Latest news with #JimMorrison
Daily Maverick
7 days ago
- General
- Daily Maverick
Unlocking the power of words: How writing shapes equality and activism in society
In the past few years, writers have been liberated from traditional publishers with the advent of platforms like Substack, and there's been a mushrooming of individual newsletters. But could it be that paradoxically the explosion in the production and accessibility of writing has led to an implosion in reading for meaning? ' Words got me the wound and will make me well — if you believe it ' Jim Morrison, Lament, An American Prayer 'Sticks and stones may break my bones But words can never hurt me' (Bombs and drones may break your bones… ) Colloquial saying For most of human history writing and reading has been a squarely elite affair. For centuries it was intricately bound up with power and privilege. Only a few people were taught the art of word-fare, and access to the repositories of history, thought and ideation that were stored in writing was strictly controlled. As usual, it took a combination of struggle by poor people — and the growing needs of the capitalist economy for literate workers by the late nineteenth century — to break the rulers' monopolisation of the written word. Once that happened though, education facilitated mass literacy that in turn opened the door for poor people to greater equality and upward mobility through the classes. Not many made it, but enough did to trick people like my father into believing that the key to a good life was getting an education and working hard, 'pulling up your boot straps', as he and others frame it. If only it were that simple. Nonetheless, while the expansion of public education eventually meant that most people learned to read, not everyone could write and be read; for the most part, the ability to publish was still tightly controlled by class and quality of education. When there were breakthrough texts, like Thomas Paine's 1791 The Rights of Man, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), or Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto, the huge readership they garnered demonstrated the revolutionary potential of the written word. But these books were the exception, not the rule. For the most part the publishing of words remained tightly controlled — mostly by men. It wasn't just political words they were afraid of. Words were also used to censor morals and shape culture, often protecting the dominant views of sex and sexuality. Books such as English writer DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's L over were considered 'indecent' and became the subject of court cases. In addition, as Pip Williams has shown in her beautiful novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, certain words were deliberately left out of the dictionary if their meanings reflected people or subjects that the elites preferred did not exist. In democracies slowly that grip has been relaxed. Today in countries like South Africa or England we can still write almost anything. But in autocracies the control over words and writing is as tight as ever. To an extent the digital and communications revolution of the last few decades has subverted all that. Through social media and online publications, millions more people can write and reach an audience, potentially in millions. Indeed, sometimes it feels as if suddenly everyone is writing. Even accomplished novelists, historians and writers of non-fiction now have their own newsletters. In the last few years, writers have been liberated from traditional publishers with the advent of platforms like Substack, and there's been a mushrooming of individual newsletters, including my own News from JAH. Many of them are outstanding. But here's the rub. Could it be that paradoxically the explosion in the production and accessibility of writing has led to an implosion in reading for meaning? Daily Maverick, for example, publishes dozens of 'Opinionistas' and op-eds a week. But its own statistics show that the average attention span on a page in 2020 was 12 seconds, only a few seconds more than the attention span of a goldfish. So, the problem is do people read for meaning, or do they just — like I often do — first cast an eye over an article, think they get the gist of it and move on? In this context the challenge facing a writer, a person who wants to use writing to persuade others, who wants to use writing for connection, advocacy and engagement is… how do you write in a way that arrests people's attention? How do you write for reading? For social justice activists it is these questions that occasion the need to have a discussion about the obvious: how to write in order to be read! Where do we start? Respect the written word Words are powerful. They must be handled with care. They can carry love. And hate. They can liberate and they can imprison. They can betray. They can hide and reveal. In her book Black and Female, Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga describes her childhood encounters with words and puts it this way: 'Watching the adults around me I developed an intuitive idea that words were power. After adults spoke to each other, things happened… I realised I was powerless which meant I needed power, which in turn meant I needed words. With words I could do things. I could make good what was no more.' Book cover: Faber & Faber The infinite beauty of words Isn't it amazing to think that words will never run out? Words seem to be as infinite as the stars. Words offer limitless forms, vocabulary and meaning. New words are being born all the time, and every year a handful enter into common enough usage to get added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). In 2022 more than 650 new words, senses and sub-entries were added to the OED in its annual update, including ' trequartista, influencer, and side hustle '. There's even a process by which words gain recognition and a right of entry! But, like black stars, some words are also disappearing. Then there are archaic words that may have been discarded, which find their way back to life by myriad means. Words are the building blocks of meaning. But in addition there are limitless styles, genres and methods for delivering words: whispered or shouted, through poetry, on the page, as part of musical scores. I'm a firm believer in respect for grammatical rules, which is partly showing respect for the reader: but I'm also an anarchist when it comes to disrupting and reimagining styles. Connection is all. The bottom line: as a writer, the word's your oyster. Writing as considered communication We write primarily to communicate with other people, but how we write will vary enormously depending on who we think we are writing to and for. Once upon a time one of the most popular and private forms of writing was letters. For years, at boarding school, every Sunday my school mates and I were made to sit down for an hour and write letters to our parents. As I grew up, my repertoire of recipients expanded to girlfriends and later lovers. Today, I sometimes think of the articles I write as letters, a way of reaching out to unknown people, seeking affinity, hopefully touching hearts and minds, persuading. But in addition to writing for/to another person I have discovered that writing is also the best way to achieve concentrated and deep thinking; it's a way to shape your own thoughts, corral information and tease out meaning from the experiences and ideas you are trying to capture and explain in words. In her book The Purpose of Power, Alicia Garza, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, writes: ' When I write I want to accomplish an outcome… For me, writing is a spiritual practice. It is a purging, a renewal, a call to action that I am unable to defy. It is the way I learned to communicate when there seemed to be no other options.' In this respect, the lonely act of writing becomes a form of self-realisation, a way of learning, of forming and shaping your own opinions, hopefully sometimes changing your own mind, as you bring intense thought to bear on trying to put an idea or a feeling or an observation into words. It's a way of staying human. The art of writing I had the privilege of learning about the beauty of words and their power through having inspirational English teachers at school and studying English language and literature as an undergraduate at Oxford University. Studying literature, however, taught me more about the feeling of words, than how to construct them for readers! Writing arduous essays about every book written between Beowulf in the ninth century and Samuel Beckett in the twentieth also taught me how to really read texts closely to try to understand their meaning. There's a difference, however, between being able to read for meaning and write with meaning. You should never rub your personality out of your writing. How you write should be a part of your personality, like the color of your eyes. It's instinctive. Nonetheless, there are a number of guidelines to consider if you aspire to effective public writing. Let me try and unpack a few that help me. Interestingly, as it turned out, it was not the study of literature (the most refined form of writing) that taught me how to write, but the study of law. For a few years, in the late 1980s while South Africa was in the final throes of rebellion against apartheid, I wrote for an underground journal, Inqaba Ya Basebenzi (meaning the Worker's Fortress in isiZulu), under the strict editorship of Rob Petersen, a distinguished legal and political thinker. Petersen had gone into exile to establish the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC. Back in those days words and writing in South Africa were much more subversive. Publications, songs and even books of poetry were banned by the apartheid government because of their power to inflame resistance. In defiance of this, Steve Biko's collection of essays was titled I Write What I Like. Biko wrote under the pseudonym Frank Talk. Petersen was a disciplinarian with words, although often more with the intention to exclude meanings and misinterpretations, than to expand the power and possibility of the word. Revolutionary politics required precision of meaning. The Marxist world was an ideological one and because politics was seen as a science rather than an art form the purpose of words was formulaic, that is to form equations of meaning. A wrong word could give you a wrong meaning! That I think is the nature of legal writing as well. However, being under Petersen's cosh taught me two rules of more general application to writing: Firstly, that no word should ever be superfluous. Every word has a role, and therefore every word in every sentence needs to be examined and questioned. Secondly, the reader of a journalistic article, and even an essay, will always be assisted by finding that there is a logic and structure to an article. The article needs to build a case, to progress, and not to require acrobatics or high jumps from the reader. Don't lead them into a forest of abstraction. Don't think of an article as being about you and how clever you are. I learned that the hard way. After being given a subject to research and write about for an article I would often get carried away in the process. Because I was learning through writing, my articles would be full of what I thought to be extraordinary epiphanies. Thinking and connecting ideas is exciting. But what I thought were new ideas may have been new and exciting to me, but not necessarily to other people. The editorial board meetings of Inqaba Ya Basebenzi were jokingly called the abattoir. Days would be spent pouring over sentences and even words. 'The writer must be prepared to slaughter your favourite sentences,' said Petersen, and though it hurt like hell, he was usually right. You can get fixated on a few words or sentences and then find that they unwittingly impede the further flow of the article. But my years studying great literature were far from wasted. As well as writing to convey meanings, a good writer also has a feeling for words. You may not realise it, but words have rhythm and a relationship to each other that adds another layer to their meaning. Reading Shakespeare, or any great writer, can teach you that. Writing is like lovemaking. It should start with some foreplay. My advice is to always look for poetry, even in prose writing. Look for the poetry that flashes in politics and even injustice. Find the angle less seen and explored. When you point it out people will recognise it and realise it was there all the time. Recognition is an important part of reading. But, beware, I am not giving you an excuse for flowery, flabby when you think you have finished read what you have written. Place yourself in the shoes of the reader and ask yourself whether you would have read your article. If the answer's no, then it's back to the writing board. How not to write Unfortunately these days there's a lot of bad writing about. Many people produce bad writing for good reasons, so I bear them no grudge. The problem is that there isn't enough discussion about what we are trying to achieve when we write, and very few of us have the privilege of going on creative writing courses. English writer George Orwell fulminated against bad writing, particularly the bad writing produced by writers on the left. The withering critique he makes in his essay, Politics and the English Language, should be required reading for all social justice activists who pick up the pen. But, as if to prove his point, Orwell shows us the best of writing from his own pen, as well as its power. A beautiful homily to the Common English toad can be turned into a powerful political statement: 'So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, Spring is still Spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.' Orwell's criticisms resonate with the feelings I had for some of the op-eds I used to receive for publication when I was the editor of Maverick Citizen, a section of the Daily Maverick that we had established as a kind of activists' corner. Our journalists tried to tell stories about activists and activism, but we also created a platform to publish opinion pieces. Unfortunately I found that often the articles that came from political activists were dense and dry, jargonistic, didactic and hectoring and poorly structured. Sometimes their authors seem more concerned with their own political correctness, than with reaching out to and engaging with an unknown reader. As a result, one of my pieces of advice to writers is to carefully read back over what you have read, as if you were the reader. Detach yourself from your article, read it through someone else's eyes and then ask whether you would have stayed with it from start to finish. If at first you didn't succeed, get back on the computer and try again! And remember, even the most accomplished writers find writing hard. DM
CTV News
7 days ago
- General
- CTV News
22 city parks are being naturalized
Windsor is naturalizing some parks in the area, letting the grass grow long. CTV Windsor's Bob Bellacicco finds out why. The city has not cut grass in 22 parks, moving to naturalize some areas. 'Most people don't like it,' Coun. Jim Morrison admitted when talking about the reaction from residents in his ward. 'No, a lot of us don't agree with this,' Wynne Elliott told CTV News. 'I think they should have consulted with us for sure, asked if that area of the park is used, you know. It is used and now we can't use it.' Jazmine Hulett said the naturalized area looks pretty, for now, but creates unease when playing with her son. 'When the balls go over there, the kids are running over there (to the uncut area). My 19-month-old, he's been in between that and I'm like, 'No, I don't want you over there because of the ticks,'' she said. Many like the idea of naturalizing, but don't feel Remington Park should have been chosen, because it takes space away from kids who play there. 'We looked at an underutilized portion of the park that wasn't seeing a lot of activity or use and have begun naturalizing that portion,' said James Chacko, executive director of Park and Facilities. According to Chacko, the city is going through a trial-and-error process as there are different ways of naturalizing them. They are going to cut along the fence lines and ensure access to the parks through the naturalized areas. Morrison said he likes the benefits naturalizing brings, but also wants to make it easy for kids to walk through the field to get to school. 'It encourages pollinators. It takes care of water better. It's good for the air quality in the city,' said Morrison. Chacko encourages residents to let the process play out before passing judgement, 'It's going to, long term, set up what you see at many other parks that have naturalized environments, whether you go to Malden Park or Blue Heron or Ojibway Prairie Complex.' Chacko said those parks offer interaction between the maintained areas, trails, and the natural environment. Paul Fram lives next to one of the park entrances and has enjoyed seeing butterflies and the colours nature has offered in the field over the past couple of months. 'I've noticed that they're small swallow tails (butterflies) and eventually the monarchs (birds) are going to start coming again. We've seen bumblebees all over the place,' Fram said. 'Leave it alone, you know, like trim along the edges, cut half the field but this part doesn't need to be touched right now.' The city says not all 22 parks are perfect right now. If you have any issues like unfinished trails or unkept naturalized areas that abut your property, you are encouraged to call 311 to let the city know.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary Doors Guitarist, 79, Reveals Who Could've Replaced Jim Morrison
Legendary Doors Guitarist, 79, Reveals Who Could've Replaced Jim Morrison originally appeared on Parade. Even decades later, it's hard to picture anyone but Jim Morrison fronting The Doors, but after his death, the band seriously considered some iconic replacements. During an episode of The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan, Doors guitarist Robby Krieger revealed which names were top contenders to replace Morrison, who died of congestive heart failure on July 3, 1971. He was 27 years old at the time. 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 'What happened was, after the two albums, we decided, 'Hey, maybe we should find a singer.' So, we talked about Paul McCartney, of course, and Bob Dylan,' Krieger, 79, recalled during the interview released on Wednesday, June 4. 'I saw Iggy Pop somewhere,' Corgan, 58, chimed in. 'Iggy Pop, yeah. But then we, for some reason, decided to go to Europe. 'Let's go to Europe and find someone over there.' You know, that'll be different,' Krieger continued. 'Sounds very '70s. 'Let's go to Europe and find a singer,'' Corgan laughed. 'So, we did. We went over there. Pretty much moved our whole families over there to London, and we were trying this guy and that guy. We didn't really get very far before Ray kind of blew the whole thing off,' Krieger added, referring to Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Krieger went on to explain that Manzarek's wife, Dorothy, was pregnant at the time and not doing well mentally. 'So at that point, it was, 'OK, The Doors are over.'' Krieger concluded. 'John [Densmore] and I were kind of pissed because we thought we still had some good stuff in us. You know, I think we could have been like a jazz trio. The whole idea behind going to Europe was to find another singer, but we never really got close to finding a singer.' Legendary Doors Guitarist, 79, Reveals Who Could've Replaced Jim Morrison first appeared on Parade on Jun 4, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 4, 2025, where it first appeared.
CBS News
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
"Break on Through": How The Doors began
"Break on Through": How The Doors began "Break on Through": How The Doors began "Break on Through": How The Doors began In 1967, this video introduced a new American band: The Doors, who would quickly light the music world on fire, with a sound hypnotic, mystical, and almost menacing: You know the day destroys the night Night divides the day Tried to run, tried to hide Break on through to the other side Break on through to the other side Break on through to the other side, yeah They came together 60 years ago in Venice, California: Jim Morrison, a poet in leather pants, backed by Ray Manzarek on keys, Robby Krieger on guitar, and John Densmore on drums. The Doors soon got their break, in May of '66, at London Fog, a tiny nightclub on the Sunset Strip. It's now a barber shop. "Oh, I need a haircut," laughed Densmore on a recent return visit. The barber shop's owner, Chad Oringer, an avid Doors fan, asked for a photo with Densmore and Krieger, the band's last surviving members. The Doors (from left, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore) pose for a portrait in Los Angeles, c. 1966. MichaelThe Doors were fired by London Fog, but quickly got another gig just a few doors down Sunset, at the Whisky a Go Go. Playing there, said Krieger, was "the biggest deal in town." "It was Mecca," Densmore added. The room isn't much different from what it was back then. "The stage is lower," Densmore said. People would dance in front of the stage. "And they would just all be down there writhing around. Very inspirational!" he laughed. He described the improvisational attitude of the band: "Ray handed me a crumpled piece of paper and it said, 'Day destroys the night. Night divides the day. Try to run. Try to hide … Break on through.'" Morrison had never sung lead before, and Densmore wasn't sure about him at first: "He was so shy, it was ridiculous. And I thought, 'This is not the next Mick Jagger! But I love playing music, so I'll fool around here.'" I asked, "Why did you have confidence the band would work if he was so inexperienced as a singer?" "It was the words," Krieger said. "They were so different than anything that was out there." "Gifted," said Densmore. "'Let's swim to the moon. Let's climb through the tide… ' A psychedelic love song. Wow!" Correspondent Anthony Mason with John Densmore and Robby Krieger, back on stage at the Whisky a Go Go, where The Doors played in 1966. CBS News In 1967, Los Angeles DJ Dave Diamond began playing their records on his show, "The Diamond Mine." Krieger said, "And he would call us all the time and say, 'Hey, man. Every time I play 'Light My Fire,' people go nuts!'" "Light My Fire," written by Krieger, went to #1. But Morrison's troubles with alcohol and drugs were already apparent. Densmore said, "At first I remember we talked about, 'Oh, he's an Irish drunk. He'll live forever. But deep down, maybe he's just a shooting star that'll be a quick impact.'" "You knew that right away?" I asked. "Kinda sensed it." "Was that hard to accept?" "Yeah," Densmore said. "I mean, we miss his artistry like crazy. We don't miss his self-destruction." After Morrison's sudden death in Paris in 1971 at age 27, Densmore and Krieger didn't always agree with Manzarek about the band's legacy. "At times, I felt he was selling The Doors too much. It's for the critics to do that," Densmore said. Krieger said, "He would try to spread the rumor Jim's not really dead." Why? "He loved the mythology," Densmore replied. "He lived for The Doors," said Krieger. "I mean, that was his whole life, you know? And he didn't want it to be over." Genesis Publications Manzarek died in 2013. The band's 60th anniversary is celebrated in a new book "Night Divides the Day." To the end, The Doors were an improvisational group. One of their best-known songs grew out of another tune they were jamming on in a session. "We were goofing around," said Densmore, and "Ghost Riders in the Sky" morphed into "Riders on the Storm." It would be Morrison's final recording. At the Whisky a Go Go every month, Krieger (now 79) has been playing a Doors album in its entirety. Densmore (80) recently sat in on drums. "Well, these two geezers are still breathing," Densmore laughed. "Keith and Mick are 80 and they're out there pumpin'. There's other roads!" Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (on drums) perform The Doors album "L.A. Woman" at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood. CBS News For more info: Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Joseph Frandino. See also:
CBC
04-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Some think all users should feel Windsor's ice shortage crisis — not just curling
While Jim Morrison admits he's a curler himself, the Ward 10 city councillor thinks the sport shouldn't be temporarily put on the shelf for an entire season because of an ice rink shortage in Windsor. Morrison says his heart sank when he read the report heading to council next Monday. In it, municipal staff outline a plan that would see curling booted off one of the two ice pads at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation complex in the city's south end. The recommendation follows extensive damage to one ice pad at the WFCU Centre from a late April solar panel fire on the facility's roof. That rink will be closed for at least 10 months, meaning less ice for all user groups — including the likes of Riverside Minor Hockey Association and Riverside Skating Club. A trickle down effect of users and rinks would see the curling ice at Capri reconverted back to use for skating sports. It was just last year curlers were ousted from their longtime home at Roseland Golf Club. "It's a shock," said Morrison, to Windsor Morning host Amy Dodge on Tuesday. "They've gone through a whole bunch of changes and uncertainties and everything else. I'm certainly very sympathetic … it's the only place we can curl." Morrison says there has to be an answer for the curlers. "My recommendation is going to be to have a small reduction. Everybody's going to have to feel a little bit of pain here to reduce all those other groups by a little bit of ice time." According to Morrison, "It looks like to me we could run everything but with some reductions — and whether that means a longer season — we could make it up by adding a few weeks to the season or there might be few less games … maybe the games would be a little shorter." He refers to curling as one of "those fragile sports" for the Windsor-area, unsure about its long-term future should the rocks and brooms get put on the sidelines for an entire season. "We're not the hotbed of curling. We've seen reductions in the numbers over the years. A lot of people are seniors … if we take that away for a year … we'll lose a bunch. It could be a really a tough spot for curling in general." Morrison estimates there are around 300 curlers in the city with about 200 of them registered. Makeshift alternative? Terry Fink is part of a committee that's been looking to save the sport in the city for the past few years. His group is considering all of its options to save curling for the next season and not skip an entire year for the sport. One possible alternative, he says, is an idea they've heard about from their regional and national curling organization counterparts. "We understand … that there is a possibility of a carpet to be rolled out on a cement floor and hooked up to a compressor and you can have curling ice within four to five days — but you need a facility," he said. WATCH | Windsor curlers could be left homeless due to minor hockey plan: Windsor curlers could be left homeless due to minor hockey plan 1 day ago Duration 2:50 Fink says local curlers were taken off guard by the extent of the issues at the WFCU Centre and how it could trickle down to other user groups at different arenas. "Everybody felt blindsided." "No consultation before the council report was put on the agenda," he said. Fink says more than just one option should have been established before bringing it to council for a decision. "It is a crisis for everybody so we started to gather on Saturday afternoon," he said. "We were shocked, dumfounded. It felt like somebody punched you in the stomach or the nose … we didn't see it coming."
