Newsletter 25-02
It's Friday afternoon (here) and nearly time for the weekend.
Dear friends and neighbours near and far, prepare yourselves for the shock of a second newsletter before the end of January.
Doodle of the week
Quote of the week
"Boundaries are what we tell someone we will do, they don't require the other person to do anything". Dr Becky Kennedy talking about parent/child relationships in a way that is just as true for those where we're all grown up.
What's on my mind
Authoritarianism and Protest
Possibly because of "What I've watched" (see below) and possibly because of the news from the USA I've been rolling around the question of our age, which is something like "what can and should you actually do about authoritarian leadership when you spot it?" Having grown up in a world where that question was framed as "what would you have done if you'd been in Germany in 1933?" many of us are finding out that our answers aren't as easy to implement as we thought. Seeing parallels with earlier times doesn't necessarily mean that we're heading to the same outcome, but when do you step in (or pull out)?
And I'm not just talking about the patterns in the leadership of our political parties, I'm seeing it in other organisations, most insidiously I think in the talk about getting people back in the office or seeing Amazon's resistance to their workers forming a union. How do you deal with charismatic leaders who thrive on just enough chaos and conflict between their followers, all of whom are prepared to do whatever it takes to please those at the very top?
I grew up in a demo family. One of my very earliest visual memories is of being in my pushchair on a march against British involvement in the war in Biafra (so 1968 or '69?). The first photographic evidence is from 1973 on a march about population growth with the slogan "Two will do". Hmmmm…
In my teens it was CND and LPYS that had me wearing out my shoe leather and my vocal chords. The last time I went to something from start to finish was the Poll Tax march in 1990 that ended in a riot. I left before the worst violence started, because I'd been in similar situations in Whitehall during previous demos. The tactics introduced by the Police during the miner's strike were just getting worse and thirty-five years later, here we are with people being arrested and imprisoned for even thinking about how to plan a demonstration.
On Wednesday, I saw a few hundred people outside the Courts of Justice, protesting in favour of the "Lord Walney 16" who's appeal was being heard. and had coffee with some of them over the road at Unitarian HQ. The people there are many of the same people who've been there as long as I have, many of them longer. Lots of them look old and tired and fed up. They see their powerlessness in the face of new laws and hardened attitudes, but they also see years of avoidable tragedy ahead. So they carry on. We need other ways of organising for change. Ones where frail old bodies aren't in the front line. I guess I thought that the action we took in the eighties would mean that by the time I was this age, we wouldn't need to fight so much. I was wrong.
What I've watched
"The Rise of Nazis" BBC iplayer. I've never been a great one for documentaries about this period, thinking that the headlines are enough without going into detail. The first three episodes, about the moves Hitler made to get into power and the swift dismantling of democratic institutions, made for difficult watching in tandem with reports of that other person that we wrote off as a buffoon.
"Little Dorrit" BBC iplayer. We did Andrew Davies's Bleak House just after Christmas and now this. I'm enjoying the long rambleness of Dickens as well as the ridiculous coincidences. I don't know the book or the story at all. It's weird though, isn't it?
"Prime Target" AppleTV+ I'm still not convinced or recommending, but I made it through episode 3.
What I've read
Two things that show the power of impro and Open Space
"Jesus, Rafael and the President" from Vanessa Chamberlin on finding friendship in the space.
"Letting go of the plan" from Matilda Leyser on seeing the patterns in life and saying "Yes, and" while being treated for leukemia.
What I'm listening to
A mega playlist of The Mills Brothers on YouTube
8 versions of "I'll Fly Away" none of which are by Kanye West.
Where I've been
It's still winter!
I went into London for a couple of things on Wednesday, including adding my presence to the protest and rest area. But I also got to toddle off to Pimlico and sit in the Members Room at Tate Britain.
I also had coffee with a friend in Godalming, which helped get me out the door yesterday too. And this morning I went for a walk after breakfast.
What I'm tracking
In the last couple of days I've remembered that as a person whose work is often completely sedentary I need to keep an eye on my steps. This will help with the much-needed weight reduction and keep people off my back about my heart.
A frustrating aspect of being "older" is that health professionals (at least in this part of the UK) are primed to look for key indicators that mean they can put you in a box or "on a pathway". It's BMI in my case, and so I have to bite my tongue (and not swallow it!) when offered well-meaning (and free!) advice.
What I'm playing
I got back into Rocket Racing. The ranking has been reset and the matchmaking is quite efficient. That means that you spend some time, but not too long, grinding through with people who you can beat easily. I came first in my first half-dozen races, with ease. But then I also hit a wall quite quickly when I hit Gold where I'm suddenly in the bottom few and progressing by only a couple of points each race, if not slipping back.
What is this?
This is my newly restructured newsletter. In my best world it would be a summary of things I've already written during the week, with a bit of spit and polish, but it's not quite there yet. It's meant as a snapshot of my week, a way of (me!) keeping in touch with what's really going on here, without slipping into "Come to my thing" or "Buy my stuff" too much.
The best way to get it to your mailbox is to subscribe on my blog. The Substack version will probably go away soon. If you prefer, you can get also get it on the web or in your RSS reader!
Oh, and do COME TO MY THING if you can
What's in the works
Haven't started any new projects this week (which is a positive thing!). Haven't finished any either, but have made some progress with all three.
Here's the invitation to the Living Culture Coffee Morning - this time next week it'll be time to write a report!
"Spirituals" is not even a working title, just a description of some songs that I'm recording. At the moment this is kind of George Lewis meets Patsy Cline by way of "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?"
"Why can't we just have old twitter?" is an essay that I've been writing for far too long and it shows. Mainly because new stuff keeps happening in that area.
Tuttle Club metalabel - I'm working on an annotated version of the first (and to date, only) Annual Report I wrote for Tuttle in 2009.
How to talk to me (or perhaps comment on my stuff)
If I do the thing formerly known as "tweeting" it goes on my micro.blog and syndicated from there to Bluesky Mastodon and Threads but I don't feel great about it.
If I take pictures that I want in public they go on Flickr but I still put stuff on Instagram too.
My blog is where it's always been with a kind of backup of all the things on tumblr
That should be enough.