how to deliberately avoid thinking things through, or convenience morality

A conversation with Pete this afternoon crystallised an unease I have felt for the last year and a half since I started ripping off large quantities of music for my MP3 collection. Pete has a much clearer moral code in the area than my flaccid, improvised convention. Mine goes something like this: I'll listen to everything and if (a) I really like and album and (b) the artist is still alive and (c) they're not already rich and famous then maybe I'll get round to buying it too, because more obscure living artists need support and don't need the likes of me to rip them off. Unfortunately that only works on the occasions when I actually get round to it. And I treat the vast area of music which falls outside these restrictive categories without compunction, partly legitimised by a dimly-perceived (be me) crypto-communism which seems to float around the area of illegal downloads - you know the sort of thing: the record companies take all the profits anyway and the corporations have hijacked the DIY ethic of file sharing, and isn't it terrible that they're brainwashing kids with copyright lessons in schools etc etc - so why contribute to the perpetuation of a corrupt economic and political system? Well I don't really follow, or know all the facts, but hey, it's good enough to get me out of actually paying for anything - a sort of "from each according to his whims, to each according to his desires" approach. Then there's the thought that I work in music, so it's kind of a fair-enough perk of the job to get my grubby hands on it (whether or not I review it, and I haven't reviewed anything for months).

So what should I do? If I delete the whole lot, I'll lose a lot of good babysitter music. And my wife will kill me. But that makes it a more interesting moral dilemma - I am stuck between a rock and a soft place. Or I could buy all 7000-odd tracks - but that would set me back, er, about 7000-odd pounds. But now that I'm a father I have to start taking my moral responsibilities seriously, or I will either start giving out bad advice or turn into a hypocrite.

nice of them to wait for me

not being sufficiently passionate (but more than mildly interested) about the English team's labours in the World Cup, I decided to cycle home through a quiet city to my three-week old son rather than stick around in front of a big screen at work to watch England v Trinidad and Tobago. Imagine my gratification, then, when not only did I get home to discover that nothing had happened by the 80th minute, but both of the goals were scored while I was watching the last 10. I feel slightly in tune with the cosmos.

more good babysitting music

Susanne Abbuehl and Stravinsky (Agon) were both pretty effective this week. Agon settled him down a couple of evenings ago, and Abbuehl's "Compass" kept him sweet all Wednesday morning on a continuous loop. I was pretty tranquil with it too I must say.

good conversation

I love carrying the little man around in the sling and chatting to him. Now that I have him do I need a blog? Though the kind of things we end up talking about are a little different from the standard fare of the blogsphere (if such a thing exists) so perhaps I can sustain both monologues in parallel. and perhaps each will become more of a dialogue or conversation in time. But it's amazing how knowing your audience changes what you want to say. I think that's partly why I've always loved letter writing, and quite enjoyed reviewing, but struggled with fiction. It's all words, but words are nothing if not communication, so you need to know what you're communicating, and first of all to whom. Maybe that's why most good fiction writers start with autobiographical stuff (and sometimes stay with it - Bellow is one of my all-time favourites and I'm not the least put off by the fact that pretty much all his characters are North American Jews of East European or Russian extraction and a decidedly intellectual bent. A family friend once poured cold water on my brother's literary ambitions asking who would be interested in the life of a middle-class European; I think the question misses the point, as the deeper you explore any life the more interesting it gets (leaving aside the royal family perhaps), and it's not about exotcism or grotesquerie - not all literature is commedia del'arte, magical realism, travelogue or grand guignol, and in fact the very best stuff probably never is (much though I appreciate García Márquez, Poe etc) - but look, I'm digressing like the south circular so I'll close the parenthesis now).

Anyway, Ben is a good audience and today as we walked under burning sun through the back streets of East Dulwich hunting down formula milk we strayed from memories of hot days in other countries through the geometric nature of experience of the passage of time, through the search for completeness in life, intimations of ultimate reality, faith and beauty. Since he's barely two weeks old some of the vocabulary may be a bit of a stretch but I like to think that in years to come he will dream a memory of our conversations and wake up with knowledge or ideas that seem to come from nowhere (and perhaps make very little sense).

babysitter music

Been a long time.... but had my hands full with the arrival of a new human being in our lives. It's striking just how much getting used to the simple business of being alive seems to take - that's leaving aside the mechanics of eating, sleeping and everything in between. Shouldn't be surprising, but of course if everything in the world is new you're going to be a little overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed when the sun comes out.

Anyway, just thought it was worth mentioning that one thing that seems to help smooth the existentially ruffled feathers of the wee ex-embryo is music. Most sound of any kind is better than nothing (especially for getting to sleep to) but we are slowly figuring out exactly what music floats his little boat. So far John Cage (preferably in live performance, however ropy, by his dad) and Youssou N'Dour (Egypt) seem to soothe the savage breast.