Well I watched The Harder they Come, which of course stars Jimmy Cliff and so many of his songs. I just loved the live recording of the title song. In fact I much prefer live music to over produced studio recordings. Most of my YouTube library is live performances. And I like the occasional festival from the Isle of Wight 1970 (Hendrix) to the Big Chill 2008 (Leonard Cohen), to the Port Eliot festival, numerous years, including this year. And live music in pubs. Although I’m learning jazz piano, I don’t like jazz clubs which seem very male and full of rather tedious aficionados. Latin jazz clubs are different, they’re just for dancing; it’s hard just to listen. The Berlin Philharmonic has a brilliant website that streams live performances, for when I am in the mood for classical music.
The Harder they Come has some brilliant observation footage and shows the struggle and inequality of the Jamaican culture in the 1970s. I think it’s sad the story line portrays the only escape as to either become a pop star or a drug dealer. I have a friend who did some supply teaching in a bleak estate in East London. She said that the only aspirations the kids had were to become pop or media stars. Just getting a job did not interest them. Unemployment and drug dealing were betting than working.
There was an article in the NYT today about the gig economy, how hustling and self-employment were now the norm amongst millennials. No job security, no sick leave, no employment rights, no pensions. And how hard it was, paid by the hour. A related article on loneliness pointed out how people no longer meet at work, because it is such a frenetic and transient space. We live in a funny old world.
I’ve added two more films to the WatchList. Roma by Alfonso Cuaron (Mexico), and Little Drummer Girl by Chan-wook Park (South Korea), apparently on BBC1. No idea when they’re released but look interesting. And for the nightstand, I’m ordering The Islamic Enlightment: the modern struggle between faith and reason, by Christopher de Bellaigue. My flirtation with North Africa took a dive after 9/11 but it is an incredibly rich (if conflicted) culture.
Talking of existential crises, I googled a MA thesis from East Tennessee State University 2005 titled – A Psychological Literary Critique from a Jungian Perspective of E. M. Forsters A Passage to India; which lead to this reference – D’Cruz, Doreen. “Emptying and Filling Along the Existential Coil in A Passage to India.”, Studies in the Novel 18 (1986): 193-205. Here’s a quote:
“Doreen D’Cruz presses for an ontological interpretation of the novel. She says the caves represent non-Being, the nothingness of the universe. In this sense, the caves are negative and what the characters experience there is negative. But the novel must be understood as presenting a tension between Being and non-Being. The novel in Part III shows the force of Being, of the possibility of creation and connectedness (194-95, 203). ”