Paul Mason

I am staying on Tumblr, but...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:49:59 +0100

If they try to own my data, or integrate it with any other Yahoo service, I will leave. Also if there is any attempt to censor others, or if the cat pictures stop

1984. Coalville, Leics.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:24:01 +0100

1984. Coalville, Leics.

My Wagner documentary script is written. There is a use for...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:16:00 +0100

My Wagner documentary script is written. There is a use for f***ing jetlag and hotel rooms. I managed to listen to Tristan 2x back to back instead of wandering round the Lower East Side and Venice Beach. 30 April 2013 BBC Radio 4 and a week later.

Molly Crabapple and Laurie Penny at the launch of the Shell Game...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:51:40 +0100

Molly Crabapple and Laurie Penny at the launch of the Shell Game painting series.

imaginaryparty: Don’t feel down …. This is a life’s work. A...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:34:15 +0000

imaginaryparty:

Don’t feel down …. This is a life’s work. A life’s joy. The next one hundred years are ours…..

National Student Demo. Sussex University. March 25

A good example of the memetics of the current struggle

Longlisted for Orwell Prize 2013

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:55:28 +0000

Longlisted for Orwell Prize 2013:

If only I could write what I really wanted and they didn’t break my paragraphs up into two line, web friendly slugs. Sorry Eric Blair.

Books read this year. Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, Laurence...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:49:00 +0000

Books read this year. Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, Laurence Dreyfus

My talk about #RareEarth at #5x15

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:02:06 +0000

My talk about #RareEarth at #5x15

mollycrabapple: In conversation about art, revolt and SHELL...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:53:23 +0000

mollycrabapple:

In conversation about art, revolt and SHELL GAME

I strum. Clemency Burton-Hill sings Justin Bieber.

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:47:28 +0000

I strum. Clemency Burton-Hill sings Justin Bieber.:

This actually happened on a mainstream British radio show

Books read in 2013 “The Invisibles: Say You Want A...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:44:06 +0000

Books read in 2013 “The Invisibles: Say You Want A Revolution”

mollycrabapple: Morning hangover reading- Why Its Still Kicking...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:48:57 +0000

mollycrabapple:

Morning hangover reading- Why Its Still Kicking Off Everywhere

strelnik: “It was racism that killed him” On 2nd February 2013...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 07:44:53 +0000

strelnik:

“It was racism that killed him”

On 2nd February 2013 Cheick Ndiaye’s body was found on the rail tracks of Thissio metro station in central Athens. A friend, who was a witness states he saw Cheick being pushed to his death by two municipality police officers who were chasing him. Cheick was a migrant from Senegal.

This film, by Ross Domoney, is part of an ongoing research project in Athens: City at the Time of Crisis.

mollycrabapple: But of Dégage. Ben Ali flying away

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:57:18 +0000

mollycrabapple:

But of Dégage. Ben Ali flying away

Photo

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:36:01 +0000

mfortki: Why that Russian meteorite was captured on dash-cams....

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:32:30 +0000

mfortki:

Why that Russian meteorite was captured on dash-cams. Read all about it.

"However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with..."

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:56:17 +0000

“However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word ‘comrade’ stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy ‘proving’ that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the ‘mystique’ of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all.”

- Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, p 104.

I am reading this on my night in, and this paragraph is everything I love about Orwell. Marx might prove that capitalism is horrible and in need of replacement, and countless other thinkers have elaborated and analyzed and planned, but Orwell is the one who makes Socialism sound like someplace I want to live.

(via differentclasswar)

"One of the things that makes him the Internet’s boy is he was already living in the future that I..."

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 11:56:18 +0000

““One of the things that makes him the Internet’s boy is he was already living in the future that I hope we get to,” said Norton. “Where everybody has the permission to act and be important and where hierarchies don’t prevent people from doing things or believing in themselves and just having a fucking life. We get a huge number of messages that we are not allowed in the world. We occupy social laws of living, and we are not allowed to leave them. And all we ever have to do is walk out. And I think one of the most extraordinary, moving parts of Aaron’s life, his story, is that he just didn’t accept the limits that we put on ourselves.””

- Quinn Norton, in The Life and Afterlife of Aaron Swartz (via mollycrabapple)

Photo

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:51:08 +0000

Books read in 2013 #2 Pygmalion, GB Shaw (and Topolski). To be...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:06:59 +0000

Books read in 2013 #2 Pygmalion, GB Shaw (and Topolski). To be honest Shaw’s stage directions in this 1941 edition are fatuous. The film of My Fair Lady is a better drama, for one scene only: George Cukor and Alan Jay Lerner put in the scene where Eliza revisits Covent Garden in the morning, bringing her father’s wedding news into that scene. It is genius because it forces her to do what Shaw never did - confront her roots again. The scene where Eliza tries to explain what sort of relationship she wants with Higgins - “more friendly like” - remains the most touching and well written, and stands the test of time better than most of the stage drama.