(no subject)

[alexsarll]

"Every life is the story of a collapse. If biographies are so fascinating, it is because the heroes, and the cowards quite as much, strive to innovate in the art of the debacle."

Comments

[angelv.livejournal.com]

Wow, this month's epic. I wonder what happened to Inaura? That song's all I know by them. It is epic as well.

Er, which is all beside the point a bit isn't it.

I just got given an doughnut!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They ended up releasing the album on Org, home of, erm, Charlie's Angels. It's patchy but has some other good tracks, albeit none on a par with TME.
Then they sold Org out for a big American deal, which inevitably fvcked up, and after that I know nothing.

[angelv.livejournal.com]

Ooh you're an oracle, you are.

Were any of them pretty? They sounded like they should be.

I only have one Org (split) single - it's Angel Cage backed by Done Lying Down. Ah the good old days.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The singer had a floppy fringe, which almost always works for me (narcissistic? moi?). Can't remember what the others look like.

[neil-scott.livejournal.com]

I think I have that In Aura song on 10", one-sided clear vinyl.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

My biography would be fascinating.

-x-

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Truly you are the Mozart of debacle. Or, to put it another way, a gay goth hippy.

[johnnyvalentine.livejournal.com]

How odd, I was looking at an Inaura single I had last night trying very hard to remember when and where I got it to no avail.

That thing with Momus in it....wrong. Too many wriggly things coming out of people's bottoms for my liking.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guessed as much, hence my avoidance.
Were there any audience shots (for the Wimbledon show, not for wriggly things exiting bottoms)?

[johnnyvalentine.livejournal.com]

There were, but they sort of flashed up and were hardly there.
You did get a snippit of the Hairstyle of the Devil video tho.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

Christ, you've gone all Barry again.
Here, have a spider. (Actually I love this!)

[thermaland.livejournal.com]

It's too little, I can't see it!

[(Anonymous)]

I think it reflects our rather different temperaments that I would think of the majority of biographies as about growth rather than collapse or debacle. Although Bertrand Russell's is pretty much collapse with the occasional bit of Principia Mathematica genius.

Robin

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Biographies, even more than Hollywood films, always have the same ending. And it never seems to be apotheosis.

[(Anonymous)]

Something not being an apotheosis does not make it a collapse.

Thinking about it, I was trying to think of a politician whose career ends in collapse, and there are very few. Pretty much by definition none end as uncomplicated successes but to look at recent examples at the end of Hurd's he is a respected elder statesmen making a bit of money on the side, at the end of Keith Joseph's he is a respected elder statesman with a bit of money on the side and so on with John Nott, Thatcher, Denis Healey, Ted Heath, Roy Jenkins &c.

Whereas, with the more creatives types things lead to happy retirement in comfort, respect & financial security rather less often.

Politically, it is probably those who don't get biographies written about them that end in collapse. In Giles Brandreth's diaries, the man who he took over his seat from was Thatcher's PPS at the time of her being deposed. It was by quite a narrow margin that she did not get reselected by a sufficient majority for her to carry on with dignity. Basically, he didn't take the threat seriously and didn't do any canvassing and let her go to Paris rather than rally the troops in London. He drank and smoked himself to death four years later years looking 75 when he was only about 50. Pretty horrific really.

Hope you're well,

Robin

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I was opening this just as you rang. Multimedia Robin!

"Something not being an apotheosis does not make it a collapse."

True, one could just mosey contentedly along forevermore. That doesn't happen either, though. Any biography which is complete ends with the chapters where the mind and/or body are failing, and more often than not the old ideals are lost at some point along the way.

"Thinking about it, I was trying to think of a politician whose career ends in collapse, and there are very few. Pretty much by definition none end as uncomplicated successes but to look at recent examples at the end of Hurd's he is a respected elder statesmen making a bit of money on the side, at the end of Keith Joseph's he is a respected elder statesman with a bit of money on the side and so on with John Nott, Thatcher, Denis Healey, Ted Heath, Roy Jenkins &c."

Thatcher's a perfect example, given I read a review of her new bio this morning; she became increasingly loathed and dissociated, and is now sinking into half-life. I think part of the reason most of them supposedly salvage some dignity is that their successors are keen to rehabilitate them; witness all the emetic Nixon eugooglies which emphasised his supposed diplomatic successes post-Presidency, rather than the fact that his grave should have been a public urinal.

"Whereas, with the more creatives types things lead to happy retirement in comfort, respect & financial security rather less often."

Even when it does to some extent, as with Coward, there's the sad spectacle of physical and (to some extent) artistic decline. And more often than not the increasing bewilderment and conservatism of the aged rebel. "He who fvcks nuns will later join the Church."

"Politically, it is probably those who don't get biographies written about them that end in collapse. In Giles Brandreth's diaries, the man who he took over his seat from was Thatcher's PPS at the time of her being deposed. It was by quite a narrow margin that she did not get reselected by a sufficient majority for her to carry on with dignity. Basically, he didn't take the threat seriously and didn't do any canvassing and let her go to Paris rather than rally the troops in London. He drank and smoked himself to death four years later years looking 75 when he was only about 50. Pretty horrific really."

For all the bitterness that man evidently felt, I imagine he has less on his conscience than almost any successful politician.

[(Anonymous)]

>I was trying to think of a politician whose career ends in collapse, and there are very few.

John Smith?

NP

[(Anonymous)]

To the extent that it is in the nature of the human condition to fail physically and mentally towards the end of our lives it is true that biographies end in collapse. But I think one needs a bit more than that here.

But in relation to Thatcher and her PPS, she is a not a simple example. On the one hand she is losing her mental capacities and maybe a bit of a drunk and is now a widow. But on the other hand, she has been decisive in the choice of all four of her successors, very large parts of her legacy are not only in place here but copied around the world and in her social circles is regarded as being almost as an oracle.

The legacy of her PPS is that his laziness and lack of politcal acumen meant that her revolution was taken over by a wet and was a social pariah and died an early and lonely death. Although to be fair being a homosexual in the Tory party probably didn't make his life any easier.

'I was opening this just as you rang. Multimedia Robin!'
What a marvellous idea, today one person in London, tomorrow the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!!!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

"To the extent that it is in the nature of the human condition to fail physically and mentally towards the end of our lives it is true that biographies end in collapse. But I think one needs a bit more than that here."

Really? To me that's the defining feature of humanity, the swirling, doom-laden Turner background against which everything else is tiny foreground detail.

"'I was opening this just as you rang. Multimedia Robin!'
What a marvellous idea, today one person in London, tomorrow the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!!!"

It was always going to take a while, you being one of my more sensible friends, but clearly the Barry Force has now got you too.

[(Anonymous)]

"Really? To me that's the defining feature of humanity, the swirling, doom-laden Turner background against which everything else is tiny foreground detail."

Well you need more to stop it from being a tautology, that is you take the line that we do live in a swirling doom-laden Turner background which everything else is tiny foreground detail. I agree on the objective meaningless of existence and our infinitesamal smallness in the face of the universe. But within that I am something of an optimist about human experience.

Taking Thatcher, her achievements are pin pricks in the universe, but she has led a rich, fulfilling existence and at least in her own eyes has contribued to those around her.

I suspect one's response to this may be rather psychological.

Robin

In a belated return to normal LJ protocol:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hippy.

Re: In a belated return to normal LJ protocol:

[(Anonymous)]

GOTH!