The smiths

Wednesday

John Waters

Human after all

As the weird world of lockdown winds down, we might pause to consider what we’ve learned. I am hardly alone in my heightened hankering to unravel, synthesize, undo and discard. In this mission a voice from the past is helping me piece things together anew as the strange tyranny begins to dissolve. It began when Google started throwing videos of the Smiths in my daily cyberpath, prompting a non-essential trip down Memory Lane. Back in the day, I was, as David Cameron used to boast, a ‘huge fan’ of the Smiths. Precisely, I was a fan of Johnny Marr’s guitar literacy and the persona of Morrissey, the enchanting singer who had jettisoned his given names.

morrissey

Sunday

Charlie Nash

Morrissey hasn’t turned right: our establishment has turned insane

On Thursday, May 30, Morrissey was ‘canceled’. According to the Guardian, a British newspaper fond of such decrees, fans now feel ‘betrayed’ by the singer’s recent controversial and provocative statements, which have included support for Anne Marie Waters’s nationalist For Britain party. ‘Morissey [sic], what happened?’ the Guardian agonized on Twitter. But maybe they already know the answer. In just a decade, political correctness has obtained a stranglehold on Western culture. The provocateurs and counter-cultural icons of the late 20th century have been replaced by commercially compromised ‘influencers’, and artists who are carefully selected by social censors.

morrissey