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Moving Gelatine Plates: The World of Genius Hans
The World of Genius Hans is the second studio album by French band Moving Gelatine Plates, founded in 1968 by guitarist Gérard Bertram and bassist Didier Thibault.
The World of Genius Hans has one of the most striking covers in rock history. The cover features a pig (or is it a cow?) dressed in a pilot’s jacket, smoking a cigar, with parsley in its nostrils and ears. The unusual cover aptly reflects the intriguing nature of this album.
The World of Genius Hans’s jazzy avant-garde sound is somewhat reminiscent of early Soft Machine, Supersister and Frank Zappa, but the end result is entirely unique. The music of The World of Genius Hans is quite complex in places, but it is made accessible by a certain humour and warmth typical of the Canterbury scene, yet difficult to describe.
The best track on the album is the 14-minute title track, which features excellent thematic development and even hints of symphonic prog at times. However, the band remembers to add irregularly regular twists and turns and silliness to the mix, so that it doesn’t get confused with, say, Yes or Genesis.
The weakness of the album is bassist Didier Thibault’s vocals, which are not particularly impressive. Thibault’s voice is high-pitched and thin. Fortunately, the vocals play a relatively minor role on the album, and a pleasing variety of wind instruments, such as the bassoon, trombone and saxophones, are given more space.
The World of Genius is not a complete success, but it is highly recommended for listeners who are interested in a slightly more avant-garde take on Canterbury prog.
Best tracks: ”The World of Genius Hans”
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Gentle Giant: Three Friends
Three Friends is Gentle Giant’s third album and the band’s first concept album. The theme of the album is three school friends whogrew up and went into different career paths. One became a businessman, another a labourer and the third an artist. The concept is loose, but it does provide some kind of framework for songs that work perfectly on their own.
Musically, Three Friends is not quite as eclectic and experimental as its predecessor, Acquiring The Taste. On average, the album is a little more rock-oriented and less ambiguous. The arrangements are more straightforward and less rich in instrumentation than before. Of course, even the music on Three Friends is miles away from average rock in terms of complexity.
With the exception of the drummer, the band’s line-up remained the same as before. New drummer Malcolm Mortimore does a decent job on the album, but he is nowhere near as interesting and creative a player as his predecessor Martin Smith. Smith was apparently let go mainly because he didn’t get along with the band’s unofficial leader, Phil Shulman (saxophones, vocals). Mortimer’s time with the band was short-lived, as he was injured in a motorcycle accident shortly after the completion of Three Friends. Smith was not permanently disabled, but due to touring commitments, GG hired John Weathers to fill in. Things worked out so well with him that Weathers was soon made a permanent member of the band. This was unfortunate for Mortimer, but good news for the band and their fans, as Weathers turned out to be the perfect drummer for Gentle Giant. Mortimer returned to Gentle Giant’s music in the 2000s, playing in a spin-off band called Three Friends, which also featured Gary Green and Kerry Minnear at times.
The highlight of Three Friends is the powerful, mostly instrumental opening track ‘Prologue’, which introduces the themes of the later songs, and the lighter ‘Schooldays’, which effectively utilises the band’s trademark polyphonic vocals. The versatile ‘Mister Class And Quality?’ is also a great song for the most part, but it is slightly marred by drummer Mortimer’s occasionally tedious drumming.
The weakest track is ‘Peel The Paint’, where Derek Shulmann’s ‘hard rock vocals’ are a little uncomfortable to listen to, and Gary Green’s electric guitar riffs in the instrumental section and the uninspiring middle section don’t really get you going.
Unlike the two previous albums, which were produced by Tony Visconti, Gentle Giant did the job themselves with Three Friends. Not necessarily a smart move, as the album sounds somewhat muddier and duller than its predecessor, Acquiring The Taste.
The cover art is also a bit of a mess, with Rick Breach’s original painting of three vaguely scribbled figures crouching around a seagull being rather creepy. In the United States and Canada, the album was released with a slightly modified version of the debut album cover. A strange decision, to say the least.
Three Friends is a worthy album, but a slight disappointment after the magnificent Acquiring The Taste. However, Three Friends was slightly more successful than its predecessors and even made it onto the US album charts for the first time. Admittedly, it only reached a modest 197th place.
Three Friends was the last album featuring Phil, the eldest of the Shulman brothers. Phil Shulman had been something of a leader in the band, but his career came to an end due to an embarrassing incident involving a groupie. In a band like Gentle Giant, such behaviour was frowned upon for a family man, and Phil Shulman left the band to save his marriage.
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Statutes and bureaucracy in 1851
The Albrecht-Dürer-Verein would have risen to its zenith “if a narrow-minded adherence to bourgeois statutes, greed and envy had not always worked against free artistic development. It was recognised that these statutes were in part suitable for a local association, but by no means for a projected central art association. However, what was done to remedy the problem did not contribute to the prosperity of the whole, on the contrary, the promising bloom was destroyed; new statutes were created, some of which became even more impractical, even dangerous, and caused much confusion and annoyance. The promises made to the members could not be fulfilled, the lack of money for honorary expenses was claimed to be insufficient for such a large association, etc., without considering that the income is always in proportion to the growing number of members, and that on occasions where the honour and reputation of the association is at stake, buckling and saving can only bring harm.”
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Media Competence
We do not want war
The opposing camp bears the responsibility
The leader of the enemy is a devil
We are fighting for a good cause
The enemy fights with unauthorized weapons
The enemy commits atrocities on purpose, we only do so accidentally
Our losses are small, those of the enemy are enormous
Artists and intellectuals support our cause
Our mission is sacred
Anyone who doubts our reporting is a traitor.
Anne Morelli
Anne Morelli wrote the book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre in the style of Arthur Ponsonby’s classic work on propaganda research.
It is interesting to observe how some journalists are unable to publish their research and work on any topic without judgment, but rather follow the narratives. It is then frightening to observe how people with diametrically opposed views are often very quickly insulted, downgraded and shunned as a result.
None of this is actually new. What is new is the vehement claim and the sovereignty of interpretation and positioning of truth and lies (new German fake and hate speech) in the interests of those in power. The opposition and some citizens are quickly vilified. Since the Greeks and their invention of democracy 2500 years ago, it has been the task of the opposition to keep the rulers in check, as experience has shown that they are all too quick to pursue their own interests and bypass the actual sovereign in the clique.
The words “populus”, ‘people’ and “sovereignty” are closely linked in the context of politics and philosophy. They refer to the source and nature of state power.
“Populus” (Latin):
Denotes the people as a totality of people who live in a certain area and are politically organized
At school, know-it-alls were quickly frowned upon. Nowadays, adult know-it-alls have numerous tools to defame others, be it calling them Nazis or accusing them of hate speech.
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Radiorock Santana -Caravanserai
Caravanserai is the fourth studio album, released on October 11, 1972. The album marked a period of transition for Santana as it was the band’s last to feature several key early members, while shifting in a more instrumental, progressive jazz fusion direction. It sold in fewer quantities than the band’s previous chart-topping albums, stalling at No. 8 on the Billboard LPs chart, but has been critically acclaimed.
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“Humanity” is not always a virtue
“Humanity” is not always a virtue – it can also be a soft mechanism to produce the most civilized forms of violence.
When the banner of the human is raised, the real human is often displaced in favor of a metaphysical image that justifies everything.
Then “humanity” is no longer an ethical promise, but becomes a pretext: sometimes for interventions, sometimes for liquidations and often enough for deliberate overlooking.
Carl Schmitt, one of the sharpest demystifiers of politics, put it in a nutshell:
Those who wave the flag of “humanity” are not necessarily looking for justice, but often for legitimization to exclude the enemy from the realm of the human – to place him outside of justice and compassion.
It is a warning: if the discourse of humanity is used as a moral absolute, it does not bring about peace – it rather sets the stage for limitless violence.
For those who are excluded from it are redefined – as “non-humans” who are entitled to neither legal protection nor linguistic recognition.
In this way, “humanity” is transformed from an ethical promise into an instrument of existential annihilation:
The enemy no longer appears as a being to be understood or confronted, but as a defect that must be eliminated.Any “humanity” that denies the enemy his humanity paves the way for his destruction – in the name of “good”.
Can a truly human person preserve his humanity while waging war in its name?
Isn’t it time to rethink “humanity” – not as a buzzword, but as a responsibility?
Perhaps the more crucial question is not who speaks in the name of humanity – but who has the courage to question what is committed in its name.Muhammed Sabbah
War: this is the cruel and ridiculous adventure that men embark on when the oats of madness sting them…
La guerre : c’est l’aventure cruelle et dérisoire dans laquelle les hommes s’engagent quand l’avoine de la folie les pique…
Krieg: das ist das grausam-lächerliche Abenteuer, in das sich Männer einlassen, wenn sie der Hafer des Wahnsinns sticht…
Siegfried Lenz