Victor Billot » Uncategorized

Book club

admin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:25:03 +0000

What I have been reading in 2009 >>>

Alasdair Gray – Lanark (just setting off on my second circumnavigation after ordering a smart new paperback edition that took months to arrive)

China Mieville – The City and the City (Bamboozling and brilliant)

Haruki Murakami – South of the Border, West of the Sun (followed quickly by Underground. It took me far too long to read this guy)

Brian Aldiss – Hothouse (a weirdly compelling hybrid of Dan Dare cartoon and catastrophic-surrealistic science fantasy)

Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody (Readable state of the play account from social media expert)

Malcolm Gladwell – Blink (interesting)

Brian Greene – The Fabric of the Cosmos (even simplified accounts of quantum physics are hard going.)

Lonely Planet USA and India (armchair travelling . . .)

Russell Hoban – The Lion of Boaz Jachin and Jachin Boaz (another magical fable from a favourite author)

William Gibson – Count Zero (second time around)

Kiwi Companeros – edited Mark Derby (fascinating accounts of New Zealanders in the Spanish Civil War)

Tom Paine – Rights of Man/Common Sense (Just started)

H. G. Wells – War of the Worlds (Strange combination of nineteenth century morals with a contemporary feel for complete disaster)

Nick Harkaway – The Gone Away World (Frustrating, goofy, tangential, amazing, touching and eccentric)

J. G . Ballard – The Drought (Dreamlike)

Bertrand Russell – History of Western Philosophy (a ten year project)

John Wyndham – The Chrysalids (Curious ending in futuristic New Zealand)

Paulette Jiles – The Color of Lightning (Otago Daily Times review)

Karl Marx – Capital (another ten year project)

Science and Capitalism

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:30:42 +0000

Terence Kealey falls out of love with market myths at New Scientist and is descended upon by hordes of screaming libertarians (AKA self justifying plutocrats)

Drinking liberally

admin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:32:41 +0000

An appearance this Tuesday 23 April 7pm at Velvet Underground, Dunedin for the Drinking Liberally series.

Facebook version here.

Technology and socialism, continued

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:47:24 +0000

Following up on Kevin Kelly’s Wired piece on digital socialism, Creative Commons guru Lawrence Lessig worries that use of the “S” word will give the open source nerds a bad rap from the foaming, freakily hard right of American politics.

Fortunately American history has many examples of socialists who I feel proud to share my political philosophy with.

From the Crypt: Age of Dog

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:53:14 +0000

1992, Crown Hotel, Dunedin.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzZn1Z7S06k

Music and Dancing

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:50:16 +0000

Finally got around to uploading some obscure mp3s from the dim past – including tracks from Das Phaedrus, Age of Dog, Swarm, Body Bomb, Alpha Plan and a few of my own, spanning the last 20 years (just about!)

That’s very generous of you . . . sir

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:15:19 +0000

A small mention here at Tumeke for my comments today about our Prime Minister who craves to see the warm and friendly hand of charity extended to the dispossessed.

John Key is a confused man. He wants a British “honours” system, an American “generosity” system and presumably a Burmese employment system to pay for it all.

(Barbed) Wire

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:24:32 +0000

Just listened to one of the tracks from the new Wire album “One of us” – available as a free download.

Still brilliant. Contributing to my theory that post punk music groups can (not always) survive middle age better than pre punk music groups.

New Times

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:09:48 +0000

I’ve moved this blog off wordpress.com to my own domain. Using the opportunity to check out some new themes. However there are always a few glitches and currently I’m trying to figure out embedding YouTube videos.

Alpha Plan video from the archives . . .

admin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:31:36 +0000