Blakey French

@blakeyfrench.bsky.social

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(Act III) field philosopher (nascent). #lostness #doubt #degrowth

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So, committing myself, the best regular jazz session in Amsterdam is (imho) … Wednesday’s at De Kring; some places prefer you don’t go snappin’ & postin’, so you’ll have just my word.

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The problem with "where have you been" responses to people's rising political concerns is that we should be encouraging people to become politically active rather than scolding them upon their arrival.

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Alright, so how do I get famous on here?

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Stuart Hall said “Power intervenes in discourse to fix meaning.” I think the world’s richest man blasting this to 189 million followers on his own proprietary media platform as part of the broader effort to label the image “iconic” is a pretty good example of what Hall was trying to warn us about.

Recently came across a nearly 6 years-old letter from my divorce lawyer, saying ‘we’ll keep your just-closed file for 6 years, then shred it’; thanks for the prompt, beat you to it, yay!

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Have just started this blue sky adventure. Am looking forward to connecting with old Twitter friends & discovering new friends here.

So, committing myself, the best Amsterdam summer terrace is, imho, the harbour cafe at EyeFilm:

Just finished ‘housekeeping’ who I follow, quite a lot of non-posters were in that list; I made room just now to follow fresh, cool, sassy, grungy, jazzy, erudite folk… so show yourselves, pls!

Onlooking, baffled, as US politics once again sucks most of the air out of the newsroom; if there was a diet pill for the ego, would it have to be force-fed?

I am now, categorically, an ex, de-activated, X user: not a big fan of swamps.

These cherries have been sitting on a plate 4 years now; come home footie, pls

Kit Downes was my ‘man of the match’ at North Sea Jazz yesterday - he looked bashful receiving the Paul Acket Award; his ‘Enemy’ trio (w/Petter Eldh & James Maddren) so stunned me.

There was some fine jazz at the North Sea Jazz Festival yesterday; some say it’s not a ‘jazz’ festival any more, which is true-ish, but it was definitely the least convivial music event I’ve attended. Oh well, I gave it a go.

I’m at that time of life when I hear a tune, think ‘I have that on vinyl somewhere’ … then see it just came out last week; turn-turn-turn: open.spotify.com/track/4UgkFd...

Adore Adore Adoreopen.spotify.com Listen to Adore Adore Adore on Spotify. SPRINTS · Song · 2024.

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Not for the first time, I have the sinking feeling that a lot of people working on climate are focused on what the policies and the politicians say and what things look like on paper, or in a spreadsheet, and not on molecules in the atmosphere which is the only thing that actually matters.

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If actual mining were like Bitcoin mining, the company would buy tens of thousands of digging machines and randomly locate them across the land and start digging furiously. The company that buys the most diggers and digs most furiously wins

Casual reminder that there is no MINE. Those people aren't MINING a damn thing. They just waste stellar amounts of resources in a pyramid scheme and hurt other people in the process.

“Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ‘em.” George in Easy Rider (1969), a film for the ages.

I admit it … I’m sleeping easier now that England has a leftish-leaning CEO; nothing radical, but tidier.

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I actually felt more elated about the French result than the British one. Why? Because the French rejection of the far-right was exactly that. A rejection of the far-right. I will not feel the same about Britain until the abomination of a far-right Brexit has been rejected by the governing party.

ChatGPT spills, I hear, varying answers when asked the same question; AI is insistently ‘virtual’ in Deleuze’s sense: “…not oriented on or directed towards a reality existing outside of itself… defined negatively with respect to the ‘actual’… the virtual becomes actual but only in altering itself.”

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10 days left to (write and) submit your abstract for this workshop on 'Affect and Material Cultures of Weathering' organised with @electricpunkah.bsky.social here at the @greenhouseuis.bsky.social #histtech #histsci #envhist #envhum #ecocrit #arthistory www.uis.no/en/research/...

Affect and Material Cultures of Weathering: Histories, Temporalities, and Spaces (Call for Papers)www.uis.no 10-11 December 2024: Stavanger, Norway

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Na veertien jaar komt er een einde aan de heerschappij van de Britse Conservatieven. Onder hun bewind gleed hun land af van charmant ouderwets naar beschamend vervallen. Ben Coates, oud-adviseur voor de Tories, vraagt zich af wat er is misgegaan.

Onder de Britse Conservatieven stortte het land langzaam in, constateert oud-adviseur Ben Coateswww.groene.nl Na veertien jaar komt er een einde aan de heerschappij van de Britse Conservatieven. Onder hun bewind gleed hun land af van charmant ouderwets naar beschamend vervallen. Ben Coates, oud-adviseur...

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L'extrême-droite ne veut pas améliorer les conditions de vie. Elle ne promet pas égalité et bien-être. Elle promet juste à des gens malheureux qu'elle infligera des malheurs encore plus grands à d'autres gens malheureux. Elle promet la souffrance des autres pour compenser la souffrance.

The Paradiso (Amsterdam) always sets my skin tingling, a gezellig bear-pit of a venue; Friday night is Sheryl Crow night!

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The election is not just about disliking Labour or their stance on Brexit. It's about the potential for the Tories to come in third place, which is a game-changer. Imagine the impact if this were to happen. It could be the end of their political influence, instead of just a temporary setback."

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If you care about the way AI is steamrolling environmental concerns you might be interested in this (free, online) conference happening in July—program just posted, and link to register: uva.theopenscholar.com/rethinking-t...

Rethinking the Inevitability of AIuva.theopenscholar.com

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Today is the fortieth anniversary of Foucault’s death. The Collège de France are putting the surviving audio recordings of his lectures online – Le Pouvoir psychiatrique is up now, with others to follow. www.college-de-france.fr/fr/actualite... (1/3)

Mise en ligne des cours de Michel Foucault | Collège de Francewww.college-de-france.fr

Sometimes, once in a blue proverbial, the streaming algorithm brings me a treat; Spotify just took me from Massive Attack to Fire! Orchestra: open.spotify.com/track/13S2lu...

Weekends (The Soil is Calling)open.spotify.com Fire! Orchestra · Song · 2019

Otherwise engaging on Daniel Dennet (@londonreview.bsky.social), Anil Gomes indulges in a drive-by-shooting of ‘pansychists’ - for whom “consciousness must be smeared across the universe like a magnolia undercoat”; science hasn’t proved otherwise (yet), so I’m curious why the possibility offends.

‘Teal’ was built at Barrow-in-Furness in 1936 for a local rail company, then nationalised in 1948, then privatised in 1984 … 40 years later it is, of course, obvious that we could have kept her as a public asset: