brian-eno

Here are the web links I’ve found for 10 August 2008, posted automatically with cheese and onions.

• Newspapers that Twitter: July numbers | graphic designr: Statistics on how (American) newspapers are using Twitter.
• Why You Should Never Talk to the Police | Schneier on Security: Links to a 30-minute video presentation by Professor James Duane of the Regent University School of Law explaining why — in a criminal matter — you should never, ever, ever talk to the police. It doesn’t matter if you’re guilty or innocent, it isn’t possible for anything you say to help you. Also links to a video of Virginia Beach Police Department Officer George Bruch, who basically says that Duane is right.
• Over 400 forms used by the National Security Agency | The Memory Hole: Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, blank copies of (supposedly) most of the forms used by the US National Security Agency.
• George Orwell Diaries | The Orwell Prize: George Orwell started his diaries in August 1938. They’re now being published as a blog, each entry posted exactly 70 years after it was originally written.
• Everything That Happens Will Happen Today | David Byrne & Brian Eno: Byrne & Eno’s first musical collaboration in 30 years. On single available free now, album available for free streaming or buy-to-download or physically on 18 August. A world tour follows.

This is blog post number 801. It’s time for something special. Time for an extended essay encapsulating several trains of thought which I’ve been following for some time.

We are the 801,
We are the central shaft
And thus throughout two years
We’ve crossed the ocean in our little craft (Row! Row! Row!)
Now we’re on the telephone,
Making final arrangements (Ding! Ding!)
We are the 801, we are the central shaft

So sang Brian Eno in the song The True Wheel from his 1974 album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).

Eno says he wrote the lyrics while visiting New York:

I went to stay with this girl called Randi and fell asleep after taking some mescaline and had this dream where this group of girls were singing to this group of sailors who had just come into port. And they were singing ‘We are The 801 / We are the Central Shaft’ — and I woke up absolutely jubilant because this was the first bit of lyric I’d written in this new style.

Yes, apparently in the 1970s a musician wrote a song while under the influence of hallucinogens. Who’d have thought.

Society generally frowns upon people who make important decisions while under the influence. (By an odd coincidence, Hugh MacLeod posted some vaguely-related thoughts only yesterday, in dying young is overrated, revisited.) However the more I look, the more I worry that we’re governed as if our societies were hallucinating. And even worse, it’s as if they’ve forgotten how to remember the lessons of the past.

I’m worried that we’re governed by Hallucinating Goldfish.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I mentioned Laurie Anderson. That got the brain cells working and Brian Eno spat out the other end. That means I get to mention that Eno’s Baby’s On Fire (shown in that link with unrelated Eno graphics) is one of the greatest rock songs in the history of the universe.

The versions by Venus in Furs and Velvet Goldmine and Creepers and Granada (electro-pop!) and Bomb Everything are also more than acceptable.

I just thought you should know this.

Alternatively, you could watch the Tractor Square Dancing from the Pennsylvania Farm Show.