Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Wednesday 17 May 2023

Hildegard of Bingen










Hildegard of Bingen is credited with writing the first plainchant music that excels in the acoustic environment of a purposefully designed church or cathedral. You may not know her but it's unlikely you haven't heard the liturgical style of music that invites a talented singer to check out the acoustics of old religious architecture on their first visit, such as this young lady who is hearing her voice for the first time, just like you and I were with her.



I was introduced to Hildegard by Lord Bragg conversing with Miri Rubin, William Flynn and Almut Suerbaum. I will drill down into the difference between scholars and academics later as they're all largely bought and sold as indeed am I and you - I will say that the official account for Hildegard has potholes. How would a fifteen year old, bricked in to a prison cell at a convent where the acoustics match that of Julian Assange's prison cell in Belmash, invent a genre and practise, experiment and enjoy her work that Cathedrals are designed for (among other qualities)?


Furthermore why would a 15 year old girl who devotes her life to God through abstention and isolation step out one day and ostensibly run the monastry as it were, before moving on to set up her own vision in Rupertsberg which most certainly is not Bingen.


Or let's put it another way. If a fanatical devotion to God through a life of mental flagellation and service changes such that one day the bricks are torn down as there's no door to exit, just a slot for passing food in and waste out. Why isn't that explained by anyone? Why would the elevator pitch for the story, the hook as it were, be left out?


I'll tell you why. It's because her story isn't one leveraged by just the forces of love, patience and protection, but one that demonstrates amply an early life hijacked by compression, suffering, prayer and abstinence.


Where is the good?


Might it be true?


Is beauty indistinguishable from the eye of the beholder?


Cloistered away from prying eyes and whatever it takes to emancipate a 15 year old anchorite from their anchoress dungeon.


History is written by the prevailing forces In Our Time. This is a fact seemingly everyone knows when pressed for an answer, but only a handful will provide examples of.


Lord Bragg nails it when he asks where did she get the books from?


Melvyn doesn't just fight British womens corner he defends women full stop. He's your champion.


Prove me wrong.


Some churches have Cathedral like audio quality built into the internal architecture. In fact, many churches are designed with acoustics in mind to enhance the sound of choirs and plainchant. The acoustics of historical churches have been extensively studied. Orthodox churches in the old world typically have reverberation times around 1.5 seconds for a small village church, 2.5 seconds for a larger urban or monastic church, ranging up to 6 seconds for a cathedral-sized church². 


Sunday 27 November 2022

Dissolution - CJ Sansom


I've bragged many times. I used to read The Economist, The FT, WSJ, The Guardian and The Observer regularly. I'd smash American CEOs in international hotel bars on United States political history because I had the best teacher, Joe Barbera. 

He used to say, 'have you read this?' and if I said no, he'd immediately become animated and tell me why I had to read say Kissinger (Years of Upheaval) or Caro on LBJ (Master of the Senate).

Then I went off-piste and discovered I knew nothing...

Since then, I've pretty much read only non-fiction, so I was half hearted about Dissolution, but it was the best from a bad bunch, so I pressed on.

CJ Sansom is a great writer. Its clean historical fiction set in the time of Henry VIII but not that Cromwell, the other one. 

I appreciated getting granular on Monastic nomenclature, particularly the obedientiaries.

The end was quite exciting and a bit of a page turner but in the final overview, I couldn't believe that intermittent parts of the plot hung on indiscreet revelations made by the protagonist Matthew Shardlake. 

Cromwell's investigator. 

Not only that but he put people's lives in danger by shooting his mouth off. Anyway, I've finished it now and I'm on Fiona Maddocks - Hildegard of Bingen.

Friday 11 February 2022

Charles Bukowski - The Last Night of the Earth Poems








In 2011 I read Charles Bukowski's Post Office and it was brilliant. He's like Orwell, not an extraneous word in the house.... and then I never read him again.

I'm always looking for an excuse to go to Southampton Central Library even though I've got a stack of books outstanding to read on my shelves. I finally remembered Bukowski and dropped by only to find out that the one book they had was overdue for months out on loan, probably never to come back. Would you like this one, the librarian asked.

The Last Night Of The Earth Poems. 

I made a face. I've never had much luck with poetry. OK I'll give it a try, and I walked out with one of the best books I've ever read.

There's no point going on about it when you can find out for yourself. It was a peerless companion in the pub with Ruddles and joints. It's impossible not to like Bukowski. 

Quarter Jewish, Nazi, Ugly, Funny, Sharp, Filthy, Bum, Gambler, Alcoholic, Loser..... Winner of words and meter.

Philosopher

I laughed out loud on my own many times.

If I get sent to Belmarsh, I'll be alright with just this one book.

Tuesday 7 September 2021

Vikings - A Very Short Introduction


One of the required reading for Yale's - The Early Middle Ages is the above book, but the only reason I read it is because it's the only one our central library had.

Ordinarily I'm not particularly fascinated by the Vikings, although I did some hard labour work once, with a legendary friend who urged me on by declaring that 'we're Vikings and we never quit', which always made me smile and power up for another exhausting climb up stairs with heavy furniture.

I was curious about the Vikings presence in North America and it is covered modestly at the end of this book, but what was really conveyed to me was how nebulous the notion of a fixed tribe really is when it comes to history.

It's a little bit like nobody called the industrial revolution that name till many decades later. Even the simplest of understandings gain complexity and unexpected textures as we begin to delve into them.

There's a great quote about the definition of culture in this book, though I won't repeat it as it's a gem that might be useful in the future. I was pleased to find out more about Harald Bluetooth (possibly the flakiest technology in the universe), but these colourful Viking characters convey some of the wider tribes' characteristics, although I hasten to add that they're not strictly speaking a tribe, as is amply laid out in the book.

Wednesday 17 March 2021

Manly P. Hall - The Secret Destiny of America & America's Assignment With Destiny



I've always struggled with Manly P. Hall's work in the past. Maybe it's because he's a 33 degree mason or the audio presentations of him on Youtube, which are Quite formal lectures and delivered in Quite a terse manner.

On this occasion though my esoteric and historical knowledge was sufficient to open up this book and turn pages that bloomed. The first hurdle I overcame was it finally sunk in that the Masonic influence of the founding fathers was from a time when senior masons were related to the mystery schools, or the holders of knowledge for a future time. 

These days senior Masons are usually cops or judges giving light sentences to Rotherham and Telford grooming rape-gangs, thereby demonstrating that their infiltration by the Illuminati, as warned by George Washington to William Russell really is complete.

Lop



Anyone with any familiarity of my big gob will know that I've been one of the loudest critics of the Pentagon, and US empire over the last couple of decades. It's so easy to see what the objectives are, and how easily the sheep are herded into pens of bleating unison, where Middle Eastern politics and conflict is portrayed as super complex when the reality is it's super simple and having a backbone is the key problem.

Nevertheless, even in my loudest social media days, I always knew that if America fails, we will all fall, and this book is pretty much about that destiny.

Years ago, I naively ripped former Defence Intelligence Director General Flynn apart in an interview with Mehdi Hasan. In recent years I've been aware of his belief in American Exceptionalism. Well I know I got that wrong, and updated my words on the subject, but Flynn, Trump, Q et al are (imo) right.

The exceptionalism is that without the success of the American project, the world will fall to one or two power-axis players that have a longer history of subjugating their own people, so why would that change if they became the preeminent power?

China for example has a weekly holocaust going on in Xinjiang against the Uighur. The wives are raped in jails, injected with mind bending chemicals and subjected to any number of humiliations and torture, for being Muslims instead of obedient Han Chinese. We don't know so much about this genocide, because Zionist Jews dominate Hollywood, and the news landscape.

There is only one eternal victim in that stale and obnoxious narrative.

America is in a perilous state at the moment. The Democratic party have stolen the election from Trump, and everyone knows it. The only one with any ideas was packing out stadium after stadium after stadium on a daily basis (sometimes as much as five Stadia a day) and his opponent could barely rustle up 50 people at a rally. The fake president is now doing presentations from his home in Delaware with Green Screens implying he's in the Whitehouse. 

There's so much fucked up noise in the background, I can't be energised to list all the warning signals but you might want to ask why Biden hasn't flown on Airforce One yet.

I'm not close enough to have a insight on what is really going on, but by going back to the old books such as The Secret Destiny of America, and armed with the knowledge that Q shared with us, I'm confident we're in for a tumultuous time that will end in vindication.

That's not a popular view in mainstream media circles but scratch at the surface and there are people much closer to the real story who believe as I do.

Tuesday 15 December 2020

John Dee and the Empire of Angels - Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World



I first came across John Dee while listening to Terrence McKenna podcasts, years ago in Hong Kong. At that time I learned he was the original 007 for Queen Elizabeth and an alchemist or more accurately a Sage.

I first purchased this book after listening to a podcast with the author over here, and it took me a long time to read, as it's crammed with esoteric knowledge that is vast, visual and layered. I'll never be able to retain and recall that kind of knowledge, but I know a man who can, so he's reading this book next.

The main point of this post is because the security services are the most concealed group for using all kinds of magick from Chaos to Enochian or Operative. While researching the subject on Wikispooks I discovered that the article on the occult and SIS was written by none other than former Home Secretary Michael Howard. 

If that whooshes over your head there's not much for you here, except to add that I don't think the full story of John Dee is currently that accurate, as he was careful who he told what. 

Also, if we look at another SIS asset who was into the occult, there's Aleister Crowley. Both he and John Dee died quite impoverished and so there's that when entertaining thoughts of exploring occult rituals and so forth.

Sunday 2 August 2020

The Fermata - Erotic Fiction

The fermata Nicholson Baker - Kupindo.com (53681849)

The Fermata is a 1994 erotic novel by Nicholson Baker. It is about a man named Arno Strine who can stop time, and uses this ability to embark on a series of sexual adventures. Like Baker's previous novel Vox, The Fermata was controversial amongst critics yet was also a bestseller - Wikipedia

It wasn't my cup of tea, but it wasn't offensive to my soul. 

Tuesday 21 May 2019

The Silk Roads



The Silk Roads commences a little bumpy, and ends premature.

Other than that it's a great educational journey.

Horses and silks for sale, more interesting than gunpowder routes.

Saturday 11 May 2019

Every Light in the House Burnin'

Every Light in the House Burnin' eBook by Andrea Levy ...

I read this to pass the time while hanging out with television addicts. 

Some had complex needs and other's, including myself, were there to care for them.

I enjoyed Andrea Levy's book Every Light in the House Burnin'

At her best, she writes like Bukowski. 

It struck me as poignant when she died shortly after I finished her book.


Saturday 3 February 2018

American Gods - Neil Gaiman




Pretty much everyone who heard me listening to this asked me what it was about. It's my first audiobook and I did all three Youtube uploads twice now, as I was often busy and missed important scenes.

I hear there's a TV series so I'll download that and see how it compares. The character who plays Shadow in the audiobook is unforgettable.


Thursday 27 July 2017

Final Judgment - Book Review




Quite often the most dangerous books are available for free in pdf format and readable on a Kindle or generic book reading software. They are invariably tampered with by global internet censors/intelligence orgs to make them ridiculous or unreadable. Often they are seeded with disinformation to make a fool of the reader who unwittingly quotes them verbatim.

I'm not going to lie. The official online copy of Final Judgement that I read isn't a great read, though it is a great book. It's packed with amazingly granular information that details the overwhelming connections between the Jewish Mob, The Bronfmans, Mossad, Sayanim and Israeli Terrorist Gangs/Politicians and the execution of JFK and so forth,  but in the final analysis it's not written all that well, and repeats itself a lot.

Nevertheless, Piper is an excellent researcher and has inconclusively proved through documentation that the Israel connection is a largely undeniable part, if not driving force behind the JFK execution milieu. 

If it was down to me I would cut the book in half, reduce the number of endless iterations, and write it in a manner that is more accessible polished and subtle. 

I might in fact do this one day as the book deserves a wider audience.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Terence McKenna's Reading List




It's been so long since I posted a Terence McKenna recording but this one has stood out in the last year so I've uploaded it for people to enjoy.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Great Apes (Naked Apes) - By Will Self


I read so few books now compared to a few years ago when I never went anywhere without one, I thought I'd at least record the books I have finished. I recently completed Will Self's Great Apes. The introduction is one of the most exciting and thought provoking pieces of writing I've ever come across and so I expected it to be as good if not better. 

However it wasn't. Either from cosmic serendipity or sheer volume of ground covered these days I found the time spent thinking about being a primate (albeit an extraordinary one) quite useful. It ties into Mark Earls Herd thinking a fair bit though I think it brings the topic to life in a way that non-fiction can't. I can't say I enjoyed all the primate language throughout the book, and I even found the plot a bit pedestrian, but it does achieve a satisfying reconciliation by having a point and a purpose and it's greatest achievement is to point out our evolutionary crossovers with other primates though I'm not a stand Darwinist  on this matter at all.

At times it does feel like Self is making a point at somebody throughout the entire book, as well as in the beginning capturing the heady days of MDMA use and Jungle music from London in the mid 90's. This is probably to be expected from one of our generations most clever (and funny) writers, famous for shooting up heroin on John Major's Prime Ministerial jet back in 97 before Tony Blair and things... could only get better.

Of late Self has taken to smoking a pipe at the New Statesman and is intellectually breast feeding on the 911 commission report which is inexcusable but not unusual for influential writers, as none have the application to look at the weight of evidence or the courage to take an unpopular position on the matter.

Here's the first page:




Thursday 8 September 2011

On The Road




I'll never forget the briefest and best description of Jack Kerouac's, On The Road, given by a young man who like me was reading the book at the time. I was in my early twenties and he was about eighteen.

'Yeah it's brilliant he said. It's all "and then we did this, and then we went there, and then we got drunk, and then we had sex, and then we moved on, and then we fell asleep, and then and then and then"

Genius.

He went insane later in life and not for the first time I realised the brightest often do. But seriously this video is one beautiful piece of history. First I learned that beat generation meant 'sympathetic' and suddenly the Beat word made a lot more sense to me. Beaten up, beaten on. Only Kerouac could legitimately explain what it means. Secondly Jack goes on to read some of his work and I'm left wanting to read the book one more time if the road ever opens up for me again. Which it will. When I'm not expecting it.

Friday 27 August 2010

reality hunger



Love this. I've been fast forwarding through the boring parts of Dexter earlier. I love the character but all that contrived futile love angle? It's maddening. Though I realise that sounds like ironic psychopathy.


www.russelldavies.com for more wisdom (Go on type it. You'll remember it that way)