Less is more, old is new - shameless name checking

Has to be done, has to be done. Yes I am curious to know how much of the stats that this wee blog is getting is due to name checking. I'm not even tagging and so I have to say I am little bit surprised at the number of hits this blog is getting. They are by no means incredible but to the Denmark massive big respect.

I am using the library once more for browsing. Taking out books and if enjoying continuing to read and after reading the words of legendary Welsh Labour MP Aneurin Bevan, feeling content about that fact too. Bevan says us workers read not like students to pass tests and write papers but to read to learn about what we need to know in life. Yes I am revisiting Bevan's 'In Place of Fear'. A superb book for the times we are living in. All over the world people are asserting their rights and to me when I think of what is important in my life, well a health service that's accessible to all, the elimination of poverty, these are just a few of the things on my political shopping list. Bevan's political career focused on these principles.

Here in British Columbia we have a new premier who gets to be premier without facing the electorate. Christy Clark won the leadership race for the BC Liberals and has now been sworn in as the new Premier. What a joke. There is a silver lining. She is set to go to a by-election for the riding in which she sits, Point Grey, vacated by Gordon Campbell. Statistically a BC Government hasn't won a by-election for 30 years. I doubt that even if the New Democratic Party does pull out a big name to run against Clark that that statistic will remain. Clark is doing enough to convince people that she is the new face and direction of the Liberal party.

It's miserable to think about it too much. I think that's probably where the majority of people in this province is at when it comes to provincial politics or any kind of politics for that matter. I am convinced that people care not enough in British Columbia about who is running the country at the federal, provincial and municipal level.

......oh well back to the shameless name checking. What you thought that was name checking. Well Bevan maybe but the rest I was just moaning. I am some sixty pages into Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. This is my second attempt and this time I am hooked. I love the detail about London and of course Brighton and not forgetting his talk of all things English in the book. I am breaking my Greene duck in reading Brighton Rock. What else is on the coffee table, er floor, next to couch, another Tariq Ali book, a book about Roman Britain, a few Brit history books, and Black Workers Remember. They are at least the books that I have managed to open and start to read.

On the turntable, CD player a Brian Eno/David Byrne album which is both gimmicky and fantastic. I can't quite work out if I can fit it into Last Call. I got it from Vancouver Public Library, where I work part time, if you didn't already know. Also got out PJ Harvey's White Chalk which is great because I can now play it side by Let England Shake. The Streets' AKA Mike Skinner Computer and Blues is never far from the CD player right now. When I listen to this Eno Byrne thing I am reminded of James' Wah Wah album which is one of my all time favourites. The clock ticks on for midday and I need to get out there and get some groceries for I am going snow shoeing tomorrow for the first time ever!

I am still rummaging through the cassettes too as I mentioned in the first installment of Less is more, old is new. I've started to sort a few piles of tapes. Anything that's a real album is finding it's way onto the top shelf of my CD collection and stacked on the right side of the shelf actually looks like something artistic. Then there's the dubbed copies of albums. They form pile 1. Pile 2 is stuff taped off the radio. Both piles are keeping pace with each other.

I then found a mix tape and at Kitsilano Library on Sunday found a book all about mix tapes. It was cute but I found myself speed reading what tracks were on the cassettes and then back peddling to see what people had written about the mix tapes. It's now back in the library. But it did make me realize that mix tapes would have to constitute a separate pile. However then there are the mix tapes that I made that really are mix tapes, where I am mixing and sampling. A lot of these are not easy to listen to. What was I thinking when I made this one is the thought that all too often goes through my mind. It would be crazy to analyze them as all they really are is moments of playing music caught on tape. It's not like I was doing anything really creative. Although there is the odd tape and in it the interesting sounds that makes me think 'oh I quite like that.' But those really are few and far between but I can not dispose of these memories. Am I rambling?