Just Finished Reading: The Beats – A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt (FP: 2013) [108pp] 

I've encountered 'The Beats' on many occasions over the years – in movies, cultural histories and novels - and have even read a few things by them most notably On The Road by Jack Kerouac and, more recently, a booklet of poetry by Allen Ginsberg but have never really read anything about them until now. 

My initial thought that they were essential a precursor to the 'Hippies' on the late 1960's and into the 70's wasn't too far off the mark. The Beats were certainly rebels of their post-WW2 era and talked about and practiced 'free love' and drug use (although this was pre-LSD so the drugs of choice tended to be marijuana, cocaine and heroin) as well as breaking the taboo around homosexuality. The difference in their radical outlook from the Hippies that followed in their wake was that Beatniks tended to be more inward looking and less 'revolutionary' whilst Hippies tended to be much more political and looked to change society in general. 

Naturally this slim volume concentrated its focus on the big three Beats – Kerouac, Ginsberg and William S Burroughs. I was at least familiar with the existence of these three figures and was at least somewhat acquainted with their work – in that I knew of it! The other figures mentioned in this volume were universally new to me – Neal Cassady, Gergory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima and Gary Snyder. Potted biographies of everyone listed certainly helped me know more about them and appreciate their impact on the Movement. 

Much like the Hippies, the Beats tended to be into everything – novels, poetry, music (especially Jazz), art and film. Despite there being only an estimated 150 published authors/poets amongst them the Beats managed to punch well above their cultural weight in part due to the backlash against their countercultural drive. The horror stories (often either made up or exaggerated – although sometimes not!) helped to cement their cool image with youths looking for something to rebel against. A fairly interesting look at an often-forgotten countercultural movement. Reasonable.  

Happy Ukraine Independence Day.....!

Happy Birthday: Achille Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, Pelléas et Mélisande.

Debussy's orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition. He regarded the classical symphony as obsolete and sought an alternative in his "symphonic sketches", La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include sets of 24 Préludes and 12 Études. Throughout his career he wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. He was greatly influenced by the Symbolist poetic movement of the later 19th century. A small number of works, including the early La Damoiselle élue and the late Le Martyre de saint Sébastien have important parts for chorus. In his final years, he focused on chamber music, completing three of six planned sonatas for different combinations of instruments.

With early influences including Russian and Far Eastern music and works by Chopin and Liszt, Debussy developed his own style of harmony and orchestral colouring, derided – and unsuccessfully resisted – by much of the musical establishment of the day. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. Debussy died from cancer at his home in Paris at the age of 55 after a composing career of a little more than 30 years.

[I must admit that I only really started getting into Debussy after obsessively listening to my brother's Tomita record - yes, on vinyl - where they covered various of his pieces electronically. I loved it so much that it was one of my first CD purchases. It took me a little while to appreciate the original artist but once I did I loved it!]

Erm.... Doesn't *everyone*...? There's a LOT of idiots out there!

"It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant." 

James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA 

"Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: There will always be some who misunderstand you." 

Karl Popper 

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude." 

Karl Popper 

"No experiments are wasted." 

Thomas Edison 

"Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive." 

Friedrich Nietzsche 

"No matter how many instances of white swans we have observed, that does not justify the inference that all swans are white." 

Karl Popper 

"No one is rich who cannot afford his own army." 

Marcus Crassus, 54 BC. 

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" 

Albert Einstein 

"Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open." 

Alexander Graham Bell 

"We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work." 

Thomas Edison 

"We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims." 

Buckminster Fuller 

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven't." 

Thomas Edison 

"Whenever a theory appears to you to be the only possible one, takes this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve." 

Karl Popper 

Just Finished Reading: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore (FP: 2016) [357pp] 

New York, 1888. Young lawyer Paul Cravath couldn't quite make up his mind. Was the offer an opportunity of a lifetime or the ultimate poison chalice? On its face it looked simply too good to be true. Paul was barely out of law school and had only just become partner in a very minor law firm with few clients and no reputation, so why was George Westinghouse - THE George Westinghouse so interested in having Paul as his companies' main lawyer? What was more perplexing, and a lot more frightening, was the reason the Westinghouse company needed a lawyer so badly. They were being sued by a man unaccustomed to losing and who had deep pockets and many friends in both high and low places – Thomas Edison. The case seemed to the untrained eye a straightforward one but the result - either way – would not only determine the future of both companies but the technology that would illuminate the whole of the continental United States. Whoever won the case to decide who invented and therefore owned the 'light bulb' would make a considerable amount of money in the coming decades. With stakes that high how far would those involved go to prove their points and just how far would Paul go to combat them and stake his claim as a lawyer of note? 

This was an interesting one. It certainly made a very nice change from my usual historical fiction reads which normally revolved around either crime or conflict. The comment on the front of my cover says "John Grisham meets Edith Wharton" but as I've only read (I think!) one Grisham over 100 years ago and have yet to read any Wharton I couldn't possibly comment! As you might imagine a goodly chunk of the narrative revolves around the legal arguments of Edison's patents for his light bulb as well as the argument between the uses (and dangers) of Direct Current, proposed by Edison, and Alternating Current, proposed by Westinghouse, with Nikola Tesla thrown into the mix. Along the way we also meet Alexander Graham Bell and J P Morgan – it's quite a list of characters!  

I know a little about the events covered in the novel. Usually I'm not a HUGE fan of fictionalisation of actual events. If they play too much with the narrative and stray too much into the fiction side they, at least, muddy the historical waters. If they adhere too closely to the history itself then it really stops being a novel and becomes a questionable work of historical non-fiction. It is, I think, a very hard line to walk which is why I tend to avoid this kind of thing. The saving grace here, however, is that the character of Paul (and indeed his love interest) although he existed is historically hazy enough to be used as an entree into the actual events. Many of the events that make up the substance of the novel actually happened and the author has (apparently) made great efforts to be as accurate as possible including using biographical and private diary entries to make his main (real) characters as truthful as possible. 

Both the story itself - the technological side of things - and the setting of late 19th century New York/America are well handled and there was never a time I was jolted out of the narrative by anything unexpected. It did actually make we want to know much more about what actually happened and to know more about all concerned. Strangely Edison was most definitely the 'baddie' here (and not just because he apparently enjoyed taking people to court). That's definitely something I need to read more about. J P Morgan was an interesting character, so I predict at least one book on HIM in the future as well a deeper look at the US as it transformed into a global power in the run up to and after WW1. Recommended. I noticed that the authors last published work was another fictionalisation this time around the emergence of economic warfare in the early days of WW2. Sounds interesting.....