Book-based blogger, and er... well, whatever-comes-my-way.
UK based. Main interest areas: literature (chiefly european)
history (chiefly european)
the arts: music, painting, sculpture, architecture, yadda yadda yadda ( gedda da picture?)
noo science
most other things too
And 'would like to meet' others into 'stuff' too.
I rather like this comment, to quote myself (aiee, the hubris, but once in a long while I nail it for myself) as representative of the current state of this blog's reason d'etre:
"to question the 'sacrosanct respect for language use, and display its unreliability, its imprecision, its less than worthy credentials for acting as our instrument for understanding, and survival'."
Gotcha!
I wonder what she is doing at this hour my Andean and sweet Rita of needs and wild cherry trees. Now that this weariness chokes me, and blood dozes off, like lazy brandy inside me.
I wonder what she is she doing with those hands that in attitude of penitence used to iron starchy whiteness, in the afternoons. Now that this rain is taking away my desire to go on.
I wonder what has become of her skirt with lace; of her toils; of her walk; of her scent of spring sugar cane from that place.
She must be at the door, gazing at a fast moving cloud. A wild bird on the tile roof will let out a call; and shivering she will say at last, “Jesus, it’s cold!”
Cesar Vallejo
I remember this poem from years and years ago. It has always stayed with me. It is from The Black Heralds collection, I think. I don’t know who did the translation. Excellent, though.
The competition was started five years ago by Belgian Claude Willaert. to celebrate and raise the dour reputation that gulls have acquired over time. They are often called the “rats of the sea” and a nuisance to cities, but Willaert says, “seagulls belong to the coast like salt to the sea.” He hopes that the competition will help people understand (them) instead of looking down on them. (Dutch Review)
Jarmo Slutter wore a costume for his attempt, though there are no rules for costumes. Having said that judges do score on arm waving/wing flapping, as well as squawks to go with the screeches. Runners-up were Amsterdammer Reggy Laatsch, and Belgian Bregjie Iding. They were judged by gull researcher Jan Says, who commented Most people imitated the herring gull, which is the most abundant species, and also the one … that creates most of the nuisance. It really has a very rich repertoire of calls, very often accompanied by different postures the gull can take. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5072187/european-gull-screeching-championship-has-folks-squawking-the-sound-of-the-sea-1.5072192
The competition was such a success that it has flocked to other countries and found rich pickings. It is now a fully European competition.
This year the competition was held in Adinkerke, on the Flanders coast.
The competition even made its way into the British satirical magazine, Private Eye.
But what a joyous event! Celebrate, yes! There is so little of that: enjoy, have fun, celebrate.
The light dripped into milk, spots of sun; Her grandfather’s street games, to watch it twist, pool — ‘goos en papen’, a deliberation. beggars and papists;
The wheaten loaves stand ready, the catholic magistrates but first this: ‘To not drip, nor crumb driven from towns, work from quietness.’ and the smashed saints.
Her body’s concentration, and see this Siege towns; women sluiced red measured decline of arms, neck. ribbons from cobble stones. A privacy; treasured. Broken dykes
She is full of grace, contained; the sun drowned the corn in the field, just chances on her. the Spaniard at the gate. She allowed this portion.
coda
The Duke of Alva’s daughter pining pinned a ribbon of milky white to her sleeve: the sky of that far North land;
pricked her finger, stained her ribbon orange.
Scrapbook di Amos Poe
So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum in painted quiet and concentration keeps pouring milk day after day from the pitcher to the bowl the World hasn’t earned the world’s end. — https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/4785143332208417/
Cold War Steve is a British collage artists and satirist.
Working initially on Twitter, he has gained higher profiles, venturing into several books: The Festival of Brexit, and Prat’s Progress, and Journal of a Plague Year, on Thames and Hudson, as well as McFadden’s Cold War, a pamphlet of earlier work, on Rough Trade.
His big impact work has been his public work on buildings, walls etc. It consists of meticulously collaged cut-outs of characters, politicians, celebrities, in dystopian settings.
Postcards and items are for sale. The man’s got to live, let’s face it.
The work is absorbing. The Triptych references Breughel’s Triumph of Death, as well as English imperialist images and art. A person can disappear for hours trawling the works, who is who. It is worth noting that the inclusions are accessible to the media generations; you will not find characters from other than the English/British centre-stage.
There are several recurring characters in his works. One that has been there all through is the character Phil Mitchell from the Eastenders TV soap series, he is the McFadden of the pamphlet. Another perhaps surprising regular is North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Donald Trump is not surprising, but what does surprise is that nowhere does he grandstand, this is Trump as just-another-celebrity.
Their global impact is readily acknowledged.
Placing is the key, that and the character’s expression in a particular context. Together they make for an arresting image. And the works are ensemble pieces, and the same detailing and placing works for each inclusion. This is hard and painstaking work.
He connects with Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray, and on to contemporaries like Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, and probably others that I am not familiar with.
All in a good cause, of course.
My only cavil is that there is something too English, and white, and male, about his work.
There is: contemporary dance – Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with a short taster vid of his choreography, Willebroek Brass Band and a snippet from an outstanding performance, there is Architecture and Applied Arts… so many, even Circus!
13 Winners.
Each winner has a video clip and judge/jury comments.
This has tobe the cultural highlight of the year… so far! I would urge to visit their site:
michael9murray 