Sundry things to talk about - a London Day

Tantrism on the coach to London

On the way to London this morning I was reading a book on tantrism that I bought a few years ago. When I was learning to be a yoga teacher some years ago, tantrism sort of lurked on the fringes at various times. Of course tantrism is closely linked with various bits of yoga such as chakras and kundalini, but our course rarely made any specific comment on it. Still something to do with it would appear at Yoga Show each year in London. I was surprised at how explicit the book was on a quick skim through.

I first came across tantrism when I read Lisa Alther's Kinflicks when I was a teenager. This book made a huge impact on me at the time - especially the section of learning philosophy at University and the hippie commune section. I wonder if Lisa Alther still writes?

And of course The Dharma Bums has hints of tantrism in the "yam-yum" sequence early on. I have occasionally wondered what that would be like.

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Not the cover of my edition!

Early 1970s Top of the Tops

Apparently German TV is showing episodes of TOTP from the early 1970s. By the wonders of the internet I have been able to acquire half a dozen shows and they have been quite extraordinary. First of all, I am amazed that I know so many of the songs. Secondly, there are the extraordinary depiction of black artists. Then there is the willingness to show bands with bearded guys in their late twenties. There are the extraordinary outfits the studio audiences are wearing. And what about Abba's first ever TOTP performance? What are they wearing? Finally there is Pan's People, who I don't really remember that well (Hot Gossip from the late 1970s is more my era - I particularly remember a blonde girl with sleepy doe eyes) but who I now appreciate much more.

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And soon after downloading these shows I came across a retrospective documentary from the late 1990s about Pan's People (Digging the Dancing Queens) featuring John Peel. An excellent programme I thought - Peel was generally not impressed by them it seems. I was rather struck by how attractive they all were 20 years later

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Classic Pan's People

John Zorn / Sonic Youth - South Bank Show

This evening, while sorting through some old video tapes, I came across an episode of The South Bank Show from the late 1980s (1987?) featuring John Zorn, Sonic Youth and, more generally, New York music from that period.

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I have well over 50 John Zorn cds which might be the most I have by anyone. I can't think of anyone who has released such a variety of music. The extraordinary New Traditions in Eastern Bar Music is stupendous as are the completely different live recordings of Masada. By contrast, Sonic Youth looked quite ordinary!

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John Zorn - My record collection used to look like this

Sarah Dunnant - Sacred Hearts

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My main non-academic reading is currently Sarah Dunant's Sacred Hearts, a tale of life in a convent in Ferrara in the mid 1500s (see, even this is not totally divorced from my main reading). I have read several long newspaper articles by Sarah Dunant over the years (as well as her book on political correctness from ages ago). One was about living in Florence which inspired me to investigate the short-term letting market in the city (and which I still think it would be really good to do one of these days). A more recent one was about Julia O'Faolain's novel Women in the Wall which I read in about 1980 and had since totally forgotten.

Lecturing Birds on Flying

Another recent book in the area in which Nasim Taleb has been working is Pablo Triana's Lecturing Birds on Flying. This works the area of financial market risk management that I wrote my article on for the LSE magazine last year - perhaps I should have been more ambitious and written something like this as it covers many areas that I know well.

A somewhat clumsy preface, but I feel it will get going well later

LSE visit - thoughts on biography

My day at LSE was spent on pondering my biography project. I have a very rough idea of the work required to do this, but am still at the very early stage of sorting out a working bibliography for the person concerned and examining some fringe topics in their lives to assess whether I would have the interest to slog through the research necessary.

I am now less certain than I was about doing a PhD. I had thought this would have considerable overlap with the biography project, but I now think that perhaps it wouldn't