Recently I’ve been trying to find an appropriate example to explain the Dark Mountain project to imaginary interlocutors, other than just wind farms on hill sides. The perfect one cropped up today in a most revolting form.

The Chinese government plan to build the world’s biggest hydro-electric project in Tibet, all in the name of mitigating climate change, so they say.

The article explains, “A large dam on the Tibetan plateau would amount to a major, irreversible experiment with geo-engineering,” said Peter Bosshard of International Rivers. “Blocking the Yarlung Tsangpo could devastate the fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau, and would withhold the river’s sediments from the fertile floodplains of Assam in north-east India, and Bangladesh.”

And what is it all for? So millions of Chinese can continue to consume without conscience, so factories producing junk for the rest of the world can continue to function? The status-quo of growth and consumption must be maintained whilst dealing with the limits that climate change clearly presents us with.

The most horrifying quote is this one, “For the sake of the entire world, all the water resources than can be developed should be developed.”

It leads me to wonder, what exactly do we want to save? An ugly land strewn with concrete, marching metal towers, jumbles of wires in the sky, and a crude population without guts? There is an irony here somewhere: in order to save our land, we must first ruin it.

Culture, tradition, and landscape are the very soul of humanity, and they are intrinsically linked to one another. Without them, we cease to be, and yet all are considered mere trifles in the process of modernisation, the scramble for resources, and as it becomes increasingly obvious, the tackling of climate change.

If this is all for the “sake of the entire world”, then count me out. I want nothing to do with this madness.

How tired and grumpy I am right now, like a battered old shoe still thumping along with a ragged foot inside. If only I could pass out and sleep for one hundred days, alas, no, I am still up and writing. It seems much more important that I relay the experience of the weekend past to the unfortunate masses that couldn’t be where I was.

Wood festival 2010, was the source of my ultimate joy this year so far. A small gathering of about 800 people, camping in meadows in the middle of nowhere. It couldn’t have been further from any festival experience I have previously suffered. No one was in my way at any point, there was distance between bodies, no officious high vis jackets, and no angry voices. Even the naked toddlers running around causing mischief, which by the way I haven’t seen since the 1980s, could mar the feeling I was experiencing. In fact, I might have even thought that children weren’t so bad after all, funny little blighters.

Now I know it’s just camping, but really, why do we not do more of it? Why is it a novelty, a past time, when it was once daily life? Emancipation from the elements, a higher standard of living, always moving away from that shabby floor that ultimately sustains us. What thanks we give it.

I puzzled over the constellations above me while Cate Le Bon was wafting softly around me, my head was spinning, but I wasn’t ill, quite the opposite, life couldn’t get any better. But then it did, I took her place on stage with my own band, and we played an incensed set to an appreciative  sun-baked crowd. The final word of the festival was from Timber Timbre, who sounded like Roy Orbison trapped in a shower banging, in time, on the door to get out. In and out of consciousness they took me, and set me up for a massive fall.

After 2 days in the pure unadulterated countryside, waiting for the bus back to Oxford, stood on the highway, maniacs in cars shot past us, ruthlessly slicing all my joy. By the time I was in the plastic box watching the sunset on the fields I was not a part of anymore, it had been shredded irreparably to bits. Back to the city, back to someone’s so called “civilisation”.

Sigh.

After a long run of Huxley novels, I’ve finally broken the chain with John Berger, recommended by one of the Dark Mountain founders. The book Hold Everything Dear by Berger is a collection of essays on resistance and survival, which opens with the following poem. It struck me as acutely relevant, so sad and beautiful, I had to reprint and share it.

Hold Everything Dear

for John Berger

as the brick of the afternoon stores the rose heat of the journey

as the rose buds a green room to breathe
and blossoms like the wind

as the thinning birches whisper their silver stories of the wind to the urgent in the trucks

as the leaves of the hedge store the light
that the moment thought it had lost

as the nest of her wrist beats like the chest of a wren in the turning air

as the chorus of the earth find their eyes in the sky
and unwrap them in each other in the teeming dark

hold everything dear

the calligraphy of birds across the morning
the million hands of the axe, the soft hand of the earth
one step ahead of time
the broken teeth of tribes and their long place
steppe-scattered and together
clay’s small, surviving handle, the near ghost of a jug
carrying itself towards us through the soil

the pledge of offered arms, the single sheet that is our common walking
the map of the palm held
in a knot
but given as a torch

hold everything dear

the paths they make towards us and how far we open towards them

the justice of a grass that unravels palaces but shelters the songs of the searching

the vessel that names the waves, the jug of this life, as it fills with the days as it sinks to become what it loves

memory that grows into a shape the tree always knew as a seed

the words
the bread

the child who reaches for the truths beyond the door

the yearning to begin again together
animals keen inside the parliament of the world

the people in the room the people in the street the people

hold everything dear

19th May 2005
Gareth Evans

The weekend just past, the band and I were booked for Secret Cinema. As the name suggests, it was supposed to be all very hush hush regarding the details of the event. Now it’s all over I can reveal what actually happened.

Secret Cinema puts on classic films in unconventional venues, then themes the night around the film. The audience does not know what the film is until they arrive at the venue. The film that was screened last weekend was Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders, set in Berlin in 1987, it follows a couple of angels that watch over some troubled characters. It’s all rather dreamy, and not a lot happens, but it’s a very beautiful film to watch.

The venue was a disused theatre on Shepherds Bush Green, right beside the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Inside the main hall where the film was being screened, there were some circus acts and a trapeze artist, which fitted in well with the contents of the film. They also had Fyfe Dangerfield playing a few deliciously romantic numbers before the film began, swamped in natural reverb and backed by a viola and fiddle player, “faster than a setting sun…”, the soundtrack to the weekend, I melt in recollection.

Outside of the main hall, Secret Cinema created a small Berlin night club called the Metropole, with a few rooms mocked up in 1980s German decor. I was to host this area, as the owner of the club, play with my house band, and introduce a few other acts. The other main act was This Is Laura, which were possibly the most appropriate act to put on, other than Nick Cave himself.

Well with 4 screenings, that meant music either side, making it a very intense 48 hours. Matinees and evening shows on Saturday and Sunday. The crowd would walk past us to get to the main theatre, or leave the venue. Thankfully, many would stay for a drink and watch and listen to me spitting about throbbing tumours and the like, and by the end of it they were screaming and hollering and dancing and leaping around.

Certainly a weekend to remember, plenty of camaraderie between my own band and This Is Laura. I now feel very toned, like a musical equivalent of Dolph Lundgren.

There will be plenty of post promotion of this event, which I’ll post up as I receive the links to it. Though you can see a slideshow of the event here to get an idea.

So Obama has cut Nasa’s budget and shelved any plans for putting a man on the moon by 2020. Across the political spectrum the press are calling it a travesty. Some wildly, some barely, but there is at least a hint of dismay in all of it. America will fall behind, China will overtake them in the exploration of the galaxy, and technological “progress”, with all its unintended wonders, will be slowed. You can even hear the shuffling of nervous environmentalists in their seats, as they see all their climate change techno fixes go up in smoke.

There aren’t many things world leaders do which can be seen as a positive and progressive step forward for humanity, but this is certainly one of them. Whether it was intended this way or not, is another matter. The solution to all of Earth’s ills already exists on this planet. No amount of money ploughed into research centres for space exploration is needed in order to mitigate the effects of climate change and peak oil, bring about peace in the middle east, greater social cohesion within nations, and to raise the standard of living for those already living on earth.

We’ve had the answers to all the manmade evils and inequalities for millennia and passed them up to inflate our collective ego to an even more monstrous size. Like a pissing stream of urine, drunk on our phantom triumphs over nature, we aim for an unmarked goal, an ill defined objective. Somewhere out there, in the breadth of one careless sweep of the arm, across the unimaginable expanse of the universe is our old friend Progress.

Any old friends of mine would no doubt be splitting their sides hearing me speak like this today. As a teenager the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson captured my imagination like no other work of fiction at the time. I still find the concept of colonising and terraforming another planet incredibly fascinating, as well as the technical details involved in space travel. This stems more from my breeding however, than from any form of rational self interest.

These days I’m more likely to be swooning over the cycle of phosphorous, the basics of barbering, or the art of origami, than some form of state funded national escapism. How dull, but how bloody useful.

Practical material objects and tangible skills are all humanity needs in order to create a world in which it can live a fulfilling life. With Obama’s retreat from the race to put a man back on the moon, this should only be seen as a small but symbolic step forward for mankind.

My dear friends,

It is with great sadness and much irritation that I bring you news that the Islington Arts Factory, Power Down’s birth place and home, may be forced to closed. The fire brigade dropped in on them before Christmas and told them that unless they upgrade their fire safety stuff, doors, alarms, who knows what, then they’ll shut them down. The work comes to a staggering £12k, which has brought the Factory to their knees as I’m sure you can imagine.

So of course, there will be a special Power Down organised to help raise as much as possible. The date will be Saturday, February 20^th, 2010, and so far the line-up under candlelight will be:

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun

http://www.myspace.com/theboywhotrappedthesun

Wry, alt-folkish singer-songwriter from the Isle of Lewis with new EP out on Rough Trade now.

Monooka

http://www.myspace.com/monooka

Romanian folk singer that swallowed an aviary.

Chancery Blame

http://www.myspace.com/thegadjoclub

The virtuoso gypsy violinist from the Gadjo Club.

Marmaduke Dando

www.myspace.com/marmadukedando

Shameless, I know, but why the hell not? I’ve not played one of my own nights in years now.

These fantastic musicians are playing entirely for free, so all money from the door and bar will go directly to the Islington Arts Factory. If you’ve been to a Power Down before, then I hope you’ll agree the night is worth much more than the meagre sum of £5 that it’s usually priced at. With this in mind, I’ve set up a two tiered pricing system for the tickets this time. For those of you that can afford it and want to help keep the Arts Factory open, I urge you to purchase a ticket for £10 here:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/71075

And if you’re lacking in funds for whatever reason, of course, we’d still love you to come, you can buy a ticket for £5 here:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/71076

I leave it entirely to your discretion. If you’re not able to make the concert on February 20^th, but would like to donate some money to the Islington Arts Factory, you can do so here:

http://www.islingtonartsfactory.org/about/donate/

And now onto some other news for this weekend. My band and I are playing Radio Gagarin at Passing Clouds in Dalston this Friday, Jan 29^th. It’s £5 with a flyer that you can get from me, or £7 before 11pm, and £10 after. I believe we’re on about 10pm, and the brilliant Chancery Blame and the Gadjo club are also playing. Here are the details:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/event.php?eid=263743769499&ref=ts

Have a grand weekend all, and hope to see you soon,

Marmaduke

The last post about division being the basis of evil, is a little confused, I admit.

When one looks at the alternative to individual expression, it’s herd mentality, do nothing original, raise no objection to the status quo, to follow others blindly. Not the most attractive of ideas, nor realistic. It works as a successful meme for some if not most animals, but humans have evolved to question, to analyse, to adapt based on ideas, which are all examples of individuality. So, essentially human, and not much we can do about it unless you can drug a population to act as a herd of animals.

Under that assumption, the negative effects of individualism can’t be completely eradicated, but they can be mitigated. As Huxley points out, pride, hatred and anger, are individual expressions that deny others freedom, whereas greed and lust necessarily don’t.

With this in mind, one can reject the former set entirely from one’s self without the need for constant proof. With greed and lust however, it will take analysis and judgement at every instance on the part of the individual to determine whether they are denying another of any freedom.

Admirable, but is it realistic?

As if to confirm my previous rant about the evilness of individuality, Huxley comes along in the final pages of Eyeless in Gaza with the same sentiment:

“Evil is the accentuation of division; good, whatever makes for unity with other lives and other beings. Pride, hatred, anger – the essentially evil sentiments are essentially evil because they are all intensifications of the given reality of separateness, because they insist upon division and uniqueness, because they reject and deny other lives and beings. Lust and greed are also insistences upon uniqueness, but insistences which do not entail any negative awareness of others from whom the unique being is divided. Lust only says, ‘I must have pleasure’, not ‘You must have pain’. Greed in its pure state is merely a demand for my satisfaction, not for your exclusion from satisfaction. They are wrong in emphasizing the separate self; but less wrong than pride or hatred or anger, because their self-emphasis is not accompanied by denial of others.”

Taken from Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless In Gaza, Anthony Beavis explains at a party in London in 1926, the correlation between sexuality and civilization. Much food for thought here:

“Civilzation and sexuality…there’s a definite correlation. The higher the one, the intenser the other…

“Civilization means food and literature all round. Beefsteaks and fiction magazines for all. First class proteins for the body, fourth class love-stories for the spirit. And this in a safe urban world where there are no risks, no physical fatigues. In a town like this, for example, one can live for years at a time without being made aware that there’s such a thing as nature. Everything’s man-made and punctual and convenient. But people can have too much of convenience; they want excitement, they want risks and surprises. Where are they going to find them under our dispensation? In money-making, in politics, in occasional war, in sport, and finally in sex. But most people can’t be speculators or active politicians, and war’s getting too much of a good thing; and the more elaborate and dangerous sports are only for the rich. So that sex is all that’s left. As material civilization rises the intensity and importance of sexuality also rises. Must rise, inevitably.”

What have we done with ourselves? We have destroyed the very heart of our being, in the pursuit of what noble cause exactly? What in the world could justify such a destruction?

The pursuit of specialist knowledge, the pursuit of personality, so unique on the surface at least, yet hollow as a rotten oak one hundred years old.

It’s ego that destroys anything good and beautiful. It’s ego that perpetuates misery. The unquestioning belief in the uniqueness of the individual, so strong, it’s practically a religion, or at the very least a cult of individuality.

That one is better than others, that one has the potential to be better than others, drives most of us on, into the jaws of vanity. The rest, into the fields of misery, lying fallow until sufficiently recovered, then ploughed through by another heartless machine.

All in the name of self discovery, career development, personal gain, and new experiences. And look how the world has changed, profoundly so, because of it. What a tidal wave of influence!

Happy new year, you bastards