Book review - Dark Mountain 1
Mar. 11th, 2011 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cybermuleSome time ago, I finally got round to following up all the mentions that kept throwing themselves at me and checked out the Dark Mountain Manifesto. I say some months ago because it was kind of like reading the thoughts that had been going through your head, but written on paper by someone else who isn't you. Initially, it's kind of disappointing when that happens, as it's nice to be first. But thinking seriously about it, the cutting edge is kind of wasted on me. I'm not a joiner, I'm rubbish at rhetorical debate because I like a nice long think before I articulate, and I've pretty much gravitated towards ploughing my own furrow in life. So rationally speaking, reading someone else having your thoughts is kind of reassuring in that it lessons the chance that you might be completely barking fucking mad.
Anyway, fast-forward a few months to last Wednesday and I'm sat next to one of the Dark Mountain guys in the Natural History Museum cafe having my own personal OMG-squee fangirl session :) That was fun. Doubly so in that I managed to actually have conversations with him on Arts and Crafts architecture, path of least resistance synchronicity and shooting for the impossible and I didn't feel like a complete retard. Which is progress on a number of levels.
Personal development achievements aside, Dark Mountain 1 is an anthology of interviews, essays, poems and books all on the theme of Uncivilisation. Occasionally one jars as being a bit too lit-crit, but on the whole it's an excellent read and one I can wholeheartedly recommend if you're remotely into any of the sort of things I wave my arms around about when I've had a beer or two. Hell, I'll even lend it to you.
I've moved on slightly from the unadulterated hero worship of the manifesto. It's aimed at a literature movement, and I'm not literary. I just enjoy committing my thoughts to words in what I consider to be a pleasing fashion. And the way they state their aims twinks a bit at my feminist critic, in that the phraseology makes a space that I think women might often find it hard to step up to and occupy. And hey, I'm just a practical person with the whole furrow-ploughing furore. And I'm not a joiner. I said all this before, but that doesn't stop me embracing the philosophy behind it and using it in my life.
Everyone's got to have a star to plough their furrow by if they want a remotely straight drill.
Anyway, fast-forward a few months to last Wednesday and I'm sat next to one of the Dark Mountain guys in the Natural History Museum cafe having my own personal OMG-squee fangirl session :) That was fun. Doubly so in that I managed to actually have conversations with him on Arts and Crafts architecture, path of least resistance synchronicity and shooting for the impossible and I didn't feel like a complete retard. Which is progress on a number of levels.
Personal development achievements aside, Dark Mountain 1 is an anthology of interviews, essays, poems and books all on the theme of Uncivilisation. Occasionally one jars as being a bit too lit-crit, but on the whole it's an excellent read and one I can wholeheartedly recommend if you're remotely into any of the sort of things I wave my arms around about when I've had a beer or two. Hell, I'll even lend it to you.
I've moved on slightly from the unadulterated hero worship of the manifesto. It's aimed at a literature movement, and I'm not literary. I just enjoy committing my thoughts to words in what I consider to be a pleasing fashion. And the way they state their aims twinks a bit at my feminist critic, in that the phraseology makes a space that I think women might often find it hard to step up to and occupy. And hey, I'm just a practical person with the whole furrow-ploughing furore. And I'm not a joiner. I said all this before, but that doesn't stop me embracing the philosophy behind it and using it in my life.
Everyone's got to have a star to plough their furrow by if they want a remotely straight drill.
