Issue #1 : Cynicism

This issue’s featured piece of music is:
 Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
And the featured recording is by:
The Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood.

As a nation – fountainhead of the modern species - we’re spoiled; impatient; uncharitable and utterly self-obsessed. To the point of rabid, self-righteous myopia. Soundbites, rants, columns, articles, entire books are devoted to fierce, hysterical, ‘hilarious’ raging against everything that’s wrong in our contemporary lives: from getting stuck behind caravans on county roads to impertinent chefs on TV to public transport and immigration – we despise all of it, and with a passion previously reserved for actual bad things such as for example war, fascism, and teabags in the shape of a pyramid (you see how easy it is?). And he (or she) that can most vituperatively vocalize our collective outrage at the fundamental horror of early 21st century Western existence stands to make the biggest impression; be most rewarded for his or her relentlessly misanthropic observations. Empathize with my daily catalogue of horrors! This is easier than trying to think for ourselves, so we tend to just snicker along with it. Sat-nav that sends you down the wrong street. 

But if we can bear to tear our eyes, briefly, from our navels, our lives have never been easier or more pleasant (Baghdadi Bitterest Pill readers – I
apologise for this particular section). For example, here’s what has happened in my day thus far:

- I clothed myself. My clothes were cheap, as clothes are cheap, especially if you buy them second-hand which, due to the proliferation of charity shops in
this country, we have a unique opportunity to do. By the way my house was warm; I didn’t have to light any fires, my Bulgarian maid did that for me.

- I ate breakfast and the food I ate – organic or whatever - was not costly.

- I looked on the internet and did some emails. (Do not underestimate the fundamental amazingness of contemporary communications!)

- It snowed (my eight month-old son looked at the snow and was impressed; a particularly affordable transaction. I am aware, however, that due to global
warming etc, this sort of thing won’t be happening all that much in the future - which will save on both heating and snow-ploughing bills until we all drown).

- I caught a train; the train staggered through the leaves and various line franchises and took me to my destination on time or roughly thereabouts.

- I made some calls and sent some text messages on my mobile telephone, which is tiny and light and cheap and has approximately 300 photographs of my eight
month-old son on it (you know, for long journeys and in case anybody is foolish enough to ask to see a picture of him – I’m prepared).

- On the train I listened to a recording of some 18th century music and was actually moved to tears by it. The CD – a recording of Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat
Mater’ - cost a pittance and has a nice picture (funnily enough of an angel) on the front and sleeve notes that make me feel drowsy. This single, snappy piece
of music has the power to raise your consciousness to the level of the circumference of the St Paul’s Cathedral dome, all splintered by golden, gauzy
shards of late afternoon sunlight and… gauze, to… stop you falling, or jumping, or being shoved in your reverie, off the balcony. It’s so gorgeously self-
contained and just complete as to be one of the most fundamentally Zen things your ears will ever stumble across. Plus it’s only four-and-a-half minutes long.

- Just to wrap this section up now, I then met someone and had a meeting and then came home again and all of this went alright, I didn’t get stuck behind any caravans. Had I though, I would undoubtedly have been delighted.

It’s funnier to be negative. It’s easier to be negative. We’re so overwhelmed by options of perspective that yeah, sure, everything is shit if that’s the way you
want to look at life. My point is that there’s a bigger picture – and that picture is full of joy and rapture and appreciation of the sheer luxurious,
kaleidoscopic simplicity of our Western lives, and that this might be set into a little rhapsodic relief through a modest prescription of extremely old-fashioned
music; available free of charge through this very newsletter/column/annoying piece-of-shiatsu email that you’ve probably already deleted.

The next issue’s featured music is a little longer (11 minutes) and more overtly psychedelic and has the potential to wrench your head clean off, like Scanners in a cowl with a rope tied round your waist. Ah, men.

Junk mail though, eh?