Rather than reading my floundering attempts at bloggery, you should really check out The Electric Typewriter‘s newly collated list of 111 Essential Articles and Essays. They seem to have covered a lot of the better-known essays that are free to access on the world-wide, but there are plenty I haven’t read yet.

While it probably isn’t a sustainable business model, I think the whole ‘Longreads” phenomenon is perhaps the best counter to the arguments around the dumbing down of the web/general dumbing down of popular cultural consumption by the web. Beyond that, it is just great to be able to read a whole lot of wonderful writing that previously you’d only be able to see if you had an exhaustive archive of magazines or if the article/essay got anthologised somewhere.

Anyway, take a break from my ramblings and see how it should be done. And if you feel so inclined do comment on what articles/essays on the list you’ve read and would recommend. Happy Friday everyone.

Image from the US National Archives, via Flickr

According to Time Magazine, we’re doing mornings all wrong. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that falling out of bed, rushing to get ready and hurrying our way into a soul-destroying commute is not the ideal preparation for a morning’s creativity. Who would have thought it?

So, what is the formula for a good morning, where we feel engaged, happy and in the best head-space to pull out glittering creative gems from our brainspaces?

“We’d set the alarm a few minutes early and lie awake in bed, following our thoughts where they lead (with a pen and paper nearby to jot down any evanescent inspirations.) We’d stand a little longer under the warm water of the shower, dismissing task-oriented thoughts (“What will I say at that 9 a.m. meeting?”) in favor of a few more minutes of mental dilation. We’d take some deep breaths during our commute, instead of succumbing to road rage. And once in the office — after we get that cup of coffee — we’d direct our computer browser not to the news of the day but to the funniest videos the web has to offer.“

Nice. I could go for that. I’m not sure it would make me any more creative, but it sounds like fun. And I think I’ve been kind of heading in that direction already.

I don’t think I’m one of those intolerable morning types. You’ve seen them. Always chirpy, always ahead of themselves, always in control. By 9am they’ve been to the gym, written three posts for their motivational blog, seen their perfect children off to school and saved the national debt crisis. And they don’t even have the good grace to be openly smug and horrible so we can hate them with a good conscience. Oh no, they have to nice. It’s enough to make you have one long lie-in just to avoid them.

I don’t think I fall into that bracket. I’m not always a particularly efficient morning person. But I do like getting up early, especially on my own time. I like to make the most of the day when I don’t have to clock-in to the 9-to-5. I hate waking up late on a day off and not only thinking I’ve wasted half a day, but thinking I’m half a day closer to being back at work.

Saturday morning is my absolute favourite time of the week. All the promise of a whole two days off work. A world that’s still interesting and with stuff going on, unlike the potentially stifling sleepiness of a Sunday. You can do as much or as little as you like on a Saturday morning.

Anyway, I think I probably do get more done in the morning, feel less clouded by all the other stuff that fills my head up as the day goes on. Admittedly I’ll then flake out by about 11am, but I love that satisfying feeling of having got a lot of things done before lunch, and having the whole of the rest of the day to enjoy as I see fit.

There’s also something quite special and magical about being out and about on a beautiful morning. There are fewer people about. The light is somehow different. While I’m by no means ever up at dawn, there is something I love about being up early (-ish) on a non-work morning, whether I’m being super-practical with whatever household or shopping task that needs doing or just getting the morning paper and having a morning coffee.

As for the Time Magazine advice…I’m getting there. I still rush in the mornings, but that is so I can miss a little bit of the commuter rush and can be first in the office and have some nice, quiet time to watch aforementioned web videos. That and I don’t want to get up too early. Not in the dead of winter.

But I won’t rush too much. There is something pretty liberating in not forcing myself onto a packed train and just waiting for the next one, or refusing to push my way along the street, or taking the slightly longer yet quieter route to work. Commuting and commuters can be horrible, so I think it makes perfect sense to take that literal or figurative deep breath once in a while.

But as I say, I don’t think I’m any more creative. Then again I don’t think there is a super-optimum time for me. But don’t expect much from me in the afternoon as I crash from my carb-heavy lunch, or from the evening as I’m not great with late nights. So, I guess morning is my creative time, by default. Funny that I wrote this at 7pm…probably explains the quality of the above.

Image from the Museum of Hartlepool, via Flickr

What does it take to create a great indie album in 2012? Can it even be done? Indie rock, pretty much however you define it, has always been a derivative art form, influenced equally by sixties pop/rock and punk with a sprinkling of other more esoteric sounds. And it has always influenced itself, but more and more so in recent years, bands influenced by bands influenced by bands. There is always the risk and the reality of the law of diminishing returns. A xerox of a xerox etc.

So perhaps indie rock/pop cannot be really genuinely innovative. But it can do what it does well. There is still something to be said for craft and execution. And nowhere is that more in evidence than on Hospitality’s self-titled debut. Listening to it for the first time I had to double-check that this was their first record. It sounds accomplished and polished, like a band very much confident in their own abilities, much more like a third or fourth record. No tentative early steps here. I think the word is assured.

Another word is breezy. Not in the sense of being disposable or slight, but summer-y and relaxed in itself, particularly in the easy jangle and lilting melodies of the opener Eighth Avenue. Then comes the easy, effortless pop of Friends of Friends and Betty Wang. They know that on your classic pop albums you front-load the hits.

The mood subtly changes, to the more woozy Sleepover and the mini-epic Argonauts, the pace ebbing and flowing, yet the album feeling very much a sum of its parts, rather than a bunch of songs thrown together. The band keep things interesting with a variety of rhythms beyond yr standard indie drummer fare, melodic bass from the schools of Andy Rourke and Peter Hook and clever, economical guitar work. All of this is augmented by keys and woodwind that service the song and never stick out as unnecessary ornamentation. This is a carefully considered and flawlessly arranged record.

And that’s not to mention the clever lyrics of Amber Papini that your correspondent looks forward to unpicking over further repeat listens. It is one of those albums you kind of want to live in for a while.

Naturally, you can play spot the influence. There’s plenty of English early 80s indie in there. Some Belle & Sebastian. Perhaps some Throwing Muses, particularly in the neat yet surprising shifts in melody and rhythm. But it stands very much as an album in its own right, and already feels like a pretty good candidate for soundtrack of my summer. Oh yeah, and I’m a sucker for vintage photo album covers. It’s all in the details, and Hospitality get that.

Time is tight today, but still thought I’d note that I’m very much looking forward to the new album from Hospitality. From what I’ve heard it could well be my go-to indie album for the summer. Which is a nice thought on a cold January afternoon. Anyway, enjoy the track (which has already become a bit of an earworm for me) and I may well report back on the album if I can get hold of it, find the time/inspiration etc…

I read today an interesting article in the Financial Times on the portrayal of sport in fiction. The main argument of the piece is that American authors have never been afraid to tackle the subject and have covered sport extensively, and well. Meanwhile, British authors have been far less inclined to cover sport in fiction, and have been far less convincing when they’ve tried. Reading this piece alongside an article from the Observer covering similar ground a couple of years ago, has left me wondering about sport in fiction, and how sport could work in British fiction.

I think the FT article covers the whys and wherefores far better than I ever could, but there does seem to be an explanation in the make-up of your archetypal American and British writers. Obviously we’re veering into a whole world of horrible stereotyping, but many American writers seem far more interested in physicality generally and writing appears to have the potential to be a rugged pursuit – maybe Hemingway’s legacy, maybe something older and deeper. It doesn’t seem so weird for an American author to like sport. And sportswriting on the whole seems more respected and something of a craft, and is generally better than what you’ll see in the UK (although there are plenty of exceptions).

British writers (especially of the literary variety), meanwhile, seem much more removed from sport. Perhaps it has its roots in class, maybe something else, but the literary and sporting worlds seem very far apart. There almost seems to be a distrust between the two.

Yet I still hope there is room for an English sporting literature. Sport is pretty much one big analogy for life and life’s struggles, and American literature has shown it is a pretty broad and reliable canvas for covering the big issues and themes that great literature should. And perhaps that is the key to success – the fiction can’t just rely entirely on telling the story of sporting events. On any given day the reality will outstrip the fiction on that front. The fiction needs to use the sporting theme in a more nuanced way. It can’t be all cup finals and gold medals. It needs to tinker around the edges, tease out those details that will make a meaningful book.

I think there is one major issue, beyond the literary establishment appearing not to have much appetite for sport. It is that the obvious sports to cover, football or cricket, whilst ingrained into our culture and microcosms (for want of a better word etc) of that culture, are team sports and so pretty difficult to write well about. There are too many characters, too many teams. Plus, with football the action is too frenetic. Cricket, as a pretty close cousin to the more literarily inclined baseball, has more of a chance, but there is a real risk of a writer falling into village green clichés.

I’m no fan of golf, but as a more solitary pursuit it seems a more likely candidate for producing a great English sporting book. All those long walks ruined would allow plenty of opportunity for soliloquies on whatever the author might fancy. Tennis or boxing as individual sports could work well too, as we’ve seen time and again in American writing.

Maybe a lead needs to be taken from the few successes of British sporting writing. The Damned United fused real people with fiction, and focused on one dominant character in a compelling way. Fever Pitch looked at sport from the spectator’s perspective. The individual within sport seems the more obvious path to success, both critical and commercial.

Or perhaps as sport is such a neglected subject in English literature it offers authors the opportunity to tackle the subject in a far more inventive and experimental way. As there is not the baggage of thousands of great sporting novels to live up (or down) to, it feels like there is a certain freedom on how to approach the subject in a way that would challenge yet connect with a readership.

If a writer could successfully articulate the frenzy of the football pitch or the rugby field, or the tribalism and belonging of fandom, or the media saturation and hype that surrounds us, or ideally all of those themes, they would probably have something pretty special in their hands. Sport is an important part of my life, and I think like many people, I like literature that reflects my life and expands upon it, showing me new avenues, or familiar ones in a new way. I hope something interesting on the British sporting experience emerges soon. I’d buy it.

Image from Galt Museum and Archives, via Flickr

No great sweeping theme for today’s post. Very little content or insight either. Think of it as an embellished placeholder post. Or some awkward filler. I would be a great salesman, y’know. You just want to read on, don’t you?

Tyranny of Stats

I know I harped on about stats the other week, saying how wonderful they are and all that stuff, but they have a dark side, dear reader. And that dark side in WordPress (and I imagine every other blogging platform) presents itself in checking the stats over and over to see if anyone is reading. Get a spike in numbers and feel the endorphins flood your system. People are reading your work! Hurrah! So, you check again and again, to replicate that feeling, get another rush. Nobody interested? You check just as much – you are always just one heavyweight incoming link or Freshly Pressed listing away from that bar chart looking much healthier.

It is not the most constructive behaviour. But I do think it is probably a good motivator to write more. I know success makes me want to write again, and writing helps stave any tetchiness I might have about having zero views that day.

But it probably shouldn’t be the only motivator, or I’ll end up with linkbait-y rubbish, or needy rubbish, or ill-conceived/planned/executed rubbish like this post. Yes, it has been a slow day, stats-wise.

Gone to Lunch

I remember getting my first job, in my mid-teens, and being a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get paid for my lunch break. Obviously some of this was down to a huge level of naïveté about the working world, but in my defence there was an expectation from the employer that I remain on the premises through said lunch break and generally be on hand. Which seemed like a pretty bum deal for £2.22 an hour. Or £0.00 an hour for my lunch break.

So, I’ve always been a little protective of my lunch hour. I’ve read enough stories of bacteria-infected desks and that the average actual lunchtime taken is 22 minutes or whatever to know that you have to be proactive to keep your free hour free.

It is always good to set a precedent, so from day one in a job I’ll go out for lunch. Then there is no chance of being forced to work through it. Plus, I sit staring at a screen all day. An hour off is probably sensible. And if I do that from the start nobody will act surprised when I put my coat on at 12.30.

Now, heading out is fine during the summer. I can go for a walk. I can sit outside. If it is too busy, I can sit inside somewhere, and there is room, as everyone else is outside enjoying the weather.

However, the winter is more challenging. I’m less inclined to stay out in the cold, driving rain. The indoor-y places are full. But full indoors is probably better than damp, cold outdoors. I’d dive in a pub, but that would ruin the healthy drinking plan. So, I head into a coffee shop. And people are either consuming food and drink not bought on the premises, or are eking out a cup of water/tiny cup of coffee for several hours. And taking up precious space! Space for me! If they can afford a Mac they can surely afford to buy a proper coffee, or buy one more than once every three hours. Anyway, I’ve been on this rant before, so I won’t bore you any further…boy am I repetitive.

Fantasy Baseball Failure

So, it’s not that long at all until the new baseball season. And before the new baseball season comes fantasy baseball league drafts. And every year I try to be ahead of the game, find that breakout star, avoid that surprise bust. And inevitably, obviously, I fail. This year I’m leaning heavily on the Bill James Almanac and the Hardball Times Annual. Fascinating stuff, but I think I’m probably beyond help. I may just pick the players with funny names. Or those that are reported to be in the best shape of their lives. Or who wear their socks up. Any of those systems are likely to be as effective as my study, and much less time-intensive.

Wondering what to write next

As all the above illustrates quite nicely, I’m not feeling too inspired this week. I would ask for suggestions or ideas, but I know I am too unreliable for that – I’ll only ignore/forget them and then write some rambling nonsense about something else entirely, and disappoint you, me and my three other readers.

Image from OSU Special Collections & Archives, via Flickr

Visiting an art gallery is one of life’s great joys as far as I’m concerned. There is something pretty special about being so close to art, and often great, historic art. And something pretty special about being able to experience it on your own terms. In film or theatre the director, to varying degrees, dictates what you see, when you see it and how you see it. A musician presents a composition in a particular way. Yet in an art gallery you are free to take it all in at your own pace, view it in all manner of ways, and I expect have a far more personal experience.

It may not be the most intellectual response but I’ll often walk right up close to a picture or a sculpture and try to see how it was done. Seeing the actual brushstrokes a great artist made kind of humanises the work of art for me – it goes from being a hallowed object to something more real that someone once worked over, sweated over, worried about. I think I picked this up from going to art galleries as a kid, and the curiosity has stuck. Seeing how a piece of art is put together makes it feel more believable and obtainable (in the sense that I can understand to a small degree how such a work could be completed. Not that I’ll be painting any great works anytime soon), rather than something otherworldly and fully-formed. The mystique and the myth of art is stripped away a little and you see just what humans can achieve, and get a tiny insight into how.

But it doesn’t completely destroy the mystique. In fact, I think it enhances the magic to be up close and see the artist’s workings, and then move back and see the painting (for example, and I’m probably mainly thinking of paintings here) take shape, the strokes and lines blur and collect themselves into something beautiful, transcendent, challenging, or whatever it may be. In some way it is almost like the picture being painted before your very eyes, if that’s not a really trite comment to make.

So, it felt good to walk into an art gallery this week and see a group of people squinting at the walls asking How did he do that? It was one of the final days of the Alex Hartley exhibition, The world is still big, at the Victoria Miro gallery. Now, I don’t pretend to have any real insight or knowledge of the modern art world, it’s just the gallery is a five-minute walk from work, I’d really enjoyed their Francesca Woodman exhibition and reading their email about this exhibition had piqued my interest.

The exhibition saw Alex Hartley explore ideas around habitation, community and sanctuary. In more basic terms, it involved large photographs of desolate and/or remote landscapes that Hartley had doctored with a variety of materials, adding three-dimensional living spaces to the photograph.

From a distance the pieces looked incredibly realistic, of strange pods and constructions built into the landscapes. They immediately drew me in to see what were Hartley’s additions and what were just parts of the photograph, creating a pretty pleasing ambiguity between the elements of the work. What was ‘real’ and what was not?

There was real skill and playfulness in some of the structures, especially the tunneling into the photographs, that encouraged more than one person to crane their neck into a pretty odd position and try to look down the snaking tunnels, see what was there, speculate on how it was done.

The pictures were not just a party trick though. I found them really very moving, with the idea of carving a home and a refuge in an inhospitable world. While there were allusions to the kinds of buildings favoured my yr counter-cultural/commune/drop-out kind-of-people I felt there was something broader being said about how any of us look to make our own place in the world. The wilderness on show could easily be as symbolic as it was literal. Don’t we all want somewhere we can escape? Isn’t stepping out of our front door overwhelming and scary sometimes, no matter where we live?

Hartley took the theme to its logical conclusion, building a real dome in the garden of the gallery and inhabiting it throughout the exhibition. Perhaps this made it a little clearer that his strange structures could really be placed anywhere and still have an effect, a meaning and a purpose.

The exhibition closed today (and don’t you just hate reviews that talk about things you can no longer see?) but Hartley’s Nowhereisland project is part of the Cultural Olympiad and is touring south-west England this year. If you come across his work you really should check it out. And take a good look close-up too.

I thought I’d offer something of a musical interlude, to break up all my pretentious waffling. So, here’s the platters that matter folks – a few tracks from some much-anticipated albums. Well, much-anticipated by me anyway.

Lower Dens – Brains

The first Lower Dens album is on my ever-increasing list of albums I’ve found on Spotify, would like to buy in real, tangible form, but just haven’t got around to yet. Funny how the internet changes out habits, eh? Anyway, this is from their next album and already feels like a big step forward. Nice motornik rhythm going on, so is an early contender for my Slave Ambient of 2012. Pretty soon I’ll get sick of the formula of guitar-y stuff with that kind of beat behind it, but Lower Dens have been canny in courting me before that sickness sets in. Good work chaps.

Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow

I think I’m looking forward to the new Lambchop record more than any other this year. It’s a hackneyed phrase (but when has that ever stopped me?), but on the evidence of this track and the other released track from the album this is a proper return to form. Not that Lambchop have ever really properly dipped in quality, but if everything is as good as these two tracks we could have a pretty special Lambchop album on our hands. Which is quite an achievement for a band that’s been around for what, 20-odd years?

Lightships – Two Lines

And finally, a new track from a new project from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love. Now, not only are Teenage Fanclub one of my all-time favourite bands, but Gerard Love is my favourite member. Sure, having a favourite band member is a little ‘teenage’ (Ha! Geddit?) but in my defence: 1. I first got into TFC as a teenager 2. With three band members sharing songwriting duties equally it kind of makes sense that I might like one more than the others. That is not to say I’m some sort of Gerard Love obsessive or anything. Or that I don’t like the other guys. Because I do. Well, anyway, this track is lovely.

SPECIAL BONUS STUFF!!!

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Not a new one, but I’m on a bit of a National tip right now, and it’s my blog to put up what I want and veer wildly away from the point of the post etc etc.

You should tell me what new stuff you’re listening to, if you’re so inclined. I love comments, and I may even remember to reply to them. In the meantime I’m going to have a little think about how on Earth bloggers managed before they had YouTube et al to go to for filler posts…

Image from Nationaal Archief, via Flickr

What with being around five years behind the rest of the internet, I only recently watched this video from the writer Harlan Ellison, ranting at expectations that writers need not be paid for their work. It is a pretty funny rant, but pretty flawed. I found it kind of funny that the keeps using the word “essay” rather than the correct phrase “filmed interview about a TV programme” to make a point about being paid for his work, as if his every utterance is on a par with a carefully constructed and argued piece of writing. I have no problem with him wanting paying for everything and anything he does, that’s up to him, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – talking about Babylon Five is hardly on a par with the finest literature.

And then there is an unsettling moment near the end when he says, “You’re undercut by all the amateurs!” The argument that writers should be paid for their work seems a reasonably solid one, but with this statement the argument seems more like those that get paid should continue to be paid, and those who do not yet get paid, should get out. There is no protectiveness towards young writers getting exploited, there is just defensiveness towards protecting his own patch.

I read today a far more recent, less rant-y, much calmer, yet equally financially focused piece from Margaret Atwood, from her book Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. She writes on the perils of making writing pay, and the perils you then encounter if you can. It seems like a serious artist needs paying to be taken seriously, but if the serious artist makes money (especially whatever is perceived as too much money) then there is a fight for credibility and the serious artist is no longer seen as such.

It appears that the writing world is full of such circular arguments, elitism and distrust. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be a writer? Or certainly why anyone would try to make money out of it. The Ellison video and Atwood extract also made me wonder: why does it always seem like it is those writers who are paid the most that go on the most about money? Does getting paid for writing make you fixated on money?

Which brings me rather awkwardly around to the subject I’m wont to go on about from time to time – where blogging sits in the future of writing and the future of yr social media/internets/etc etc. What of those pesky amateurs undercutting the pros?

I guess if you go along with any Death of Blogging thesis then you’re likely to argue that people are blogging less (if they are, I’d look it up, but y’know, nobody is paying me) then that is because blogging is an awful lot of work for very little reward. And I guess on the surface you would be absolutely right. There hasn’t been a Blogging Goldrush. Nobody is likely to retire off of their income from AdWords.

There are ways blogging can lead to money (scam-ery, creating content people might want to pay for – if you’re really lucky, getting picked up by the mainstream media to do what you do already – if you’re even luckier), but it has become increasingly clear that if you’re blogging for profit you are probably going to have a bad time of it. First, because if you’re writing to make money from blogging, your writing is probably going to be horrible and will only be read by other bloggers wanting to make money blogging and we’re at best in another circular argument and at worst in some horrible pyramid scheme that is just bound to end in tears.

So, with the Blogging Goldrush over before it began we’re just left with those people who get a kick out of putting stuff up on the internet in the hope that other people see it and respond. Now, this might have led to 99 per cent of all the crap that clogs up the internet, but still seems like a more noble, or at the very least, achievable aim.

Yet, wait! The pool of potential bloggers gets filtered down even further. Now, with the likes of Twitter and Tumblr, all your urges to put stuff up on the internet are fulfilled in a far less work-intensive fashion. You are the curator, you don’t have to sweat creating anything. You get the social interaction as well as the satisfaction of presenting something as your own and as a mirror of your soul or whatever, without having to spend time churning out words.

This leaves us with…those people left who want to write, are happy writing, and want to share their thoughts and ideas without having to wait ten years for a proper, real writing job. I’d like to think that this leaves us with a stronger core of bloggers/writers (with the exception of me, obviously, I mean what is this stuff?) and a better quality of blogging/writing, as it has weeded out those that aren’t that fussed about writing after all.

And perhaps some of us don’t see getting paid for writing as the holy grail. Maybe we fear a life of hackwork just as soul-destroying as any menial job. Or we want to say things that the mainstream media won’t publish. Or want to make links between subjects that the paid press aren’t interested in making. Maybe we like the immediacy, the connection and the community with like-minded people.

I’m not saying that amateur writing is necessarily the more honourable or pure route. But I do think there is something to be said of writing that is not dictated by economics – be it writing something because one hope it will sell, or writing something just because the market has commissioned it. Blogging may not pay the bills, but its freedom is not something to be easily dismissed. Unless you’ve already made millions from writing, and then you probably don’t give a shit. You’ll just be waiting for the next lorry-load of cash to arrive. Whilst yelling at those amateurs to get off your lawn.

Some kind of postscript

There is probably a distinction to be made between writing for nothing for yourself (ie blogging, self-publishing) and writing for nothing for a corporate entity that is likely to make money off your work. While I see the latter as more of an issue, I can certainly understand why people would do it, to get their foot in the door. Big multi-nationals doing this seems initially more suspect, but at least the writer is guaranteed exposure. I think I feel more uneasy with smaller journals and the like asking for submissions and either not paying contributors, or even worse, asking for payment from the writers themselves. This kind of exercise makes me feel far queasier than Big Media shenanigans as the writer isn’t really getting any noticeable benefit beyond seeing their name in print. They might as well take the blogging/self-publishing route, be in full control of their work and save themselves a few quid.

I’m also aware my argument have a number of flaws. Well, what did you expect from an amateur, eh? Anyway, I welcome any corrections, additions, abuse etc.

• Image of man writing from the Smithsonian Institution, via Flickr
• Image of lady with crazy machine from the Reanimation Library