Grievous Angel

I was meaning to talk about this when Woebotnik did, but unlike Matt I’ma huge fan. Just an ace little garage tune. I’m so pleased they were number one. And I just drove Felix to nursery school while it was playing, and we both sang along, and he seemed to know at least half the words, and it was one of those fantastically beautiful life-changing experiences that I seem to have every two minutes at the moment. So it gets a thumbs up from me.

Fantastic discussion of this issue over in the Uncarved comments boxes. Get in there.

The question I’m asking is, does the coverage of the issue which Outrage’s tactics elicit in the Jamaican and British media, and the possible resultant impact on the awareness of the issue in Jamaica, justify both the (probably minor) economic impact on the artists concerned, and the (probably major) impact on the economic and artistic health of the broader reggae community in Britain?

The baby came through OK.

Birth took from 11AM induction last Sunday to final delivery by ventouse (with one cut) at 7.58AM on Monday, at the Jessop wing of the Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield (which is fantastic). Pain relief was gas and air, one shot of diamorphine, arnica (homeopathic remedy). We were back home 7PM on the Monday.

Baby was an eight pound boy, named Malachi. He’s in fine form, and was breastfeeding happily within an hour of birth. My wife is doing fine, and I love her with all my heart and I am massively proud of her. Our three year old, Felix, loves his new baby brother and just wants to cuddle him and coo over him, as we do. Malachi looks a lot like a sixty year old east end gangster, all serious grimaces and rolls of skin. He snores too.

During the birth I was naturally mainly focused on my wife, but when I felt the need, I mentally called out for the help of ancestors. When I went back to see them in the ward later on the Monday, I had a sudden vision of vast sets of ancestors arcing away into the sky above each of the cubicles where the new parents and babies were, with each set of ancestors having a vast party to celebrate the new arrivals.

I feel like I’m just coming up, all the time. My head and heart are twisting into new shapes to encompass this new life and this new love.

Thanks to everyone for all their love and support, it really made a difference.

paul

If you haven’t noticed already, K-Punk is in raging good form right now. It’s rapidly mutated from being “just a blog” to, not so much a forum as an endlessly uncoiling serpent of clashing incantaory voices. It’s been called “the new ILM” by Simon, but it’s stranger and more beautiful than that. Get in there now; it won’t last forever.

Latest up is a cracking analysis of Burroughs — tough subject, artfully dissected (by K-Kollective member John Effay, though I hesitate to undermine the unauthorship of the scene by naming names).

Four whole days without net access. I felt naked.

Latest message from the museum:

By Friday the Museum should be accessible and the first priority is to move the library to a safer location, as the damp will be damaging the paper. Levannah & Adrian are appealing for volunteers with vans to move the library on Friday; if you can help please contact Levannah on

levannah@aol.com

Please spread this appeal to any other groups or individuals.

I am told that the flood washed up to the ceiling on the ground floor and then subsided down to about three foot, and I am also told, by someone else, that a fireman working there yesterday digging cars out of the harbour said that the Witchcraft Museum was covered in mud. These conditions will ruin the library very quickly, so please help if you possibly can.

ENDS

Quick one back on Glueboot to save copying and pasting in the comments boxes:

>However, happiness doesn’t >particularly open up a space for >thought.

No way! Yes necessity is the mother of invention. But I just don’t recognise unhappiness being as much of a motor of insight as it’s sometimes made out to be. Yes, “the first taste of hope is fear” as a recent industrial mix I put up was titled — well, SOME hopes, anyway. But from where I’m sitting, pain restricts the mind’s ability to reflect as much as it goads it.

Carrot and stick innit :-).

> If one is happy there is no reason > for one to find out why there is
> happiness.

You’re joshing me! Sounds like (I could be wrong) there’s an assumption somewhere here about “normality” being suffering, and momentary happiness being a relief therefrom, unquestioned. That’s not how most of the people I know think — admittedly the people who read a lot of philosophy tend to be a bit down on things 🙂 but a lot of people seem to me to be figuring out ways to make themselves feel happier. Even my 3 year old!

> But to posit a world and a
> philosophy of pure happiness is
> the absolute heights of naivety.

Yeah probably. Have to check back with Leary on that one :-). But who’s positing that? Not me!

Nice one bruv…