By The Landlord
"World-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice … the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” ― Karl Marx
Ever get that sense of deja vu? "It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas 2020," sings the voice of Bing Crosby in my head, but adding an extra twist to Meredith Willson's lyric. And what another strange one it has been.
For me it is summed up by the rather amazing news story, earlier this month, reported in La Repubblica, of 57-year-old dentist, Guido Russo, who turned up to his Covid vaccination in Biella, Italy, with a false, rubber arm, hoping to get his Covid pass without actually getting jabbed. Being a Covid denier and vaccination refusenik is arguably daft enough, but to think he could get away with that, it seems to sum up what's happening to our idiot-filled world. The nurse, who then had to report him, apparently told local media that when she had rolled up his sleeve, she found the skin "rubbery and cold" and the pigment "too light". It's brilliantly funny on one hand, and also tragically stupid on, well, on the same hand.
The rubber arm incident is no less farcical, or absurd than the wonderfully ironic Japanese chindogu inventions of Kenji Kawakami, those executive style-destructive time-saving practical devices for the fast lifestyle. Among them is the weirdly touching Sweetheart's Training Arm or Public Display of Affection Confidence Developer. It may also be a form of cheating the public, but at least wearers would bear no ill will.
The shindogu sweetheart’s training arm: better this, than for avoiding your Covid jab
Like those entangled rubber arms, it feels like the world we’re in is a loop, a Moebius Strip, a self-consuming snake, the ouroboros, that ancient cyclical symbol from China, India and many other cultures, similarly described in other forms from the Norse Jörmungandr or Escher’s Dragon, or the three leaping hares in Middle Eastern architecture, jumping round and round each other. It’s a never-ending cycle of tragedy, farcical comedy, and rubber arms.
This also feels like the year when which tried to catch up on what 2020 had lost, but also time wrinkled up and folded in, repeating much of the again.
But there was change, of sorts, or were problems just kicked, as business-speak puts it, into the long grass?
The year began, perhaps most memorably, and extraordinarily, with an assault on the US Senate, organised by fascist extremists, whipped up and endorsed by a lying, money-grabbing, Trumped-up sore loser, who then retreated to his own private haven, while a mob of followers from Facebook groups turned their blind rage into violence. I watched it happening live online with a sense of slow-motion horror. It felt like an oncoming tidal wave, slow-motion at first, then rapidly accelerating into a deadly conclusion, itself a form of tragic farce.
Talking of which,England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, physician and epidemiologist, the man charged with being scientific adviser to the government though the current health storm also experienced something of an assault. Whitty has regularly been the target of ant-lockdown and Covid-denier abuse. But then this happened. He was harassed by two idiots in a park not far from Downing Street.
Note how the caption on this video spells Whitty’s name Witty. More idiots.
The men, Jonathan Chew on the left, and estate agent Lewis Hughes, fine examples of educated English gentlemen, gurning at the camera with the aim of doing video selfies, got the uncomfortable professor in a semi-headlock. It reminds me of 'the rise of the idiots', that article written by the hapless character Dan Ashcroft in Nathan Barley, Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s brilliant 2005 satirical series set during that time when camera phones were just taking off, when posting any old rubbish online was the thing alongside much other new media nonsense, and in which that magazine feature was, ironically, lauded by the idiots themselves. Someone should definitely rename the device known as the ‘smartphone’.
Back though to Whitty’s unfortunate experience. Hughes lost his job after his boss saw the video, and then pleaded guilty to common assault charges. But more recently, Chew, whose case, at the time of writing, is yet to be resolved, this week contested charges and appeared in court in his dressing gown. That is, not in the flesh, but showing plenty of it when the gown slipped, as he appeared on video link from his sofa, apparently claiming to have ‘caught the Covid'. Yet more farce, yet more self-consuming irony.
But really the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is so very similar. He also grins at the camera, seeking popularity and fun over scientific advice, while Chris Whitty just frowns uncomfortably in the background. Johnson is Chew with a posh education but a similar talent of farce. Whitty is trying to manage the new Omicron crisis, but the incompetent Johnson and his entourage, with many recently photographic evidence, ignore that advice, have enjoyed many a cheese and wine gathering, along with party and staff, flouting his own rules, making multi-million business deals with public funds for his chums’ network, laughing at voters, and being dubiously funded for his expensive wallpaper, while the rest of the country stayed in lockdown and were often unable to see loved ones or attend funerals.
2021 is all about the continued rise of the idiots, as well as the fiendishly clever and greedy, the snakes who consume us. It’s been a year when even more than ever before, that people are beginning to realise that what they do really affects others, but others continually choose to ignore. While many do the sensible thing, and there are countless health service, teaching and public sector heroes, there’s also the fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want-angry-gammon-man brigade, they encouraged by a financial and political elite who lead by example, by the networking, the plotting, the backstabbing, deal-making omnishambles. Sounds familiar?
So again and again come the snake’s repeated patterns. Stupid blindness, heroic rescues, angry storms, massive floods, fires, all flaring up, but pushed aside as one-offs, and despite Cop26 promises, they may just turn out to be more PR noises. But like the ouroboros, we continue to consume the planet, and ourselves, compulsively, uncontrollably. It’s a cycle of tragedy then farce, just as Marx summarises above in his book, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in reference to Hegel.
Omicron was initially thought to be a variant of this once popular 1980s strap-on synth
But 2021 hasn’t been all bad. Some more positive things finally happened – the Olympics, the European football finals, and many, if still reduced and more sparsely attended public events, including music. So it’s safe to say that not everything is run by idiots.
And especially so here at Song Bar, where we’ve enjoyed another fabulous year of great contributions by a wide variety of guest playlists across many topics, an amazing array of wonderful contributors in comments, and a huge rise again in readership.
Alongside all of this, I’ve also spent a year taking in a huge amount of new music, both listening and at live events. In terms of new releases, it’s been a vintage year in my experience, and I’ve tried to capture much of that in the Albums and New Songs sections, where there have been more than a total of 600 artists and works profiled.
So this week’s topic is not the regular pattern of nominations culminating in playlists next week. To allow a bit of rest, it is simply an invitation to suggest any music that has come out or just share something about this this year, that you’ve discovered, listened to more this year, topics you’ve particularly enjoyed this year, remarks about things that have happened this year, hopes for 2022, or to simply drop in and say Merry Christmas at this much cherished special place we call The Song Bar and enjoy some friendly chat. After all, it is your global local! I’ll be looking to add some of my favourite new music of 2021 in this post during the next few days, but please feel to add more of whatever takes your fancy below.
But whatever you choose to share, and just to pop in for quick hello and a drink, you are all cordially invited. The drinks are served, the fire is roaring, the piano is open. You are all very welcome indeed.
Merry Christmas. And we’ll be back next week before the New Year!
The Landlord
And now… as promised, here’s Part 1 of Favourite Albums of the Year.
Please also feel free to explore Part 2, which is now available to view here.
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