Keith Kahn-Harris

Looking forward to speaking at this event in Leipzig on Sunday

'Vote Least Worst'?

Absolutely. It's absolutely necessary.

I've always felt that celebrating someone's victory in an election is a sign that you are doing democracy wrong. Relief that someone else didn't get elected is the best response and after that wariness to whoever is in power needs to kick in.

We're living in an era where voting for the least worst option isn't palatable. I find that personally infuriating because a) I've never had the opportunity to vote for anyone but the least worst option so I resent others refusing to do so and b) this is one reason why right-wing authporitarians win

Observing reactions to Mamdani's victory in NYC and thinking back over his campaign, 1 thing's clear: In a broad church party like the Democrats (or Labour in UK), liberals are no less resentful about voting for 'their' candidate when they come from a different wing of the party than leftists are.

Enjoy!

This sounds very on brand.

Also great.

Non-satire: I used AI for a tricky bureaucratic task. It performed so well that my relief at having saved a lot of time on a dull but difficult task is short through with fear at my own likely future redundancy.

Satire: I used AI for a tricky bureaucratic task. It performed it so well that I am really confident that use of AI will lead to a future where all of us have more leisure and will have freedom to live more creative lives. I'm sure that's the morivation behind those rolling AI out.

All this and Ian McShane too: Grace Jones' Slave To The Rhythm at 40 | The Quietus Keith Kahn-Harris still doesn't quite know what to make of an audaciously experimental, sometimes problematic Grace Jones (& ZTT) LP.

...kind of blows my mind now.

Here is @keithkahnharris.bsky.social making sense of an album that is, by any sane rubric, very hard to make sense of:

thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

All this and Ian McShane too: Grace Jones' Slave To The Rhythm at 40 | The Quietus Keith Kahn-Harris still doesn't quite know what to make of an audaciously experimental, sometimes problematic Grace Jones (& ZTT) LP.

I've never written before about being a Grace Jones fan, so it was great to have the opportunity to write about the brilliantly bonkers 'Slave to the Rythm' album for @thequietus.com.

thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

I have no better idea than anyone else what this peace deal will bring. One modest hope for those of us outside I/P though, is that it will give some space for the temperature of 'the discourse' to drop a few notches. We've been in crisis mode for 2 years and that often shuts off reflection.

Talking Heads - Remain in Light album cover. Four band members with their faces blocked out in red.

Their fourth album may have been born under punches, and may still raise questions over its authorship for the band’s exceptional rhythm section – but it hangs together perfectly, and it never seems to age.

Many Happy Returns to #TalkingHeads' Remain In Light, which turns 45 today

buff.ly/msIf9ER

Black Sabbath with attitude Carlos Acosta’s ballet celebrates a band that is woven into Birmingham’s cultural soul

I had the great pleasure of attending the opening night of Black Sabbath: The Ballet a few weeks ago. Here's something I published about it. Really worth seeing and it's touring the UK soon. (article free with registration)

www.thenewworld.co.uk/keith-kahn-h...

One bitter irony: There has been a lot of loose talk in recent years that British Jewish schools and synagogues are forced to have armed guards. That's actually incredibly rare, although visible security certainly is the norm. But from now on? I guess we'll see....

Thanks Omar. Keeping calm and carrying on.

Cheers Ben. What strikes me is how much at shul today we kept calm and carried on. Which isn't to say that this isn't incredibly upsetting

If British Jews are attacked, respect our dignity – and keep your agendas to yourself | Keith Kahn-Harris I dread the cacophony from right and left on how we should react to antisemitism. What’s important is supporting our survival as a community in the UK

Well, it took longer than many of us expected, but in the end it happened. Let's try and not turn the horror in Manchester into an opportunity to advance any and every agenda.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Scared for what remains of American democracy right now. And the wave that's coming will reach these shores too.

Last Sunday I spoke at a conference in Birmingham and managed a brief side trip to this place of pilgrimage. Consider this a teaser for something exciting I can't talk about publicly yet....

On a train, listening to music and thought I'd check out the new David Byrne album: I really think that the happiness he found in his middle and later years hasn't been a good thing for his art.

He's going to defend Cradle of Filth's employment contracts.

Voices From Gaza 2 - 'Our sheer importance is not good for us. We need to recover a sense of mundane, every day Jewishness' | Ewan MacKenna Get more from Ewan MacKenna on Patreon

This was an interesting podcast to be interviewed for: My attempt to explain where Diaspora Jewish communities are currently dealing or not dealing with the Gaza war

www.patreon.com/posts/voices...

I'm really honoured that Jeremy Wallach wrote a retrospective piece on my book Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. He remarks on my general 'pessimism' about how far metal might go in engaging with diversity. I am much more optimistic these days!
doi.org/10.1386/mms_...

IHRA is all about the adoption. Once adopted, those who argue for it rarely show much interest in implementation. Those who argued against it find (but don't admit) that you can carry on just like before.

Sultana: Corbyn 'capitulated' on antisemitism definition The vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said Zarah Sultana's words were "a grave insult".

Ironically, Labour's Corbyn years negate both pro- and anti-IHRA narratives: Its adoption made absolutely no difference to the antisemitism controversy.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

It isn't just Trump. The most dangerous people I have met in my life are - regardless of their politics - those who are convinced that the thing they do worse than anybody is in fact the thing I do better than anybody.

YouTube video by Gordon Heaney Guitarologist Flatulist Onanist Ich Nichten Lichten [ Very Metal Instrumental ]

I was today years old when I discovered that Peter O'Hanrahanrahan-inspired metal existed:

youtu.be/2M0y93DnD3w?...