Momus: Open Universities (YouTube)

[lazyhour]

I personally have no problem with either
Or

I think it's simplistic to equate this with right wing 'all lives matter' bollocks. The LGBTQ quote does seem to be a bit deliberately provocative though.

Don't you have to take what people say as a whole, though? He was explicitly challenged that minority people deserve support precisely because they are vulnerable in our society, and he doubled down on his much more generalised point. Yes of course in a perfect world we'd all just be wonderfully equal, but it's gonna take some corrective work to get there, right?

[mippy]

Was friends with someone in the mid-00s who went out with him and apparently he was a massive prick - can't remember exact details as to why other than it really fucked with her head for a while, but she would have been about half his age so not surprised he married a teenage fan.

[Vodkafone]

Don't you have to take what people say as a whole, though? He was explicitly challenged that minority people deserve support precisely because they are vulnerable in our society, and he doubled down on his much more generalised point. Yes of course in a perfect world we'd all just be wonderfully equal, but it's gonna take some corrective work to get there, right?

Sure, and my comment was based on a cursory scan of his views so do slap my chops if I've missed something, but I think that:

• if you're only aiming to describe how people experience the world, then intersectionality does an adequate job
• if you want to change how the world is, you have to abandon a certain amount of intersectionality and find a way of uniting people, otherwise any opposition to the status quo fragments into a delta of small causes. In microcosm, imagine a workplace wage dispute where your demands are a 5% increase for the straight white men, 7% for the straight white women, 8% for the bi white women etc. and all the wrangles over who should get what depending on their relative index of oppression. It would get nowhere

[lazyhour]

Fortunately, nobody is demanding that!

Last I checked, the ultimate goal for minorities of all kinds is the same... equality with their fellow humans.

[Mobbd]

Yeah, I'm with lazyhour on this one.

Momus is right that rights should be universal and on paper they often are. But in practice they're not. And even on paper they often aren't. It used to be illegal in the UK to be gay. Within living memory! And still there are so-called conversion therapies, which should obviously be banned. And employment laws can protect against prejudice and favouritism. Specialist movements are unfortunately necessary for the common good as well as for the minority groups themselves and have enjoyed demonstrable success. That's what Momus is (perhaps disingenuously to court controversy for fun and attention, I'm not sure) overlooking.

[convulsivespace]

Not familiar with this guy, but if the statements on the previous page are all he's said I feel like you're reading him in bad faith to suggest he's somehow against equality or LGBT rights.

Seems like a better illustration of what he's getting at (whether you agree with his framing or not) would be TERFs or gay activists who don't want trans people to be part of "their" movement

[buzby]

The reason he had to do that album paid for by fans donations to his legal fund was because he was sued by Wendy Carlos over his jovial ditty 'Walter Carlos', in which he postulated that if time travel was invented, Carlos could go back in time and marry her past self.

He's always come across to me as someone who thinks he's cleverer than he really is. Some of his old blog entries are laughably pretentious, such as diary entries where he refers to himself in the third person or the defensive critiques of Nathan Barley.

There's also the Livejournal entry about visiting an onsen where he postulates on the percentage sexiness of clothed vs. unclothed 5 year old girls, and when taken to task about it in the comments then defends it by saying one of the refreshing things about Japanese culture is it's acceptance that chilren can be seen as sexy.

[Mobbd]

There's also the Livejournal entry about visiting an onsen where he postulates on the percentage sexiness of clothed vs. unclothed 5 year old girls, and when taken to task about it in the comments then defends it by saying one of the refreshing things about Japanese culture is it's acceptance that chilren can be seen as sexy.

Jesus, I'd never seen that before. Urgh.

I think he's being an edgelord and a prick there rather than an actual nonce (and certainly not an abuser) but I don't like it.

The comments are interesting. So few people take him to task, but the main guy who does so is completely right and talks in a very 2024 way for 2006. Rhodri Marsden's involvement is typically vapid and self-obsessed. Momus' defence is pathetic at first but his later point about cultural relativity is food for thought (but still coming from the perspective of justifying his grossness of course).

[kngen]

There's also the Livejournal entry about visiting an onsen where he postulates on the percentage sexiness of clothed vs. unclothed 5 year old girls, and when taken to task about it in the comments then defends it by saying one of the refreshing things about Japanese culture is it's acceptance that chilren can be seen as sexy.

Always thought he was a wrong 'un after a review of one of his early records flagged up the lyrics to The Guitar Lesson as being a bit rum.

Spoiler alert

The pupil is twelve, attractive, withdrawn
In a midnight blue school uniform
Lips just a little too full for her face
Distant eyes full of space
In her posture no trace of coquette
No defiance
She fingers the frets looking forlorn
Crossing her legs where her tights have been torn
Starts as her mother comes into the room
And the afternoon grows still
And her mother feels chill
Shivers and buttons her coat
I gently correct the curve of her back
And open her book in the now-empty flat
At the classical piece I've had her prepare
And her arms are bare as she plays
And I draw back behind her ear
A few strands of hair gone astray
She shows me her bracelet, the lesson is done
I turn it around between finger and thumb
We sit face to face and it seems to me that
Her face is the face of a cat
And touching the place where her breasts will be
I press my hand flat
She comes into my lap, I turn her around
Her hands clasp my neck and her feet skim the ground
Her skirt travels up under my palm
But the pupil sits looking so calm
As if listening to the distant sound
Of a burglar alarm
What happened next it's hard to recall
The guitar lesson left no traces at all
Now, from afar, it seems to resemble
A strange composition in oil
Of a man, a guitar, and an innocent little girl

[close]

Momus, mo' problems (with noncehunters)

[boki]

I think that's probably spot-on.

Which ones? Happy? That one is basically a vlog and a departure from his usual format. His most recent videos (from around episode 180 or so) are far more vlog-like as well, something he explained/reflected on two or three episodes ago - can't remember which one. The lecture format is from the beginning when he was in Osaka: and they're informal, improvised lectures. Usually just riffing on a theme. A good recent-ish one and a return to form imho was Superlegitimacy:

NGL, those trousers have instantly made me take against him.

[Indomitable Spirit]

some articles from the time he married a vulnerable teenager for those still sat on the fence about this cunt being a weapons grade nonce

Tl:dr - 14 year old girl strikes up "friendship" with a 30 year old musician. Parents get wind, brick it and ship her off Bangladesh for an arranged marriage. Brave tender pervert saves her from arranged marriage by flying her back to Scotland and and arranging to marry her himself.

Below quote from the Daily Record article pretty much sums it up though

Shazna said: "I was only 14 and I had a crush on a boy who was a fan of Nick's music.

"But the relationship never got off the ground and I wrote a letter to Nick telling him. It was a kind of agony aunt letter.

"He wrote a very nice letter back to me and said that we should meet some time and talk.

The articles are worth reading though if you like recountings of clear child sexual coercion retold in the style of Mills & Boon.

There's also a transcription of Select article were Del Amitri's cousin discusses a fun intellectual experiment he carried out on his then teenage girlfriend (she told him to do it so it's fine)

I hit my girlfriend the other day, but only because she was telling me to do it as a kind of experiment to see if I could overcome my wimpy liberalism and become a manly, masterful type. I'm really not like that. I quite enjoyed it which is really sick. I enjoyed the feeling of leaving my civilised self behind a little bit. My girlfriend just laughed - it wasn't at all hard.

Get massive Russell Brand vibes off this weirdo. Dazzle people with some pseudy claptrap and slyly wink at how much of a rotter you are and hope people give you the benefit of the doubt. AND IT WORKS!

[Gurke and Hare]

Yeah, cut this fucker's balls off.

[mippy]

"But then I get on a tube train and suddenly it fills up with all these ugly people and I think, what are all these ugly people doing and then I realise it's a football crowd. And they all have an IQ of about 80. I hate to point this out, but the bulk of football fans are stupid . They can't help it. . . they're the spawn of the industrial revolution. . . I'm going to sound like an awful geneticist, but there's a lot of poor genetic stock around and we have to filter it and we have to interbreed so we get better and higher genetic stock."

[Senior Baiano]

I agree with you, but this isn't the football thread

[Mobbd]

I like the part in the latest episode where he talks about his anorak appreciation for sequential formats, e.g. magazines and book series with a variations on a particular theme. This kicks in at 10:50 but skip to that point and you miss some lovely archive footage of people shopping on London's groovy Kings Road in the '70s.

He speaks later about hauntlogical flavours and how they're not quite designed to evoke nostalgic feelings but to produce alienation. Great stuff, yet all easy-going and off the top of the head.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I still think Momus is a twat tbh