Blog

rground member Doug Yule stated that the main signature "riff" of the song (as it appears on Loaded) was finalized in the studio just before the tracks were recorded, and it was achieved by Lou Reed's playing "cranked-up very loud" through a large Sunn amplifier. In addition to recording the bass track, the drums on the recording were performed by Doug Yule because Velvet drummer Maureen Tucker was pregnant at the time and not present during the Loaded sessions.

Lou Reed performed "Sweet Jane" in two keys. The 1969 and 1970 versions were in D as was 1972's American Poet version. On 1973's Rock 'n' Roll Animal and 1978's Take No Prisoners, the song is in E, and on 1984's Live in Italy, the song is back in D.

So now you know.

Yes, but what does it mean? The first comment here has a go at teasing it all out. I'm not convinced.

The Cowboy Junkies – supposedly Lou's favourite cover version.

And Lou demonstrates that riff.

Lou Reed previously – his early brush with psychiatry, and a take on the character of the man – The biggest prick I ever met.

>

[Photos © Simon Buckley]

You'd think Ireland would be particularly wary when it comes to protecting women's rights, given the appalling history of the Magdalene Laundries. Instead it seems to be moving seamlessly from one misogynist ideology to another.

In the same week that the chilling letter signed by Amnesty demanded that we be denied political representation, our minister for children (who recently tried to seal the administrative files that catalogued the state’s role in that systemic human-rights violation of women and children) did not mention or mark International Children’s Day. He chose instead to commemorate Trans Remembrance Day, despite the fact that there are no reports of any trans-identified person ever being murdered in Ireland.

As the descendants of the old theocracy, in our bones, we recognise the new one. Self-ID was essentially passed by stealth. We were not consulted. But we will be heard.

"Atlantic Avenue subway entrance." With the 'El' (elevated railway), long since demolished and replaced by the 'A' train. Yes, that 'A' train.

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Co.]

North Korean authorities are well-aware of the cluster infections, they are neither providing medicine nor are they preparing to bring the infected laborers back home.

“In the past, the laborers were returned home if it was a severe case but now that the borders are closed this is impossible,” said the source. “TB is a disease that you can recover from if treated promptly, but since there is no medicine is available to them more and more workers are dying.”

The so-called "loyalty fund" is a demand – which they're in no position to deny – that the wretched workers send even more of their meagre wages to the North Korean government, to demonstrate their concern for "the difficult circumstances the country faces”.

As we heard a few weeks ago, the British government, along with many others, has sourced PPE [personal protective equipment] from these factories in China, where hundreds of North Korean women have been working in conditions of modern slavery and are now, it seems, dying from TB. Ooh the irony…

span style=”font-size: 11pt”>The reason the pushback is suddenly so much more evident to people outside the universities is because the current manifestation of postmodern ideas of power, knowledge, and language is Critical Social Justice (CSJ) scholarship and activism. CSJ’s influence has increasingly been being felt much more broadly than just in the universities. Books like Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist and DiAngelo’s White Fragility are best sellers. People are being no-platformed, fired, and cancelled for disagreeing with these ideas. Here in the UK, the police have investigated somebody posting a limerick on Twitter that did not adhere to trans activism’s concept of gender identity and a journalist publishing an interview with a historian who said slavery was not genocide. Gender critical feminists are routinely threatened and intimidated for making arguments that self-ID is a threat to women’s sex-based rights. Since the brutal death of George Floyd and the BLM protests, my colleagues and I have been inundated by requests for assistance from individuals whose employer, university or children’s school is trying to impose mandatory “antiracist” training of a thoroughly illiberal kind rooted in critical race theory ideas about invisible systems of whiteness underlain by bad science about “implicit bias.” We have had to set up a Discord server to try to triage this and help people convince their employers to allow them to reject racism from their own philosophical, ethical or religious beliefs and not this highly theoretical and political one. It is important to note that people of all races object to this kind of “antiracist” training and that black people are politically and intellectually diverse. Similarly, many women reject intersectional concepts of feminism, few LGBT people have even read queer theory, the majority of trans people just want to be left alone to live as feels authentic and most obese and disabled people have no wish to take this aspect of themselves on as a political identity.

So what is postmodernism?

The postmodern ideas that have survived into the successive waves of “theory” culminating in Critical Social Justice are rooted in an understanding of knowledge as a product of power perpetuated by discourses. That is, objective knowledge is inaccessible and what we consider knowledge is actually just a cultural construct that operates in the service of power. Dominant groups in society—wealthy, white, heterosexual, western men—get to decide what is and isn’t legitimate knowledge and this becomes dominant discourses which are then accepted by the general population who perpetuate oppressive power dynamics like white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, ableism, and fatphobia. The critical theorists exist to deconstruct these discourses and make their oppressive nature visible. This results in the breakdown of boundaries and categories through which we understand things like emotion and reason, fact and fiction, male and female. It also produces a profound cultural relativism and a neurotic focus on language and language policing as well as a rejection of individuality and humanism in favor of identity politics. This is a problem because of the resulting threats to freedom of belief and speech, the divisive tribalism and the rejection of science, reason and liberalism.

And this:

[B]efore I criticized CSJ, I focused on religious irrationalism and illiberalism and then I was accused of being far-left because I focused most on Christianity. However, I became far-right as soon as I extended the same criticisms to Islam. I’m not sure why a consistent commitment to liberalism and evidence-based epistemology is so difficult for people to recognize. 

//mickhartley.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451ebab69e20263e980f040200b-pi” style=”display: inline”>

[Photos © Andrew Thomas Shea]

e been possible if West Germany had passed a law like South Korea's latest regulation banning the dispatch of propaganda leaflets to North Korea. The ruling party earlier this week railroaded through the shameful law that not only bans the dispatch of propaganda leaflets to the North but effectively blocks any form of outside information from being sent to the reclusive state. Even USB memory sticks are banned. The international community has condemned the law, saying it violates freedom of expression, while many foreign countries now view the South Korean government as increasingly oppressive.

Opposition People Power Party lawmaker Thae Yong-ho, who is a high-profile North Korean defector, said the law "consigns North Koreans to perpetual servitude" and is the first case of "the South and North joining hands to block the eyes, ears and five senses of the North Korean people."…If West Germany had made such a law for fear of agitating East Germany, young people from both sides could not have sung Bowie's songs aloud in unison as they yearned for reunification.

“font-size: 11pt”>So they promote the book by celebrating Burchill's abrasiveness and her notable tendency to be rude to people – and when she is rude to people, they promptly cancel her.

I hope we see some protests from other Little, Brown authors about this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ash Sarker, meanwhile, is discussing her options for further action with her lawyers.

set-image at-xid-6a00d83451ebab69e2026be42cf4c5200d img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/mt_imported_image_1758338018.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Hull94″ />
Pier, Island Wharf, Hull, 1973

Barges, The Old Harbour, River Hull, Hull, 1977

Tug, Scott St Bridge and High Flags Mill, River Hull, Hull, 1977

View downriver from Sculcoates bridge, River Hull, Hull, 1977

Park Pet Stores, Walton St, Hull, 1979

Man with bag, Evans Square, Hull, 1979

Demolition, Division St area, Hull, 1979

Hull Fair Ground, Walton St, Hull, 1979

Washing, Arthur St, Hull 1979

Park View, Hull, 1979
[All photos © Peter Marshall]