Thursday, 31 March 2016

No borders: solidarity with refugees and migrants



This image incorporates a reference to the Syrian refugee child Aylan Kurdi, who was drowned in the Aegean Sea in September 2015.

Saturday, 26 March 2016

Sunday, 20 March 2016

Sonny Rollins: the incredible take of Misterioso



                                                       Jay Jay Johnson  trombone
                                                       Horace Silver – piano
                                                       Thelonious Monk  piano 
                                                       Paul Chambers – bass
                                                       Art Blakey – drums


Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Against the infinity of sadness, #2



Nelson St., Bristol, 08.08.2015, mural by Stik




P.S.: Many thanks to Black Symphony for the second photograph

Sunday, 13 March 2016

Wrapped up in these arms, burning in your bed




I'm looking for a time machine
But I cannot go back
And change one single thing
It's staying all in tact
And I'm looking for a way to feel
Cuz' I don't feel a thing
And it haunts me in this life

When you want me to pretend
Oh I'm looking for a place to be
And a place to lay my head
I'm drowning in this life
Come back for me


It squeals, it's in the air tonight
That devil knows my name
It shrieks across the sky tonight
That devil knows my name
Choosing moderation
I should give it up
But I'm not giving it up your way
It screams, it kicks
I feel the weight
It pulls me down
But I'm not giving it up that way


Still looking for a way to feel
Too tired to pretend
It haunts me in this life
When you want me to confess
Will I ever find a peace within
Will these colors fade away
I'm wrapped up in these arms
I'm burning in your bed
Don't you ever come and look for me
Don't you ever say my name
I'm standing ten men tall
You will not break me

It squeals, it's in the air tonight
That devil knows my name
It shrieks across the sky tonight
That devil knows my name
Choosing moderation
I should give it up
But I'm not giving it up your way
It screams, it kicks
I feel the weight
It pulls me down
But I'm not giving it up that way


It's starting to fade
There's no need to push away
There's a thorn in your eye
It's starting to fade
There's no need to push away
There's a thorn in my side
There's no need to push away
You want this


I finally found a way to feel

No more will I pretend
You won't haunt me in my life

I'm going to confess
I finally found a peace within
As the colors fade away
I break free form your arms
And burn you in this bed


I'm no stranger to your black streak
I see through
You're my enemy
I oughta know
I wanna know you better than that


I'm looking for a time machine
But I cannot go back
And change one single thing
It's staying all in tact
Don't you ever come and look for me
Don't you ever say my name
You'll be waiting all your life
Don't come back for me
Relax
It's gonna fade
Relax
It's gone away


Thursday, 10 March 2016

Living in a panel: Quino



"Problem: the black pieces play and checkmate whenever they feel like it"



The kind of ideas that he works with are one of the most difficult, and I am amazed at their variety and depth. Also, he knows how to draw, and to draw in a funny way. I think that he is a giant. 
Charles M. Schulz, quoted in Wikipedia

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Against the marketization of the university

The growth of administrative work [in the university] has directly resulted from introducing corporate management techniques. Invariably, these are justified as ways of increasing efficiency and introducing competition at every level. What they end up meaning in practice is that everyone winds up spending most of their time trying to sell things: grant proposals; book proposals; assessments of students’ jobs and grant applications; assessments of our colleagues; prospectuses for new interdisciplinary majors; institutes; conference workshops; universities themselves (which have now become brands to be marketed to prospective students or contributors); and so on. 
As marketing overwhelms university life, it generates documents about fostering imagination and creativity that might just as well have been designed to strangle imagination and creativity in the cradle. No major new works of social theory have emerged in the United States in the last thirty years. We have been reduced to the equivalent of medieval scholastics, writing endless annotations of French theory from the seventies, despite the guilty awareness that if new incarnations of Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, or Pierre Bourdieu were to appear in the academy today, we would deny them tenure. 
There was a time when academia was society’s refuge for the eccentric, brilliant, and impractical. No longer. It is now the domain of professional self-marketers. As a result, in one of the most bizarre fits of social self-destructiveness in history, we seem to have decided we have no place for our eccentric, brilliant, and impractical citizens. Most languish in their mothers’ basements, at best making the occasional, acute intervention on the Internet.