Defensiveness.

Chaps,
I am not technophobic. I may have written the odd piece in quill, on a type writer etc... but I'm not that bad. Check email regularly, can word process things. This is not a journal, it is a manifesto, and a site on which I can ramble. Therefore the odds of me defecting to LJ are very slim because LJ causes major disasters! And requires low paranoia.
On this note, pseudonyms are fun. If you do not embrace the pseudonymic tendencies then you are probably not a member of the subculture... Oh, hang on, the person not embracing the pseudonymic tendencies isn't. (Sorry, that was low).
The fact that this is not a journal also explains why I go through long periods of not updating. There is nothing to say much of the time.
So there.

Anthems

Even more of them:
"Beautiful World" by Colin Hay. Haven't heard it but looks like the lyrics make it suitable.

"Nobody's in Love This Year" by Warren Zevon. "For the rate of attrition for lovers like us/Is steadily on the rise/ And nobody's in love this year/ Not even you and I"

"Everyone's Your Friend in New York City" by They Might Be Giants. Pretty much a fantasy, but wonderful.

"Frankly Mr Shankly" by The Smiths "Frankly Mr Shankly I'm a sickening wreck / I've got the twentyfirst century breathing down my neck/ I have to go/ You will not miss me/ I want to go down in celluloid history" followed by "I want to live and I want to love/ I want to catch somthing that I might be ashamed of". So brilliant that I will forgive the hanging preposition. Almost.

"For What Is Chatteris..." by Half Man, Half Biscuit. This is effectively a Philip Larkin poem set to music, and wonderful.
There are many more, but the number will become ridiculous soon.

We also need more Icons
I'm taking this opportunity to instate King James the first of England and sixth of Scotland. He was very good at being a King, he prevented civil war, changed his mind about witchcraft and was intelligent. If you were forced to have a King he or Richard the third would be the best choices.

Alcibiades Cleinou Scambonides
Because he was "charming" and outrageous.

Many of the other options are either already over used (The reason that Oscar Wilde isn't here" or overly obscure (the reason that EFRUvW-M is not here.) Suggestions, as ever, are welcome.

New iconic things
Really, we have insufficient anthems. Ok, until recently they matched the number of members of this subculture but... we need more.
* Kings of Convenience Two anthemic songs, well maybe more but it would be unbalancing were I to list them:
"I'd Rather Dance With You". Synopsis: I have absolutely nothing of interest to say, nor do you. However, you are very attractive and I enjoy your company...

"Stay Out of Trouble" Sample Lyric "Stay out of trouble, stay in touch/ Try not to think about me too much" (Words of an uninterested beloved to her lover.) Very sweet song, sums up obsessiveness pretty well.

Other songs... I still think "Handsome Devil" is very iconic, maybe branching out of indie/rock and into "strange skits" might be fun. That way we can include....


"Friendly duet" by Flanders and Swann. "Said to Romeo Juliet/ "I haven't left school yet/ We're friends/ Just Friends" Carries on to discuss the platonic relationships of Pyramus and Thisbe, Napoleon and Josephine etc.

And
"Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" By Tom Lehrer. Need I say more than the title?

The curse of Eloquence

Eloquence. I would like to think that it was praised and admired fot manmy years as the highest of virtues, but I doubt it. Despite the fact that we now think that Cicero was the embodiment of Roman rebuplican values, or that Chaucer's audience would have gone "aha, rhetorical flourish!" during each digression, it was probably not the case. Would that it were...
On the other hand, do we even now publicly denounce eloquence? No. But find the correct word, embellish a point, use a word of more than three syllables and you subject yourself to ridicule. It becomes so easy to be written off, denounced as a show-off ridiculed; in fact what you are doing is only the embodiment of that old maxim "Clarity of speech is clarity of thought". (not mind, that is something else).
There are concepts which need a word, a specific word, a long word, in order to be fully understood.This is way it is not pathetic to have to fight the urge to say "Verisimilitidinous" during a conversation. It saves time, among other things.

And finally, the word "motif" is not pretentious and not intellectual. This post is both pretentious and faux intellectual, but the word motif isn't. It is very simple.

Thank you.