A semi-regular roundup of interesting blogposts and other ephemera.
Owen Hatherley is annoyed by the view of “Nazism essentially as a continuation of German modernism” and the casual slurs against Kraftwerk and other Krautrock bands with an interest in futurism as cryptonazist.
Kpunk’s follow-up.
The ghost fleet of the recession off the coast of Singapore, though it can also been seen closer to home, near Rotterdam. Hundreds of empty ships waiting for better time and higher freight tariffs.
The A-Z of socialism.
Via Louis Proyect comes the 1973 film “Distant Thunder” by Satyajit Ray, about the effects of the 1943 Bengali famine on one village caught in it:
It is the work of a director who has learned the value of narrative economy to such an extent that “Distant Thunder,” which is set against the backdrop of the “manmade” famine that wiped out 5 million people in 1943, has the simplicity of a fable.
Though its field of vision is narrow, more or less confined to the social awakening of a young village Brahmin and his pretty, naive wife, the sweep of the film is so vast that, at the end, you feel as if you’d witnessed the events from a satellite. You’ve somehow been able to see simultaneously the curvature of the earth and the insects on the blades of field grass.
The Bengal famine is one of the dirty little secrets of World War II, as millions of people starved yet part of their harvests were used to feed British soldiers.