JamesLindenschmidt.com

Inverness is stunning! Of course, it helped that every Scot we ran into said “it’s the best day we’ve had yet this year” weather-wise. It reminded me of Maine in May; sunny, warm in the sun and cool in the shadows, with the occasional breeze that makes you glad you have a jacket.

We arrived in Inverness via the train from Scotland, making several stops in the Scottish highlands, which look remarkably like the Appalachian mountains in the states. I later discovered from a tour guide that at one point in the distant past, when there was just one giant meta-continent on earth, what is now Scotland was connected with what is now Appalachia.

We did one of the few “touristy” things we’ve done on the trip; once in Inverness we booked a bus tour from Inverness down to Loch Ness. I hadn’t been aware that Loch Ness was so deep; apart from the obvious legends about Nessie, it’s an incredibly scenic place. The bus took us to the Loch Ness 2000 Exhibition, where we were ushered indoors to watch cheesy videos about Nessie. It was cool and informative, particularly the bits about the geologic formations of the area, but I’d have preferred time to get out and walk around Urquhart Castle.

After the Exhibition, we were then bussed to a small port, where we boarded a boat and sailed out onto Loch Ness. The boat ride was about an hour, it took us down to the Urquhart Castle ruins, where I madly snapped photographs the entire trip. I think a few of them have some nice potential; they along with the Glastonbury photos are the best ones I’ve taken thus far. I will of course post them all up when I return; watch this space.

After the guided tour, we went back to Inverness where I cooked a dinner for my family, relaxed and watched a bit of a BBC special on the history of Dr. Who, and we went to bed early.

This morning, we took the train from Inverness back to Edinburgh, this time a slightly different route that took us around the Firth of Forth (as opposed to across it on a bridge), and into the towns of Falkirk and Stirling. Once in Edinburgh, my wife and daughter went back to the hostel for some down time and to get some washing done (my daughter and I both have the sniffles a bit, she’s utterly plugged up and for me it’s settling in my chest); I took the opportunity to walk around Edinburgh. For those of you familiar with Edinburgh, I essentially walked in a giant spiral — widdershins — from the train station to Princes Street, down through the Princes Street Gardens (which used to be a lake, it was drained in the 18th century and turned into a giant garden), around Edinburgh Castle, and down the Royal Mile to Bridge St. Once on Bridge St, I went back to the train station to find out how to catch a bus to the hostel. Some woman at the info desk was incredibly helpful and I decided to forgo the bus and walk to the hostel, back up Princes St. to the Lothian Rd, and then up to the hostel. It was a nice 30 minute walk. I also picked up some more vegetables for tonight’s dinner, which I just finished cooking and eating with my family.

I’ve now taken over 200 photos, and still have room for another 100 or so. Tomorrow we get up early to take an early train to London and then to Cornwall. We’ll be on the train all day. Yay.

Cheers!

Edinburgh feels older than London. I’m not sure which is actually older, as they both started off as little more than camps on the water, but the architecture in this city has an older feel to it. We haven’t seen much of it just yet; we arrived at the train station and took a cab to the Bruntsfield Scottish Youth Hostel, which is where I am now.

Staying in London with Massimo, Dagmar, and little Leonardo was a delight. It was good to meet the face I’d been working with for a while online.

I had a chance to see the British Museum on my own yesterday, which was cool, but my underlying emotion or vibe from it was just how much has been utterly fucking stolen from cultures all around the world. I also went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art, where I was confronted by a security guard and told to put my camera away, as there are no cameras allowed anywhere in the gallery because these works are all newer and therefore are still under copyright. The guard was very polite, and could always retreat under the banner of “just doin’ me job” so I didn’t bother protesting or debating the intricacies of intellectual property and fair use laws. Besides, I’m not precisely sure what the fair use laws in the UK are.

We’re having a good time, though I miss talking to my friends and I really miss working on my music. Ah well. We’ll be home soon, and then I’ll wish we were still here.

Tomorrow we take another train up to Inverness, where we’ll spend the night at a place called (no, I’m not joking) the Ho-Ho-Hostel, and then we’ll be back at this hostel for another night in Edinburgh. After that, we’ll take the train back down to Cornwall, way on the other end of the UK, to stay with some new friends there for the remainder of our trip. Once in Cornwall, I hope to see Tintagel, and possibly some other spots there.

We did manage to see Glastonbury, which was very cool. There were three highlights to Glastonbury itself, the Tor, the Chalice Well, and the ruins of The Glastonbury Abbey, which up until its decommissioning in 1539 when Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church was the largest Abbey in Britain; indeed it was so large it was called the second Rome. This part of the trip was probably the closest I’ll get to a spiritual pilgrimage in this lifetime; there is so much history and legend there, and the energy in the place is quite extraordinary. I also get a kick out of the intersection between Christian and Pagan elements there; right across the main High street where the entrance to the ruins are are a half-dozen pagan/witchy shops. Lots of hippies/freaks there, for sure.

I’ve been taking loads of photographs while here, I should have well over 200 by the time I return. I’ll post them, of course, when I get back.

Cheers!

Well, I’ve finally found an Internet cafe, only to discover that the 3 audioblog posts I’ve made — or attempted to make — haven’t gone through. I’m not quite sure why. Ah well.

Anyway, for those keeping score, we arrived safely in the UK last week, after a long, delayed, cramped flight. Virgin Atlantic has lots of bells and whistles on the flight, ie, movies in flight etc., but I’d trade it all for a bit more space on the plane. It was quite uncomfortable. Granted, I am large, even by American standards, but it was pretty ridiculous.

The Marillion Weekend was fabulous, as I expected it to be. The band seems genuinely appreciative of their audience, as well they should be. The music was great, and the vibe was pretty cool as well. We met some cool people as well, new friends, hello to Helen, Ian, Michael, Faith, Franz, John, and anyone else who happens to read this.

One phenomenon I tried to audioblog but didn’t work: in addition to the Marillion festivities, there was also a country and music convention happening at Butlins. Now, there are many reasons to leave the US, and escaping country music is certainly one of them. But at one point, I walked into the pavilion only to discover two gentlemen (or ‘two blokes’ as they say here) on stage, dressed in cowboy hats and bad flourescent vests, looking like Howdy Doody on acid, singing along with their acoustic guitars to canned backing tracks, some really cheesy country music with bad English accents. Now, no one should sing country music, least of all the English. And there were dozens of people dressed the same way line dancing. This is yet more evidence proving the theory that rednecks are everywhere.

Now we’re in Bath, and we’ll be here for another 2 days. Tomorrow it looks like we’ll travel to Glastonbury, which will be another highlight for my trip. Then we’re off to London to visit a friend, after which we’ll train up to Scotland. After Scotland, it looks like we’ll come back to Cornwall for a few days to stay with some new friends we met at the Marillion convention. They are a great couple, and they have 2 kids right around my daughter’s age. One cannot pass up an opportunity to make good friends, and my daughter (what a trooper — bless her) is holding up great and could really use the opportunity to bond with some other kid friends.

Anyway, the clock here is ticking, so I’ll sign off. Not sure why the audio posts didn’t work. I’ll have to investigate, but not when I’m paying by the minute.

As one says when in the UK, cheers mate!

Thanks to a friend’s LJ, I came across a brilliant site for weight training. Stumptuous.com Women’s weight training contains a ton of useful information. And it’s not just for the chixx and grrls; the information contained there is useful for anyone who wants to embark on a sane weighttraining regimen.

But even more intriguing to me is the shovelglove and the No S Diet. Both of these were created by the same guy, designed to be simple and effective lifestyle-changing methodologies.

The shovelglove is simple form of weightlifting:

Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your “shovelglove.” Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays.

The idea is to work your muscles using useful human-oriented work tasks. The sledgehammer becomes your weight. Very intriguing. I like the simplistic philosophy, for example, his rationale for choosing 14 minutes:

You guessed it, 14 is a significant number. Why? Because it’s one minute less than the smallest unit of schedulistically significant time. No calendar has a finer granularity than 15 minutes. No one ever has a meeting that starts at 5 or 10 or 14 minutes before or after the hour. You have no excuse not to do this. Time-wise, it doesn’t even register.

Yet it is just long enough to give some aerobic benefit. Yes, half an hour would be better. An hour would be even better. But guess what? You won’t do it. You might do it for 3 weeks, or maybe even 3 months, but you’ll start to resent it and you’ll quit. Do it for 14 minutes and you’ll do it for a lifetime.

Very interesting. I like the way this guy thinks.

The No S diet is and equally compelling model of elegant simplicity:

There are just three rules and one exception:

• No Snacks
• No Sweets
• No Seconds

Except (sometimes) on days that start with ‘s’

That’s it.

Too simple for you? Simple is why it works.

OK. A few days before I leave for a vacation is hardly a good time to begin a new diet/exercise regimen. But this system resonated with my consciousness in a way that few things ever have.

I’ve really been enjoying going back to the gym lately, but knew that the time to supplement that activity was anon. I think I will try to incorporate both of these into my life, in addition to the workouts I’m doing (on average of 2x per week), since they are both so simple.

My modified diet over the past several weeks has been ‘no food after 9pm,’ and it’s been working nicely. The main objective there is/was to get my late-night eating under control. But for a week or two now, I’ve been compelled to modify my diet strategy, and the no-s diet seems right on the money for me.

Incidentally, there is a 3rd component to his system, which is walking an hour a day. This is another important component, one that I would very much like to include, especially now that clearer weather is on the horizon.

Anyway, who knows. Lots of food for thought. I don’t want to make a commitment just yet, but I really feel compelled to give this system a try.

Now, to do some sledgehammer pricing….

I’ve been stupid busy lately, but then I seem to be saying this a lot.

I’m trying to finish up a volunteer typesetting gig before we head out to the UK. I’m also trying to get the Freakwitch recording project into a certain state of being before we leave, so that Matt can record vocal tracks while I’m gone.

Not much to say lately; my political work has mostly been in typesetting these few weeks. I should have more to say from the UK, though blogging may continue to be light until I return.

My family and I are going on a trip to the UK, leaving next week. This new audioblogging feature will be useful to me while I’m there. I had thought about taking my laptop with me. But we’ll be backpacking so I don’t want to be encumbered with it. So instead, I’ll be armed with my digital camera, a small hardbound journal and a pen, and a phone number for the audioblogger. So during the trip, I’ll be able to make the audio posts from a phone. Then, when I get online (either back at home or from an Internet Cafe or something) I can add my written thoughts from my journal after-the-fact. And of course I’ll have a photo gallery online when we return.

I’m definitely looking forward to this trip.

The following is the first-ever audioblog post to this site. I can post from any phone. Pretty cool.

I’ve mentioned Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch in this space before. Well, I was reading it, put it down several weeks ago, and got distracted. I just recently picked it up again, and got to some very meaty analysis on the origins and effects of the Great Witch-Hunt in Europe. From the text:

In this “century of geniuses” — Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Shakespeare, Pascal, Descartes — a century that saw the triumph of the Copernican Revolution, the birth of modern science, and the development of philosophical and scientific rationalism, witchcraft became one of the favorite subjects of debate for the European cultural elites. Judges, lawyers, statesmen, philosophers, scientists, theologians all became preoccupied with the “problem,” wrote pamphlets and demonologies, agreed that this was the most nefarious crime, and called for its punishment.

This is an important historical fact. The ubiquity of “the witch problem,” even among the intelligentsia, indicates deep cultural, social, and political undercurrents. For Federici, this fact indicates that “there can be no doubt … that the witch-hunt was a major political initiative” as opposed to a religious or theological initiative. She does not minimize the role of the church in the witch-hunts, but points out that “at its peak, the secular courts conducted most of the trials, while in the areas where the Inquisition operated (Italy and Spain) the number of executions remained comparatively low.”

In addition, it seems to me that the very division between political power and religious power is a blurry one. I’m not sure this distinction is so easy to make, though Federici’s point about the political nature of the witch hunts is well-taken.

To further illustrate her point that the witch-hunts were more political than religious, Federici writes that

both Catholic and Protestant nations, at war against each other in every other respect, joined arms and shared arguments to persecute witches. Thus, it is no exaggeration to claim that the witch-hunt was the first unifying terrain in the politics of the new European nation-states, the first example, after the schism brought about by the Reformation, of a European unification. For, crossing all boundaries, the witch-hunt spread from France and Italy to Germany, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Sweden.

It is no accident that this same period in history saw the dawn of capitalism and the brutalities of primitive accumulation and enclosure. The populace had to be controlled, subdued by fear or terror, and shown what it is necessary for them to do in order to survive. Federici concludes that

If we consider the historical context in which the witch-hunt occurred, the gender and class of the accused, and the effects of the persecution, then we must conclude that witch-hunting in Europe was an attack on women’s resistance to the spread of capitalist relations and the power that women had gained by virtue of their sexuality, their control over reproduction, and their ability to heal.

Many people will read this and dismiss it as more propaganda. But the facts are there; untold thousands of people were tortured and murdered, vast tracts of land changed hands in terms of property, and “a new patriarchal order where women’s bodies, their labor, their sexual and reproductive powers were placed under the control of the state and transformed into economic resources.”

Popular control through fear will not be unfamiliar to those of us who pay attention to the rhetoric of the BuShites. Fear and Uncertainty are sowed into the popular consciousness, fear of Things With Scary Names: Witches. Today’s Witches are of course Terrorists. In both cases, precise definitions of what qualifies one as a witch/terrorist are murky and ambiguous. The laws shifted then, as they have today, to make it easier for the authorities to prosecute witches:

That the charges in the trials often referred to events that had occured decades earlier, that witchcraft was made a crimen exceptum, that is, a crime to be investigated by special means, torture included, and it was punishable even in the absence of any proven damage to persons and things — all these factors indicate that the target of the witch-hunt — (as it is often true with political repression in times of intense social change and conflict) — were not socially recognized crimes, but previously accepted practices and groups of individuals that had to be eradicated from the community, through terror and criminalization. In this sense, the charge of witchcraft performed a function similar to that performed by … the charge of “terrorism” in our times. The very vagueness of the charge — the fact that it was impossible to prove it, while at the same time it evoked the maximum of horror — meant that it could be used to punish any form of protest and to generate suspicion even towards the most ordinary aspects of daily life.

So apart from the resonance of that time with our own time, these insights give me a deeper understanding of the political machinations at work in general. It is oversimplistic to say “it’s capitalism’s fault” or “it’s the Church’s fault” or anything else; but there can be no doubt that power relations are at work, and those with power will always move toward attempts to increase power, and attempts of one group to increase power usually means reducing the power of the other group.

One must remember that the Witch Hunts were concurrent with the enclosure movements, where thousands of peasants were displaced from common lands and forced to enter the money economy as wageslaves in the birth of our glorified capitalist economy. It was a violent time; repression was systematic. And in every repressive state, there is an archetype of fear brought into the foreground to blame it all on. People were taught to fear the witches, and even more tragically, people were taught to fear being a witch.