably won't be because of the links and influences it has over so much music and writing that are in my admittedly large and eclectic sphere  of stuff that attracts my attention.

I'm not sure what will be next and have a number of disparate tomes lined up including Richard Dawkins, Matt Haig and Brian Eno but they are just three of many, I could easily go for something else and at some point want to reread "Imajica"and "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" or even "Bored of the Rings" although like Spike Milligan's "Puckoon" that starts out brilliantly funny but does eventually fizzle out

So after that brief literary interlude I'll leave you on this Saturday morning with the vaguely literary connection of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" which recalls Lewis Carroll through a drug fuelled tango time haze.

Reading Appendices #2 and Discovering Sam Fender

Well I am reading the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and it's like nothing has changed. Same mad whirlwind mix or mysticism and conspiracies as well as explanations of I-Ching symbols that I was unaware of, well I assume they are correct despite the fact this is a work of mad fiction. It's not often fictional novels  have a large section of appendices.

This is just a short post to let you know a little more about this book that I thought I was finished with and had finished writing about, but like a box of fireworks you dropped a match in , they've not all gone off yet.

Chris Hawkins played "The Borders" by Sam Fender on 6Music this morning and I've had a natural aversion to Sam Fender because everyone seems to be pushing him. He's also a local lad (North Shields I think, well that's where his studio is). Chris described him as the English Springsteen. After hearing "The Borders" he might not be wrong , and amazing song and the album is on my list to buy, and given my generally paucity of new music buying these days that is no mean thing. Well impressed.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Reading Appendices

I know I was on the last leg of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" have finally met the subject of the final book "Leviathan" then way before the end the book ends! It's been a wild kaleidoscopic ride (and I know that probably isn't a correct metaphor, even if it is a metaphor) but here I was at the end.

So I have still nearly ten per cent of the text to go through that consist of the appendices which I suppose is unusual for a work of mainly fiction with the odd drops of reality and even truth in there, so I still probably have a week's reading to go.

Is this a book I will keep? I'm not sure. I've loved reading it but I'm fairly certain this is a one read book for me and not something, for me, that I can dip in and out of, but I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to go off on a mad literary ride. I'm not sure what book I will read next, maybe something with a more stable narrative.

Also this week I have been, for me, binge watching TV taking in Catch-22 , Parks and Recreation, Carnival Row and Scamalot.

September is a 30 month so I need to slightly up my daily steps but that's going OK after last month fairly smashing it. I'm just wondering if I could maybe hit half a million steps in a month, which would require me to hit 17K steps a day so maybe that's not really an option as I am generally to lazy.

The sky outside is grey, the heating is on , there are seagulls crying which indicates rain but we are at the first Tuesday in September.

In that past month the blog has now had 30K visits thanks to Feedburner picking it up again and I'm glad that I have a new top post which is here. thankfully replace this, which was stuck there for years.

So what song for today. I really haven't a clue but as the KLF are the reason I am reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" we can go with "Justified And Ancient" their mash up with Tammy Wynette.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

666

I've just passed page 666 in "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and was expecting something apocalyptic or at least interesting , but barring Moses crossing the Red Sea there wasn't too much out of the ordinary barring a reanimated Nazi army rising from the bottom of a lake near a rock festival close to Ingolstadt which is fairly normal for that book.

I can only think of two other books that I've read have a page 666 that's "Imajica" and "Lord of The Rings"  and maybe of of Michael Moorcock's Corum collections. I suppose The Bible and Quran also have one.

666 is defined as "The Number of The Beast" and features in many biblical and occult writings and films. as well as being an upside down 999. Aleister Crowley modelled himself as The Great Beast and many metal bands such as Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden , and jazz artists such as Graham Bond tapped into his legacy.

I remember visiting a youth club as a teenager and we brought records and one guy brought the "banned" "666" by Aphrodite's Child (featuring Vangelis and Demis Roussos" and I was well impressed with a lot of the album and have a copy in by collection. "Babylon" and "The Four Horsemen" are well worth tracking down. Click on the name for Youtube links. But we'll go with the more obvious Iron Maiden rampage on this Saturday morning.

Quarter Of A Million

I've hit quarter of a million visits on the blog since it started, and while I don't write a lot on each post, fairly bite size chunks, it is an improvement on when I started. I have lots of friends who started blogs that have then lapsed, a few of my favourites that you see on the right hand side of this have not been updated for a hell of a long time. Often people write extremely long essay type pieces which  take time to put together (which often we don't really have) and then sometimes people see a huge chunk of text and it just turns them off, even though the subject or writer actually interest the reader.

I have been criticised for writing documentation at work, because there is not enough writing on each page (never for the actual content). The thing is white space actually draws people in because they see that they can read and take in what's on that page. I'm not sure about others but I find all my documentation useful because it's easy to find and take in what you need to know but that is just self recommendation.

"The Illuminatus! Trilogy" is severely blocks of non stop text, so very intimidating, but it has managed to draw me in and keep me hooked but that is a definite exception to the rule

Also while these blog posts might be seemingly slight on a computer browser, when viewed on a mobile device they become reasonably digestible articles, not too long but but not throw away.

So Graham Parker's "New York Shuffle" is playing on 6Music , and it's a brilliant reminder of the wonderful Graham Parker who is still making great music. Thanks for that Chris Hawkins.

New Targets? Well I can probably hit 320 posts this year, which will be another record and well within my grasp and unexpected as I was aiming for 200 posts this year. It is possible I may hit 300K visits this year but that's dependent on stuff beyond my control , also I'd like to see the Christopher Lee video hit 50K visits as it hit 30K this year.

2019

This is post 2019 in the year 2019.  This year my aim was to hit 2000 posts since I started blogging, I ended up doing that last month here.  I was thinking that maybe this would be another record posting year but this month posts have dropped off so it may or may not happen, we shall see.

Today has been a very hot Bank Holiday but that is nothing to complain about, though tomorrow is a return to work for a four day week.

Over the weekend I was completely cut off from music apart from listening on the train journeys to and from Scotland and was thinking I haven't played "Rain" by The Beatles on the new RPM record player.. The rumour is that Paul McCartney's bass on the original single was so heavy that it caused the needle to jump. I have a re released single but will try that before work tomorrow morning.

I've dipped back into the swirling currents of words that make up "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and still finding it entertaining as I pass the three quarter level. Totally mad with probably some snippets of truth to be taken with large doses of salt.

So on the burning day I think "Hot Hot Hot" by The Cure from possibly my favourite album of theirs "Kiss Me,Kiss Me,Kiss Me" would be good to sign off with.

When You Finish Reading A Book Should You Dispose of It?

It's just a thought I've had as books usually take a long time to read and often you are never going to reread the them. I'm currently reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" which is a grammatically odd title and at 800 pages I don't think I will reread it. The experience of reading it is enjoyable (for me) but would not be to everyone's taste, but it is a book I will never forget although I cannot remember everything about it because it does not have a storyline as such, things just happen. Also because it's such a big book it will make way for other books.

It can go to a friend or acquaintance who may want to try it or to a charity shop, it's irrelevant to me as long as someone else gets the chance to experience and enjoy it.

Certain books like "Imajica" by Clive Barker (my favourite ever book read two or three times and about a thousand pages)  and "Lord of The Rings" will certainly never go but others always might.

Some books stay because you can dip in and out of them and find enjoyment that way, and others are reference books and great for researching things, but some have, by their nature, to have a limited home shelf life.

Actually the shorter the book is, the less likely it is to go because a 200 page book is a lot easier to reread that an 800 page book, also stories are usually better to revisit than biographies and factual books.

Music wise CDs are is some ways dead in the water for me unless they are in a special package and I have a few of those, but this weekend I have sold four on Discogs for a combined amount of £50 so some people are still interested in the format.

So what should I leave you with. I couldn't think of a song but here's a short video of some amazing libraries. Remember not everyone can afford books, but libraries give everyone the opportunity to enjoy books.

Double Dutch

Again I switched on 6Music  and "Double Dutch" by Malcolm Mclaren on the Radcliffe & Maconie show and it is one of the most uplifting records you will here. "Double Dutch" has (ironically) two meanings:

1. unintelligible language. 
2. the jumping of two jump ropes rotating in opposite directions simultaneously.

The second being the subject of the Malcolm McLaren song which is obviously included here. It is a Saturday so for people like me there is no work, but I am sure that I will find plenty to do.

Currently "The Illuminatus Trilogy" has veered into HP Lovecraft territory in which a protagonist stumbles into a church with rats running between pews and a rusted marble altar, it's not rust it's blood, so obviously not High Church.

That takes me to "Fleabag" which I finished watch ig last night, superb cast and writing and only six episodes in each series so I will continue with "Parks and Recreation" on the Amazon Prime subscription. I am quite surprised, but it's a good business modell to make money, how many people have Netflix , Now TV and Amazon Prime subscriptions but never watch them.

So time to get off now and wander round

Like A Ping Pong Ball In A Wind Tunnel

I was trying to think of an analogy for "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and that came to mind. It's a loosely noir canvas but this ranges from  American location , proisons, hotels , big cities , small towns with secret societies to submarines and sunken cities and lands such as Atlantis and wars and fights with gangs and armies and societies featuring every continent of the Earth and even some extra terrestrial locations. The whole thing can change between paragraph , one line you're in a seedy New York hotel next you're a Yellow Submarine the you are locked in a southern tale before ending up on a small island off the West African coast.

I am about halfway through the book and despite incredibly long unbroken chapters I am finding it incredibly readable, though maybe others would not.

I'm selling a lot of my CDs on Discogs  but sometimes I hear things on the radio by bands I thought I didn't really listen to then think , no I'm not selling that. That's recently happened with Kate Tempest and Fat White Family , both well worth a listen.

The weather is still absolutely mad  but we still have to venture out. Ever since the leak (temporarily fixed)  I am now constantly listening in case it comes through again , but any regular noise such as a tripping tap or the ticking of a clock or watch can trigger the worry mode , and when you think about various forms of mental illness related to OCD and just somethings taking all of your attention and triggering anxiety , something that is everyday for me can be absolute hell for others.

If you do suffer in this way Matt Haig's "Reasons To Stay Alive" id a book that should be in your position . A friend of mine told me it saved his life.

So it's Saturday and yesterday I bought two vinyl records, Bostons' eponymous first album with has one of the most perfect AOR  vinyl sides ever, and the "Substance" Joy Division compilation and leaving JG Windows met Jonathan Wells-Lee and Hedley Sugar Wells and their young charge who were watching a twenty grans self playing piano in the window. Lovely people, and lovely meeting them for a quick catch up.

So we'll go with a live take of "Foreplay / Long Time" by Boston , showing that they could play taking in in progressive bombast and euphoric AOR . Enjoy.

Night Watch

I can hardly believe the extreme heat and extreme rain we've been having, and amazed the the people in power don't seem to see a problem. We've been lucky we haven't been hit by floods but I made the mistake of trying to walk to work without an umbrella today and got hit by two heavy showers. Looking out the window it's grey with some impressive cloud formations.

"The Illuminatus Trilogy" is going along but it's essentially stream of consciousness slipping between realities with long meaninglessly titled chapters / splits but I'm about two thirds through book one "The Eye In The Pyramid" coming across the detective Saul Goodman, Atlantis , gratuitous sex ., pyramids, giant submarines and right wing southern USA jail stays but you are never in the same place for long. I'm enjoying the read / ride but this will not be most people's cup of petrol.

I watched a couple of films on Amazon Prime including the remake of "Suspiria" which has a lot of touchpoints of "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and an experience to watch with a Thom Yorke soundtrack, I may have to watch the original now which is an hour shorter.

I also watched a documentary on Joy Division which again was excellent and to me their music sound as fresh and pertinent now as when it first came out. The thing is everything was generally analogue so the sounds and noises were actually made and not just something downloaded. A highly watchable film following on from Nico 1988 that I watched the other week.

So I am going to share the excellent video for Joy Division's "Atmosphere" always one of my favourites, as i get ready for bed.

The Serpentine Twists of An Unexpected Life

Very often things don't go as you would want them or even as you would expect. The sun rises and traverses the sky for eight, nine , ten hours and then it goes dark and the moon may rise and for the rest of th eearth day you can sleep as the dark hangs around slowly dispersing into the next day.

I've still not got my roof fixed but last night I decided to get a takeway from The Diner in Fenham. My normal modus operandi is to order via their phone app, then walk up and pick up (it's probably about 500 yards from my front dooor) and pay by card (I could pay by card in the app but you have to put in your card number and loads of other details each time) .... except ...... their card machine was not working. There is no cash machine close by... so .....

I walked back to Two Ball Lonnen Post Office to get some cash but the cash machine was out of service, 100 yards up the road is a Nisa and that had a working cash machine. I then decided to walk back to The Diner though the estate and notied a van for Responsible Roofing so I photographed the phone numbers and went to pay for the pizza and curry.

I mentioned that I may have found someone to fix my roof and the guy at The Diner immediately told me about a local brilliant guy who did all their work and directed me to where I had seen the van , it was the same guy we were talking about. I have an appointment today with him so things are looking better.

So this is just a post about how unexpected twists can take you to a postive conclusion.

Just as an aside I'm still enjoying "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and found out the latter has thirty five books published on similar themes  which feature knowledge , lies , great writing, a sense of humour and a razor sharp wit so I have a feeling I will be purchasing more of his work.

So a perfect song would be George Harrison's excellent "Any Road" which basically says "If You Don't Know Where You're Going, Any Road Will Take You There" .

Enjoy this sunny Thursday

Conspiracy, Autocorrect and 1984

I went to write this post there was this link to a Messianic Bible which apparently proves that English Bibles are flawed and this proves that Jesus (Yeshua) is the true Messiah. I though the Jews were still waiting for the Messiah. Can't say any more but it's a bit like saying the Hebrew Spiderman comic corrects the errors of the American Spiderman comic.

I'm not sure why the ad came up apart from the face that I have been including a lot about "2023" by The Jams and "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (which is shaping up to be rather good (lots of conspiracy theories based on actual conspiracy theories in a vaguely underground detective novel.

The last nigh I met with Chi Onwurah very briefly after autocorrect on her email told me to meet her at "campervan" opposite the Tyneside Cinema. What she thought she had sent was Ampersand which is in Commercial Union House for the fortnightly Labour Party meeting , but I will catch up with her properly in next couple of weeks to talk about my various issues with the current state state of the Labour Party , but also how we address the "idiocracy" that belies every word of the right wing media.

Maybe given all this, and the fact that "Space Oddity" is playing on the radio , we'll go with "1984" by David Bowie because your devices ARE watching and listening to you. I found this very hard edged live take from a 1973 NBC TV Special from The 1980 Floor Show which produced the album "Diamond Dogs" as the George Orwell estate refused permission for Bowie to use 1984.

Coincidentally.. A Conspiracy Theory and The Heisenberg Supercut

After finishing "2023" I started "The Illuminatus Trilogy" expecting some exposé of secret societies and the like, but it is more a detective story and the main detective is Saul Goodman and the book , I think was published in 1975.

Saul Goodman also appears as a policeman in "2023" and a CRIMINAL Lawyer as opposed to a criminal lawyer in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". I have a feeling that this is more than coincidence.

Anyway after the mass of text in a bad typeface that I initially saw in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" it is starting to pick up and I am looking forward to this 800 page slab of reading over the new few weeks. I am sure it probably influenced Dan Brown to write "The Da Vinci Code" but I have a feeling that this will have tongue firmly in cheek with more than a little fun.

Given that I've dragged in "Breaking Bad" (one of the greatest TV series ever) so we will go with Badfinger's "My Baby Blue - The Heisenberg Supercut"

Darts Illuminatus

2023 is finished and I loved it complete with it's "Keeper of The Page" list and now I am going to read "The Illuminatus Trilogy" which clocks in at 800 pages , double the length of 2023 and ⅔ the length of "Lord of The Rings" if I remember rightly, though at the hospital today I was enjoying the ideas coming from "Acorn", making the time at the hospital fly by despite the retinal scan and the needles to check my feet were still OK.

The font in "The Illuminatus Trilogy"  is fairly challenging and the book looks like it was photocopied, maybe to give the impression of being subversive.

It seems I'm not in too bad shape after all, well not at the moment.

I then ended up walking back from the hospital because I thought I could walk part way to Netherby Drive to catch a bus closer to home then realised I was three stops away so though I may as well just walk all the way, so ended up walking all the way and well over four miles today. While that is not a lot to most people it is fine for me.

So time for an early night.

2023

I've just finished reading "The Silent Companions" by Laura Purcell and while it's not my normal fare  it was fairly creepy and well written , and at the last sentence you don't know whether it was madness or supernatural evil, it is well worth a read it that is your particular taste.

My follow on from this is 2023:A Trilogy by The Justified Ancients of Mu Ma AKA The JAMS (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) . This seems to have a similar dynamic to "How To Burn A Million Quid" the BBC Radio 4 Podcast about Cauty and Drummond burning a million quid. I wasn't too sure but bought it (along with "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson on the back of listening to the podcast. They were wondering about possibly annoying certain artists and corporations but Twitter doesn't have it's name amended.

The book is over 350 pages but I don't think it's going to be a problem as the introduction and initial page set up (among other things) a Mister Robot scenario.

So we got to share some KLF don't we? I found the slower remix of "justified and Ancient" with Tammy Wynette for your enjoyment.

The books are great fun though I thing I will be reading some Matt Haig ("How To Stop Time") after this

Buying Books and Listening To Podcasts

I'm listening to the podcast "How To Burn A Million Quid" the BBC Sounds mockumentary about the story of the KLF and the influence of The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (and my mind immediately connects the Tony Wilson broadcaster, punk leader and Factory Records supremo, but I will put that on pause).

The thing is I have now ordered The Illuminatus Trilogy along with a parralel publication by the KLF themselves. I never knew what KLF stood for but according to the pocast it is Copyright Liberation Foundation but they decided that the letter "K" was way much cooler than "C" so instead of "CLF" we got "KLF". I sort of see what they mean.

So whether or not I will read the book, I am just getting it to see what tangents it zooms off in, rather than expecting any revelations.

The thing is, it does show you that product placement within and environment you enjoy can influence you to actually purchase a placed product, although I am sure this is not a prime example of product placement.

So it looks like more KLF rated stuff to share so I'll go with their Tammy Wynette collaboration before I go to make my tea,