 |
| Bang! |
Mission Statement: to do very little, for very few, for not very long. Disappointing the easily pleased since 1819. Not as good as it used to be from Day One. History is Bunk - PT Barnum. Artificially Intelligent before it was fashionable. Fat camp for the mind! Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost. The Shock of the Old! Often bettered, never imitated. "Wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein" - Pauly Shore.
I've had this album in various formats for, like, literally, forever. But I didn't "get" the title until, like, literally, a few days ago. It's swell, one of Mandel's best. Show how smart you are by telling th' 4/5G© what's, like, literally going on here, bruh!
ReplyDeleteThe impeding disruption of Paradise.
ReplyDeleteYe-es, but - Explain The Title And Win The Album!
DeleteAn explosive Shangri-La?
ReplyDeleteAnd Koen (Boarbie's boyfriend) races across the finishing line!
DeleteShangrenade > Shangri-La
Wow, how exciting, first time I won a prize here!!!
Deletewe're all going to die! so let us here b4 that happens which looks 2b soon
ReplyDelete2B or not 2B - that is the pencil.
DeleteIt's a love bomb, bombing love
ReplyDeleteProbably what Mandel left for the Glimmer Twins after they decided to go with Wood for the new guitarist.
ReplyDeleteThey made the right choice. Mandell was too good (like Mick Taylor) and wouldn't have lasted.
DeleteDon't disagree. Mandell is a great guitarist, but not a fit for the RS.
Delete"A Statement of the Bleeding Obvious" - excellent name for an album, that.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't bleedin' obvious to me, mate!
DeleteI have no clew, but it doesn't sound positive. The parallels with where we could be now, and where we seem to be going seems apposite.
ReplyDeleteI think Pink Floyd borrowed from his first album Cristo Redentor for some musical passages on Dark Side Of The Moon, though it’s been a while since I listened to CR.
It's been answered already - Shangri-La, Shangri-Nade. Do make an effort to read the comments, Bambi.
Deletemyself, I feel very safe... please help yourself to a handgrenade
ReplyDeletegrenade go boom :)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I wondered if it was some obscure reference to the War In Vietnam
ReplyDelete(which Mandel seemed to manage to avoid) and the breakdown of the Paris peace accords but perhaps that's too vague a reference when there may have been an even more nuanced influences than that.
I was struck by the Mauist undertones to the art (the grenade in particular) and wondered if it was some oblique reference to the Chinese Annexation of Tibet as despite Tibet (the supposed location of Shangri-La) being annexed by China just after World War II, it didn't have to face the full impact of the 'Cultural Revolution' until the Chinese turned up on the steps of Jokhang Temple (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site), one of the most sacred Buddhist temples of them all and turned it into a makeshift Communist centre holding political rallies there throughout 1973 . This could easily have been seen by those in the west influenced by cultural mysticism, of which Buddhism was one of the cornerstones, as cultural vandalism or even cultural war waged on one of the most mystical sites in the Buddhist religion.
I have no idea whether that theory has any validity but it does seem a bit of a coincidence that an album cover released in 1973 should offer such symbolism at a time when 'Shangri-La' was being trampled under foot by Mau's zealots...
https://tourtraveltibet.com/the-1973-cultural-revolution-campaign-at-jokhang-temple/
Brilliant! I'm convinced. But I thought Easy Rider was a documentary.
Deletepart of your charm
DeleteYeah, yeah. Finish the book and tell me what it has to say about identity and "freakishness" with reference to metagenomic theory In DNA research. Or: explain the significance of the hole in the dollar bill.
DeleteI finished the book and raved about it way back when...even asked who you imagined playing the roles in the big AND little screen versions...sigh. No one reads anymore.
DeleteI misunderstood "revise and re-submit", didn't I.
Deletemy b--I thought you were talking about YOUR book...0 of my 3 are off the ground; this revise and resubmit is a chapter for an edited volume which I have completely lost the thread(s) on...at least I got the 2 articles turned around...academic nirvana...woof
Delete"But enough about me - what did you think of my book?"
DeleteIn the dim and distant past, every agent I pitched to would fire back a boiler-plate "thank you for considering us" response that was at least a polite gesture of contact. This time, all thirty agents remained mute. Nada. It takes some time to find a suitable agent and build a submission to their guidelines, and they don't even acknowledge receipt any more. Publishing (as we used to know it) is broken, along with everything else. I consider myself extremely lucky to have paper copies of my books falling apart on the shelf (tropical climate is hell on paper and glue), so this isn't a bitter complaint, just a sad shake of the head.
from what I've read of your oeuvre (4 books), you deserve better. IJust finished a quick, sad, bleak read (The Deserters by Énard) and I'll take yours, thank you very much.
DeleteAs for academic publishing, the less said the better. When I briefly, despite my obscurity, had a small book series, I was chided and shut down for being "too nice." As an Associate Editor of a major International Relations journal I was chided for being "overly generous," and too encouraging. Goddess forbid. Amazed I've been published at all, tbh.
Part of the problem is my writing is influenced by nothing and nobody contemporary. All the writers I admire are long dead (Chandler, constantly re-read, Hammett, Saki, James Branch Cabell, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, SJ Perelman, Jack Kerouac, HP Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, JG Ballard, Lord Dunsany, PG Wodehouse ... Dead White Guys who mean nothing to any twenty year-old Arabella in publishing.)
Delete