September 30th; Wednesday. After 15 hours sleep sitting up last night, feel a little bit rested. As a small child recall finding mysterious black bakelite discs lying around in the sitting room, probably the last year my much older sisters and I overlapped as residents of the same house. Aware that names like Smokey or "Bo" were appropriate names for people who made their livings singing songs, I still thought in Sensible Toddler fashion that there was something a bit odd about the whole thing. Can recall being transfixed by the photos in extreme tinted colours and wild overblown lettersets on the small square shiny envelopes each disc came in.
Going to a Go-Go by Smokey Robinson /
Can I Get a Witness by Marvin Gaye /
something or other by Bo Diddley. Everyone looked so much better performing music on stage wearing suits. Interesting also to see how hard the white girl dancers were expected to work at their far-out grooving for Marvin, while the three smug kitten-like black girl backing singers accompanying Bo understood they only had to wiggle their bottoms in time and they looked just fine. Bo, on the other hand, as the main man, does the proper entertaining of the crowd.
September 29th; Tuesday. I feel exhausted after another night of rough sleep sitting up in an armchair. Patient Tim kindly takes me to a nearby hospital. I present with chronic asthma (as the medics phrase it) and the lung man says no, I do not have asthma at all, but in fact high blood pressure and a hugely enlarged heart squashing my lungs. Lung man swears under his breath as he sees my chest X-ray, thinking I don't understand his Hungarian. Not the most encouraging moment of this month, must be admitted.
September 28th; Monday. Thought-provoking piece about Wokeism.
September 27th; Sunday. The attempted impeachment putsch of late 2016 and early 2017 that aimed to stop El Trumpo even taking office (the made-up stories about Russian hackers copying Hillary's embarrassing e-mails with Mr Podesta off the Democratic Party servers) is starting to come unglued, at essentially the worst possible time for the Democrats. Will it emerge that Obama was actually trying not to give up power, and was (as rumoured) hanging around DC in spring 2017 waiting for the CIA and FBI to confirm him as "interim" president after Trump's removal? We now hear (as the Flynn trial grinds on) that FBI agents were actually buying indemnity insurance to cover themselves against future investigations. FBI staff realised that Obama, Biden, and H. Clinton were having them break major laws.
September 26th; Saturday. A major character in both the "transgender" and "transhumanist" movements. Said to be building an immortal computer version of his beloved wife.
September 25th; Friday. Move some bags to an apartment of Robin's back in Budapest. Asthma not shifting as fast as I hoped, but thank goodness, that seems to be all it is. I have to try somewhere different for my lungs, if it's an allergy.
September 24th; Thursday. Start taking my medications. Nice rendition of a 1967 soul single where Gladys and the men in beige 3-piece suits look extremely low-key & relaxed. This might be because they're practised pros and they're doing take 17, I don't know. But if so, that might also explain the blank-faced audience members.
September 23rd; Wednesday.
After another uncomfortable night unable to breathe whenever lying down, I potter (stagger) into the village of Paty at 8am. The morning sun is warm & cheering. Go there hoping to find a pharmacist, perhaps a doctor, and succeed in finding both. Both are very kind. Each in turn thinks I have some kind of acute allergic asthma, not an infection, which is good news. Buy anti-asthma mouth spray and some pills.
Online friend Alison suggests the US is in the grip of a well-funded off-the-shelf 'Color Revolution' (see here for a general guide as to how to mount one) aiming to enforce regime change through street violence. She points out that in the three cases of George Floyd, Kyle Rittenhouse, and Breonna Taylor, not all, but almost all, the major mass-media outlets consistently misreported details of the resulting deaths used to justify riots, almost as if working to a common script.
September 22nd; Tuesday. I have to cancel several meetings in town because of last night. Euro zone looking as weak as I feel.
September 21st; Monday. Teach in town during day, but up much of night unsuccessfully trying to vomit. I'm going to have to consult a doctor somehow but (rather pathetically) don't feel I even have the energy to find one.
September 20th; Sunday. I seem to be pretty ill. Quite worrying.
September 19th; Saturday. A couple of interesting-looking publishers:
Zero Books &
Repeater Books.
September 18th; Friday. Sleepless, unwell in small hours, finish the archly-titled 'Buy-ology' by Martin Lindstrom. Even while buying it with Andras on Monday, I mused out loud if the third blurb promise, the one that really hooked me, would ever get answered? "Why does the scent of melons help sell electronic products?" Of course, it never was answered, just mentioned towards the end. What a cheat.
Lindstrom graciously thanks his editor/ghost-writer Peter Smith on the second page of the acknowledgements at the back, if not on the cover. The book is subtitled 'How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong' a claim which really isn't true. This is mainly old news. It reminded me strongly of Vance Packard's 'Hidden Persuaders' book from --- 1957? And despite the new research (Lindstrom uses brain scanners in labs to analyse consumer volunteers' thinking), the feel of the book is almost exactly the same. Of course, Lindstrom makes money doing this research for big firms, so he spends huge swathes of this quite slim book talking about his ethical vision and his dislike of manipulative advertising (even though manipulative advertising is clearly his life work). This leads to weird closing sections in each chapter where he outlines how good & exciting all this research is when we have just read for ourselves that it gives corporations and governments yet more power over individuals. There is also a lot of that dreadful So-here-I-am-in-a-clinic-in-Vienna-Austria-surrounded-by-beeping-machines guff larded onto every chapter to fill space. Essentially, there are four supposed "surprises": 1. cigarette health warnings actually stimulate smokers' cravings / 2. scent and sound are often more powerful than visual cues / 3. bans on smoking promotions enabled tobacco firms to learn how to advertise without even mentioning their names, brands, or products / 4. Brand loyalty hits the same part of the brain as religious identity. I seem to remember Packard covering all four of those at some or other depth, ooh, half a century ago. Now you don't need to read this book.
September 17th; Thursday. I seem to be rather dramatically sick. Difficulty breathing. Nice radio discussion about Plato's Symposium.
September 16th; Wednesday. Though still tired and vaguely ill, manage to do two sets of lessons over the phone. Don't take a dog's friendship for granted!
September 15th; Tuesday. Shorter, odder set of quotes by Plotinus student Porphyry.
September 14th; Monday. Snack with Andras & Eszter and buy a paperback 2nd-hand book from a book stall newly parked near his flat just behind Keleti.
September 13th; Sunday. Wonderfully lofty set of Plotinus quotes.
September 12th; Saturday. A few wealthy folk are doing well.
September 11th; Friday. Lawyers acting for the policemen who were arresting George Floyd when he died now claim to have footage showing Floyd putting a lethal dose of fentanyl in his mouth seconds before arrest.
September 10th; Thursday. A little bit of extra seismic activity around the Yellowstone Lake area in the US: one of the earth's megavolcano threats.
September 9th; Wednesday. US medical results authority quietly concedes that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths had no other fatal conditions. So 150,000+ US deaths suddenly becomes 9,000 deaths.
September 8th; Tuesday. Now here's an image I can use.
September 7th; Monday. Strange liquidy antigravity thing.
September 6th; Sunday. Paganism in Lithuania: looks intriguing.
September 5th; Saturday. Very impressive bit of deep-faking: Adolf & Joseph bring us Video Killed The Radio Star.
September 4th; Friday. Thoughtful critique of 'Critical Theory'.
September 3rd; Thursday. Fascinating claim that Europe took the lead in world civilisation because early Church marriage rules damaged clan kinship structures.
September 2nd; Wednesday. Interesting piece with photos from journalist who went round several US states interviewing people whose businesses were burned down in largely unreported riots.
September 1st; Tuesday. The decimal-point error it very much looked like at the time, that caused the COVID-19 hysteria.
Mark Griffith, site administrator /
markgriffith at yahoo.com
