Do houses breathe and in breathing whisper secrets of their existence? Do houses register their ghosts? The sublime and the ridiculous? People arrive, proudly posing with their keys,their moustaches and dinky cars on the drive, and then children and then noise. The cacophony of life reaching crescendo and then fading as dereliction looms...and the house falls into disrepair, over run by little creatures and weeds. Slowly it falls into a silence which echoes across history. Is that how it happens?
In time nothing remains leaving us wondering if it hasn't been a Derren Brown illusion after all?
And, what has it all been for? Eh? Tell me that Mr J in your new Wimpy home...
Monday, 23 April 2007
Friday, 13 April 2007
Friday the 13th
I am, probably, about the least superstitious person you could meet. I did notice that today was the 13th and it was a Friday and there is another one in June. So what the hell, it's only life, and who knows what can happen? Sometimes, life meanders along, with nothing exciting happening, which is most of the time actually and then something comes at you straight out of the blue, so it becomes lively for a time and then it dies down into yet another anti-climax.
It also struck me that Friday the 13TH might be a great name for a band and there probably is one by that name out there, I don't know. It also struck me that 'Late For The Universe' might also be a great name for a musical gathering of talented performers. 'Late For The Universe', I like that it's kind of catchy, you agree?
It also struck me that Friday the 13TH might be a great name for a band and there probably is one by that name out there, I don't know. It also struck me that 'Late For The Universe' might also be a great name for a musical gathering of talented performers. 'Late For The Universe', I like that it's kind of catchy, you agree?
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Truth About Axasha
Okay, hands up, I do envy Axasha's wonderful knowledge of art. I can't pretend to know half as much as she does, but everytime she posts, for me, it's an education. There, thought I would be self-indulgent, and I mean it Axasha. Just wanted to say Axasha, that your knowledge is appreciated. Hopefully Janaki might take a look at the blog, and might comment, or might even decide to post.
I Want To Hear What You Have To Say
I just think this is a great little track from a great little band. 'I want To Hear What You Have To Say' by The Subways, a three piece UK busk suite.
It's generated with a smashing - furtive - little energetic uber-urch which drags the plaintive and poignant girl/boy voices out to the every edge. Rasping guitars, layered on top of the initial undulating jumbo acoustic give it that sort of pzaz schlock that all great sounds need. The rhythm is insistent and driving, but the clinching feature is that it resonates with the audience, and, in that sense it is TV Smith punky.
It has the dynamic of sweet strawberries, the axe hidden behind the double cream, the bitter-sweet appeal of an angst-ridden beast from a very dark forest, in an soulful kind of way - James Brown meets the Small Faces dubbed by The Clash. It reminds me of those dark heart lost boys days of existing only for the weekend in an idiotic sort of way...oh and, of course, its unpretentious...!
It's generated with a smashing - furtive - little energetic uber-urch which drags the plaintive and poignant girl/boy voices out to the every edge. Rasping guitars, layered on top of the initial undulating jumbo acoustic give it that sort of pzaz schlock that all great sounds need. The rhythm is insistent and driving, but the clinching feature is that it resonates with the audience, and, in that sense it is TV Smith punky.
It has the dynamic of sweet strawberries, the axe hidden behind the double cream, the bitter-sweet appeal of an angst-ridden beast from a very dark forest, in an soulful kind of way - James Brown meets the Small Faces dubbed by The Clash. It reminds me of those dark heart lost boys days of existing only for the weekend in an idiotic sort of way...oh and, of course, its unpretentious...!
Norman Wisdom on steroids
Sergio,
Being as the blog's just thee and me at the moment, a bit of self indulgence...
Right. You’ll love this track. It’s really, really funny. A great song and a clever and visually quite Lynch-esque video.
Rammstein are East German and, unlike a lot of bands in notoriously juvenile “metal” music, Rammstein are grown-ups.
Ich Will - I Want - talk about a dark, dark, darkly comic comment on the absurdity of the media and our clambering for our 15 minutes of fame?
So, fame, celebrity, dying for your art…? Heh!
My fav’s Richard – the guy who “drops” the bank teller – but as I say, I really like Till too. A big, scary guy and onetime (almost) Olympic swimmer – he reminds me of Norman Wisdom. A humongous Norman Wisdom on steroids to be sure…
The leg brace is real btw, he’d not long been in a terrible car crash on the autobahn along with Richard (and their kids I believe! Till’s a single parent btw. What a man! >sigh<).
Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AapNrXJVjIA
Or, live at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Su-AMyiyw&mode=related&search=
Flame-throwers! Wheee!
Tell me what you think! The quality on YouTube’s muy crappy but I have this cd single if you want to borrow?
What can I say? I’m a sucker for pretty boys and power chords! :D
Can I post your comments on The Shuttered House? They were so good.
Axasha.
Being as the blog's just thee and me at the moment, a bit of self indulgence...
Right. You’ll love this track. It’s really, really funny. A great song and a clever and visually quite Lynch-esque video.
Rammstein are East German and, unlike a lot of bands in notoriously juvenile “metal” music, Rammstein are grown-ups.
Ich Will - I Want - talk about a dark, dark, darkly comic comment on the absurdity of the media and our clambering for our 15 minutes of fame?
So, fame, celebrity, dying for your art…? Heh!
My fav’s Richard – the guy who “drops” the bank teller – but as I say, I really like Till too. A big, scary guy and onetime (almost) Olympic swimmer – he reminds me of Norman Wisdom. A humongous Norman Wisdom on steroids to be sure…
The leg brace is real btw, he’d not long been in a terrible car crash on the autobahn along with Richard (and their kids I believe! Till’s a single parent btw. What a man! >sigh<).
Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AapNrXJVjIA
Or, live at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Su-AMyiyw&mode=related&search=
Flame-throwers! Wheee!
Tell me what you think! The quality on YouTube’s muy crappy but I have this cd single if you want to borrow?
What can I say? I’m a sucker for pretty boys and power chords! :D
Can I post your comments on The Shuttered House? They were so good.
Axasha.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
The here and now
Been fighting a headache that keeps threatening migraine proportions but ever quite gets there (never quite goes away either, worst luck.). In between feeling sorry for myself, I’ve been mulling over the imagery from “Last Star in the Kosmos” – forests and moonlight. Then there’s The City, which seems to encompass both, “dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight”.
So I was thinking… forests and moonlight, forests and moonlight, forests and moo…and then it struck me.
Of course! Kate Bush. Sensual World.
That wonderfully song, with Kate’s wonderfully fleshy lyrics. That beautiful video, staged like some beautiful naïve fairytale but with it’s bloody pulse banging in our ears. (Always very literary with her lyrics, our Katie even quotes Blake here! “Arrows of Desire” How could I not love it? Yay!)
Sergei, you asked me recently to name someone I thought was stylish and I couldn’t. Well then, Katie. She’s been a heroine of mine since childhood. A genuinely unique person, multi talented (singer, song-writer, musician, director, actor, dancer) and beautiful. I mean I wanted to BE her. I had the hair, the make-up, the crushed velvet (yikes!)…
This song is about sex to be sure (:D), but this song is also of the moment; of being so ALIVE in the here-and-now. Hmmm, yessss.
So for a “sensual” version of the “forest in the moonlight” tableau follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwk-YVNl5Q
And now, the flip side of the coin, may I present Alec Empire.
How to describe him? West German Techno-Punk/DJ? He’s hardcore, also multi talented, a bit of an anarchist (you should like him then Sergei!), very political (left wing) and very angry.
Check out the next YouTube link for Ride – here (for me) is Sergio’s “gargantuan and sprawling” city, with it’s urban decay and existentialist angst.
You have to watch the (very rare) video to get the full impact of Alec’s tirade (he’s so cute when he pouts!) and you HAVE to play it LOUD!
I LOVE this track.
Tell it like it is, Alec! This song keeps me here, in the moment…
[WARNING: Explicit lyrics]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv0zN6oiNdc
Axasha.
So I was thinking… forests and moonlight, forests and moonlight, forests and moo…and then it struck me.
Of course! Kate Bush. Sensual World.
That wonderfully song, with Kate’s wonderfully fleshy lyrics. That beautiful video, staged like some beautiful naïve fairytale but with it’s bloody pulse banging in our ears. (Always very literary with her lyrics, our Katie even quotes Blake here! “Arrows of Desire” How could I not love it? Yay!)
Sergei, you asked me recently to name someone I thought was stylish and I couldn’t. Well then, Katie. She’s been a heroine of mine since childhood. A genuinely unique person, multi talented (singer, song-writer, musician, director, actor, dancer) and beautiful. I mean I wanted to BE her. I had the hair, the make-up, the crushed velvet (yikes!)…
This song is about sex to be sure (:D), but this song is also of the moment; of being so ALIVE in the here-and-now. Hmmm, yessss.
So for a “sensual” version of the “forest in the moonlight” tableau follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwk-YVNl5Q
And now, the flip side of the coin, may I present Alec Empire.
How to describe him? West German Techno-Punk/DJ? He’s hardcore, also multi talented, a bit of an anarchist (you should like him then Sergei!), very political (left wing) and very angry.
Check out the next YouTube link for Ride – here (for me) is Sergio’s “gargantuan and sprawling” city, with it’s urban decay and existentialist angst.
You have to watch the (very rare) video to get the full impact of Alec’s tirade (he’s so cute when he pouts!) and you HAVE to play it LOUD!
I LOVE this track.
Tell it like it is, Alec! This song keeps me here, in the moment…
[WARNING: Explicit lyrics]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv0zN6oiNdc
Axasha.
The Shuttered House
The Shuttered House by William De Gouve de Nunques is an intriguing painting with eerie overtones, which I like. In many ways it reminds me of Edward Hopper's Gas, where the road running past the petrol staion disappears into the darkness.
In the forefront of the work, the house is lit upstairs, though a slender tree partially obscures the view we have. The house is bright, though the downstairs appears to be in gloom, and the effect is brightened by the fact that the house is painted pink. To the left, however, and in contrast to this bright side, the house is in darkness, save for one solitary light, swamped by the blackness which surrounds it and obscures. We can with the help of this single light just make out the shape of the rest of the house. But it is the blackness which draws the eyes to the heart of this painting. Is the shuttered house at the front the mask we give to the world, while taking attention from the real darkness of our souls?
What I really like about this painting is what appears to be a shower of stars above the roof of the part of the house in darkness. I was trying to work out what this might be, but, to be honest I am not at all sure. It could even be a flock of seagulls???
So, a house, and do houses breath? The silent vigilance of the insomniac ediface, ever watchful, it sees the people come and go, it witnesses all the dramas of those who inhabit its inner sanctum, yet never yields their secrets. And what is the figure in the bottom left hand corner of the painting. TBC, I have to do some more thinking.
In the forefront of the work, the house is lit upstairs, though a slender tree partially obscures the view we have. The house is bright, though the downstairs appears to be in gloom, and the effect is brightened by the fact that the house is painted pink. To the left, however, and in contrast to this bright side, the house is in darkness, save for one solitary light, swamped by the blackness which surrounds it and obscures. We can with the help of this single light just make out the shape of the rest of the house. But it is the blackness which draws the eyes to the heart of this painting. Is the shuttered house at the front the mask we give to the world, while taking attention from the real darkness of our souls?
What I really like about this painting is what appears to be a shower of stars above the roof of the part of the house in darkness. I was trying to work out what this might be, but, to be honest I am not at all sure. It could even be a flock of seagulls???
So, a house, and do houses breath? The silent vigilance of the insomniac ediface, ever watchful, it sees the people come and go, it witnesses all the dramas of those who inhabit its inner sanctum, yet never yields their secrets. And what is the figure in the bottom left hand corner of the painting. TBC, I have to do some more thinking.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
The Road To Darker Killingbeck
Asleep, I floated as if on clouds across a land I could only imagine in a dream. Then I was sitting in a huge cinema arena alone watching the movie of my life. Director, writer, cameraman, I was all of these. The story flickered past so quickly, until the old crone approached me in Byers Road, looking menacing, her clay pipe fixed firmly in her slack mouth, her body stooped, the basket of peat clinging precariously to her arched back.
I woke, sunlight running freely across the room and up onto the bed from a gap in the curtain. I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, stretched and yawned. Outside Darker Killingbeck stood waiting patiently for me, as it always had. As it had waited for me for many years. I somehow always knew I always belonged here, yet so many times faceless reptiles wearing human masks told me I was not for this place.
I see, in that instant a million shadows, rapidly disappearing faces, familiar smiles, tears and joy. People I once knew. Friends, acquaintances, lovers. People who knew the things I had done that had made me proud, and the things I had done that had made me feel wonderful, yet guilty at the same time. I wondered, what had happened to them all, how their lives had been, and then I considered all those people who confidently thought they knew me, but really hadn't a clue.
From the kitchen downstairs the smell of food rose, bacon, eggs, sausages sizzling in the pan, the dark woman dancing around her scullery as if she were the centre of an advertisement. Grouped around the table in the dining room, the men who had been playing cards the previous evening when I arrived, sat, their knives and forks poised and at the ready for their scran.
I showered lethargically, dressed and went downstairs, past the print of Dali's Madonna in Particles, taking time to study it for a few seconds before moving on.
The others grunted as I entered, the grey bearded man with the horrible green polo neck nodding.
'Did you sleep well?' I ask grey beard cheerily as I entered. 'I slept like a log I have to tell you.'
He didn't answer, but looked around at his three friends seated at each corner of the breakfast table.
'What do you mean?' he returned to me.
'I just wondered if you had slept well, I found my bed very comfortable, that's why I slept a little late.' I confessed.
'We never sleep' the man said simply as he turned back toward his friends.
Before I could say anything, the woman was gliding into the room with piping hot plates of food.
'Here we are gentlemen' She announced as she swept regally into the room and dropped the plates in front of two grinning older men.
'Where exactly are we?' I said absently. The man in the hideous green polo neck sweater dropped his fork onto his plate with a crashing metallic sound.
There was a pause as the others stared across at me.
'Darker Killingbeck. And you...' The man with the grey beard pointed across at me with his knife in a sinister fashion.
The dark haired woman arrived again with another two plates and the demeanour of the men, which had been menacing, immediately changed.
'Ah scran' Polo neck smiled and licked his lips.
The woman now turned toward me.
'Now then, new arrival what would you like?'
'Scrambled eggs, and coffee.' I said simply. Someone on the opposite table laughed quietly.
'That won't fill ye' Green polo neck scowled, his lips apart, his teeth nicotine stained and black.
I smiled politely, and noticed that after breakfast the men started to play cards again. For a while, while I worked myself through my scrambled eggs and toast, I watched them play, astounded to find that the cards they held in their hands were all blank.
I woke, sunlight running freely across the room and up onto the bed from a gap in the curtain. I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, stretched and yawned. Outside Darker Killingbeck stood waiting patiently for me, as it always had. As it had waited for me for many years. I somehow always knew I always belonged here, yet so many times faceless reptiles wearing human masks told me I was not for this place.
I see, in that instant a million shadows, rapidly disappearing faces, familiar smiles, tears and joy. People I once knew. Friends, acquaintances, lovers. People who knew the things I had done that had made me proud, and the things I had done that had made me feel wonderful, yet guilty at the same time. I wondered, what had happened to them all, how their lives had been, and then I considered all those people who confidently thought they knew me, but really hadn't a clue.
From the kitchen downstairs the smell of food rose, bacon, eggs, sausages sizzling in the pan, the dark woman dancing around her scullery as if she were the centre of an advertisement. Grouped around the table in the dining room, the men who had been playing cards the previous evening when I arrived, sat, their knives and forks poised and at the ready for their scran.
I showered lethargically, dressed and went downstairs, past the print of Dali's Madonna in Particles, taking time to study it for a few seconds before moving on.
The others grunted as I entered, the grey bearded man with the horrible green polo neck nodding.
'Did you sleep well?' I ask grey beard cheerily as I entered. 'I slept like a log I have to tell you.'
He didn't answer, but looked around at his three friends seated at each corner of the breakfast table.
'What do you mean?' he returned to me.
'I just wondered if you had slept well, I found my bed very comfortable, that's why I slept a little late.' I confessed.
'We never sleep' the man said simply as he turned back toward his friends.
Before I could say anything, the woman was gliding into the room with piping hot plates of food.
'Here we are gentlemen' She announced as she swept regally into the room and dropped the plates in front of two grinning older men.
'Where exactly are we?' I said absently. The man in the hideous green polo neck sweater dropped his fork onto his plate with a crashing metallic sound.
There was a pause as the others stared across at me.
'Darker Killingbeck. And you...' The man with the grey beard pointed across at me with his knife in a sinister fashion.
The dark haired woman arrived again with another two plates and the demeanour of the men, which had been menacing, immediately changed.
'Ah scran' Polo neck smiled and licked his lips.
The woman now turned toward me.
'Now then, new arrival what would you like?'
'Scrambled eggs, and coffee.' I said simply. Someone on the opposite table laughed quietly.
'That won't fill ye' Green polo neck scowled, his lips apart, his teeth nicotine stained and black.
I smiled politely, and noticed that after breakfast the men started to play cards again. For a while, while I worked myself through my scrambled eggs and toast, I watched them play, astounded to find that the cards they held in their hands were all blank.
Memories Are All We Ever Really Have
Below is an excerpt form something I wrote -
All we ever have are our memories, all Ronny has are his memories, all Jason has are his memories. Isn't that why ornaments are held in such reverence, photographs are so popular, camcorders and video phones necessary accessories, even the good old CCTV. To remind us, perhaps, that we were once happy. that we were once having a good time. Oh yeah...Oh
yeah
yeah
yeah
All we ever have are our memories, all Ronny has are his memories, all Jason has are his memories. Isn't that why ornaments are held in such reverence, photographs are so popular, camcorders and video phones necessary accessories, even the good old CCTV. To remind us, perhaps, that we were once happy. that we were once having a good time. Oh yeah...Oh
yeah
yeah
yeah
Monday, 9 April 2007
Maybe The Last Star In The Kosmos Is A Klever Forgery
A giant, shiny, metallic hare glints in the soft light as he walks toward the graduate. What the, what the, what the, what the, what
the, what the...?
A silhouette against a dark background, a dream from childhood, from the earliest moments of his being, the very moment of his existence - the midwife, the hare, the dark forest at midnight... The midwife dancing with the hare in a copse in the moonlight, the slabbering, yellow-eyed wolf watching from the shadows
.
The hare, his name is Benny-Rae. God knows how he knew, but anything here can happen today. The hare half-turns, waves, and he watches as he approaches. He is standing on the side of a hill, the wind gently blowing on his face.
He can now make out the great hare's aerodynamic head, his beautifully proportioned skull and his sleek frame...dark...dark...malevolent eyes and long carefully designed ears pointing skyward. Skyward pointing ears.
Suddenly Benny-Rae is standing beside him on an architecturally perfect bridge spanning the sprawling metropolis far below them, the existential illusion. The city - Megasurpa St Lagamorph - is gargantuan and sprawling, dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight. He can feel the wind on his face, gently pushing back his dark hair. The rising breeze playing softly on Benny-Rae's ears - twinkling light from the moon and stars dancing along his gently vibrating whiskers.
Together, in unison, they are turning and looking upward. Staring, enchanted, at the mocking cosmos folding around them and above them and wondering what it is that they can see out there, life, the essence of existence, the whirring of the universe as it goes about its business, the wire mesh of a rabbit's - or in this case - giant hare's hutch, a darkened garden beyond them situated at the bottom of a tower block, in the middle of a city?
The music stops after two minutes fifty seven seconds...
Maybe the last star in the kosmos is a forgery after all, a fake brand, a phony designer label, but then who cares?
the, what the...?
A silhouette against a dark background, a dream from childhood, from the earliest moments of his being, the very moment of his existence - the midwife, the hare, the dark forest at midnight... The midwife dancing with the hare in a copse in the moonlight, the slabbering, yellow-eyed wolf watching from the shadows
.
The hare, his name is Benny-Rae. God knows how he knew, but anything here can happen today. The hare half-turns, waves, and he watches as he approaches. He is standing on the side of a hill, the wind gently blowing on his face.
He can now make out the great hare's aerodynamic head, his beautifully proportioned skull and his sleek frame...dark...dark...malevolent eyes and long carefully designed ears pointing skyward. Skyward pointing ears.
Suddenly Benny-Rae is standing beside him on an architecturally perfect bridge spanning the sprawling metropolis far below them, the existential illusion. The city - Megasurpa St Lagamorph - is gargantuan and sprawling, dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight. He can feel the wind on his face, gently pushing back his dark hair. The rising breeze playing softly on Benny-Rae's ears - twinkling light from the moon and stars dancing along his gently vibrating whiskers.
Together, in unison, they are turning and looking upward. Staring, enchanted, at the mocking cosmos folding around them and above them and wondering what it is that they can see out there, life, the essence of existence, the whirring of the universe as it goes about its business, the wire mesh of a rabbit's - or in this case - giant hare's hutch, a darkened garden beyond them situated at the bottom of a tower block, in the middle of a city?
The music stops after two minutes fifty seven seconds...
Maybe the last star in the kosmos is a forgery after all, a fake brand, a phony designer label, but then who cares?
Friday, 6 April 2007
INTERESTING FACT
In 2004, there were 159,000 professional shushers in the United States of America. That is 159,000 people with a finger placed aginst their lips going shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Just thought you might want to know that's all.
My Life As A Comic Book Superhero
I want to share something with you. I want to tell you something about the story I have been researching and writing based on interviews undertaken with Freegans. I have called it Human Conditions and given that it is nearing completion I want to share the introduction with you all.
As you know I like to think that everything I write is a work of art. So when I work, and especially with regard to factual material I think angle, tone, introduction, redundant words, style and so on. I also like to think carefully about the subject matter and how this can be mixed into the work in a symbolic fashion. When walking with my dogs over some fields about three miles from Kilmarnock a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I could use the idea of the 'global village' and use this image translated, if you like, into an extended metaphor. So, this is how I started Human Conditions -
I live in a bizarre neighbourhood. On the sunny side of the street - if we hang out with the metaphor - some individuals are so mega-rich they can afford to live in castles or multi-room mansions. The USA, alone, produces enough food to feed the world several times over and we can now travel around the globe in hours rather than weeks.
Simultaneously, on the darker side of the hood people still die unnecessarily of easily remedied ailments and/or lack of food. Every night millions go to bed starving, our cities are full of armies of the homeless and the planet we depend on for our continued existence is being poisoned to death.
None of this makes any sense to me. Maybe...I am missing something? If I am, It seems I am not alone.
The trick now is to conclude with a link pointing back to the introduction, and here it is, again from Human Conditions
Everywhere we look, existence is often a pattern of stark and crazy contradictions. On this corner greed ravages and plunders the planet, damages the lives of indiviudals and animals and calls it globalisation. The well-fed puff cigars after a multi-course lunch while their neighbours are starved out of existence. In this weird and distorted district morbid obesity waddles around with tottering famine, ostentatious, self-indulgent overspend sleeps with wretched poverty, mansions with many unused rooms mock those without shelter.
I particularly like that last part of the last sentence, the thought of mansions mocking the homeless. After the above there is a short concluding statement.
On a lighter, and happier note, I am organising a trip to Goat Fell on Arran and some actual climbing, both in May.
Today, I actually managed to run, pain free for the first time in two years, though I did not go far. Since I crashed my bike about two years ago, I have been plagued with injuries, knee, calf, and torn stomach muscles. I have had physiotherapy and have been consulting a surgeon. It has been a long, long time, but it was a joy to actually get out and move freely.
Now, at last, I can resume my football career, right where did I put my favourite Heart of Midlothian top. I will make Kris eat his words! (Rubs hands with glee)
As you know I like to think that everything I write is a work of art. So when I work, and especially with regard to factual material I think angle, tone, introduction, redundant words, style and so on. I also like to think carefully about the subject matter and how this can be mixed into the work in a symbolic fashion. When walking with my dogs over some fields about three miles from Kilmarnock a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I could use the idea of the 'global village' and use this image translated, if you like, into an extended metaphor. So, this is how I started Human Conditions -
I live in a bizarre neighbourhood. On the sunny side of the street - if we hang out with the metaphor - some individuals are so mega-rich they can afford to live in castles or multi-room mansions. The USA, alone, produces enough food to feed the world several times over and we can now travel around the globe in hours rather than weeks.
Simultaneously, on the darker side of the hood people still die unnecessarily of easily remedied ailments and/or lack of food. Every night millions go to bed starving, our cities are full of armies of the homeless and the planet we depend on for our continued existence is being poisoned to death.
None of this makes any sense to me. Maybe...I am missing something? If I am, It seems I am not alone.
The trick now is to conclude with a link pointing back to the introduction, and here it is, again from Human Conditions
Everywhere we look, existence is often a pattern of stark and crazy contradictions. On this corner greed ravages and plunders the planet, damages the lives of indiviudals and animals and calls it globalisation. The well-fed puff cigars after a multi-course lunch while their neighbours are starved out of existence. In this weird and distorted district morbid obesity waddles around with tottering famine, ostentatious, self-indulgent overspend sleeps with wretched poverty, mansions with many unused rooms mock those without shelter.
I particularly like that last part of the last sentence, the thought of mansions mocking the homeless. After the above there is a short concluding statement.
On a lighter, and happier note, I am organising a trip to Goat Fell on Arran and some actual climbing, both in May.
Today, I actually managed to run, pain free for the first time in two years, though I did not go far. Since I crashed my bike about two years ago, I have been plagued with injuries, knee, calf, and torn stomach muscles. I have had physiotherapy and have been consulting a surgeon. It has been a long, long time, but it was a joy to actually get out and move freely.
Now, at last, I can resume my football career, right where did I put my favourite Heart of Midlothian top. I will make Kris eat his words! (Rubs hands with glee)
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Good guys wear...their shirt tails out.
My goodness but Sergio has been tearing up the ether lately hasn’t he? One stunning post after another - how does he do it? There must be smoke coming out of his keyboard!
I on the other hand haven’t contributed to the blog for a while, mainly because I’ve been frantically preparing for my book launch (Oooh! Get her!) for the past two weeks. [Nothing too fancy – I’m co-editor for a small collection of comedy writing by adult learners – but I’m very proud of the project.]
Well, the launch was tonight (I made my speeches wired to the moon and shaking like a leaf – several people very kindly informing me afterwards that they could see my hands shaking – even from the back! *Embarrassed groan * ) and now, victory brandy/valium shooter consumed ; ) I’m finally calm enough to express my thanks.
Thanks Sergio. You donned your photo-journalist hat, stepped into the breach and did all our PR – organising press coverage, writing an article, taking pictures and even wangling an interview on the radio for me (thanks again for that last one Serge – I think).
It's one in the morning, a little help from my other good friend, Rémy Martin :D and I’m recovered enough from my trauma to state for the record that Sergio’s a thoroughly decent guy.
Axasha.
I on the other hand haven’t contributed to the blog for a while, mainly because I’ve been frantically preparing for my book launch (Oooh! Get her!) for the past two weeks. [Nothing too fancy – I’m co-editor for a small collection of comedy writing by adult learners – but I’m very proud of the project.]
Well, the launch was tonight (I made my speeches wired to the moon and shaking like a leaf – several people very kindly informing me afterwards that they could see my hands shaking – even from the back! *Embarrassed groan * ) and now, victory brandy/valium shooter consumed ; ) I’m finally calm enough to express my thanks.
Thanks Sergio. You donned your photo-journalist hat, stepped into the breach and did all our PR – organising press coverage, writing an article, taking pictures and even wangling an interview on the radio for me (thanks again for that last one Serge – I think).
It's one in the morning, a little help from my other good friend, Rémy Martin :D and I’m recovered enough from my trauma to state for the record that Sergio’s a thoroughly decent guy.
Axasha.
Monday, 2 April 2007
A Rough History Of A Sort Of Darker Killingbeck Scotland
Like a basketball player, in the process of leaping toward the hoop, being transformed into Bruce Springsteen, or a businessman, the town, as the nation, experiences metamorphosis. Brickwork is used to develop the settlement into a series of delicately aligned, or, indeed, unaligned buildings, which with time decay. New structures built from concrete soon crumble with the repeated passage of the seasons, to be replaced by new forms of reinforced concrete, glass, wood and plastics in all its synthetic forms.
Architecture is a liquid, mallable form which spreads and sprawls into concentric rings designating residential, industrial and utility areas, as well as the subtle and surreal nuances of class. Private developments sit awkwardly with housing estates, parades of shops and new, wider roads, like huge arteries which speed up trafic, but make the life of nervous dogs more difficult.
The industrial hammer falls for the last time, ghosts not carpets haunt the floors of derelict factories, which eventually make way for supermarkets, which in time are bought over by bigger meganationals and left empty. The mass exodus of captains of industry marching proudly through the factory gates becomes a mere memory, the entranceway is locked after their departure. For a time an ill-conceived security guard patrols with a big, but neurotic alsation dog, then he too disappears as the weeds emerge, the windows fall out like rotten teeth. R.I.P Blackwood and Morton Kilmarnock (BMK), Glenfield and Kennedy, Massey Ferguson,The Saxone et al.
Bland, though prettily named, industrial estates spring up on the town's margins, characterless, square and sparse. Units of industry, home for fleeting businesses, who arrive and depart with wreckless haste.
And, just as the physical grows and dies, the abstract too rises and declines.
Generations of people come, leave their mark, big, small or indifferent and just as suddenly disappear, like a hooded graffiti artist spraying his tag onto a wall and vanishing into the darkness of the town's night streets.
The new generations rip up their father's books, just as their father's had their grandfathers. A ceremonial bonfire is constructed for their father's music. Elvis, as a Guy Fawkes effigy, the Beatles kindling for the flames. Later, anguished children of the rippers condemn their parents for burning the Beatles when Oasis, that well known Beatles singalike band become the currency of britpop chic.
Families look on with a collective horror, as their offspring colour their Mohican hairstyles purple and dance, ludicrously, to incomprehensible music, which represents, supposedly, two fingers to the universe. But, the boy with the purple Mohican hair pogo dancing to the Sex Pistols is transformed into a salesman, complete with suit, collar and tie and a company car thank you very much. "Must be off darling, now little Johnny, you be good for mummy, and if daddy does better this month than he did last we might be moving to one of those new Wimpy homes on an anonymous estate in Irvine".
In step with the trends of the nation, Little Johnny's mummy and daddy, former punks, and now respectable middle class aspirees are destined to divorce before their tenth wedding anniversary. Little Johnny, grown-up, will be far more daring than the members of his two hybrid families, his step and half brother and sisters, step-mother and step-father. He will smoke cannabis, and try ecstacy and get into fights more often, and will suffer from that new disease of wanderlust, backpacking his way through life with countless jobs and at thirty, unlike his parents who married in their late teens, he will still be single.
He will be a central belt child of Scotland, brought up on Mel Gibson films and a massive debate about whether or not William Wallace was a resident of Kilmarnock or Elderslie. He will witness the formation of a Scottish parliament at Holyrood, and three successive First Minsiters - Donald Dewar, O Henry McLeish and Jack McConnel -all Labour, between May1999 and November 2001. Scotland's return to a parliament for the first time since 1707 sparked the wheels of a new pride.
Architecture is a liquid, mallable form which spreads and sprawls into concentric rings designating residential, industrial and utility areas, as well as the subtle and surreal nuances of class. Private developments sit awkwardly with housing estates, parades of shops and new, wider roads, like huge arteries which speed up trafic, but make the life of nervous dogs more difficult.
The industrial hammer falls for the last time, ghosts not carpets haunt the floors of derelict factories, which eventually make way for supermarkets, which in time are bought over by bigger meganationals and left empty. The mass exodus of captains of industry marching proudly through the factory gates becomes a mere memory, the entranceway is locked after their departure. For a time an ill-conceived security guard patrols with a big, but neurotic alsation dog, then he too disappears as the weeds emerge, the windows fall out like rotten teeth. R.I.P Blackwood and Morton Kilmarnock (BMK), Glenfield and Kennedy, Massey Ferguson,The Saxone et al.
Bland, though prettily named, industrial estates spring up on the town's margins, characterless, square and sparse. Units of industry, home for fleeting businesses, who arrive and depart with wreckless haste.
And, just as the physical grows and dies, the abstract too rises and declines.
Generations of people come, leave their mark, big, small or indifferent and just as suddenly disappear, like a hooded graffiti artist spraying his tag onto a wall and vanishing into the darkness of the town's night streets.
The new generations rip up their father's books, just as their father's had their grandfathers. A ceremonial bonfire is constructed for their father's music. Elvis, as a Guy Fawkes effigy, the Beatles kindling for the flames. Later, anguished children of the rippers condemn their parents for burning the Beatles when Oasis, that well known Beatles singalike band become the currency of britpop chic.
Families look on with a collective horror, as their offspring colour their Mohican hairstyles purple and dance, ludicrously, to incomprehensible music, which represents, supposedly, two fingers to the universe. But, the boy with the purple Mohican hair pogo dancing to the Sex Pistols is transformed into a salesman, complete with suit, collar and tie and a company car thank you very much. "Must be off darling, now little Johnny, you be good for mummy, and if daddy does better this month than he did last we might be moving to one of those new Wimpy homes on an anonymous estate in Irvine".
In step with the trends of the nation, Little Johnny's mummy and daddy, former punks, and now respectable middle class aspirees are destined to divorce before their tenth wedding anniversary. Little Johnny, grown-up, will be far more daring than the members of his two hybrid families, his step and half brother and sisters, step-mother and step-father. He will smoke cannabis, and try ecstacy and get into fights more often, and will suffer from that new disease of wanderlust, backpacking his way through life with countless jobs and at thirty, unlike his parents who married in their late teens, he will still be single.
He will be a central belt child of Scotland, brought up on Mel Gibson films and a massive debate about whether or not William Wallace was a resident of Kilmarnock or Elderslie. He will witness the formation of a Scottish parliament at Holyrood, and three successive First Minsiters - Donald Dewar, O Henry McLeish and Jack McConnel -all Labour, between May1999 and November 2001. Scotland's return to a parliament for the first time since 1707 sparked the wheels of a new pride.
Sunday, 1 April 2007
Arriving Home Just Before Midnight +
This is a bit freaky really. There are two senses in this, two visions, the I and the you and then they come together. I thought that part was neat. Definitely existentialist, and you can probably tell I have drank too much wine, but I must say I thought it was jolly, jolly good. Too tired to read even Byron tonight.
EL
EL
First Quote of the New Month
I was out last night catching up with an old and good friend. When I returned home, I wrote 'Arriving Home Just After Midnight'. This morning I wrote my column for Spain and then took my dogs out. So, I have been busy. Last night my friend and I became embroiled in some heavy discussion about time, and time passing -too fast - and he is into all that Stephen Hawking stuff. Eventually we got round to art, what it is, who decides and sh1t like that. What I was reminded about, however, was a great quote from further back than even I can remember - honest - by a man called Frank Zappa and it went something like this -
The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground
Groovy we mad hamster saying or whit?
The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground
Groovy we mad hamster saying or whit?
I thought you guys might be interested in these couple of exceprts from a weekly column I write for Spain called UK Confidential. The first one is from a story about a massive credit card fraud affecting 45 million TK Maxx customers.
' In January the corporation admitted there had been a breach of its security, but suggested it was only a minor glitch. So, 45 million people....that's small scale? Now, at last, the size of the fraud has been revealed.
Customers of TK Maxx were advised to go back through their receipts and credit card statements. Fraudsters often target small amounts of purchases, so that these transactions are not easily detected.
You will be happy to know that new legislation making the companies responsible for their customer's card information is on its way.
Well that's a relief... Shut, door stable is bolted has horse the but the...take these words and make up a well known phrase....clue it has a connection with the above....ooh right, let's see, mmmm tricky....'
And this from an item about the new X Factor team...yes, I know...how sad...
A number of names have been suggested to replace Louis Walsh on the judging panel including Tony Blair - yes, I kid you not, but it's more likely to be....Jermaine Jackson? Personally, for all I care, and for all this show will do for the human intellect, peace in our time and global warming, they could have given it to a sheep with mild learning difficulties. Nuf Sed?
(UK Confidential April 1st 2007)
' In January the corporation admitted there had been a breach of its security, but suggested it was only a minor glitch. So, 45 million people....that's small scale? Now, at last, the size of the fraud has been revealed.
Customers of TK Maxx were advised to go back through their receipts and credit card statements. Fraudsters often target small amounts of purchases, so that these transactions are not easily detected.
You will be happy to know that new legislation making the companies responsible for their customer's card information is on its way.
Well that's a relief... Shut, door stable is bolted has horse the but the...take these words and make up a well known phrase....clue it has a connection with the above....ooh right, let's see, mmmm tricky....'
And this from an item about the new X Factor team...yes, I know...how sad...
A number of names have been suggested to replace Louis Walsh on the judging panel including Tony Blair - yes, I kid you not, but it's more likely to be....Jermaine Jackson? Personally, for all I care, and for all this show will do for the human intellect, peace in our time and global warming, they could have given it to a sheep with mild learning difficulties. Nuf Sed?
(UK Confidential April 1st 2007)
Saturday, 31 March 2007
Arriving Home Just After Midnight
Arriving home just after midnight, and with a sudden urge to write in blue I grab my black book and begin to compose, my head fuzzy with drink.
I remember the moon, hanging in the sky, disc shaped and glowing, laughter, a few drunken girls and then a blurred walk home.
It is 1977, I switch on my computer, make myself a coffee and stumble through to the front room and turn the television on. I have missed the football - you know the feeling - the programme has finished, I curse.
You wonder what this can all be about in a certain shade of red, and turn the page, your drinking chocolate cooling beneath your bedside lamp. You remember as a child being snuggled up in bed and your mother, or father, bringing you a drink. It is comforting, you return to the story.
I remember a girl in the bar who had waved, mouthed my name, I couldn't hear because of the karaoke and the madness taking place all around me, I've been drinking vodka and blackcurrant and my friend, who went to the toilet half an hour ago, has gone missing. He has left his jacket on a chair and I pick it up and go outside to look for him.
I shiver in the cold.
You stop reading, your telephone is ringing. You wonder who it can be at this time of the night...morning. You answer, and the voice on the other end of the line is vaguely familiar, but he doesn't say much - 'Hello...erm...erm' and then goes silent - perhaps it is my friend? You say hello several times, but he can't muster the courage to answer anymore.
I see him leave a phone box on the other side of the street. He is staring at the ground. Music filters from the pub behind me. Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols, a new punk band who have just burst onto the music scene.
I see my friend look up and he tries to wave, but he is drowning in a perplexingly purple ocean of colour.
I remember the moon, hanging in the sky, disc shaped and glowing, laughter, a few drunken girls and then a blurred walk home.
It is 1977, I switch on my computer, make myself a coffee and stumble through to the front room and turn the television on. I have missed the football - you know the feeling - the programme has finished, I curse.
You wonder what this can all be about in a certain shade of red, and turn the page, your drinking chocolate cooling beneath your bedside lamp. You remember as a child being snuggled up in bed and your mother, or father, bringing you a drink. It is comforting, you return to the story.
I remember a girl in the bar who had waved, mouthed my name, I couldn't hear because of the karaoke and the madness taking place all around me, I've been drinking vodka and blackcurrant and my friend, who went to the toilet half an hour ago, has gone missing. He has left his jacket on a chair and I pick it up and go outside to look for him.
I shiver in the cold.
You stop reading, your telephone is ringing. You wonder who it can be at this time of the night...morning. You answer, and the voice on the other end of the line is vaguely familiar, but he doesn't say much - 'Hello...erm...erm' and then goes silent - perhaps it is my friend? You say hello several times, but he can't muster the courage to answer anymore.
I see him leave a phone box on the other side of the street. He is staring at the ground. Music filters from the pub behind me. Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols, a new punk band who have just burst onto the music scene.
I see my friend look up and he tries to wave, but he is drowning in a perplexingly purple ocean of colour.
Let's Sign Off This Month With A Quote And A Good One
What a stunner I think you scruffy, wretched lot will agree? I wonder if we could use the WICK reading method method to disentangle meaning here? Mmmmm, right let's take the word 'other'...uh-huh
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann
If you click on the quote it will take you to a quote site...I can do these things because I am an intalek...intalec...clever...
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann
If you click on the quote it will take you to a quote site...I can do these things because I am an intalek...intalec...clever...
Let's Sign Off This Month With A Quote And A Good One
What a stunner I think you scruffy, wretched lot will agree? I wonder if we could use the WICK reading method method to disentangle meaning here? Mmmmm, right let's take the word 'other'...uh-huh
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann
WEEKEND CORPSE
Because most of us work so hard through the week, the weekend tends to find the individual in a state of Weekend Corpse. A bottle or two of wine consumed with a meal on Friday evening, is soon followed by several whiskies and beers.
Now the world seems to be a much more friendly arena. By closing time, you're slumped on a chair with your head tilted back and your teeth showing like a wolf's fangs. You are carted home, unceremoniously, by your friends and dumped into bed.
You sleep till around 1 or 2 on the Saturday, then you slouch around like a half-asleep zombie with a headache. A shower brings you back to partial life, and a pulse is found again. You promise, oh how you promise yourself, that you will just nip to the pub for a few beers and a quiet chat with your friends.
By ten you are heading into town, and 20 minutes later, by now unsteady on your feet, you are volunteering for the karaoke.
You murder Billy Idol's White Wedding and stagger triumphantly back to the bar. You are sick at some point on the way to another bar in a shop doorway.
Your friends cart you home. You rise at 5 in the afternoon and remember that tomorrow you are back at work...groan. You fall asleep in the armchair, waking only to go to bed. In the 72 hours between leaving work and then returning, you have been asleep for 50, waking only to go to the toilet, eat and get drunk.
But, as you always tell your friends, you have to do something productive at the weekend. I mean who really wants to go to Ikea? I wonder?
Now the world seems to be a much more friendly arena. By closing time, you're slumped on a chair with your head tilted back and your teeth showing like a wolf's fangs. You are carted home, unceremoniously, by your friends and dumped into bed.
You sleep till around 1 or 2 on the Saturday, then you slouch around like a half-asleep zombie with a headache. A shower brings you back to partial life, and a pulse is found again. You promise, oh how you promise yourself, that you will just nip to the pub for a few beers and a quiet chat with your friends.
By ten you are heading into town, and 20 minutes later, by now unsteady on your feet, you are volunteering for the karaoke.
You murder Billy Idol's White Wedding and stagger triumphantly back to the bar. You are sick at some point on the way to another bar in a shop doorway.
Your friends cart you home. You rise at 5 in the afternoon and remember that tomorrow you are back at work...groan. You fall asleep in the armchair, waking only to go to bed. In the 72 hours between leaving work and then returning, you have been asleep for 50, waking only to go to the toilet, eat and get drunk.
But, as you always tell your friends, you have to do something productive at the weekend. I mean who really wants to go to Ikea? I wonder?
Friday, 30 March 2007
My Life As A Comic Book Superhero
I suppose I am on a roll at the moment. Flying with ideas, bursting with new words and ready to kick the ass. It's true, I am feeling a bit more enthusiastic this week, last week I just wanted to disappear. It's good to feel this upbeat mood, though all those promises of contributions to the blog have not materialised. A bit disappointing perhaps, still you can't make people post.
This week I was supposed to go to Edinburgh by train. A journey I eagerly looked forward to. There is nothing like that exit out of Queen Street on the eastern line and that long fabulous tunnel that seems to go on forever. Sweet bliss! I once travelled to Paris by train from Glasgow and had 20 minutes in the Channel tunnel, that was great, no that was fabulous if not supergreat! I suppose after that, the tunnel you enter as you leave Queen Street pales into insignificance. Anyway, in the end, my plans were changed at the last minute and I didn't go to Auld Reekie, so no train ride, no tunnels, supertrainspotter folied.
I know, I know, it's quite sad really.
Nevermind, I did find a great quote - El you'll like this - from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Take some time to consider this furry friends. 'A wild striving to express a more inward and infinite sense characterizes the works of every art'.
Thoughts?
Artists, are perhaps, over reaching souls who push beyond the routine and more mundane boundaries of the everyday. They strive, perhaps, to get to the essential core of what it is to be alive, what it means to exist at any time in any place. A far reaching search to understand the impossible reality of being?
Enough of this, I almost sounded intalektule there, trick of the light perhaps? And, hey, be careful with that axe Eugene!
This week I was supposed to go to Edinburgh by train. A journey I eagerly looked forward to. There is nothing like that exit out of Queen Street on the eastern line and that long fabulous tunnel that seems to go on forever. Sweet bliss! I once travelled to Paris by train from Glasgow and had 20 minutes in the Channel tunnel, that was great, no that was fabulous if not supergreat! I suppose after that, the tunnel you enter as you leave Queen Street pales into insignificance. Anyway, in the end, my plans were changed at the last minute and I didn't go to Auld Reekie, so no train ride, no tunnels, supertrainspotter folied.
I know, I know, it's quite sad really.
Nevermind, I did find a great quote - El you'll like this - from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Take some time to consider this furry friends. 'A wild striving to express a more inward and infinite sense characterizes the works of every art'.
Thoughts?
Artists, are perhaps, over reaching souls who push beyond the routine and more mundane boundaries of the everyday. They strive, perhaps, to get to the essential core of what it is to be alive, what it means to exist at any time in any place. A far reaching search to understand the impossible reality of being?
Enough of this, I almost sounded intalektule there, trick of the light perhaps? And, hey, be careful with that axe Eugene!
WICK Reading Method
A new reading method which promises to revolutionise the study of classic English Literature texts has been devised by a woman from the north of Scotland. Called the Word Interplay Change and Kick method, it involves reading a single word of the author's text and cogitating on this for say six months. In this way the works of Franz Kafka can be re-interpretated in a new and exciting fashion. New dimensions to Kafka's work can be explored and new depths to the writer's psyche can be uncovered.
For example, take the word' relays' from the author's seminal text 'A Hunger Artist'. Think about this, what is the significance of this solitary...and by now very lonely word ...in the context of the work as a holistic experience for the reader. Without 'relays' Wickists may contend, the structure and syntax of the story collapses, and the text falls flat and is lifeless.
Another example is Italo Calvino's book of short stories, the brilliant 'Adam, One Afternoon'. This time the work is studied 'in tandem', that is a whole two words are chosen for analysis 'paralysed' and 'grapes'. Wickists examine how these artefacts collide with the whole edifice of structure, without them, they may contend, the whole apparatus is like a giant jelly, with them it is solid and strong and can be projected into the future of the material.
It is word interplay, and you do feel like a change, before kicking it neatly into touch - the WICK method - you know it makes sense!
With this method it may take you a while to work through classic texts but it sure is FUN!
For example, take the word' relays' from the author's seminal text 'A Hunger Artist'. Think about this, what is the significance of this solitary...and by now very lonely word ...in the context of the work as a holistic experience for the reader. Without 'relays' Wickists may contend, the structure and syntax of the story collapses, and the text falls flat and is lifeless.
Another example is Italo Calvino's book of short stories, the brilliant 'Adam, One Afternoon'. This time the work is studied 'in tandem', that is a whole two words are chosen for analysis 'paralysed' and 'grapes'. Wickists examine how these artefacts collide with the whole edifice of structure, without them, they may contend, the whole apparatus is like a giant jelly, with them it is solid and strong and can be projected into the future of the material.
It is word interplay, and you do feel like a change, before kicking it neatly into touch - the WICK method - you know it makes sense!
With this method it may take you a while to work through classic texts but it sure is FUN!
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
God Has Flown From This World
Axasha recently introduced me to Cecil Collins, a British artist born in Plymouth. Something about this guy's work - is it okay to call him 'a guy' or will the art world hold its hands aloft aghast? Anyway, something about this guy's work was quite appealing to me. I particulalry liked 'God Has Flown From This World' an interesting composition in a kind of sepia colour.
For me, this painting was slightly Satanic - an upside down crucifix, all the figures starkers, skeletal figure (which I thought might be the Grim Reaper represented) and a guy with a long white beard fleeing the scene (God perhaps?). Another figure in the background is holding a telescope and looking up to the sky maybe suggests astrology or astronomy, but wait just a minute...in the forefront of this painting are a man and woman. The man is holding the crucifix reversed and the woman is trying to cover-up her nakedness. Could this be Adam and Eve, and God, realising that humanity has lost its innocence, is retreating back home to Heaven?
All the figures are standing on a globe-like object with paths and other planets in the sky, so there is also a creation feel to this.
Well, really Eugene? Your playing your music too loud again child!
Just added that last bit because Cecil was a bit surreal.
For me, this painting was slightly Satanic - an upside down crucifix, all the figures starkers, skeletal figure (which I thought might be the Grim Reaper represented) and a guy with a long white beard fleeing the scene (God perhaps?). Another figure in the background is holding a telescope and looking up to the sky maybe suggests astrology or astronomy, but wait just a minute...in the forefront of this painting are a man and woman. The man is holding the crucifix reversed and the woman is trying to cover-up her nakedness. Could this be Adam and Eve, and God, realising that humanity has lost its innocence, is retreating back home to Heaven?
All the figures are standing on a globe-like object with paths and other planets in the sky, so there is also a creation feel to this.
Well, really Eugene? Your playing your music too loud again child!
Just added that last bit because Cecil was a bit surreal.
Defiant Freedom
I like the theme of defiant freedom. It is a self-destructive notion, and yet, at the same time it is a liberating idea. To be honest it is something I have referred to before, when talking about surfers and climbers.
On a recent trip to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides I took some photographs of some surfers on one of the island's many windswept beaches. They were pitting themselves against wind and the power of the water as it rose and fell and finally crashed in on shore. A few seconds being driven along on a board toward the sand on wind and wave power while trying to maintain balance by shifting the feet, defying physics before the inevitable fall into the ocean.
I actually love beaches, and rocks and mountains and all those sort of places where natural things like the wind and the sea and heavy rain remind us of our mortality.
A few years ago I was walking in the Dolomites when I came across some climbers scaling a huge slab of about one to two hundred feet of rock. I remember it was a scorching hot day in July and I managed to also take some photographs. For a while I sat on a rock and watched them inch their way up their ropes like spiders moving on a thread. Some waved to me, and I waved in return. Life affirming waves, and I could see they were having fun.
Both these sports have fascinated me, though I have never wanted to surf - not really my thing. I could, however, see the defiant freedom in both activities. In a way I felt they were giving two fingers to a world which would probably condemn both sports as being crazy.
It intrigues me, however, why anyone would want to participate in either. Both are, to some extent, pretty scary things to do, and in a way actually taking part would mean overcoming fears. But in managing to suppress those feelings of fear there would surely be that sense of defiant freedom.
On a recent trip to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides I took some photographs of some surfers on one of the island's many windswept beaches. They were pitting themselves against wind and the power of the water as it rose and fell and finally crashed in on shore. A few seconds being driven along on a board toward the sand on wind and wave power while trying to maintain balance by shifting the feet, defying physics before the inevitable fall into the ocean.
I actually love beaches, and rocks and mountains and all those sort of places where natural things like the wind and the sea and heavy rain remind us of our mortality.
A few years ago I was walking in the Dolomites when I came across some climbers scaling a huge slab of about one to two hundred feet of rock. I remember it was a scorching hot day in July and I managed to also take some photographs. For a while I sat on a rock and watched them inch their way up their ropes like spiders moving on a thread. Some waved to me, and I waved in return. Life affirming waves, and I could see they were having fun.
Both these sports have fascinated me, though I have never wanted to surf - not really my thing. I could, however, see the defiant freedom in both activities. In a way I felt they were giving two fingers to a world which would probably condemn both sports as being crazy.
It intrigues me, however, why anyone would want to participate in either. Both are, to some extent, pretty scary things to do, and in a way actually taking part would mean overcoming fears. But in managing to suppress those feelings of fear there would surely be that sense of defiant freedom.
Thursday, 22 March 2007
The Road To Darker Killingbeck
The dark woman, who reminded me of an older woman with silver darlings and peat and a clay pipe dangling from the corner of her mouth, stood aside and invited me inside. I stood in the poorly-lit hall and could see several men playing cards in the front room through the gap left in the half-open door. One, old and grey gentleman with a horrible green polo neck sweater, a thick white beard, a cigarette trapped between his yellow fingers - blue smoke curling and rising upward toward the ceiling - looked up, a frown creasing his heavy brows. He nodded, showed me the queen of clubs, grinned, his huge yellow teeth escaping from between his lips, but I did not respond.
The woman brushed past me and I caught the smell of her stale perfume, minty and spicy. She walked upstairs without another word and I followed, the stairs creaking as I ascended them.
"That's strange" I said to the woman. "I thought I could hear the ocean"
"You can" she smiled. "It's only 100 yards to the beach,and there are stars in the sky to guide your way. Beautiful stars." She smiled.
I frowned, I didn't know what she was talking about
She showed me to the room of teenage memories, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a room with a solitary single bed, a poster of a football team above the head board, a football scarf casually draped over a chair beside it, a pair of football boots under the chair. A book on a small bedside table, an exercise book and a pen.
I moved to a long mirror by a second hand wardrobe and glanced into it. A stranger returned my gaze, was this witchcraft?
The stranger looked vaguely familiar, like an acquaintance from a long, long time ago. As I watched I saw that he was the life and soul, a carefree spirit who liked to drink and have fun, but then he was removing masques, one after the other, but in such a mesmerising way that no one could tell what lay behind. I noticed...and thought about it later when I couldn't slip into sleep... though he was at the centre of the party, he was also standing on the margins looking in. Always being someone else, which ever way you looked at it.
I was overcome by a strange feeling of poignant regret.
How much did I regret not being twenty years younger, how much did I regret not fighting the good fight then, how much did I regret taking advice from those who said they knew it all, but really knew nothing, liars, frauds and cheats, their hubris only matched by the depths of their ignorance, those and their offspring. How many lives will they be allowed to damage, learned idiots, qaulified clowns. How many artists will they dissuade from picking up a paint brush, how many writers will they dissuade from purchasing a pen, how many photographers will they advise not to buy a camera? How will they look to tick the correct boxes before giving encouragement?
The room was small, yet lived in. Here is where someone plotted to take over the world, someone who was just learning about deceit and injustice, who had learned not to trust and felt the abandonment of every teenager and wanted so much to find out who they were and have the maximum fun on the journey, who knew not what lay ahead and didn't care, tomorrow would always take care of itself, and death was a cul-de-sac for old people, and bungalows were naff, and prog rock was a poor excuse for music of the most self-indulgent and overbloated kind, and everything had to be edgy and raw and stripped bare of pretentions. This was someone who wanted to start walking, keep going and never look back. Someone who wanted to go where everything was an adventure and nothing could ever be foretold. Someone who held the fascination of the world in his eyes and wanted to know everything. But all he found was dissonant sound and the headlong rush and the mostly futile opinions of existence.
A growing crescendo of sound climaxed and was immediately followed by a solitary piano tinkling in melancholic minors in an empty room, but in the end, he was always doomed to contemplate how he had got to a certain point in his life a certain time in a certain era.
In the distance I heard a train whistle. A strange, plaintive sound rising into the night air, and I moved away from the mirror and to the window. From here all I could see were houses, high rise flats and an open concrete square, where several cars were dumped or abandoned and seemed to be rusting. Time flaking the fresh paint from the exterior, the inner workings decaying and falling slowly apart, oil leaking slowly in thick globular drips from a cracked sump.
I could hear too, but not see, great waves crashing onto rocks.
And, anyway...what was he doing here? And, anyway...what was I doing here.
A high pitched sound caught my attention, it squealed with energy and shrieked with pain and rage. The muffled sound of people calling my name...over...over...and over, mixed with unfamiliar voices, people shouting commands...
"I lifted a stick from my basket and he ran out into the road" I heard the old crone say.
Sounds which resonated and reverberated.
Until, at last, I drifted off to sleep.
The woman brushed past me and I caught the smell of her stale perfume, minty and spicy. She walked upstairs without another word and I followed, the stairs creaking as I ascended them.
"That's strange" I said to the woman. "I thought I could hear the ocean"
"You can" she smiled. "It's only 100 yards to the beach,and there are stars in the sky to guide your way. Beautiful stars." She smiled.
I frowned, I didn't know what she was talking about
She showed me to the room of teenage memories, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a room with a solitary single bed, a poster of a football team above the head board, a football scarf casually draped over a chair beside it, a pair of football boots under the chair. A book on a small bedside table, an exercise book and a pen.
I moved to a long mirror by a second hand wardrobe and glanced into it. A stranger returned my gaze, was this witchcraft?
The stranger looked vaguely familiar, like an acquaintance from a long, long time ago. As I watched I saw that he was the life and soul, a carefree spirit who liked to drink and have fun, but then he was removing masques, one after the other, but in such a mesmerising way that no one could tell what lay behind. I noticed...and thought about it later when I couldn't slip into sleep... though he was at the centre of the party, he was also standing on the margins looking in. Always being someone else, which ever way you looked at it.
I was overcome by a strange feeling of poignant regret.
How much did I regret not being twenty years younger, how much did I regret not fighting the good fight then, how much did I regret taking advice from those who said they knew it all, but really knew nothing, liars, frauds and cheats, their hubris only matched by the depths of their ignorance, those and their offspring. How many lives will they be allowed to damage, learned idiots, qaulified clowns. How many artists will they dissuade from picking up a paint brush, how many writers will they dissuade from purchasing a pen, how many photographers will they advise not to buy a camera? How will they look to tick the correct boxes before giving encouragement?
The room was small, yet lived in. Here is where someone plotted to take over the world, someone who was just learning about deceit and injustice, who had learned not to trust and felt the abandonment of every teenager and wanted so much to find out who they were and have the maximum fun on the journey, who knew not what lay ahead and didn't care, tomorrow would always take care of itself, and death was a cul-de-sac for old people, and bungalows were naff, and prog rock was a poor excuse for music of the most self-indulgent and overbloated kind, and everything had to be edgy and raw and stripped bare of pretentions. This was someone who wanted to start walking, keep going and never look back. Someone who wanted to go where everything was an adventure and nothing could ever be foretold. Someone who held the fascination of the world in his eyes and wanted to know everything. But all he found was dissonant sound and the headlong rush and the mostly futile opinions of existence.
A growing crescendo of sound climaxed and was immediately followed by a solitary piano tinkling in melancholic minors in an empty room, but in the end, he was always doomed to contemplate how he had got to a certain point in his life a certain time in a certain era.
In the distance I heard a train whistle. A strange, plaintive sound rising into the night air, and I moved away from the mirror and to the window. From here all I could see were houses, high rise flats and an open concrete square, where several cars were dumped or abandoned and seemed to be rusting. Time flaking the fresh paint from the exterior, the inner workings decaying and falling slowly apart, oil leaking slowly in thick globular drips from a cracked sump.
I could hear too, but not see, great waves crashing onto rocks.
And, anyway...what was he doing here? And, anyway...what was I doing here.
A high pitched sound caught my attention, it squealed with energy and shrieked with pain and rage. The muffled sound of people calling my name...over...over...and over, mixed with unfamiliar voices, people shouting commands...
"I lifted a stick from my basket and he ran out into the road" I heard the old crone say.
Sounds which resonated and reverberated.
Until, at last, I drifted off to sleep.
Monday, 19 March 2007
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
My inactivity, in case you hadn't noticed, was not helped by getting broadband this weekend. This is now Monday and I have been unable to go online since Friday lunchtime! To make matters worse my Jambos lost 4-0 on Saturday and Hibs won their first trophy for 16 years....don't please mention football. And, as if that wasn't enough, I am once again and for the sixth time, hit by my allergy - though, at least this time I don't look like the elephant man.
Good news...well there is none...but apart from the above I have not lost the will to live quite yet, and if I had I suppose I would be inclined to write the longest suicide note in history. Now there is an idea for a novel.
The blog has been spluttering along and despite my best efforts to get more people involved, nobody else apart from the home guard - only kidding guys - has taken up my offer to come on board. Four or five have said they will post but, as yet, haven't.
Nevertheless, the posts so far from everyone else have been excellent.
Tonight, I am back online and about to eat my Lasagne, the next installment of Darker Killingbeck is all but ready, and despite this nuisance allergy, I am optimistic about the future.
Now I have to get back to Gotham City before they close the gates.................and get out of these tights....
Good news...well there is none...but apart from the above I have not lost the will to live quite yet, and if I had I suppose I would be inclined to write the longest suicide note in history. Now there is an idea for a novel.
The blog has been spluttering along and despite my best efforts to get more people involved, nobody else apart from the home guard - only kidding guys - has taken up my offer to come on board. Four or five have said they will post but, as yet, haven't.
Nevertheless, the posts so far from everyone else have been excellent.
Tonight, I am back online and about to eat my Lasagne, the next installment of Darker Killingbeck is all but ready, and despite this nuisance allergy, I am optimistic about the future.
Now I have to get back to Gotham City before they close the gates.................and get out of these tights....
Sunday, 18 March 2007
Quote
Sorry if you all find this boring but I thought this was a great quote from the cover notes of an old Sonic Youth album
Once the music leaves your head it's already compromised.
Attributed to Jack Brewer
I wondered if this was the same with a writer writing a story?
Once the music leaves your head it's already compromised.
Attributed to Jack Brewer
I wondered if this was the same with a writer writing a story?
Friday, 16 March 2007
Quote # whatever
I found this line from one of Sergi's favourite songs "Cat Stevens" "Father and Son"
From the moment I could speak I was ordered to listen
Says it all really!
EL
From the moment I could speak I was ordered to listen
Says it all really!
EL
Monday, 12 March 2007
Tate, Shmate...
Just in from seeing the Moscow Ballet! Oooh, it was lovely! Wonderful music, sublime dancing, gorgeous costumes, beautiful women and (best of all?) a Corp de Ballet bursting with strapping young men in tights! Bozhe moi!
*fans herself *
Anywho, to business.
Contacted the Tate today to request copyright permission to use thumbnails of paintings for us to discuss on the art post. They said yes…for a fee. So I very politely told them where to stick it. I’m really hacked off about this.
B*ll*cks anyway!
David G,
I’m still working on my list of favourite films (it’s sooo hard!) but I’ve been doing my homework and have read up a bit on Andrew Sarris and mise-en-scene, which I now know is [clears throat] “…(an) emphasis on the content of a frame rather than the relationship of one frame to the next..”
This is eye-opening to say the least. I’ve been labouring under the misguided belief that mise-en-scene is something MUCH more specific – a layering effect I’ve seen in some films.
For example, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jnr. (1924), where Buster literally steps INSIDE the film (how very Post-Modern of him!): The view of the cinema screen (the film inside the film) is framed by the stage. Buster steps off the stage into the screen, and then, through an opening door (apparently existing only in the two-dimensional space of the film), we see an interior space beyond (which is actually three-dimensional space).
Buster is playing with our minds and with our perceptions of spatial depth, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy! It’s very cool!
“In the character of a dozing film projectionist, Buster steps out of his sleeping body as his dream self makes its way through the aisle of the darkened theatre and steps up into the screen. Barely 20 years into the existence of the cinematic medium, Keaton was painstakingly examining the form’s limitations whilst at the same time exploding its possibilities. In questioning the artifice of presenting depth on a flat screen, Keaton simultaneously pushes the very limits to which that artifice can be made to seem wholly real. The illusion remains utterly convincing.” Thom Robinson. © 2006 University of Sheffield.
As the late, great Walter Kerr said, "He was the most silent, as well as the most cinematic, of silent screen comedians."
Sarris sees mise-en-scene as encompassing ALL aspects of visual style though (right David?), including “mystical meanings and [the] emotional tone” of the film.
I especially liked the definition that as opposed to the montage of, say, Eisenstein, mise-en-scene is the single shot, the “…static unblinking camera..”
The metaphysical “blink” of de Chirico’s “The Child’s Brain” (1914) always makes me think of Buster Keaton’s oh-so-expressive eyes – and his obliterating “blink”.
Sorry, now I AM being pretentious!
Still, I’ve always thought of Keaton as the master of the long shot.
Axasha D’Arc
*fans herself *
Anywho, to business.
Contacted the Tate today to request copyright permission to use thumbnails of paintings for us to discuss on the art post. They said yes…for a fee. So I very politely told them where to stick it. I’m really hacked off about this.
B*ll*cks anyway!
David G,
I’m still working on my list of favourite films (it’s sooo hard!) but I’ve been doing my homework and have read up a bit on Andrew Sarris and mise-en-scene, which I now know is [clears throat] “…(an) emphasis on the content of a frame rather than the relationship of one frame to the next..”
This is eye-opening to say the least. I’ve been labouring under the misguided belief that mise-en-scene is something MUCH more specific – a layering effect I’ve seen in some films.
For example, Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jnr. (1924), where Buster literally steps INSIDE the film (how very Post-Modern of him!): The view of the cinema screen (the film inside the film) is framed by the stage. Buster steps off the stage into the screen, and then, through an opening door (apparently existing only in the two-dimensional space of the film), we see an interior space beyond (which is actually three-dimensional space).
Buster is playing with our minds and with our perceptions of spatial depth, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy! It’s very cool!
“In the character of a dozing film projectionist, Buster steps out of his sleeping body as his dream self makes its way through the aisle of the darkened theatre and steps up into the screen. Barely 20 years into the existence of the cinematic medium, Keaton was painstakingly examining the form’s limitations whilst at the same time exploding its possibilities. In questioning the artifice of presenting depth on a flat screen, Keaton simultaneously pushes the very limits to which that artifice can be made to seem wholly real. The illusion remains utterly convincing.” Thom Robinson. © 2006 University of Sheffield.
As the late, great Walter Kerr said, "He was the most silent, as well as the most cinematic, of silent screen comedians."
Sarris sees mise-en-scene as encompassing ALL aspects of visual style though (right David?), including “mystical meanings and [the] emotional tone” of the film.
I especially liked the definition that as opposed to the montage of, say, Eisenstein, mise-en-scene is the single shot, the “…static unblinking camera..”
The metaphysical “blink” of de Chirico’s “The Child’s Brain” (1914) always makes me think of Buster Keaton’s oh-so-expressive eyes – and his obliterating “blink”.
Sorry, now I AM being pretentious!
Still, I’ve always thought of Keaton as the master of the long shot.
Axasha D’Arc
Walt Whitman
I do not know much about literature, but I wish I did. I want to talk about Walt Whitman, who I adore. He is an American poet, I am sure you know, who grew up in Brooklyn and was a real humanitarian.
I want to list one line from his poem To The States and that is Resist much, obey little and he goes on to say Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved. That says so much yeah, so much.
Danny
I want to list one line from his poem To The States and that is Resist much, obey little and he goes on to say Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved. That says so much yeah, so much.
Danny
Sunday, 11 March 2007
Freegan Interview
This afternoon I interviewed a Freegan, that is an alien from the planet Free, but of course, I am kidding. Actually his name was Alf and with his friend Martin they have been helping me with my research into this loose grouping of individuals disenchanted with the way the world is headed. They choose to lead an alternative lifestyle having opted out of the death machine and freed themselves from the slavery of the work ethic - who says it has to be that way anyway?
Freegans are focused on 'saving' the planet, on illustrating the way people are manipulated and controlled by an economic system that causes poverty, starvation and, perhaps, even the end of existence.
Me I am just a hypocrite, but at least I am aware.
Freegans are focused on 'saving' the planet, on illustrating the way people are manipulated and controlled by an economic system that causes poverty, starvation and, perhaps, even the end of existence.
Me I am just a hypocrite, but at least I am aware.
Another Quote
I am afraid I am so sad I actually like quotes. I am trying to add my own wee bit on, that is supposed to make them sound funny.
God had a divine purpose in placing this land between two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage. (Ronald Reagan)
I am not sure where Ronald is talking about, Jamaica? Cuba? I mean America? Freedom and courage? Would that sound like America to someone from East Los Angeles? Oh, and now it's God the builder?
EL
God had a divine purpose in placing this land between two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage. (Ronald Reagan)
I am not sure where Ronald is talking about, Jamaica? Cuba? I mean America? Freedom and courage? Would that sound like America to someone from East Los Angeles? Oh, and now it's God the builder?
EL
Another Quote
I am afraid I am so sad I actually like quotes. I am trying to add my own wee bit on, that is supposed to make them sound funny.
God had a divine purpose in placing this land between two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage. (Ronald Reagan)
I am not sure where Ronald is talking about, Jamaica? Cuba? I mean America? Freedom and courage? Would that sound like America to someone from East Los Angeles? Oh, and now it's God the builder?
EL
God had a divine purpose in placing this land between two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage. (Ronald Reagan)
I am not sure where Ronald is talking about, Jamaica? Cuba? I mean America? Freedom and courage? Would that sound like America to someone from East Los Angeles? Oh, and now it's God the builder?
EL
OZYMANDAIS
I never really was a big poetry fan, though this one caught my imagination. It's by Percy Byshe Shelley and its theme is decay. The clever part of this, however, is that Ozymandais, 'The king of kings, Look on my Works ye mighty and despair' is a decaying statue in the 'desart', and as the work of the sculpture deteriorates and returns to the sand from which it was made so the syntax of the poem breaks up.
In many ways, and this is my take on this poem, this is about the cycle of life and death. Even though the statue was once sculpted for some great and powerful man, it is, nevertheles, rapidly returning to sand. It is, for me, an ashes to ashes work, it is actually a sonnet of fourteen lines, can't remember what type of sonnet that is, but think it is the 'classic' style that Shakespeare worked in, eight lines and then six - they had a name for them which I also forget, sorry - but they were different from Italian sonnets.
I really like the irony however, and, for me, it represents the rise and fall of empires, kings, queens, leaders and so on and reinforces the mortality that we all share, rich, poor, hungry. Shelley's great poem was the one on the Peterloo riots of 1819 and the guy was quite a liberal thinker for his time, a republican to boot, what was it he said about the last king being strangled by the entrails of somebody or other?
In many ways, and this is my take on this poem, this is about the cycle of life and death. Even though the statue was once sculpted for some great and powerful man, it is, nevertheles, rapidly returning to sand. It is, for me, an ashes to ashes work, it is actually a sonnet of fourteen lines, can't remember what type of sonnet that is, but think it is the 'classic' style that Shakespeare worked in, eight lines and then six - they had a name for them which I also forget, sorry - but they were different from Italian sonnets.
I really like the irony however, and, for me, it represents the rise and fall of empires, kings, queens, leaders and so on and reinforces the mortality that we all share, rich, poor, hungry. Shelley's great poem was the one on the Peterloo riots of 1819 and the guy was quite a liberal thinker for his time, a republican to boot, what was it he said about the last king being strangled by the entrails of somebody or other?
Saturday, 10 March 2007
american gothic
Let us consider American Gothic. A composition of two figures facing front in a rural setting, Clearly from the pitchfork, the man's denims and the ladies dress it is a farmer and his wife in front of their white clapperboard farmhouse. The painting dates from 1930.
The painting has also a menacing quality. The austere faces of the couple looking frontward, and their rigid faces, give them a sinister aura. The couple could have been part of the the Salem witch hunts, nevertheless, I believe the painting was authored in Iowa.
It also speaks to me of right wing christianity, the clapperboard house in the background could be a church. The top window has an ecclesiastical look to it. The pitchfork is three-pronged, representing the son, the ghost and the holy spirit?
Check out the wife's position, on her husband's shoulder and slightly behind him, represents her subordiante role beside the far more austere husband. She also has an air of dutifulness toward her husband, the verbal clues have us believe she will follow him, and his demeanour shows that he will demand her subserviance. What he says is law, no matter what.
Check out also the hand on the pitchfork, the strength represents tilling the soil, working the land, but there is a devilish quality to the man holding the pitchfork. Is he the devil? Think about that.
Danny.
The painting has also a menacing quality. The austere faces of the couple looking frontward, and their rigid faces, give them a sinister aura. The couple could have been part of the the Salem witch hunts, nevertheless, I believe the painting was authored in Iowa.
It also speaks to me of right wing christianity, the clapperboard house in the background could be a church. The top window has an ecclesiastical look to it. The pitchfork is three-pronged, representing the son, the ghost and the holy spirit?
Check out the wife's position, on her husband's shoulder and slightly behind him, represents her subordiante role beside the far more austere husband. She also has an air of dutifulness toward her husband, the verbal clues have us believe she will follow him, and his demeanour shows that he will demand her subserviance. What he says is law, no matter what.
Check out also the hand on the pitchfork, the strength represents tilling the soil, working the land, but there is a devilish quality to the man holding the pitchfork. Is he the devil? Think about that.
Danny.
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
Second month of the blog and we have enjoyed some interesting posts. Did someone mention Ingres?
Let me tell you, however, there are people lurking in the shadows just waiting to make their presence known. You know who you are street poet! All told I reckon there are 4 people who have said and promised to post but who are obviously busily polishing their work for the consumption of others?
Also, after appearing in a blaze of glory and having some of the most positive comments on the blog Hayles has had to get her head down for some serious studying, but she will be back.
I noted that someone called Depe, another David, had commented, and Conductor 71 had also commented. In fact Conductor 71, from the safety of her own planet, whirring around in cyberspace somewhere, commented, and then ran off with the (drumroll, trumpet fanfare, cheers - the jeering is David G please ignore him he wants to win everything) Lyrics of the month competition without even posting. We work on democracy up here. She won an angel, you've probably noticed it by now Conductor, flies around a lot, can help you with your life, does good things - what? Flyswatter? You're joking me, right?
I also remember Axasha giving everyone a wonderful and fascinating art history lesson on a comment, please post these little nuggets of genius and let us all share! Could I suggest a monthly art history post, I, for one, would certainly volunteer to be part of that. Did anyone mention Ingres?
At this point can I share with you some really bad news? One of my favourite football fanzines (soccer to our American friends) My Eyes Have Seen The Glory is about to fold.
Dedicated to Tottenham Hotspur football club and written by dedicated and committed supporters after 15 years or so the magazine has come to the end of the road. I am now writing something for my friend in London with the death of the little venture very much in mind.
I have been to Tottenham Hotspur's super stadium in London and saw the team play, so it is a sad day.
So that's it. more Man From Uncle, more photography, more film knowledge, more art history. In fact let's start this week with more art. Good idea or what? I suppose, humble cough, stare at floor, try and look modest, that's why I am a comic book superhero guys......and, did anyone mention Ingres?
SERGIO
Second month of the blog and we have enjoyed some interesting posts. Did someone mention Ingres?
Let me tell you, however, there are people lurking in the shadows just waiting to make their presence known. You know who you are street poet! All told I reckon there are 4 people who have said and promised to post but who are obviously busily polishing their work for the consumption of others?
Also, after appearing in a blaze of glory and having some of the most positive comments on the blog Hayles has had to get her head down for some serious studying, but she will be back.
I noted that someone called Depe, another David, had commented, and Conductor 71 had also commented. In fact Conductor 71, from the safety of her own planet, whirring around in cyberspace somewhere, commented, and then ran off with the (drumroll, trumpet fanfare, cheers - the jeering is David G please ignore him he wants to win everything) Lyrics of the month competition without even posting. We work on democracy up here. She won an angel, you've probably noticed it by now Conductor, flies around a lot, can help you with your life, does good things - what? Flyswatter? You're joking me, right?
I also remember Axasha giving everyone a wonderful and fascinating art history lesson on a comment, please post these little nuggets of genius and let us all share! Could I suggest a monthly art history post, I, for one, would certainly volunteer to be part of that. Did anyone mention Ingres?
At this point can I share with you some really bad news? One of my favourite football fanzines (soccer to our American friends) My Eyes Have Seen The Glory is about to fold.
Dedicated to Tottenham Hotspur football club and written by dedicated and committed supporters after 15 years or so the magazine has come to the end of the road. I am now writing something for my friend in London with the death of the little venture very much in mind.
I have been to Tottenham Hotspur's super stadium in London and saw the team play, so it is a sad day.
So that's it. more Man From Uncle, more photography, more film knowledge, more art history. In fact let's start this week with more art. Good idea or what? I suppose, humble cough, stare at floor, try and look modest, that's why I am a comic book superhero guys......and, did anyone mention Ingres?
SERGIO
Monday, 5 March 2007
The Road To Darker Killingbeck
THE ROAD TO DARKER KILLINGBECK
I reached the top of the hill and looked back the way I had came. I gazed at the empty, wild and endlessly free countryside behind and to the side of me, the mountainous shadows in the background overseeing the surface of the land, pockmarked with small lochans reflecting silvery moonlight on their rippling tides. Tiny unseen winds of the night ripping the water on the surface, lifting tiny droplets of water and whispering in the darkness. I was sure I was being watched and the watcher was sure that I knew they were watching me.
Black night swooped down as I turned, the road ahead straight and treeless, night gathering its skirt around me as I prepared to stick my head in the jaws of the beast. The jaws of the beast, how often, I ask myself have I been there? There beside the beast, facing the beast, my heart pounding, the forest dark.
As I stood on that long and lonely road with the black night studded with stars folding around me on all sides I considered all the risks I had taken in my life. The number of times I had teased the beast, the number of times I had taken chances... Maybe, it occurred to me, that this was one risk too far.................................
I sighed, another hill, rising to an even greater height lay before me. I still did not know where I was, and I shivered with cold in the silent moonlight and remembered Marlowe's Faustus.
'O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars'
And as if by miracle when I finally reached the top of the next steeply rising brae and after long purchase on its staggering slope (Not Marlowe) I saw Darker Killingbeck.
It's skyline reaching skyward, gothic spires, dark shaped buildings moonlight sparking off its angles, streets and houses, and people aimlessly wandering from home to work and home again like a scene from a Lowry. Existence churning out over and over till the money runs out and the machine breaks down and stops and crumbles like Shelley's Ozymandais.
I walk down into town, a church bell chimes midnight and knock on the door of a house advertising in garish lights 'bed and breakfast'.
I knock the door and wait and a woman, dark and mysterious answers.
"I’m temporarily lost in my memories," she tells me, "Both good and bad. I can see faces from faded photographs. And I’m looking at the stranger in the mirror…" She concludes and tilts her head to the side. "are you looking for a room dear?"
I reached the top of the hill and looked back the way I had came. I gazed at the empty, wild and endlessly free countryside behind and to the side of me, the mountainous shadows in the background overseeing the surface of the land, pockmarked with small lochans reflecting silvery moonlight on their rippling tides. Tiny unseen winds of the night ripping the water on the surface, lifting tiny droplets of water and whispering in the darkness. I was sure I was being watched and the watcher was sure that I knew they were watching me.
Black night swooped down as I turned, the road ahead straight and treeless, night gathering its skirt around me as I prepared to stick my head in the jaws of the beast. The jaws of the beast, how often, I ask myself have I been there? There beside the beast, facing the beast, my heart pounding, the forest dark.
As I stood on that long and lonely road with the black night studded with stars folding around me on all sides I considered all the risks I had taken in my life. The number of times I had teased the beast, the number of times I had taken chances... Maybe, it occurred to me, that this was one risk too far.................................
I sighed, another hill, rising to an even greater height lay before me. I still did not know where I was, and I shivered with cold in the silent moonlight and remembered Marlowe's Faustus.
'O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars'
And as if by miracle when I finally reached the top of the next steeply rising brae and after long purchase on its staggering slope (Not Marlowe) I saw Darker Killingbeck.
It's skyline reaching skyward, gothic spires, dark shaped buildings moonlight sparking off its angles, streets and houses, and people aimlessly wandering from home to work and home again like a scene from a Lowry. Existence churning out over and over till the money runs out and the machine breaks down and stops and crumbles like Shelley's Ozymandais.
I walk down into town, a church bell chimes midnight and knock on the door of a house advertising in garish lights 'bed and breakfast'.
I knock the door and wait and a woman, dark and mysterious answers.
"I’m temporarily lost in my memories," she tells me, "Both good and bad. I can see faces from faded photographs. And I’m looking at the stranger in the mirror…" She concludes and tilts her head to the side. "are you looking for a room dear?"
ART FOR ARTS SAKE
As this is an artistic blog I thought I would mention some of my favourite painters, like Brad Davis from the eighties. I remember vaguely, a painting by this chap which was to all itnents and purposes a landscape with patterned border. It was strange, but also big and bold and dare i say it over the top. The brush strokes, if I remember was big and powerful and chunky. I suppose you could say it was also flamboyant. I liked Davis because of he was adventurous, and during the eighties I was into art, to some extent. I wasnt pretentious about it, but also remember someone called Sandro Chia, an Italian, who also painted some really funny stuff, well it made me laugh, and i liked his style. Unlike someone I know i wasn't a poser.
I still like art and i like Beryl Cook, again big and over the top style like Davis and Chia. She is striking when she portrays large ladies and now that i am larger than i was i can appreciate Cook and her fatties.
David G
I still like art and i like Beryl Cook, again big and over the top style like Davis and Chia. She is striking when she portrays large ladies and now that i am larger than i was i can appreciate Cook and her fatties.
David G
Sunday, 4 March 2007
Adam Walsh
I really liked Adam Walsh's photograph of Helen, I thought it was exquisite, bright and a bit tacky. Definitely punkish, I am sure this a fashion shoot, but I like the way it gets you thinking. Is Helen posing or is she simply being herself, and the hair, well get the hair, I think it's fabulous.
This photograph could have been taken anywhere but we know it is in Waterloo, London, and it's an area I don't know, but it looks suitably down market. Just liked this photo and wanted to say so.
EL
This photograph could have been taken anywhere but we know it is in Waterloo, London, and it's an area I don't know, but it looks suitably down market. Just liked this photo and wanted to say so.
EL
The New Adventures of the Men From Uncle # 1
The world will end in 30 seconds. A man standing on a rooftop in central London is holding a vial of the most destructive material known to man. If he drops it to the street and it breaks it, as he says he will in 30 seconds, the world will end.
Illya Kuryakin appears on the rooftop, 25 seconds to go.
'I am Illya from Uncle, I'd just like to say before you drop that vial, that this is your chance to become a hero.'
'Hero?' the man swings round toward Kuryakin.
Napoleon appears in the background and whispers to Illya.
20 seconds to go.
'Be careful, maybe this time we are beat, and it's going to ruin my new suit.'
'Yeah nice' Illya nods looking back at Solo and his blue pin-striped combo. 'You have such good tailors.'
'You think?'
'Duh...yeah!'
Fifteen seconds to go.
'Hey! the bad man calls out and shakes the vial. 'What about me becoming a hero? How does that work?'
'Oh yeah. sorry, I was just admiring Napoleons new threads.'
'Yeah' the bad man calls over to Solo. 'The colour suits you'
'Why thank you' Napoleon accepts the compliment graciously.
Ten seconds to go.
'Hero?' the bad man looks back toward Illya.
'Oh yeah that, yeah if you give me the vial and don't drop it in what' he checks his watch 'Six, five...'
'I'd become a hero instead of an evil villain?'
'Yes'
'Why didn't you say so before' He hands the vial to Illya.
One second to go.
Illya and Napoleon save the world. Yay!
Illya Kuryakin appears on the rooftop, 25 seconds to go.
'I am Illya from Uncle, I'd just like to say before you drop that vial, that this is your chance to become a hero.'
'Hero?' the man swings round toward Kuryakin.
Napoleon appears in the background and whispers to Illya.
20 seconds to go.
'Be careful, maybe this time we are beat, and it's going to ruin my new suit.'
'Yeah nice' Illya nods looking back at Solo and his blue pin-striped combo. 'You have such good tailors.'
'You think?'
'Duh...yeah!'
Fifteen seconds to go.
'Hey! the bad man calls out and shakes the vial. 'What about me becoming a hero? How does that work?'
'Oh yeah. sorry, I was just admiring Napoleons new threads.'
'Yeah' the bad man calls over to Solo. 'The colour suits you'
'Why thank you' Napoleon accepts the compliment graciously.
Ten seconds to go.
'Hero?' the bad man looks back toward Illya.
'Oh yeah that, yeah if you give me the vial and don't drop it in what' he checks his watch 'Six, five...'
'I'd become a hero instead of an evil villain?'
'Yes'
'Why didn't you say so before' He hands the vial to Illya.
One second to go.
Illya and Napoleon save the world. Yay!
Friday, 2 March 2007
NEWS
Hi fur covered creatures, latest news AHK is proud to announce the imminent arrival of several (3) new Hamsters, watch out for them soon.
Also want to let you know that a project I have been tentatively working on has attracted interest from a surprising, yet welcome,quarter. This, guys has come out of the blue and while nothing has been agreed yet, and I am a bit gobsmacked, though delighted,by the interest to be honest, it will, if agreed, allow me to work on a text covering culture and art. It would be a dream to do this work. It might also, of course, make me sound intellectual...sorry maybe I am pushing this a bit far?
Also want to let you know that a project I have been tentatively working on has attracted interest from a surprising, yet welcome,quarter. This, guys has come out of the blue and while nothing has been agreed yet, and I am a bit gobsmacked, though delighted,by the interest to be honest, it will, if agreed, allow me to work on a text covering culture and art. It would be a dream to do this work. It might also, of course, make me sound intellectual...sorry maybe I am pushing this a bit far?
UNCLE Quote of the Week
It's Friday so it must be time for UNCLE Quote of the Week!
Guard: But the Casbah is not the place for a casual stroll. Especially not for a well-dressed stranger.
Napoleon Solo: This happens to be my oldest suit.
And a little later that episode…
Napoleon Solo:[calling over the intercom] Illya, how do you feel?
Illya Kuryakin:[in hospital] I feel fine. I just had an alcohol rub and I think she's gonna powder me next.
Napoleon Solo: I need you immediately.
Illya Kuryakin: Napoleon, my pores are still open!
(The Come With Me to the Casbah Affair)
Axasha.
Guard: But the Casbah is not the place for a casual stroll. Especially not for a well-dressed stranger.
Napoleon Solo: This happens to be my oldest suit.
And a little later that episode…
Napoleon Solo:[calling over the intercom] Illya, how do you feel?
Illya Kuryakin:[in hospital] I feel fine. I just had an alcohol rub and I think she's gonna powder me next.
Napoleon Solo: I need you immediately.
Illya Kuryakin: Napoleon, my pores are still open!
(The Come With Me to the Casbah Affair)
Axasha.
Thursday, 1 March 2007
Man From Uncle Fact File
Note - the organisational rival to the limp-wristed 'men' from UNCLE were a group collectively known as...wait for it...THRUSH! Can you believe that...THRUSH! Actually THRUSH stood for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity! I'll bet Axasha knew that...yes, I'll bet she did!
Fellow Jambos Of The World Unite
Hi Hamsters please note along the right hand side of the blog are links. All are recommended, the latest is a blog by a Jambo friend of mine and I think it is great and think you all should visit. I have even invited my fellow Jambo to join the Alien Hamster Kollektive because he is handsome, intelligent and witty - he is a Jambo after all. Please use the links fur covered creatures and remember if he is a Jambo, then ees al richt!
BLACK HAWK DOWN
This Ridley Scott movie is probably as close to war as you can get without actually fighting. It covers an ill-fated US mission into war torn Somalia, a nation bleeding and writhing from the pain of civil battle. The Americans are sent in to capture several warlords with disastrous consequences.
Based on a true story, Scott, to his credit, is faithful to the actual events, including Todd Blackburn's 70 foot drop from a helicopter. He falls all the way to the streets of Mogadishu, crumpled and badly injured, his colleagues racing to the stricken soldier's rescue.
It is, for me, a wonderful movie of bravery and courage, of frightened young men, overcoming their fear to fight for one another against overwhelming numbers of Somalians. It is a
tremendously dark film that reaches into the very depths of compassion and comradeship. Isn't it strange, that to really bring humans together, despite their fear, in unconditional support, it takes a war situation? Aren't we all a little frightened after all?
Actually, I am quite fascinated by this period of military history and especially with regard to the chaos and anarchy of Somalia. To this day, some 15 years later the country is still tearing itself apart, and lesson learned, the US have kept their distance from the madness of this east African state.
Black Hawk Down, one of my favourite movies. Simple as that....
Sergio
Based on a true story, Scott, to his credit, is faithful to the actual events, including Todd Blackburn's 70 foot drop from a helicopter. He falls all the way to the streets of Mogadishu, crumpled and badly injured, his colleagues racing to the stricken soldier's rescue.
It is, for me, a wonderful movie of bravery and courage, of frightened young men, overcoming their fear to fight for one another against overwhelming numbers of Somalians. It is a
tremendously dark film that reaches into the very depths of compassion and comradeship. Isn't it strange, that to really bring humans together, despite their fear, in unconditional support, it takes a war situation? Aren't we all a little frightened after all?
Actually, I am quite fascinated by this period of military history and especially with regard to the chaos and anarchy of Somalia. To this day, some 15 years later the country is still tearing itself apart, and lesson learned, the US have kept their distance from the madness of this east African state.
Black Hawk Down, one of my favourite movies. Simple as that....
Sergio
Favourite Films
One of mine is 'It's A Wonderful Life', starring James Stewart and thanks to conductor 71 i am reminded. Directed by Frank Capra this movie flopped at the box office after it's release in 1946. It's a melnacholic tale of George Bailey from Bedford Falls who has decided upon sucide - I am sure you all know the story. It also starred Donna Reed.
The film only became a hit in the 1970's after TV networks put it on their Christmas programming.
It is schmaltzy and sentimentally sweet, and, admittedly, very sugray, but behind this there is a morality tale. James Stewart character George Bailey, being slowly ruined by ruthless tycoon Henry F. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore, wishes he had never been born. An angel, Clarence, trying to earn his wings, shows him what it would have been like, and Bailey realises that he has stay and fight and not give up.
He finally defeats Potter and everyone lives happily ever after of course, I love it
David G
The film only became a hit in the 1970's after TV networks put it on their Christmas programming.
It is schmaltzy and sentimentally sweet, and, admittedly, very sugray, but behind this there is a morality tale. James Stewart character George Bailey, being slowly ruined by ruthless tycoon Henry F. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore, wishes he had never been born. An angel, Clarence, trying to earn his wings, shows him what it would have been like, and Bailey realises that he has stay and fight and not give up.
He finally defeats Potter and everyone lives happily ever after of course, I love it
David G
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
The Writing of Darker Killingbeck
Because I am feeling a bit weary tonight, I simply wanted to take five minutes from writing to enjoy a change of pace. I did not intend to write anything tonight for the blog, though I have been writing for the last hour. However, I wanted to make a couple of notes with respect to Darker Killingbeck.
The land I describe in this third part is a landscape, of course, I have experienced and am in fact familiar with. Oh yes I have been out there in the dark walking off hills and along those roads.
But much more exciting is my use of a well remembered quote from the wonderful Christopher Marlowe. As my protagonist stands at the top of another steep hill - my life feels like it has been a series of steep hills - he is suddenly aware of the night on his shoulders and the stars clinging to the sky.
I hope you enjoy part 3 of the story, my little humble homage to the incredible Italo Calvino - can I urge you to read this writer? I am about to read his commentary The Uses of Literature, but, of course, you guys read what you want.
The Road To Darker Killingbeck -Part Three 'The Stranger In The Mirror.' Coming Soon!
Serge
The land I describe in this third part is a landscape, of course, I have experienced and am in fact familiar with. Oh yes I have been out there in the dark walking off hills and along those roads.
But much more exciting is my use of a well remembered quote from the wonderful Christopher Marlowe. As my protagonist stands at the top of another steep hill - my life feels like it has been a series of steep hills - he is suddenly aware of the night on his shoulders and the stars clinging to the sky.
I hope you enjoy part 3 of the story, my little humble homage to the incredible Italo Calvino - can I urge you to read this writer? I am about to read his commentary The Uses of Literature, but, of course, you guys read what you want.
The Road To Darker Killingbeck -Part Three 'The Stranger In The Mirror.' Coming Soon!
Serge
LYRICS OF THE MONTH
LYRICS OF THE MONTH
The prize this month goes to Conductor 71. Yay! Trumpets and such like!
Okay, I admit I dissed this song when it was commented on. I said I didn't like this song, true, but when I later considered the lyrics, read them over several times I changed my mind, these are great lyrics and I eat humble pie. Well done Conductor 71 your prize is winging its way to you. It's an angel in case you didn't know, a guardian angel actually, and I don't care if you don't believe in them the angel will arrive soon...you'll just know, it will kind of hang around and do angely things...
Artist: Black
Lyrics Song: Wonderful Life
Here I go out to sea again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
Gulls in the sky and in my blue eyes
You know it feels unfair
There's magic everywhere
Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide
It's a wonderful, wonderful life
No need to hide and cry
It's a wonderful, wonderful life
Sun in your eyes
The heat is in your hair
They seem to hate you
Because you're there
And I need a friend
Oh, I need a friend
To make me happy
Not stand here on my own
Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
I need a friend
Oh, I need friend
To make me happy
Not so alone
Look at me here
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine:
The prize this month goes to Conductor 71. Yay! Trumpets and such like!
Okay, I admit I dissed this song when it was commented on. I said I didn't like this song, true, but when I later considered the lyrics, read them over several times I changed my mind, these are great lyrics and I eat humble pie. Well done Conductor 71 your prize is winging its way to you. It's an angel in case you didn't know, a guardian angel actually, and I don't care if you don't believe in them the angel will arrive soon...you'll just know, it will kind of hang around and do angely things...
Artist: Black
Lyrics Song: Wonderful Life
Here I go out to sea again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
Gulls in the sky and in my blue eyes
You know it feels unfair
There's magic everywhere
Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide
It's a wonderful, wonderful life
No need to hide and cry
It's a wonderful, wonderful life
Sun in your eyes
The heat is in your hair
They seem to hate you
Because you're there
And I need a friend
Oh, I need a friend
To make me happy
Not stand here on my own
Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
I need a friend
Oh, I need friend
To make me happy
Not so alone
Look at me here
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine:
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
Mise En Scene 2
I suppose really mise en scene is the beginning point of analysing a film. Best way to put it is thast it represents what can be seen in the frame, that is actors and their acting and movement, scenery, props, the point of view from which the audience sees the art form, the lighting, setting. Don't forget the pre-filmic situation where things are decided, like where the director wants to point his shooter, whether or not the movie is in black and white or glorious technicolour (the filmstock) even consider the framing, what is seen, how has the scene been trimmed or chopped and depth of field.
Try this, think about an opening scene of a film you liked, what did it convey to you (setting the scene) what wre the props, what were the actors doing, was it a close-up shot or pull back wide angle, perhaps you noticed the lighting? Think about meaning and messages, overt and or hidden. Go back, take a segment say the camera work, was it close-up or wide angle. If it was close-up, think about the same scene as a wide angle. Think about the different impacts this would have on had you. Close-up, good for a feeling of menace, for example, wide angle good for introducing action or adventure. Think about the props and the actors and the way they performed. If you have got this far it is a start.
David G
Try this, think about an opening scene of a film you liked, what did it convey to you (setting the scene) what wre the props, what were the actors doing, was it a close-up shot or pull back wide angle, perhaps you noticed the lighting? Think about meaning and messages, overt and or hidden. Go back, take a segment say the camera work, was it close-up or wide angle. If it was close-up, think about the same scene as a wide angle. Think about the different impacts this would have on had you. Close-up, good for a feeling of menace, for example, wide angle good for introducing action or adventure. Think about the props and the actors and the way they performed. If you have got this far it is a start.
David G
Mise En Scene 2
I suppose really mise en scene is the beginning point of analysing a film. Best way to put it is thast it represents what can be seen in the frame, that is actors and their acting and movement, scenery, props, the point of view from which the audience sees the art form, the lighting, setting. Don't forget the pre-filmic situation where things are decided, like where the director wants to point his shooter, whether or not the movie is in black and white or glorious technicolour (the filmstock) even consider the framing, what is seen, how has the scene been trimmed or chopped and depth of field.
Try this, think about an opening scene of a film you liked, what did it convey to you (setting the scene) what wre the props, what were the actors doing, was it a close-up shot or pull back wide angle, perhaps you noticed the lighting? Think about meaning and messages, overt and or hidden. Go back, take a segment say the camera work, was it close-up or wide angle. If it was close-up, think about the same scene as a wide angle. Think about the different impacts this would have on had you. Close-up, good for a feeling of menace, for example, wide angle good for introducing action or adventure. Think about the props and the actors and the way they performed. If you have got this far it is a start.
Try this, think about an opening scene of a film you liked, what did it convey to you (setting the scene) what wre the props, what were the actors doing, was it a close-up shot or pull back wide angle, perhaps you noticed the lighting? Think about meaning and messages, overt and or hidden. Go back, take a segment say the camera work, was it close-up or wide angle. If it was close-up, think about the same scene as a wide angle. Think about the different impacts this would have on had you. Close-up, good for a feeling of menace, for example, wide angle good for introducing action or adventure. Think about the props and the actors and the way they performed. If you have got this far it is a start.
Monday, 26 February 2007
Mise en scene
I would like to talk to this at some point with reference to Andrew Sarris and his ideas about it (I like them). Not tonight, going into town.
David G
David G
Auteur
Before we go into films, and I will have to bone up on The Archers, Powell and Pressburger, just a few lines on auteur. It's a french word, as you know, meaning author. The problem is that books have one author, whereas movies have many people,who collaborate to make the art work or not.
Autuer, then reperesnts forme and please feel free to argue, one strong individual director who puts his stamp on a work that is clearly his - I should have said or she (Katherine Biggelow who I think is absolutely fabulous, Point Break, in my opinion was agreat movie and I am quite willing to deconstruct)
So far so good, look forward to hearing from you all.
David G
Autuer, then reperesnts forme and please feel free to argue, one strong individual director who puts his stamp on a work that is clearly his - I should have said or she (Katherine Biggelow who I think is absolutely fabulous, Point Break, in my opinion was agreat movie and I am quite willing to deconstruct)
So far so good, look forward to hearing from you all.
David G
Jay's Photographs
Hi my name is El, and I think, apart from a few silly quotes this is the first time I have posted and I am nervous.
Felt I had to say something about Jay Esposito's wonderful photographs.
In the first one, dancer, he gets a wonderful feeling of movement into the shot, and the focus is sharp. It is also rich with colour and what I call happening. I think this is an extraordinary photograph which conveys the passion of the dancer and the dynamic of dancing.
The second photograph of the Brooklyn barber shop is so natural it is wonderful. The chap is in the cahir waiting for his haircut and rading his newspaper and the barber is busily attending to him. Perhaps they are chatting about 'baseball'. Also the light hitting the mirror in the background is a touch of class in this photograph.
I was really impressed by these editions to the blog and both I felt were worthy of commenting on. Hope that was okay.
EL
Felt I had to say something about Jay Esposito's wonderful photographs.
In the first one, dancer, he gets a wonderful feeling of movement into the shot, and the focus is sharp. It is also rich with colour and what I call happening. I think this is an extraordinary photograph which conveys the passion of the dancer and the dynamic of dancing.
The second photograph of the Brooklyn barber shop is so natural it is wonderful. The chap is in the cahir waiting for his haircut and rading his newspaper and the barber is busily attending to him. Perhaps they are chatting about 'baseball'. Also the light hitting the mirror in the background is a touch of class in this photograph.
I was really impressed by these editions to the blog and both I felt were worthy of commenting on. Hope that was okay.
EL
PIETRO'S GOOD AND WONDERFUL NEWS
So i say to you a very very big news...i'll paint the only and the first covered skate park of Rome !!!!
it will be painted with spray and i'll cover up to 500 m2 of walls !!!! i want to make it the best and the bigger wall in Roma painted with spray and for my project (shhhh is a secret!!!) i think to use the bigger character ever seen...KING KONG !!!
it will be very powerfull and aggressive!!! think that... only a hand of kong it will be bigger of a standing man and it will catch airplanes and skaters(there is a skaters-pool just in front of this wall)...ahahhasauhsd in the background there are some views of NYcity and Rome in a black version (black like late for universe :D) and some ruins were plants take over and strike!!!
i'm very excited and this night (not sleeping night) i've just done some drawings of KONG with open mouth...POWERFULL !! it say..."WHO'S THE KING ?" referred to skaters in front and it have a big jewelled crown in head :D
PIETRO (Graffiti Artist, Rome 26/02/07)
it will be painted with spray and i'll cover up to 500 m2 of walls !!!! i want to make it the best and the bigger wall in Roma painted with spray and for my project (shhhh is a secret!!!) i think to use the bigger character ever seen...KING KONG !!!
it will be very powerfull and aggressive!!! think that... only a hand of kong it will be bigger of a standing man and it will catch airplanes and skaters(there is a skaters-pool just in front of this wall)...ahahhasauhsd in the background there are some views of NYcity and Rome in a black version (black like late for universe :D) and some ruins were plants take over and strike!!!
i'm very excited and this night (not sleeping night) i've just done some drawings of KONG with open mouth...POWERFULL !! it say..."WHO'S THE KING ?" referred to skaters in front and it have a big jewelled crown in head :D
PIETRO (Graffiti Artist, Rome 26/02/07)
Sunday, 25 February 2007
Tonight Tonight
I have just received permission to post photographs by Jay Esposito, which is brilliant news and I am including the link to his website here www.jayesposito.deviantart.com please visit, I am a big fan. I will also put the link on the right hand side of the blog.
Barnyard 2.
Of course animals being given hman traits has a long history, from way to the red indians. I think animated movies are great and by the way it keeps saying Sergio X but this is David G posting.
Barnyard
I have not seen this animated film, but I have read about it and I seem to visualise it as a sort of Animal Farm snorts coke and lightens up with some fun??? I must make a mental note to see this one.
Wallace and Grommet are very clever, and I am sure Barnyard will be just as good, so that is a recommendation from who was it had this marvellous idea, sorry I forget?
Wallace and Grommet are very clever, and I am sure Barnyard will be just as good, so that is a recommendation from who was it had this marvellous idea, sorry I forget?
Hi Again
Sergio loves Batman, and I always thought his relationship with Robin a bit suspect. Anyone with half decent gaydar could tell they were an item. Have to admit The Dark Knight Returns was good comic book stuff, and it reminds me of Serge. Remeber the story? Batman has retired but is dismayed with the state of Gotham city and the criminals who run it. Middle-aged he comes out of retirement for one last go at trying to rid the Gotham streets of crime. Now Serge was always putting the world to rights at uni and all these years later things are worse. Stop drinking those Buds Serge, come back and save the world.
Soon I am going to post my favourite films of all time - including Meet me in St Louis.
Soon I am going to post my favourite films of all time - including Meet me in St Louis.
UNCLE Quote of the Week
Being as Sergio thinks he’s soooo funny – a comedian no less – I feel duty bound (I’ve taken the UNCLE oath after all!) to respond in kind, and hopefully snap him out of his sadly deluded thinking....
Illya Kuryakin: Humour is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy.
Napoleon Solo: Who said that? Pushkin?
Illya Kuryakin: My grandmother!
(The Pieces of Fate Affair)
Don’t know if this quote is word perfect – I nicked this Illya-ism from an excellent MFU tribute page (www.manfromuncle.org/bioillya.htm) as I didn’t have time to look it up.
Axasha.
Illya Kuryakin: Humour is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy.
Napoleon Solo: Who said that? Pushkin?
Illya Kuryakin: My grandmother!
(The Pieces of Fate Affair)
Don’t know if this quote is word perfect – I nicked this Illya-ism from an excellent MFU tribute page (www.manfromuncle.org/bioillya.htm) as I didn’t have time to look it up.
Axasha.
MAN FROM UNCLE QUOTE
"Napoleon, you know I love you?" Said Illya. "You've got such strong hands."
"I have, haven't I. But enough of this already we have work to do! We have to sort out the Extra, Extra affair!" Solo replied determinedly.
"You're right my pet, business before pleasure, that's what I always say." Kuryakin countered.
"I have, haven't I. But enough of this already we have work to do! We have to sort out the Extra, Extra affair!" Solo replied determinedly.
"You're right my pet, business before pleasure, that's what I always say." Kuryakin countered.
Saturday, 24 February 2007
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
London just happens to be one of my favourite cities. I've spent quite a lot of time in the capital and I used to travel down regularly and stay with friends. Actually there are two particular areas of the capital I used to know quite well. Ruislip, including The Orchard pub and St Martins church with the little children's graveyard and the area around Euston, The Rocket pub and the British library. I also knew little bits of Kilburn and had another friend who lived in the Belsize Park area,
What I really enjoyed about going to London was a trip to the football at Tottenham Hotspur, or the dogs at Wembley and once, I recall, we travelled across the city to Walthamstow. You can say what you like but it is such an exciting city.
I can remember the ads posted in newsagents windows and in the old red telephone boxes, literary hundreds of them and sometimes left as little business cards 'Latino Massage- for all your pleasures call etc etc' or 'Madame Large Bosom, everything you have ever wanted - call etc etc for price list.' or 'Miss Whiplash dominatrix, exclusive black leather bound action!'
To be honest I found it a fascinating city, and when I went down I often stayed around the Hayes area, where I knew people.
As you can see the blog has been busy over the last month, and I have promises from two really cool friends of mine (actually any friend of mine is kool) that they will post soon.
Those who have posted have impressed with their intellect, dare I say it, wit and comments.
As for me the next two weeks stretching out before me are going to very busy. To begin with I have less than two weeks to complete 25,000 words - I'll tell you about it Rashaun - and deadlines for Sunday and Wednesday of this week. I am also working on a new little project, which has certainly captured a few imaginations and is coming along a lot faster than I anticipated. I have also offered my Christina Sealey interview, the Canadian artist to Derek Tucker at the Press and Journal and have one other little thing on the go - which I don't want to mention here at this little space in time.
In the meantime keep wearing your underwear over your day clothes and keep the crayons working...
What I really enjoyed about going to London was a trip to the football at Tottenham Hotspur, or the dogs at Wembley and once, I recall, we travelled across the city to Walthamstow. You can say what you like but it is such an exciting city.
I can remember the ads posted in newsagents windows and in the old red telephone boxes, literary hundreds of them and sometimes left as little business cards 'Latino Massage- for all your pleasures call etc etc' or 'Madame Large Bosom, everything you have ever wanted - call etc etc for price list.' or 'Miss Whiplash dominatrix, exclusive black leather bound action!'
To be honest I found it a fascinating city, and when I went down I often stayed around the Hayes area, where I knew people.
As you can see the blog has been busy over the last month, and I have promises from two really cool friends of mine (actually any friend of mine is kool) that they will post soon.
Those who have posted have impressed with their intellect, dare I say it, wit and comments.
As for me the next two weeks stretching out before me are going to very busy. To begin with I have less than two weeks to complete 25,000 words - I'll tell you about it Rashaun - and deadlines for Sunday and Wednesday of this week. I am also working on a new little project, which has certainly captured a few imaginations and is coming along a lot faster than I anticipated. I have also offered my Christina Sealey interview, the Canadian artist to Derek Tucker at the Press and Journal and have one other little thing on the go - which I don't want to mention here at this little space in time.
In the meantime keep wearing your underwear over your day clothes and keep the crayons working...
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Hey This Is Cool
I am just waiting permission to post Jay Esposito photographs, keep your fingers crossed.
Great News
I have it from a really good friend of mine that they will post in the next couple of days. I have a lot of respect for my very good friend, something not to be missed.
Sergio
Sergio
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
THE ROAD TO DARKER KILLINGBECK
So, you're thinking 'What is happening here?' It's a common and useful thought, and I am - as you can see - thinking about what you are thinking in this darkness we all share, which, in turn, is kind of cyclical if you see what I mean. And, it's the same for us all, a kind of grey bleakness, punctuated by moments of isolated bliss, happiness, stupidity and tunnels - a smile on the face of the cherubic,pretty girl with the blonde hair, cute dimples and a row of red spots across her forehead...bloody axe in her hand, her boyfriend dead in the communal bath they share with their flatmates, ever wondered what drives people?
Maybe this speaks to you?
In Byers Road the driver in the baseball cap is running away toward University Avenue, a strange flapping running style like a demented duck, while pinhead is squealing 'Come back Brett ya divvi!' in an impossibly high pitched shrill with a warped accent, her hand shaking as she curses and places a John Players Kingsize cigarette in her badteeth gob.
The old crone has strayed to the edge of the crowd gathered around my body looking down. She pushes to the front and spits a curse, tells me where to shove Italo Calvino.
And I look up and see a man with weak grey eyes and death in his face kneeling on the road and staring down at me in alarm.
Someone has called for a doctor and he has pushed himself forward calling out 'Let me through, let me through I am a doctor!'
I can smell the tarmac and petrol and hear a multitude of voices chattering anxiously about me and The Smiths sing Heaven Knows I Am Miserable Now bizarrely on the car stereo.
So can I ask? Haven't you ever thought, of all the wonderful films your life could have become, you find yourself at a certain point in your life and wonder how you got here? All those people with their heads up their posterior who have interfered with your progress, undermined your confidence, how much misery and damage do people do to each other in the name of nothing but barbarism?
So do you search for something that will add to your understanding of what it means to be alive at a certain time, in a certain era, perhaps even in a certain house, in a certain street, in a certain district of a certain city and then you get to thinking how small you really are. Which, for most of us, is existence, standing at the margins...waiting and mocking us... and while we wait we try and work it all out, watch as people walk away without a wave, wonder why we give ourselves away so easily to those who don't really care about us, and think about those gone too soon.
A police officer, his eyes bulging with determination, leaps from his patrol car and gives chase after the baseball capped duck and someone takes a photgraph and captures two deteriorating lives in the solitary moment...
So anyway I find myself, late at night, on a road stretching out for miles ahead of me in the middle of nowhere. On either side of me there is nothing but empty fields, gorse, peat and wild heather rising to rocky outcrops, grey shaped forms watching every step I take, bathed in creamy moonlight from a full moon, mountains rising in the distance making big hump back whale shadows in the dark.
The road is grey black and split by light and shadow from the rocks.
All this talk of Heaven and death is unsettling. Walking alone toward - whatever way you want to think about it - my destiny.
Suddenly, overhead I hear a UH60 Black Hawk Sikorsky helicopter fly overhead. 'This is a multimission airship with over 2000 in service with the United States forces, yes sir, sergeant sir.' I salute as it passes above me and watch as it swings round to head south for Somalia.
The night is growing cold, a stiff breeze rises from the east. Voices carried on the wind, remind me of the many people I have known, the nights spent talking into the early hours with others. Having a Bud, relaxing, saving the world...
Before me, the road, straight as the edge of a newspaper, rises up a steep hill in the distance. I turn my collar up against the wind and bow my head into the night.
SERGIO
Maybe this speaks to you?
In Byers Road the driver in the baseball cap is running away toward University Avenue, a strange flapping running style like a demented duck, while pinhead is squealing 'Come back Brett ya divvi!' in an impossibly high pitched shrill with a warped accent, her hand shaking as she curses and places a John Players Kingsize cigarette in her badteeth gob.
The old crone has strayed to the edge of the crowd gathered around my body looking down. She pushes to the front and spits a curse, tells me where to shove Italo Calvino.
And I look up and see a man with weak grey eyes and death in his face kneeling on the road and staring down at me in alarm.
Someone has called for a doctor and he has pushed himself forward calling out 'Let me through, let me through I am a doctor!'
I can smell the tarmac and petrol and hear a multitude of voices chattering anxiously about me and The Smiths sing Heaven Knows I Am Miserable Now bizarrely on the car stereo.
So can I ask? Haven't you ever thought, of all the wonderful films your life could have become, you find yourself at a certain point in your life and wonder how you got here? All those people with their heads up their posterior who have interfered with your progress, undermined your confidence, how much misery and damage do people do to each other in the name of nothing but barbarism?
So do you search for something that will add to your understanding of what it means to be alive at a certain time, in a certain era, perhaps even in a certain house, in a certain street, in a certain district of a certain city and then you get to thinking how small you really are. Which, for most of us, is existence, standing at the margins...waiting and mocking us... and while we wait we try and work it all out, watch as people walk away without a wave, wonder why we give ourselves away so easily to those who don't really care about us, and think about those gone too soon.
A police officer, his eyes bulging with determination, leaps from his patrol car and gives chase after the baseball capped duck and someone takes a photgraph and captures two deteriorating lives in the solitary moment...
So anyway I find myself, late at night, on a road stretching out for miles ahead of me in the middle of nowhere. On either side of me there is nothing but empty fields, gorse, peat and wild heather rising to rocky outcrops, grey shaped forms watching every step I take, bathed in creamy moonlight from a full moon, mountains rising in the distance making big hump back whale shadows in the dark.
The road is grey black and split by light and shadow from the rocks.
All this talk of Heaven and death is unsettling. Walking alone toward - whatever way you want to think about it - my destiny.
Suddenly, overhead I hear a UH60 Black Hawk Sikorsky helicopter fly overhead. 'This is a multimission airship with over 2000 in service with the United States forces, yes sir, sergeant sir.' I salute as it passes above me and watch as it swings round to head south for Somalia.
The night is growing cold, a stiff breeze rises from the east. Voices carried on the wind, remind me of the many people I have known, the nights spent talking into the early hours with others. Having a Bud, relaxing, saving the world...
Before me, the road, straight as the edge of a newspaper, rises up a steep hill in the distance. I turn my collar up against the wind and bow my head into the night.
SERGIO
Monday, 19 February 2007
A QUOTE (WITH APOLOGIES TO EL)
Fit the mold and do what you're told
Get a job and start growing old
9 to 5 can make your dreams come true (Aye Right!)
But I don't wanna be like you (And what part of don't do you not understand?)
(American Hi Fi The Art Of Losing and that's me that added the 'aye right!' And also 'and what part of don't do you not understand in case ye didna notice.)
I've
Felt
Like this
Since I started
Work in the factory
Nothing has
Changed
Get a job and start growing old
9 to 5 can make your dreams come true (Aye Right!)
But I don't wanna be like you (And what part of don't do you not understand?)
(American Hi Fi The Art Of Losing and that's me that added the 'aye right!' And also 'and what part of don't do you not understand in case ye didna notice.)
I've
Felt
Like this
Since I started
Work in the factory
Nothing has
Changed
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Oooh! Shiny new members of the kollektive!
So, Sergio says he wants writing with bite?! Well, being as I loved EL's quotes, I thought I might just lower the tone for a moment - if I may - with a quote of my own:
The scene: UNLCE's finest, Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin attempt to placate an Innocent ( a gorgeous female, natch!) who doubts their motives (they want access to her molar which picks up radio signals!) -
Innocent: "I don't know what kind of a girl you think I am!"
Napoleon: "Believe me, believe me, we're only interested in your tooth."
Illya: "And nothing but the tooth."
Ah bliss!
Axasha.
(Sorry, no more UNCLE - I promise!)
The scene: UNLCE's finest, Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin attempt to placate an Innocent ( a gorgeous female, natch!) who doubts their motives (they want access to her molar which picks up radio signals!) -
Innocent: "I don't know what kind of a girl you think I am!"
Napoleon: "Believe me, believe me, we're only interested in your tooth."
Illya: "And nothing but the tooth."
Ah bliss!
Axasha.
(Sorry, no more UNCLE - I promise!)
Friday, 16 February 2007
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
Excellent artwork, cracking poems, stories, music reviews, and references to the Man From Uncle. But apart from that the blog seems to be heading in the right direction. You know I am only kidding...
To be honest I have been impressed by the contributions from Hayles, Axasha, David G. Pietro and El. Witty, intelligent and all of them unpaid. There are, I promise, more contributions to come. From America, and hopefully, Australia.
This week, I have been busy lining up a couple of really exciting interviews - watch this space - carrying out research, and writing. In addition I have been trying to put a project together, which I feel has potential, though it is in its early stages and we will just have to wait and see where that goes.
I was also given a really fascinating book called I Hate Myself and WantTo Die, The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard. Written by a guy called Tom Reynolds. It is a nice little trip around cemetery mentality and blackness with the author doing a fine job on the research and background to the 52 tearjerkers included.
Me? I have been riding trains, blissfully entering tunnels and taking part in other hedonistic pursuits, though not underwater Salsa dancing or speed linedancing - you could do yourself an injury trying a backward flip to Billy Ray Cyrus singing Achy Breaky Heart at 78rpm!
Oh, and joy of all f@cking joys, the new ATB Hearts Fanzine is now available...and that ladies and gentlemen is real hedonism.
Sergio
To be honest I have been impressed by the contributions from Hayles, Axasha, David G. Pietro and El. Witty, intelligent and all of them unpaid. There are, I promise, more contributions to come. From America, and hopefully, Australia.
This week, I have been busy lining up a couple of really exciting interviews - watch this space - carrying out research, and writing. In addition I have been trying to put a project together, which I feel has potential, though it is in its early stages and we will just have to wait and see where that goes.
I was also given a really fascinating book called I Hate Myself and WantTo Die, The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard. Written by a guy called Tom Reynolds. It is a nice little trip around cemetery mentality and blackness with the author doing a fine job on the research and background to the 52 tearjerkers included.
Me? I have been riding trains, blissfully entering tunnels and taking part in other hedonistic pursuits, though not underwater Salsa dancing or speed linedancing - you could do yourself an injury trying a backward flip to Billy Ray Cyrus singing Achy Breaky Heart at 78rpm!
Oh, and joy of all f@cking joys, the new ATB Hearts Fanzine is now available...and that ladies and gentlemen is real hedonism.
Sergio
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
MY OWN QUOTE
Who cares what people look like on the outside? Beauty can only truly come from within. Now excuse me while I prepare for my boob job.
EL
EL
QUOTE
You work in a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people who, at the end of the daylight, don't give a flying stuff about you, not really.
EL
EL
I was listening to Hard-Fi the other night and the song Cash Machine, it reminded me of when I was at uni with Sergio. He always made me laugh, a great deal. I was always impressed by how he could get song titles into essays. I remember he got U2's Unforgettable Fire into an essay about Wordsworth and wrote about Walt Disney cartoons in another essay about somebody like Gerald Manly Hopkins or somebody, can't remember who. And wrote an essay on Marlowe goddammit with quotes from Cosmicomics in it and got a great mark as I recall. He always got good marks as well, for takin the piss, the bast%%d, and everyone liked him, cept his tutor who was suspicious about him.
He's asked me to contribute, so how could I refuse spelling is optional.
I like Hard-Fi in general but the words to this are great.
Go to the cash machin to get a ticket home
A message on the screen says don't make plans your broke
Have you been there, I have.
I like thr tune as well, it is, or reminds me of a march - don't know why
Another line is
Better believe it, I'm working for the cash machine
How very true. It's like we're being conned and I think that's a great line.
Of course nowadays we are older and I am wiser, that is all I am going to say.
Can I also say that my great passion is film, but haven't seen anything good to write about.
David G
He's asked me to contribute, so how could I refuse spelling is optional.
I like Hard-Fi in general but the words to this are great.
Go to the cash machin to get a ticket home
A message on the screen says don't make plans your broke
Have you been there, I have.
I like thr tune as well, it is, or reminds me of a march - don't know why
Another line is
Better believe it, I'm working for the cash machine
How very true. It's like we're being conned and I think that's a great line.
Of course nowadays we are older and I am wiser, that is all I am going to say.
Can I also say that my great passion is film, but haven't seen anything good to write about.
David G
Monday, 12 February 2007
THE ROAD TO DARKER KILLINGBECK
I am going to tell you a story, which may or may not be true. It's a story I know only too well and you'll soon see why. So park your lard in your favourite chair and just listen.
Darker Killingbeck for the uninitiated is where creative people go when they die.
A gigantic city of dark tower blocks, multi-ethnic districts and a fully functioning underground metro system. Angles, shapes, concrete, glass and miracles of engineering and architecture. It's where, I suppose, I've always lived. Where crowds of people, cars, traders, the homeless, weirdos, geeks, anoraks and trainspotters live cheek by jowl. A suicidial world of life rushing past as the rest of us standstill - now this is beginning to feel a bit like a poem - so let's conjure up an image.
Let's say I am having a coffee at my favourite organic cafe 'Dare' In Byers Road. It's a sunny day, so I am sitting at a table on the pavement. I am enjoying an Americano while doing corrections in my black book when a woman approaches from the harbour.
"You’ll have to excuse my lateness" She smiles "I’m just back from hauling my twin baskets of peat and silver darlings across the har covered sheiling. My tartan skirts muddied by the glaur, my oiled wool shawl about my bony shoulders, my clay pipe firmly in place in the corner of my old crone’s mouth.....Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh" I nod. "Have you read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller?" She shakes her head. "Invisible Cities? The Castle of Crossed Destinies? Cosmicomics, perhaps?"
"Are you taking the rip?" She says glaring at me and then suddenly pulls a Beretta Storm Rifle from her basket and points it at me.
I panic, knock over the table in my haste to get away and run for cover. A car flashing its lights heads directly for me, I turn, see the woman from the harbour lift the rifle and aim. Glance around in time to see the car bearing down on me. The door of the pub - The Wind That Shakes Barley On a Very Cold Night In April - straight across the road from the cafe opens. Hard-Fi's Hard To Beat blasting out momentarily.
Leaves me thinking I always imagined I'd be part of a car crash.
The guy in the car - young and flash character, with a poor excuse for a moustache and sporting an Adidas baseball cap - is listening to Tupac Shakur on his stereo. He is glancing toward his pinhead girlfriend (blonde hair, overbloated,thick make-up and Burberry scarf) when, at the last minute he sees me, but forgets to brake and pushes hard on the accelerator instead.
"What the f... git oot o' the way, ya maddie, whit's he daein man aaaaarrrgghhh!" The driver screams.
"Look oot Brett yer gonna hit...aaaaaarrrggghhh!"
To be continued.
Now you can comment...happy?
Darker Killingbeck for the uninitiated is where creative people go when they die.
A gigantic city of dark tower blocks, multi-ethnic districts and a fully functioning underground metro system. Angles, shapes, concrete, glass and miracles of engineering and architecture. It's where, I suppose, I've always lived. Where crowds of people, cars, traders, the homeless, weirdos, geeks, anoraks and trainspotters live cheek by jowl. A suicidial world of life rushing past as the rest of us standstill - now this is beginning to feel a bit like a poem - so let's conjure up an image.
Let's say I am having a coffee at my favourite organic cafe 'Dare' In Byers Road. It's a sunny day, so I am sitting at a table on the pavement. I am enjoying an Americano while doing corrections in my black book when a woman approaches from the harbour.
"You’ll have to excuse my lateness" She smiles "I’m just back from hauling my twin baskets of peat and silver darlings across the har covered sheiling. My tartan skirts muddied by the glaur, my oiled wool shawl about my bony shoulders, my clay pipe firmly in place in the corner of my old crone’s mouth.....Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh" I nod. "Have you read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller?" She shakes her head. "Invisible Cities? The Castle of Crossed Destinies? Cosmicomics, perhaps?"
"Are you taking the rip?" She says glaring at me and then suddenly pulls a Beretta Storm Rifle from her basket and points it at me.
I panic, knock over the table in my haste to get away and run for cover. A car flashing its lights heads directly for me, I turn, see the woman from the harbour lift the rifle and aim. Glance around in time to see the car bearing down on me. The door of the pub - The Wind That Shakes Barley On a Very Cold Night In April - straight across the road from the cafe opens. Hard-Fi's Hard To Beat blasting out momentarily.
Leaves me thinking I always imagined I'd be part of a car crash.
The guy in the car - young and flash character, with a poor excuse for a moustache and sporting an Adidas baseball cap - is listening to Tupac Shakur on his stereo. He is glancing toward his pinhead girlfriend (blonde hair, overbloated,thick make-up and Burberry scarf) when, at the last minute he sees me, but forgets to brake and pushes hard on the accelerator instead.
"What the f... git oot o' the way, ya maddie, whit's he daein man aaaaarrrgghhh!" The driver screams.
"Look oot Brett yer gonna hit...aaaaaarrrggghhh!"
To be continued.
Now you can comment...happy?
Friday, 9 February 2007
MY LIFE AS A COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO
In life's long, dark tunnel, or 'hamster' wheel of the night, we plod. Does anyone out there think that may become a regularly quoted piece of english literature? No? Probably not.
As we indicated last week this blog is for creative people. An elite of thinkers and people who don't just swallow the everyday and ill-considered preconceived notions of existence, but who like to push the boundaries a bit. Sheep need not apply.
I am delighted to say I have managed to enlist the help of friends from different backgrounds and whose expertise and artistic and creative leanings are varied, should make the space something special.
It is, of course, just over one week since the blog started, and contributions from Hayles and the 'groupie' from UNCLE, Axasha have electrified the globe with their creative poise, wit and itellect. Axasha, who in her own words, 'just breezed by' - I am going to resist any references to 'feisty' at this point (look it up) - and Hayles who presented us with a poem to make us all think. I know from reading the comments more of her poems have been requested.
Axasha, mused on why the the 'Kollektive' had two K's and not two C's. She suggested that it might be a reference to Kafka - nice try, but sorry no cigar (She has been known to chew a clay pipe between her teeth though). She also, in a sort of magic realist fashion supposed it was some cryptic reference to Kuryakin (Illya of Man From Uncle ilk - well hello? No, it wasn't that either. I simply chose two K's instead of two C's because I figured it might actually sound more creative.
So you see, superheroes of the comic book variety, apart from the ability to nonchalantly wear their underpants over their trousers, are also required to respond to situations and challenges at short notice.
Maybe in the week to come, more of our specially invited contributors will make their mark. Between chewing carrots and meditating, underwater Salsa dancing and speed linedancing, they might actually find time to contribute...you know who I mean.
SERGIO
My second post to the kollektive. Go me!
Seryozha has challenged me to read some quality literature for a change, instead of the pulp fiction spy stories I generally favour - those wonderful cheap ‘dime novels’ featuring my boys, I mean Men from U.N.C.L.E. – Napoleon and Illya!
(The, “…all-American Adonis and the resourceful Russian...”©TNT.)
I’m a librarian in “real” life so this seems fair enough. Y’know, keeping my hand in and reading the odd piece of classic literature every once in a while…
Still, I maintain that, “there’s no such thing as trashy fiction, only trashy readers”. Sergio knows better and assures me I’ve just got lousy taste. (Drat. Rumbled!)
Which brings me to Franz Kafka’s short story, “A Hunger Artist”, and our experiment in “paired reading”. So far I’ve read the word, “relay”. (Yep, that’s all... Heh, I know, I should be ashamed. This is in no way a reflection on the great Kafka of course!) I claim that this is terribly avant guarde of me. Sergio knows better and assures me that I’m just lazy. (Drat. Rumbled again! Damn the man.) But he’s a swot and read the whole story in about 3 seconds.
Anywho. Serge, today’s word is, “cage”. Your thoughts? Members of the kollektive?
Axasha.
(The, “…all-American Adonis and the resourceful Russian...”©TNT.)
I’m a librarian in “real” life so this seems fair enough. Y’know, keeping my hand in and reading the odd piece of classic literature every once in a while…
Still, I maintain that, “there’s no such thing as trashy fiction, only trashy readers”. Sergio knows better and assures me I’ve just got lousy taste. (Drat. Rumbled!)
Which brings me to Franz Kafka’s short story, “A Hunger Artist”, and our experiment in “paired reading”. So far I’ve read the word, “relay”. (Yep, that’s all... Heh, I know, I should be ashamed. This is in no way a reflection on the great Kafka of course!) I claim that this is terribly avant guarde of me. Sergio knows better and assures me that I’m just lazy. (Drat. Rumbled again! Damn the man.) But he’s a swot and read the whole story in about 3 seconds.
Anywho. Serge, today’s word is, “cage”. Your thoughts? Members of the kollektive?
Axasha.
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