The Blindboy Podcast - How a Volcano changed the course of Art

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

Gulches Puck.  In 1816, a Volcano erupted in Indonesia, causing a year long winter. This episode looks at how that impacted Painting and Literature Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello you Eilean Máire's. What's the crack? I am back in Limerick this week as last week I was in London recording an interview with Spike Lee and fucking hell it was a lot of crack and he absolutely loved it and that podcast that spike lee podcast that got the most listens of any podcast i've ever put out it got like i think it was like 300 000 listens fucking hell um so thank you for listening to that it was good crack so So it turns out I left a crucial part of my microphone set up in London. So I have a very unorthodox situation here with recording where I have my microphone on top of a stand and then a series of twine bale holding the microphone in place.

So hopefully the mic won't fall onto the ground and cause a deafening sound I was procrastinating a little bit there before I started recording this and how I knew I was procrastinating is because like certain

questions pop into my head that I really would have no interest in otherwise so the question that popped into my head. That I really would have no interest in otherwise. So the question that popped into my head. Like I was supposed to like sit down and go. Right I'm going to record the fucking podcast this week. And I've got a nice boiling hot take for you. This week as well.

But I was going to sit down and record it. And instead the question came into my head. I wonder what Jedward are up to. Now I never think that. You know no disrespect to Jedward. I've no bad will against him. Even though if you are a listener to this podcast, you'll remember about 20 podcasts ago,

I was on an airplane with him and the airplane nearly crashed. But, yeah, it was like in my head, I wonder what Jedward are up to. Peak procrastination. That is straight up fucking want to do anything other than the taking the responsibility to record the podcast. So I went on to Twitter going, okay, let's see what Jedward are up to. And their fucking account is deleted. Jedward's account

has been deleted from Twitter what the fuck did they do what did Jedward do to get deleted from Twitter and I can't find much information em one person suggested a conspiracy theory something to do with them talking shit

about Taylor Swift I don't know but Jedward got deleted off Twitter and they've been deleted off Twitter for about a week the fuck and then some smart aleck like I posted on Twitter I said right Jedward got deleted what did they do

because I need to know now this is beyond procrastination I need to find out like what did they do the possibilities like did they do? The possibilities like. Did they post photographs of their dicks? Or. Laughing at my own pronunciation of the word dick. Did they.

Do you know. Did they go alt right? They've got the haircuts for it. Like they've got those fashy haircuts. Did they say something bad about Jewish people, you know, are they flat earthers now, fucking hell, what did they do, I need to know, and then some smart aleck tweeted underneath to me,

and he says, who's Jedward, and then I got this kind of. This slight pang of anxiety. Do you know like when a sudden. Whim of anxiety. Rushes over your body. Because when that person said. Who is Jedward?

To my tweet that they got deleted. I had this sudden realisation. Across my body. It was like. Fuck. what if jedward were a figment of my imagination and i never existed or the other thought that my mind went into you know the anxious thought um was oh shit what what if what what if i've managed to cross over to a parallel universe, right? One of the universes in the multiverse.

What if I've crossed over to one? And the one that I've crossed over to is the parallel universe where Jedward doesn't exist. And now they exist in me as this deja vu memory of a previous universe I existed in. And I experience that as a rather sudden stab of anxiety before copping onto myself and going no that's ridiculous but uh do you know what 10 years ago that would have sent me right into a panic attack that that's the type actually that's the type of thing that that initial pang of fucking straight anxiety, you know, an incredibly irrational thought such as, what if I've drifted into a parallel universe where Jedward don't exist, and I've no way to prove it,

that would have sent me into a full-blown fucking sweaty-palm, white-faced panic attack that would have taken two hours to get out of. Luckily, that is not the case anymore. But I hope Jedward are okay, and that they're not. Holocaust deniers or anything. Do you know? So if you didn't hear.

Last week's podcast. Where I had a conversation with Spike Lee. I do suggest you go back and listen to it. Because. I think it's one of my proudest moments on the podcast. It was so much fun. And I've been been emailing Spike and keeping in contact with him um about about history and what I've been doing actually the past week I spoke about the history of the Irish Americans essentially in America and their kind of racist interactions with the African American community

and Daniel O'Connell and Frederick Douglass. But I've been doing a lot of research the past week for the benefit of sending stuff over to Spike. And I've been doing so much research on it that I'll probably do a podcast on that specifically, but not this week. I'll leave it a few more weeks to keep the themes

kind of varied and so yeah if you want to listen to the Spike Lee one it's the last podcast and it's the only podcast that has the term Spike Lee in the title because that's what I've started doing recently the first like

40 some 42 podcasts or something they had um silly kind of names each podcast had a silly name kind of not silly prose i'd call it you know words that a surreal absurd name that has um internal rhyming and a nice visual richness to it and I used to fucking love doing that but there's too many podcasts now and people are just asking me you know which podcast speaks about which specific topic and I can't answer because the names of the podcasts are ridiculous so I've had to put an end to it it's kind of like do you know like when you're about fucking 20 and you move into a house on your own with the lads

and because you're like really young you do loads of drinking so what you do is you get your cans your empty cans and your empty bottles and you like display them around the house or create a pyramid out of them

and it's loads of fun for the first couple of weeks and you've got this pyramid of empty bottles or empty beer cans but then you keep drinking and after a month there's flies everywhere, the place smells like sour drink

and it's become a problem what initially started off as fun is now a problem and you have to get a load of black sacks and remove several hundred empty beer cans from the house. That's the situation I've gotten myself into with the naming of this podcast. So I now have to unfortunately name podcasts with a title that's appropriate to the content. For my sanity and for your sanity that's it

I've gone mainstream now you cunts before I get into this week's hot take if you're wondering about live podcasts and you know my next guests and shit I really should write this shit out

before I fucking do the podcast to properly you know to know the dates of my gigs you know that'd be handy wouldn't it but alas

I haven't done that I've got a ballpark right what I can announce is there's a sold out gig in Vicar Street in Dublin

and that's sold out so the tickets are fucking gone but I can announce it's in October as well early October I can announce that my guest for this is going to be

the writer Roddy Doyle and I am looking forward to that Roddy Doyle is going to be my guest for the live podcast in Vicar Street. There is a chance. That there might be a second date. Not with Roddy Doyle. But a second Dublin date.

Close to that podcast gig. In October. So keep an eye out. If that is the case. The tickets will be going out on Monday. Myself in Vicar Street so I'll need another guest for that I almost had Michael D. Higgins

the President of Ireland as my guest for the fucking podcast in Vicar Street I was in contact with the press secretary, whatever the fuck you call it and he was suggesting that I interview Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, for the podcast, but I got a response back just saying it doesn't fit his schedule, because it's like two weeks away from the actual presidential elections,

and I hope Michael D. gets it, because the other people that are running for president they're fucking lunatics they're lunatics there's one fella who's just he's just a businessman a businessman who as far as I know

I think he was advised somebody during the Mariarty Tribunal if you know what that is it's like farting into the devil's mouth. And then, there's a journalist who's, could be described as a conspiracy theorist, I suppose. She's going for president.

And then, one guy who's going for the Irish presidency, and a kind of, now the Irish presidency is a position that holds no power whatsoever, you know there's no actual, it's a symbolic role that's why it's important I think to have someone who's an orator

an intellectual orator with an eye for humanity and justice that's what Michael D. Higgins is and that's why I want him to be president again but there's one candidate and they're trying to get elected and kind of anti-immigration Trump type of thing and it's

like what's the fucking point you've no power you've no power it just means putting a fucking some lad in the Irish fucking presidency just giving out about immigrants with no agency to

do anything about it if that's what that person wants to do or the people who elect you. What a frivolous endeavour sir. Gonna stand on the lawn of Ardas and Uachtarán for seven years giving out about Islam to a herd of fucking

deer. They don't give a shit. Making us all look silly in the international stage after we voted correctly on the marriage referendum and repealed the 8th and fucking no one showing up last week or the weekend when the Pope came to town. No one could be arsed. So yeah, I nearly got to interview Michael D. Higgins. Sickner. Maybe. I hope it's because they didn't think it would be a risk.

So close to the election. Like something mad might happen at my live podcast. Like a pelican would fly in and land on his shoulder. And drop a fish into his mouth. I'm fierce giggly this week. I don't know why. So yeah, Vicar Street. Raleigh Doyle.

That's going to be crack. And then I've got... There's a podcast gig in Cork around December. Belfast. That's almost sold out I'm interviewing Bernadette Devlin-McClasky few tickets left for that and I don't know

I'll tell you next week so what the fuck is this week's podcast about em which is a toughie you know to follow that fucking Spike Lee podcast last week.

But. Got a bit of a classic. Hot take. For you. I want to talk about a volcano. There's this mountain. In Indonesia. Called Mount Tambora gorgeous looking

fucking mountain on a little island you know and Indonesia itself ridiculously beautiful place but anyway in 1816 which is 202 years ago in 1816 Mount Tambora erupted and it wasn't it wasn't just any fucking volcano eruption this was the

the largest volcano eruption in recorded human history and the only thing that was similar to it was I think it was like AD 15 there was some other volcano but Mount Tambora erupting in 1815 1816 was unlike anything the earth had seen and to be honest the only people that really saw it were the people of indonesia because like this the power of this explosion of this volcano it was 60 000 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped in hoshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

60,000 times that power. That's what this volcano was. It immediately killed about 100,000 people of Indonesia. And it fucking just true massive clouds of dust up into the air now again this is 1816 so it was still kind of remote

so it kind of went it went along quite quietly news of the eruption it was reported in a paper in London, 7 months after the event, that this huge eruption had happened, now of course

if this was to happen to now we'd see it as it was happening all the fucking, the world's cameras would turn on this fucking volcano, like I remember a couple of years back there was a volcano up in Sweden or Norway

or somewhere, Iceland and it was threatening to erupt and the planes couldn't go into the air that didn't even fucking erupt but Tambora did erupt violently, phenomenally caused tsunamis but

the world didn't really notice because that was the nature of media in 1816 so it appeared in a London newspaper seven months after but what the world didn't know is just how fucking massive the impact of this eruption was going to have on the earth

for the next three years it's so much volcanic ash was spewed from this eruption that it went into the stratosphere and it blocked out the sun and 1816 is known as the year with no summer

because of this Indonesian eruption and it had many many catastrophic effects that people weren't really aware of why they were happening, they were just happening, like you know, what did it do in Ireland cause the famine

not the famine, but a famine Ireland has had a few famines when we say the famine we refer to Great Famine of the 1840s, but we've had several smaller famines. One of them in the 17th century was pretty hardcore. But in 1816, there was a famine that caused a few deaths because oats, wheat and potatoes failed because the sun was being blocked out

by the ashes of this volcano global temperatures fell like in New York in fucking May it was below freezing the estimate on drop in temperature that this eruption caused in 1816 it's estimated to be

a reduction of 18 degrees Fahrenheit in America and Europe right it was snowing in July Europe rained for the whole fucking summer absolutely freezing

and in Hungary the snow was brown they all freaked out The whole fucking summer. Absolutely freezing. And in Hungary. The snow was brown. They all freaked out. Didn't know what the fuck was happening. Thought the sky was doing a shit. So basically.

1816. There was no summer. The entire year was winter. And. You know while humans were able to deal with it. You know. I mean 18 degrees isn't you know it's not colossal what

it was because of the crop failures there was crop failures all over the world humans could wrap up humans could light a fire oats and wheat and barley they can't do nothing they need their sunshine they can't have their fucking ecosystem fucked with.

So they all failed around the world. And it caused riots. Food shortages. Conflict. It was quite chaotic. And luckily it only lasted one year. But you may be wondering now. Where's Blind Boy's hot take?

You know, is Blind Boy doing a podcast about a volcano? Not really. This podcast is going to be about art and culture. You see, when this volcano erupted, it launched into the sky these tiny particles of a silicate rock known as tephra. And tephra is often launched into the air during a volcanic eruption. So billions and billions of these tiny particles are floating high in the stratosphere. And when sunlight passes through them, they glow red. So if you can imagine the sky all over the world in 1816,

the sky was kind of like, had this blood red tinge. Usually around sunsets and in the morning, sunrise. But there was a blood red tinge usually around sunsets and in the morning sunrise but there was a blood red tinge and the sunlight couldn't penetrate this wall of volcanic particles this is what

was causing the crop failure but in 1816 in the world of painting the kind of dominant style of painting or the coolest style of painting was known as romanticism and what romanticism was like as you know from listening to this podcast i'm very interested in how music or painting or any type of creativity how it's how it comes about as a response to the environment and I'm always looking for the

memetic mutation that changes the course of art you know but romanticism if you think of the world in 1816, 1816 would have been smack bang in the middle of the Industrial Revolution and post-Enlightenment. So with the Enlightenment, first of all, that's the the West specifically, like Europe and America, started to embrace reason and science and scientific thinking and rationality and evidence. This became a thing with the Enlightenment. Of course, in the Islamic world, you know, they had been embracing scientific and rational evidence-based thinking long before the Europeans. When we were having our dark ages, they were having their golden ages, golden age of Islam, which was science-based. But the West had the Enlightenment in, I believe, the 16th, 17th centuries. the enlightenment in i believe the 16th 17th centuries an aside an interesting aside actually for the enlightenment there's a theory that the enlightenment came about because of the discovery

of coffee um coffee houses became widespread in europe cities and people, before that, before coffee houses if people wanted to go to discuss ideas they'd go to a tavern or a bar and get drunk but all of a sudden in the 17th, 18th centuries with the colonial expansion of the British Empire people start drinking coffee socially they're not getting pissed and their brains are flying some people say this is

what caused the enlightenment to happen so the enlightenment as well goes hand in hand with the industrial revolution putting the birth of modernism putting faith in science and seeing its results and having big massive factories and industrial cities and all that goes along with it

so by 1816 the creative class were starting to get a bit, they were starting to react to enlightenment ideals of rationality and the industrial revolution's ideals of efficiency and machinery. So Romanticism is a form of art that places it's kind of romanticism

is about individualism and human emotion it's not like we'll say like classism that had gone before it or neoclassicism where you're

depicting you know ideas from ancient Rome because that was a big thing with the Enlightenment too, it's looking back to the ideas of the Greeks and Romans. completely rejecting them I recognise that they're important but is there something about all these factories and all this reason that is causing us to

forget what makes us human emotion no matter how big your textile mill is and no matter how many people are replaced by this giant mill that can lash out cotton and textiles a machine can never be human so romanticism was concerned with expressing emotions through the

art with a romantic poet would have been byron lord byron or per or Percy Shelley but I'm going to focus on romanticism in painting. In particular the work of Turner, Joseph Mallard William Turner, a fucking unbelievable British painter. And Turner's work was focused primarily on landscapes. he was very much as well interested in landscapes and weather turner if you ever see a turner painting you know fucking hell if he does a storm the way he can paint anger and human emotions into that storm is something else the way he can paint rain on a horizon his paintings of nature jump out from the canvas with how

dripping in feeling and emotion they are that's peak fucking romanticism but in 1816 and it's something you see in the work of a few artists a little bit of gloom starts to take over

whereas Turner's work before 1816 would have been maybe a joyous beautiful sunset or the anger of the sea it starts to get a little bit depressing in 1816

with a few romantic painters because and they didn't know why but this is the hot take and this is why i think why the fucking volcano the volcanic eruption in 1816 like if you look at um certain paintings from 1816 within the Romanticism movement there's a post-apocalyptic bleakness that is unique to 1816 the painter John Crome or is it

Crome is it? C-R-O-M-E I believe but John Crome has a painting from 1816 called A Windmill Near Norwich and when I saw this painting what it basically is, it's a very simple a bleak, it's

you look at the painting it's an orangey yellow colour and it's a little hill and on the hill is a windmill and it's quite a simple landscape. A lot of sky. An overcast sky. And I know this painting.

I've seen this painting for years. Looking through art books and studying art. And it's this piss yellow. Tinting into red colour. I always thought the painting was damaged or dirty and it's not John Crone in this painting

that was the fucking colour of the sky in 1816 with no sunlight getting through this bleak horrible post apocalyptic painting of a windmill is because the sky was full of this tephra volcanic crystals that were turning the sun

piss yellow blood red this bleak painting and one of the benefits of romanticism being the painting style at the time and what makes it so fortuitous and lucky because no cameras of course

because romanticism was the natural style and this style was looking at nature and projecting projecting human emotions into the landscape that's basically what romanticism is painting a sky

and making that sky weep or making it happy or making it angry so the painters were naturally looking to the fucking sky and there's one painting by Caspar David Friedrich who is, was he Dutch? I'm gonna

I think he was fucking Dutch, I think but he's got a painting, oh, this will be fun to pronounce, what was, uh, Neubrandenburg, so it's from 1816, and it's just, again, a simple landscape, looking, um, you know, just two gloomy figures in the foreground, in the background you've got a small little village with a church steeple and a tradition with romantic paintings as well the sky takes about 70 percent of the painting um with just the horizon line is quite low but again the sky is this unnatural yellowish red I'm assuming the only thing I can assume what it was like was that one

day a year when you look out into the sky in the evening and it's blood red you know we get that once a year but for 1816 that was the shtick the whole time and in Caspar David Friedrich's painting Neubrandenburg 1816

you see it and it's bringing this new level of gloom and depression into this genre of painting which beforehand hadn't really explored gloom and depression it had explored anger it had explored happiness anxiety and it wasn't just gloomy colors that you got from romantic paintings of uh

1816 and onwards because often the paintings that you'd often have one or two human figures in it to contextualize the humanity within the environment it was rarely just you know even with Turner if Turner was painting a seascape there'd always be you know Turner's seascapes were particularly aggressive he loved to paint giant towering angry waves or groaning clouds but there'd always be a little ship in there a ship to for the viewer to look at the painting and to see themselves you know to see i think with romanticism a lot of it was as well as it's like it's reminding humanity that it doesn't matter how many factories you can build or how great you think your technology is,

you can be crushed in two seconds by nature. That's what Romanticism was doing. It's a humbling warning to humanity that we're in service of nature and no amount of steam power is going to fucking, is going to solve that, you know? And the irony of it being, of course, is going to fucking. Is going to solve that you know. And. The irony of it being of course.

Yeah. Fucking hell. This volcano erupts. Kills a hundred thousand people. On the site. And then causes famines all over the world. And. Turner didn't know that.

When he was painting. They didn't know that this red fucking sky. And this. Winter for an entire year. was as a result of a volcano in Indonesia. Like, meteorology hadn't gotten that far at that point. Now, moving on from just painting, like, 1816 and the effects of this volcanic eruption, Jesus, like, when you look at it, fucking hell, very important in terms of what themes were created in that year

that are now very important themes in today's, in 20th century creativity and literature and also 21st century, but mainly 20th century. Some of the most hard hit areas by this volcano and its effects and the winter, the year long winter, they were alpine regions high up in the mountains and three brilliant writers who were romantic writers Mary Shelley Percy Bicey Shelley, her husband

and Lord Byron all happened to be staying together near Geneva up a mountain in 1816 and while the three of them were there they obviously were like where the fuck is summer

what's going on and it was quite gloomy and depressing and they started to get anxious and to get kind of obsessed with coldness and obsessed with end times or obsessed with the idea that maybe the weather is turning on the earth and is going to kill humanity. And of course all of this expresses itself in their work in this period. Now as well it was so shit that they weren't necessarily leaving their houses much. They were staying in and writing. A poem by Byron at the time called Darkness. You know this is a poem from 1816 by Lord Byron who would have been with

Shelley the two Shelleys so Byron's poem was I had a dream which was not all a dream the bright sun was extinguished and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space

rayless and pathless and the icy did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Morning came and went, and came and brought no day, and men forgot their passions in the dread. Of this their desolation and all hearts were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. And they did live by watchfires and the thrones, the palaces of crowned kings the huts, the habitations of all things which dwell

were burnt for beacons cities were consumed and men were gathered round their blazing homes to look once more into each other's face happy were those who dwelt within the eye Around their blazing homes. To look once more into each other's face. Happy were those who dwelt within the eye. Of the volcanoes. And their mountain torch.

So that's like just an excerpt. Of what Byron was writing. Fucking bleak sir. But. An apocalyptic vision of again it's this the romantic theme that's been reflected

in the paintings of Turner it's like hold on humanity nature's gonna fuck you up it's doing it now and so bleak stuff

I think personally the most important thing that happened in 1816 and this eternal winter em the roots of what we call modern horror are born

horror is a genre, a fiction genre because so think of it you've got Percy Bicey Shelley Lord Byron Mary Shelley all shacked up they can't fucking leave the gaff because it's raining the skies are red it's freezing it's you know they're near Geneva no one wants to leave they're so stuck they're stuck inside they have a bet with each other and the three writers bet they say who can write the scariest story

because what are they going to do they're not going outside so they have a go at it and Mary Shelley who's 20 years of age she wins she starts to write

Frankenstein Frankenstein is the archetype for what we now consider horror there'd been scary stuff before but Frankenstein is pure modernist horror

and I suppose what makes Frankenstein so scary is that it's almost a satire. It's almost a satire and a critique on... It's the first... I'll tell you what it is. Like I said, one of the key... Now, Frankenstein may be kind of gothic, but one of the key themes of Romanticism,

the dominant art form of the time, like I said, it was a wariness around the enlightenment. The enlightenment is science and the science of electricity and medicine. And creates this fucking monster that gets out of control. Very romantic themes. you know if you fuck with nature man or human forget about it nature is going to come back

it's going to bite you in the bollocks and again one of the key themes in Frankenstein the book and this is why it could only have been written in the eternal or the year long winter that volcanic winter of 1816

is Victor who is the, everyone thinks Frankenstein is the name of the monster like there's a lad called Victor and I think he was staying in Frankenstein Castle

and Victor makes the monster but what happens anyway in the book is he decides at the end I think he was staying in Frankenstein Castle. And Victor makes the monster. But what happens anyway in the book. Is. He decides at the end. To destroy. To kill. This monster that he made.

Because the fear is that this monster. Which is science. This monster. Like the subtext. Of this monster. Is that it is science. That this thing that humanity is fucking with will eventually replace humanity

now that's a very modern theme that that's that's that's essentially Blade Runner you know Blade Runner and it's our struggle today with artificial intelligence this fear that we we're gonna fucking play God to the fear that we we're going to fucking play

God to the point that we create something that will destroy us and the roots of that idea you see it in Frankenstein 1816 in that winter but specifically the reason that Victor destroys this creature in Frankenstein is because

the creature is impervious to cold. And the scientist thinks that in the future that the world is going to become absolutely fucking freezing. And that this is how this creature that Victor has made will procreate and create more of these monsters that are impervious to the cold and humanity will die and they will flourish.

And that's the key kind of plot point of Frankenstein the novel. And that is just, that's Mary Shelley in Geneva freezing fucking cold with red skies caused by a

bastarding volcano if that's not a hot take lads I don't know what is but uh yeah that fucking excites me I love that I love that I love that a volcanic eruption in Indonesia could create

a world so gloomy for a year that it influences the course of modern painting and the course of literature and how it all it all makes perfect sense do you know to me

it makes me think that a lot of the romanticists at the time believed that the eternal winter was as a result of human behaviour. You know, it's not too absurd to think that, like if you lived in London or Manchester or any big city in 1816, like the amount of coal that was being burnt in factories that would fly up into the air create smog block out the sun would have been terrible so i would assume that people at the time thought that the 1816 year of no summer was caused by factories like a primitive form of global warming and that's why we see this anxiety and terror and horror around technology

in the painting and certainly in Frankenstein are there any kind of positives that came out of it? there is a there's a theory that another thing that happened in 1816 is there was an invention. This was known as the Velocipede.

And the Velocipede is basically, it's the daddy of the bicycle. Velocipede was like a unicycle. So basically the theory is that in 1816, like trains were a thing. Like trains were only a very recent invention, but they were a thing like trains were only a very recent invention but they were a thing but horse beast of burden labour was still

for smaller jobs was essential right oxes and horses pulling things and pushing things so in the in 1816 there was such a shortage of oats in germany that farmers or anyone who needed any work done they weren't using their horses that much because oats is horse fuel so in 1817 just a year after this thing was invented called a dracenae.

It went on to become a velocipede. This invention was the first. It was on a rail. It was a rail vehicle, but it was powered by human power. That's the important thing. It was a human, like a bicycle, was able to propel this thing. And it was a replacement for horses and this came about because

of this year-long winter. There was no food for the horses so human ingenuity was like, well, fuck it, what am I going to do? Necessity is the mother of invention. So the bicycle was essentially invented because of the volcanic eruption of 1816.

So that's my hot take this week, ladies and gentlemen. How something, you know, how a volcano erupting, you know, leads to a change in the work of someone like Turner. You know, the expressive, emotional nature of how Turner handled paint a change in the work of someone like Turner. You know, the expressive,

emotional nature of how Turner handled paint. This led to, you know, a hundred years later, or half a century later, impressionism, expressionism. You know, Turner's rejection of technology and art is a precursor to, we'll say, Dada and post-modernism around 1915, 1916, 100 years later. We see how this volcano and the bleakness that it creates and the climate of early global warming and fear of mankind

fucking with nature how that leads to the birth of modern horror and then you know the cherry on top the humble bicycle in that class right so what do we do now

oh yes actually there's something I wanted to talk to you about before I go onto the ocarina pause give me two seconds now because I'm just checking

my mail to make sure I get the name correct ah come on my internet's being a prick what's that about now okay so yeah i want to do i don't do enough kind of just mentioning charities on the podcast i really

fucking should because it's no skin off my balls but there's a fucking pretty bad housing crisis in ireland at the moment and homelessness and people sleeping on the street and all that goes with it and fucking high rent there's this class um app right it's it's a google chrome app I believe it's called giveback.ie all right and what this app does so you install this app on your google chrome and anytime you purchase something online amazon tesco whatever a percentage of your purchase goes towards giveback.ie and what they want to do with that money is to build homes for the homeless in Ireland. So you're on Amazon, whatever you buy, don't think it costs you extra, a percentage will go to this. Giveback.ie.

Download it, give it a go, see how you get on. And I know there's arguments, there is arguments around charities doing the work that the government should be doing. Like, it is a disgrace that a charity exists whereby they want my money from an Amazon purchase to build fucking houses. That is a disgraceful situation. It is a shame on the government of this country that that exists so the argument is you know should we support it

and I would say yes what I would say is it's not binary because you have to be careful with fucking non-intervention like a non-interventionist attitude is what led to the fucking famine

now that's a reach but it was people sitting around arguing about should we help the starving irish or should we allow the free market economy to dominate and put faith in the free market economy at the moment that's what the government is doing with the housing crisis non-intervention they won't introduce rent caps uh they won't tax uh landlords who have vacant properties it's a non-interventionist thing in the meantime people are dying people are going to be dying uh as the winter kicks in so what i would say to you is if you have this attitude of we shouldn't help charities because it's the government's job and if we help the charities then the government, it gives the government

an excuse, what I would say to you is do both support homeless charities give money to homeless people if you see them em, fucking write letters to your TDs about the rent

crisis, Find the local group in your area that is taking a direct action stand against landlords. In Dublin at the moment, 34 Frederick Street is being occupied by activists because there's accusations of slum

landlordism going on. Get stuck into that and help charities. do both, make the politicians shake in their boots, let them know that it's unacceptable to have rent this high, to have this amount of homelessness and also help charities, do the two things, that's what I do, so giveback.ie, give it a go, just for free, download it onto your chrome browser, it a go just for free download it onto your chrome browser see how you get on um like i heard about it because a guy called dean scurry who was involved in the apollo house movement last year they took over um a building that was owned by owned by the irish people but it was vacant and

they took it over at christmas it was last year or the year before, and used it to house the homeless, to take them off the streets. So Dean Scurry is involved in this thing with some students from either UCD or DCU, I'm not sure, they came up with the app. But I shared it last week on Twitter, and even after sharing that, they said that if everyone who had liked the tweet had actually downloaded the app that they could have raised 12 000 euros in a day so there's a lot of potential there so imagine how much money could be raised with all the e-cons listening to the podcast so giveback.ie download it onto your browser and let's see what happens alright and write letters to your TDs and get involved in direct action and if you can't get involved in direct action

find out your local group and boost the signal of that local group through your social media yart it's time now for the ocarina pause and I'll answer some questions after that the ocarina pause is a weekly answer some questions after that the ocarina pause is a weekly feature where I play a Spanish clay whistle and you may or may not hear a digital advert that's

inserted so here we go I'm doing it with one hand this week not very good with one hand, is it? On April 5th... You must be very careful, Margaret. It's the girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't.

The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, don't. The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year.

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen, only in theaters April 5th. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks

at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at

torontorock.com. Okay, that was the ocarina pause. You've been sold some bullshit. okay that was the ocarina pause you've been sold some bullshit um this podcast is supported by you the listener via the patreon page um if you're a first time listener

I would suggest go back to the very start go back to the first podcast rather than just it's I'm not very topical I might touch on a topical event every so often but in general you can go back to podcast number one

and you know it's the same shit so listen to all the podcasts and get back to where you are now that's what most people do but this podcast is supported by the Patreon page and that is patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast i do the podcast for free uh it's about five hours a month i love doing

it i love putting it out but the reason i'm kind of regular and consistent with it is because of the patreon because ye cunts give me money to do it so if you like it and you'd be like if you met me in real life and you go fuck it i like that podcast i'd buy him a cup of coffee or i'd buy him a pint once a month then please do you can do that go to patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and give me the price of a pint once a month if you can't afford it or you don't want to that's fine absolutely fine you can continue listening for free it's

a suggested donation based on your soundness and and thank you to everyone who is a patron because you're making a massive massive massive difference to my life. I'm 17 years, 18 years, creating on the internet,

and this year is the first ever year where I know what my income is going to be, and that is such a fucking rare thing in a creative industry. Like, I always say this to people i spent the first 10 years of my career earning nothing right literally nothing now it's fine because i love it but the first 10 years was making creativity for free putting it out and earning nothing and only after 10 years then did i start

to earn something um but the problem is is that it's intermittent you're relying upon commissions you're waiting for that next gig or that next tv uh slot or whatever and it's unpredictable so it means that you just can't relax and this year because of the Patreon I, I, it's like I have a fucking job it's like I can relax now, I can create I can focus on writing my book I know that I'm going to have a certain amount of money every month and I can use that to pay my bills and it's fantastic

so thank you to my fucking patrons em also like the podcast subscribe to it leave a review on iTunes or wherever that shit always helps too God bless

alright a few questions a few questions from you pricks so Rob asks I'm trying to teach my nephew to learn the details around the places he finds himself so that he has stories to tell someday

do you think the time we live in that he's growing up in is killing the art of storytelling i used to ride my bike to the creek and flip rocks over all day he plays video games um no yes and no um essentially when it comes to creativity right the most important part is feeding your unconscious mind with emotional data that then regards itself regurgitates itself out when in a state of creative flow. So, video games do that. I mean, I know you used to go to the creek and flip rocks over all day when you were a kid,

but chances are your nephew, who's playing Fallout or Grand Theft Auto, his world isn't any less emotionally rich because he's playing video games. The one thing, one critique I would have is today's world, it's very hard to be bored anymore. Like, boredom for me stopped in about 2006 when what became known as Web 2.0 came about this is the age of social media as soon as like i had web 2.0 basically is i remember the early internet the early internet was the odd website here and there web 2.0 is when the internet itself became a community uh Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a form of social media.

Because it's edited by the users. Once I came across Wikipedia. I forgot what boredom felt like. Boredom to me is. It's a memory from my childhood. I stopped being bored in 2006. How can I be bored when I've got Wikipedia. Or Facebook or Twitter.

But. The benefit of bored boredom I find anyway personally is that in those moments of boredom when I was younger if I was bored I would daydream and from daydreaming came creativity and ideas so now if I want to create I have to set time aside for myself because if I don't I'll just be in a wikipedia hole all day having my intellectual desires satiated by an ever flowing um stream of knowledge that comes from the internet so I gotta set those times aside so regarding your nephew he's gonna have plenty of details for stories anything that will give you good dreams will give you stories and video games will give you good dreams I know that myself

when I do remember dreams I'll often dream about video games but I doubt he feels boredom I doubt he knows what that is cause how can you feel boredom when you've got an Xbox maybe he doesn't wanna fucking write stories as got an Xbox maybe he doesn't want to

fucking write stories as well you know maybe he doesn't want that it depends I don't know no harm in going out but the reason I'm wary of it is just

every generation complains about the generation coming up and thinks that they're going to fuck everything up and that, you know, we had it better in some way. That's a pattern

and it always tends not to be true, to be honest. Humans are surprisingly similar. There are concerns around boredom. The other main concern I'd have with young people today is because so much of their discourse

and communication happens and me too to be honest but because so much discourse today happens online you're losing a fucking fierce amount of nuance like Jesus Christ the amount of nuance. Like Jesus Christ. The amount of fighting and argument.

And bitter shit that you see on the internet. That you see in the comments section. People within. Like I was on Twitter there. And I posted something. Something about British colonialism or whatever. And then someone got underneath and disagreed with me. And then someone got on underneath and disagreed with me. And then a lad went underneath him and disagreed with him.

These were grown men. You know, I'd say in their fucking forties, like. Within three comments, one grown man was making very nasty comments about the other grown man's child that was in the profile photo. Two grown men. And I remember I intervened and I said, hold on a second lads, you're really going to slag his child? Is that what the argument has descended into in three comments?

And they apologised to each other. But that wouldn't happen in a pub. Because when you argue with someone online. All you have is an avatar. And words. That's it. That is instant dehumanisation. All it is.

It's like a video game. You don't have. The expression of the person's face. Their body language. Any of that. You just have very simple dehumanised data and it polarises conversations very quickly and causes conversations to get incredibly emotional and angry quite quickly. So that's one thing I do worry about with young people today.

And with anyone, Jesus. Human communication is important I side side trail your question sir Les asks do you think there will ever be a time

that you will take off the plastic bag no Les I genuinely can't think of any good reason I have a lovely quiet life. When my bag isn't on.

A lovely quiet normal life. And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Just little things. You know when you're in the public eye. You don't get to switch that off. Like you know. I can get up in the morning and go to the shop and wear dirty tracksuit

pants and maybe a dirty fucking hoodie and not give a fuck about what I wear and have you know what I mean like if I was brazy we'll say or or Dez Bishop if someone had a camera I'd look like I was having a nervous was brazy we'll say or Des Bishop

if someone had a camera I'd look like I was having a nervous breakdown do you know because that's what they do that's what the media does someone with a public profile steps out their door looking like shit and they comment on it so then all of a sudden now I have to start worrying about having fucking nice jeans on

all the time do you know I'm trying to live a humble life with an external internal locus of evaluation i sometimes i don't want to fucking worry about wearing nice jeans or a nice pair of shoes in certain circumstances maybe but not when i'm going to the fucking shop so that's one reason i want to keep the bag. Two weeks ago, I was on a bus up to Dublin and I sat down beside a gentleman and I looked to the right and I noticed that he was listening to this podcast on his phone

for the entirety of the journey. And if I didn't have a plastic bag, I probably would have had to have a a big long conversation with that person for the entire journey and that's not my I'm very quiet

I wouldn't like that I'm not great in social situations I wouldn't like to be conversing with a stranger on a bus for two hours but that's what would happen if he listens to my podcast and I sit beside him on a bus so two hours but that's what would happen if he listens to my podcast and I sit beside him on a bus so that's another great reason that I thoroughly enjoy the bag I've outlined before my desire for um just a fucking normal private life like I'm I'm interested

in in being an artist being creative I'm interested in earning a living from doing something I truly truly fucking love which is creating work and putting it out for public consumption a side effect of that is notoriety and fame which I don't want and

people make kind of a big deal of it. And it's like. What if I was just a puppeteer. What if I was Kermit the Frog. It's no different like. The bag is just. A puppet.

Do you know what I mean. No one gives a fuck about. Whoever's got their hand up Kermit the Frog's arse. So, just treat it like that. Or even fucking, when I was writing my book and I was doing

the press tour and so many journalists were like, oh, we're going to have to print, we're going to have to print your real name, we can't just call you blind boy. I was like, why the fuck not? J.K. Rowling, do you think that's her real name? No, it isn't.

Mark Twain, that wasn't his real name. It's a pen name. Get over it. You don't do it for other people. Why do you got to be a cunt with me? So it ended up in me turning down a lot of press. And it's not about anonymity. you can't expect to stay anonymous it's just about privacy it's about privacy and having a lovely quiet life and creating but not having to deal with that bullshit spectacle of walking into a room and people know who you are and it's a great way to

fucking have your head. Driven right up your hole as well. And for mental health issues to present themselves. Because. How can. How can you have decent mental health. How can you have humility. And.

How can you. Have an internal locus of evaluation. You know for your self esteem and value. To come from a place within when in public people look at you and treat you differently to the person

beside you simply because they've seen a 2D representation of your likeness on a screen and that makes us pedestal people or hate them I'm not interested in any of that stuff. I think I've found. A way around it.

By putting a plastic bag on my head. It's as simple as that. Right so as you know. I wanted to. Address some kind of questions from you. That were kind of like agony ant questions. And I offered you the opportunity to. Tell them anonymously through

our snapchat which is rubber bandits one but i've received loads of them but what happens is that when i receive an agony ant anonymous question from you i'll get the message then i'll save the message and then i can't find it again even though it's saved because I get like 10 snapchats an hour more, 20 so I don't know what to do I think I'm going to have to start screen grabbing the messages because I don't have any agony

and questions this week I just have the regular questions about stuff that's asked on twitter and patreon and I did have some stuff I wanted to address that I've now forgotten about the regular questions about stuff that's asked on Twitter and Patreon. And I did have some stuff I wanted to address that I've now forgotten about. Um, have I anything else to say? No, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast.

You glorious pricks. Oh yeah, next week, um, I'm heading away to Spain for a little bit to do some fucking to do a bit of writing and I cannot wait I'm going to my favourite place on earth Cordoba and I'm gonna do gonna write some short stories

gonna drink some sherry in the sun hopefully it won't be too fucking hot I went to Spain last year in August and it was so hot that my phone stopped working and my laptop stopped working such was the heat

so I'm hoping it's not going to be that bad when I'm there now in the first week of September but if not look there'll be air conditioning it'll be grand so I'm going over there for some intensive writing and some delicious fucking Spanish beer and some tapas um that's my heaven that's what I fucking love doing that's where I

do my best writing um in a different environment where you know I'm not even one thing that helps me write it's for writing my second book obviously one thing that helps me write is when I'm not even, one thing that helps me write, for writing my second book obviously, one thing that helps me write is when I'm in Spain I don't speak a word of Spanish so everyone around me is speaking Spanish and it's just me with the English language in my own head and I find that benefits when I'm writing. sounds, everything's different, that shit gives you weird dreams, and if it gives you weird dreams, it'll give you weird stories, so I can't wait to do that, but I will be bringing my podcast recording equipment with me, and hopefully I can chance doing a podcast from Spain, it depends really on the place where I'm staying, if there's a lot of tiles and shit and the room is echoey, I mightn't be able to record a decent podcast, the fidelity could be shit, because what happens is, like this room that I'm in now, my studio, it's very dry, there's no echo, so you're getting this pure warm sound of my voice into your ear, but if this was full of tiles my voice would be bouncing all over the room and it

it's just unlistenable and it wouldn't be enjoyable so i'm bringing the podcast recording equipment with me and i'll try my best but if i can't i'll put up a live podcast next week and i have a few lovely live podcasts on my hard drive drive. That have already been recorded. And I'll put that out. But hopefully I can do something from Spain. Alright. God bless. Have a good week. Look after yourself.

Coming into September soon. Gonna have those lovely fucking. You know. Leaves falling off trees. That lovely cold bite in the evening. The smell of turf and coal as people. You know, evenings getting colder. Embrace it. Embrace the change.

Embrace the change. It's not summer, but it's different. It's refreshing. It's some new stuff. You know? Don't fall into that trap of gloomy winter. Embrace it. Yart. Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation

night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.