I realised that Cleveland�s recital on 9 November is on a Saturday � not a Friday � panic ensued briefly but I regained my composure by progressing a new piece. The idea for the piece came to me sitting in church � I worked the germ idea through in my head and then wrote it down at the end. That was after James had done his reading � he had to wear the African stole, made by nuns in the Highveld and given to us by Bishop Beetge as a kind of thank you present. It�s a single piece � very long which goes over your shoulders with a single tail hanging down the back splitting into two �arms� at the the neck to go over your shoulders and hang down the front on each side. Its red on one side and white on the other and has got embroidered symbols. Its quite something. I have one African embroidery at home which is much simpler. Anyway he got lots of compliments � he is a very clear reader � a bit of a favourite with some segments of the congregation.

Needless to say the piece is another extension of Fifths � arppegiated and with a slower progression � Db maj 7 to Gmaj7. I like the idea in formal terms � maybe that�s what�s providing the energy to develop it.

I had to do a reading from Ezekiel in the evening. The church does full choral Evensong � which as far as I can work out is a good gig for the choir. I only go when its my turn on the reading rota comes up � there are usually only 20 � 30 people there. The reading was quite easy which just as well as I hadn�t practised much � Ezekiel believes that God is talking to him as a mortal. He tells him that the shepherds aren�t looking after the sheep properly and so they are strolling all over the hills and getting eaten by wild animals. His patience is running out as he wants the shepherd to do a better job.

Anyway I think it might because as I have been working with Robin�s choral element for Fifths but I really liked the way the choir sounded � which I don�t always. There is a bit in the service where a Psalm gets chanted and you have to try and join in � which is quite an art. You are given a chord progression � four part harmony - but the tricky bit is knowing when to move from one chord to another. They sing a couple of songs by Luke � the Nunc Dimitis and the Magnificat � plus an anthem as well. Annie obviously likes singing the lead bits in the little connective tunes. I think I tend to prefer the Magnificat.

Robert talked about George Herbert � pretty metaphysical and useful in terms of the stuff I am trying to write just now.

I married Fifths and the Boulez piece � its an idea that has been floating in the back of my mind for a bit � with bits of Robin�s choir.

Robin mailed saying that its OK to put Smoking Too Long up in the Birth of the Blues element of www.kwase-kwaza.org Forum. There�s a lot I have to learn about mp3 � not least how to get a WAV into that format.

Here�s a couple of extracts from the Situationist International list which has been very active.

� I'm thinking way back when, in the early days of the labour movement. Today we have a (nominal) eight hour working day, a health service of sorts, pension support of sorts, and so on. All of these only happened because of a tradition of labour radicalism finally got its time in the Sun after WWII.

But the seeds were sown much earlier. Even the radicalism of the 60s had major effects, albeit cultural ones rather than political ones. The problem today is that unless you count lists like this one, there's nothing being sown for the future.

And the reason why *that* is true is because the Situationist International offers nothing concrete for the problems of today. You can deconstruct the media and The State [tm] and their mechanisms of power, but if you try to explain the ideas to people their reaction is 'You're obviously much cleverer than I am.' (This is where they look at you suspiciously.) Followed by 'What the fuck does any of this have to do with me?'

The point about the early labour movements, under all banners, was that they offered real solutions to real problems. No one doing a 20 hour day was going to say 'I love my life - I think 8 hour days are bad, and I'm not going to support you.'

But explaining media manipulation - who cares if people get to watch Smash Hits instead of something more edifying? And buying stuff is just what everyone does anyway. So explain again - what's the problem?

The real success of The Spectacle has been to force people to internalise their frustrations and hostilities and blame each other and themselves for their lack of happiness and satisfaction. Life is okay, kinda sorta. Angst and alienation aren't nearly as easy to get to grips with as starvation and crass exploitation. And anyway, that's just the way it is, isn't it?

Maybe stupidity is as stupidity does. I'm talking collectively, of course -individuals may be quite canny, but if nothing ever comes of it, they might as well not be.

I think it's more that active revolutions only seem to happen once basic survival needs are denied. That's when the shit hits the fan. If you're comfortable enough to buy a DVD player, there's no incentive to rock the boat. What more do you want from life anyway, than a chance to buy Monsters Inc for the kids because the ads tell you to? And it's what the kids want anyway?

No, I think the only way out of the situation is to redirect the experience of frustration and unhappiness away from internalised and fragmented unease, towards an understanding that The Spectacle is implacably hostile to real happiness.

Without some personal threat to relate to, anything else is an intellectual exercise. The real problem is that oppression has become more subtle. It's no longer as physical, or even as financial as it was.

Now it's mostly psychological and emotional. That makes it *much* harder to identify and deal with. Explanations are pointless, because most people don't conceptualise reality abstractly like that anyway.

(From RichardWentk )

Foucault writes --

"....power is tolerable only on condition that it masks a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms"

(From kubla kahn)