10 things - April 2017
- Mastodon “Emperor of Sand” – Exquisite newish release by the behemoths. Another concept album moving from the best parts of old Baroness, nods to sludge and prog-rock all the while chugging along with amazingly melodic, foot-tapping tunes.
- The Mars Volta
- “Black Sails” (TV series) – As a kid I was thoroughly fascinated with pirates on a number of levels, from their views on race and society to just being punk as you can be during the birth of capitalism via mercantilism. They were not nice people in general, but that aside, the series itself does a lot to examine issues of the day, especially in terms of colonialism, slavery, race, sexuality and commerce. Replace the dragons in GoT with cannons and sails.
- Mesh networking – Something I used to be really fascinated with and perhaps an antidote to the corporate playground the internet has become?
- The Dolmus – The mini-bus tax/bus thing that gets you around Istanbul. Positively gorgeous emergent un-design. Best of all, no apps (I hope), just hop in/out strong localism.
- All or nothing drinking – Something I’ve been toying with which is either a minimum of a bunch of drinks or none.
- Post-nationalism
- Proto-Enlightenment – the late 1600’s in Europe were where our world today was born. Its fascinating to read about credit default swaps in the Netherlands in 1685.
- Kurdish Democratic-Confederalism – A people without a nation trying to fight three wars simultaneously, fighting genocide and trying to implement the most interesting anti-capitalist systems around – all at the same time.
- The death of the eight hour work day