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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Matt Devereux has some very sensible views regarding the clamour in the media about the latest notorious computer game
The recent US furore over Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas serves to expose the real agenda behind moralist media censorship in the 21st Century: sex. On July 27th it was announced that 85 year old Florence Cohen of New York is taking the games manufacturer to court over a hidden modification for the game entitled “Hot Coffee”. The file, downloadable over the Internet, inserts a new element into the game allowing players to have graphic sex, including a variety of positions. Cohen claims that this new element is unsuitable for her 14 year old grandchild and therefore contravenes the terms on which she bought the game. The insinuation is that had she known the game contained sexual material she would never have bought it in the first place.
Yet this is a game in which shooting innocent people in the head is actively encouraged. Drug dealing, prostitution, stealing, criminal damage, assault and affray are all part and parcel of all three GTA games. As any self-respecting GTA aficionado will tell you some of the most enjoyable activities include decapitating police officers and repeatedly driving over the elderly. How can it be that this sort of material is acceptable for a 14 year old whilst sex (in which no-one is harmed) is frowned upon? Hopefully, the District Court will see the irony.
Furthermore, the file needed to unlock the pornography was illegally hacked and distributed over the internet. In other words Ms. Cohen’s grandchild would have had to have voluntarily downloaded the unsactioned file in order to access the sexual material. If she really wants to protect her young relative she might more sensibly start by checking his internet history. Predictably, Congress has jumped on the outrage bandwagon, issuing statement after statement brandishing Rockstar as “pornographers” and “out of control.” On July 15th the Federal Trade Commission announced it would investigate the “Hot Coffee” modification.
Who is spearheading this investigation? None other than Hilary Clinton – the woman whose husband is largely responsible for the words “oral sex” being introduced to every American living room. In reality, this is just another case of business and the media being blamed for poor parenting and parental control. Rockstar Games are not responsible for keeping kids in check. Neither is the government. Do we really want our choices to be taken away by people who can not control their own children?
Sometimes talented, sometimes monumentally untalented assailants of one’s ears: yes, the phenomenon of the public “busker” seems to be alive and well on the London Underground. A guy at Chancery Lane station this evening was dressed in what must have been a hot and thick red jacket, with a sort of Elvis haircut and was belting out Sinatra hits. (Not bad, actually). The sound of Old Blue Eyes followed me down the Stygian depths of the platform until the racket of the train overwhelmed it. A strange evening. The station was full of police with their yellow jackets on on high alert four Thursdays on from the mass murders of July 7. Cops and Sinatra on a Thursday night. A rum combination.
I suppose most readers around these parts would reckon that actors should stick to acting, and keep their political opinions to themselves.
But what about these opinions?
“People think more aid will help, but it won’t,” said Ms. Driver, an actress who is working on her second music CD. “Trade is the surest way of decreasing the savage amount of poverty in our world. These countries have got to be able to trade fairly.”
And the point is, by “fairly”, she does not mean being paid artificially high prices; she means getting rid of agricultural subsidies in the rich countries.
It was never a practical project to silence the acting profession. These people are famous. Having acquired their fame, they then want to use their fame to do good, and in the process to become even more famous. This is only natural, especially when you consider that doing good and being heroic is what, according to the entertainments these people spend their lives making and acting in, life is all about. Trying to stop famous actors from expressing what they consider to be virtuous and heroic opinions in public is like trying to stop the wind from blowing or the sea from being wet.
No, the task that faces us is not to silence the acting profession from ever opining about goodness. That would be impossible, to say nothing of censorious and unpleasant. Rather is our task to change the definition of goodness that actors of sufficient fame to care about such things reach for when they get to the public virtue stage in their careers, and to make goodness really mean goodness.
Ms. Driver’s pronouncements concerning the superiority of trade over aid as a means of rescuing the world’s poorest people is evidence that some progress is being made along these lines.
Many actors surely already believe such things, on the quiet. But it is still a fine step forward when one of them feels able to say such things in public.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people
Oh I am soooo up for this…
I have just returned from just over two of the funniest hours spent at the cinema for quite a while. Wedding Crashers, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, is an outrageous, politically incorrect, deplorable romp of a movie, the perfect tonic for these unpleasant times.
Vaughn is also refreshingly free of the political posturing that tends to colour my views of Hollywood these days.
Sales of the sixth Harry Potter adventure by J.K. Rowling have reached 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours. Repeat slowly: 6.9 million copies. That puts this novel – and I am not a great fan, it has to be admitted – up in the sort of league that used to be associated with sales of Beatles albums or Michael Jackson tunes.
6.9 million copies sold in 24 hours. Egads. Those who decry Potter as lowbrow nonsense can spare their rage. (Yes, that includes you, Stephen Pollard). This is a cultural phenomenon we have not seen from these islands for years. As Brian Micklethwait pointed out not so long ago, Rowling has created a character to rival an earlier, very British-but-also-transferable-character – James Bond (I am an unashamed Ian Fleming fan).
I mentioned Michael Jackson a bit earlier. Strange to relate, but has anyone noticed that Johnny Depp, starring as Willy Wonka in the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Tim Burton, looks just like the Faded One? I presume this has to be some sort of Hollywood in-joke.
Update: latest figures put Harry Potter sales at 8.9 million.
I have just got in, hot and tired after my trudge back from the office. Flicking on the television, and, behold on BBC 1, is the first night at the Proms, commencing the famous series of music nights held for a period of weeks at the Royal Albert Hall.
The orchestra is bashing out a piece by Edward Elgar right now, a composer associated – not entirely correctly – with brash British patriotism. In the current climate, it makes me smile rather wryly that this supreme genius of British music should be beamed into our homes on this sultry Friday evening, and via those lovely people at the BBC.
I have just been watching Panorama, on the subject of Islamic terrorism, and according to an investigator in Morocco, Al Qaeda has a new dress code. To start with, you must wear a beard and robes. You only switch to ordinary western clothes, to blend in, when you switch to “active service”.
This reminds me of a snatch of dialogue I recall from the movie Ice Station Zebra, which went approximately as follows. (I only saw it a long time ago, so what follows may be somewhat approximate.)
Patrick McGoohan (yes – The Prisoner himself) plays a secret service agent, and he is asked what he thinks of one of the people on the expedition, or at the base, or whatever.
“Yes” says the McGoohan character, “we’ve been watching him.”
What do you make of him?
“Oh,” says McGoohan, “he’s immaculate.”
How long have you been watching him?
Replies McGoohan: “Ever since he became immaculate.”
UPDATE: “Impeccable.” See comment 4.
I can only assume that Michael Moore was too busy:
Nearly four years after the collapse of the World Trade Center, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone will direct a film based on the story of two police officers who were trapped in the rubble on Sept. 11, 2001.
And in that rubble, the two stricken men will miraculously find ‘proof’ that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by a CIA-Halliburton-Zionist-BushHitler conspiracy. But the evidence will all mysteriously disappear after thay hand it in and some snarling unidentified suit with a Texan accent will warn them to “keep their big mouths shut”.
The last pub covered in this series is one I have known for the longest time: Paddy Reilly’s. I first came to it whilst traveling with Irish bass guitarist Dee Moore a decade ago. There has been some remodeling since then, but Tony DeMarco’s Thursday session goes on. I have no idea how long he has been at it but he has become a New York institution. He is also a very fine fiddle player, known and welcome in any session in Ireland.
The session in full flight. Tony DeMarco on fiddle at left.
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
I arrived a bit early tonight and while sipping my first pint of the evening overheard a fellow I had never seen before. He told a couple at the bar how tightly knit the global traditional music scene is: how you can go to a session anywhere and in a few minutes chat with a new found trad player find people you know in common.
I put it to the test and I hit it in one. In fact, of the first six people I named there was only one who was not well known to us both. Later in the evening the fellow’s name, Jon Hicks, finally clicked in my mind. The aforementioned old friend, Dee, produced his first CD.
Jon is from Northern England; he lived in the West of Ireland for a number of years and is now on the road to becoming a permanent New York resident. From the quality of picking I heard, I believe he will be a welcomed addition to the local music scene.
Singer-Songwriter Jon Hicks.
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
It was a lovely session, typical of the decades long run of Tony’s session. Whether due to the events in London or just vageries of the summer holidays, the crowd was thin tonight. Not too thin though. We had a lively young woman who had her first introduction to Irish traditional music and was totally enthralled by the skilled musicianship involved. I think she will be back.
Trad music seems to attracts beautiful women.
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
I woke this morning to the sad news posted here by Brian and David and there is little I can add from far off Manhattan. Maybe I will be moved to pontificate later, but for now I will continue on with life as planned.
Last night was not a session bar night. I only have one more night in New York before becoming buried in R&D work again and The Scratcher is a must visit. It is my Manhattan local of eight years standing. Until a few years ago it was also the site of the Wednesday session so I can at least claim a figleaf on its inclusion in the five day crawl.
The bar has always been more a trendy den of iniquity than a trad place. The staff are Irish and Scottish; the clientele are an eclectic mix of models, actresses, musicians, filmmakers and young professionals during the pre-midnight hours. As the clock ticks into the morning hours the american percentage falls precipitously until in the wee hours, by the sound of the surrounding accents, one could as well be in a London or Dublin pub as New York.
The secretive outer aspect of the Scratcher.
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
The staff are good people and include a number of musicians who work here when not gigging or touring. The owner is a big supporter of music and this is one of the ways he helps the New York music scene.
Brendan O’Shea, like several other staff bartenders has been here since the late nineties. It is a nice feeling to come back to a place year after year and have a nod and a smile as you walk in the door.
Brendan at work… or perhaps play?
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
Some of the staff I would call friend as well. If you drop into my New York local I ask that you tip really well. If you misbehave Natalie will tell on you and I will personally ban you from Samizdata!
Natalie at work covering the family bills.
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
If you are looking for intellectual chatter, come after midnight or early on a weekday night and you are bound to find someone to go on at length about just about anything. If you come by during the weekend night madness, pick up a model and end up bonking your mutual brains out in the interchangeable sex loos, just remember where you heard about this marvelous little place. There is something for everyone here.
It is Tuesday night and I am still standing. It is actually not the drinking that does you in. It is the late night navigation of the New York subway system. Last night it took me an hour and a half to get home. Partly it is that fewer trains are running; but it is also all the repairs and shifting around of trains that happens at night. I often wonder if the City is in cahoots with Yellow Cab to make getting home late at night on the subway such a miserable prospect that you would rather reach into your pocket book for $30 to travel the length of the island.
Nonetheless, I arrived at the Swift Bar with time to spare: time enough for a warm up pint or two before the music. Even without music it is a fascinating bar to drink in. The place has a Victorian look in keeping with the Jonathan Swift theme.
An impressive old style bar Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
The truly unique part of the bar are the murals. I photographed one small section of the main mural. It is filled with detail and humour enough to keep your eyes wandering over it until you have had too many pints to focus or until they have settled on something lovely and drinking beside you.
A ghostly presence in the mural Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
The session itself is usually quite large and with an audience to match. This particular night was pretty dead although the music was as good as ever. I have been in this bar on standing room nights with musicians several seats deep around the main table. It is also not unusual for touring musicians to stop by. The last time I was here I came by with singer Niamh Parsons (an old and dear friend of many years standing, so go buy her records!) after her tour gig. Athena O�Lochlainn, a well known fiddle player once with Sharon Shannon’s band also happened to drop in. It is that kind of session (Yes, I know Sharon too).
Eamon O’Leary plays piano… as well as his usual banjo, guitar and Mandolin. Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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