I’m just coming to the end of the loveliest book I’ve read for ages. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 is a collection of small writings, not all short stories, and every single one is brilliant. I think it may be even better than Granta although to be fair it is drawing from a much wider range of material and is only produced once a year. In any case, it challenges any preconceptions one might have about the state of intellectual life in the US. The authors in here are witty, sophisticated, wise and outward-looking, it’s like George Bush never happened. I’m going to be so sad when I get to the last page. But then, of course, there’s always this year’s edition to look forward to.
Archive for the 'Art' Category
Stan’s Cafe commissioned Brian Duffy, astronaut, photographer, writer and sound masher, to work with them on a show thing for the big Creative Partnerships culture bonanza in Manchester. He’s made a lovely mix with the stuff he used, you can download it from Exchange Art.
One of the interesting things for me about listening to it was that pretty much the first person you hear is Sarah Archdeacon, founder of Corali Dance Company and a regular performer for Stan’s Cafe. Like most of the people who work with them she has an incredibly distinctive and recognisable voice. I also recently spotted one of the other founders of Stan’s Cafe, Graham Rose, posing as a priest on a phone-in programme. If you’ve ever seen him in a show you’ll recognise him immediately. Have a Listen.
Then there’s Mark out of Smart on CBBC. He has always reminded me of Craig Stephens, Stan’s Cafe second in command. They are opposites in most ways, Craig taciturn and understated, Mark wacky and always making funny faces, but there’s something about Mark’s boyish confidence that always brings Craig to mind.
Back to Sarah Archdeacon again. Lisa Hannigan didn’t half look like her on Damien Rice’s new video, 9 Crimes. Am I imagining it, I keep asking myself? It has been a while since I saw Stan’s Cafe, maybe my memory of them has faded and merged into a collection of universal archetypes.
So imagine my confusion when I was watching my favourite comedy programme, Lead Balloon, and there, suddenly, confusingly, was Amanda Hadingue, another long-time member of Stan’s Cafe, crying at the kitchen table. And it really was her, I’m sure of it.
I’m listening to the new Beatles compilation album - Love. It’s depressing not because it’s badly done but because it is so very tame and polite. The tracks have been a bit remixed, a bit remastered, some little things have been added here and there but it’s really just a greatest hits album and it suffers from the same empty feeling that all such compilations have. Alexis Petridis at the Guardian loves it but I’d buy virtually any of their original releases rather than this, even if they do sound “tinny and desperately malnourished”. Maybe that’s because I like my rock stars unhealthy and angry rather than plump and self-satisfied.
Now that Ivor Cutler’s dead, Mairead Byrne is my favourite living poet. Here’s one of her shorter ones -
LUDDITE
I’m no Luddite.
I just like saying Luddite.
See, it’s great isn’t it? Read more at http://www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com/
I went to see the Michael Clark Company show Mmm… at the Barbican last night. It was great in all sorts of ways, including the fact that it left me unable to describe how it made me feel or what it made me think so I won’t try.
It couldn’t have been a starker contrast to the production of Metamorphosis that I saw at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith a couple of weeks ago. That was the worst show I’ve seen for ages: undisciplined, carelessly directed, full of cheap, meaningless acrobatics and crowd-pleasing jokes that the silly audience found hilarious. I felt like I was watching a school end-of-term production in which the Head of English had done his very best to use the performers’ talents in whatever way he could. “Smithkinson is very acrobatic, let’s have him bouncing on a trampoline and then he can do that thing on those BBC ident films where they kind of roll their body down a long length of fabric.” It was one of those shows where it looks like the performers are having a marvellous time, the audience are enjoying the spectacle and I’m feeling like a gooseberry. I got the impression that many of the people watching had come to hear the soundtrack, which was done by Nick Cave and was occasionally OK but generally pointless. I suppose the management at the Lyric think it’s a Good Thing to encourage ‘young people’ into the theatre. Not like this it isn’t. Go and see Michael Clark, young people, even the music’s better.
What would you think about someone who had a 70s porn film poster up on their wall? A bit tacky, maybe just a bit shallow, perhaps they just don’t think very much about what things mean? But then there’s no denying that the images are great, cool, even alluring, plus when you look at them you realise that modern design is often just a rather weedy imitation of these soft-core classics. So many things are chic only when you ignore what they really are.
When I first came across this site, a well organised and presented collection of “over 350 original American X-rated movie posters”, I did initially think “Ooh, great Christmas present for someone”. But then, of course, I wondered who, exactly? Nobody I know, that’s who. And would I actually put one on the wall, would I shell out £75 for one? Not really. So why do I still really love these designs? There’s something amiss.
I know I don’t write a blog about poetry. I don’t know anything about poetry plus I don’t know how to write about it plus if you change the subject of your blog the reader becomes frustrated like finding sugar in their omelette. So, Sorry about that. First it was fiction, now quoting poetry.
Mairéad Byrne doesn’t have an RSS feed so you have to keep going back to see if she’s done anything new yet. Her writing style is so infectious that if you do keep doing that, like I have been, you find that all your thoughts start expressing themselves in her voice. I quite enjoy this although I wonder whether it’s a bit insincere. It happened visually when I was reading a lot of Daniel Clowes comics (before he was a star) but usually only when I was on buses. Once, in Camberwell (good we’re back to London) the whole other top deck looked like they’d been drawn by him.
Anyway, check this out, I think it’s hilarious, and more.
Heaven
I was finding it a bit tedious climbing the stairs so I decided to up the ante. First: Wash the stairs. Next: Lay squares of paper towel down. Then: Move up & down the stairs landing only on the squares of paper towel. Rationale: My slippers tend to leave marks on the wet steps. Effect: Increased difficulty climbing stairs, which action now requires tri-partite effort a) almost vertical hoisting of the legs, with b) frantic whole-body follow-through, propelled by c) pumping action of right arm against banister; with d) descent involving a domino-effect toppling, always in danger of skidding off the paper towel & the step, always in danger of plunging straight down the stairwell like a bucket in a well. Going up & down the stairs is much harder than before, & also much more unusual. Going up is more like ice-climbing. Coming down is more like bungee-jumping. I have started going around the whole house like this. I have put squares of paper towel down in all the rooms & halls so that I can lurch around like Frankenstein, having close encounters with the floors & walls. The house has shrunk & I have grown huge, like a monstrous erection, mindless yet programmed to seek. Full report to follow.
There was a heated… spirited… well, anyway interesting exchange of views about Stuckism over on Same Identical Sun. Alan Hay, the proprietor, usually writes, extremely carefully, a mixture of entertaining discussion and invective about poetry and nearby topics. On Sunday he mentioned, among other things, Dan Belton, a friend of his who is a painter and a Stuckist. He said that “personally I find Stuckism irritating and boring”.
I have never even heard of Stuckism so I followed the link and read their site and their (mostly self-written by the look of it) Wikipedia entry. Many of the paintings look great, some of them are fantastic. On reading their original 1999 manifesto some points are hard to disagree with but some are empty aphorisms and some are just strongly worded expressions of personal taste.
My objection to it, though, is that it seems mostly to be about what they don’t like and what Stuckism isn’t. It reminds me of those children who come to tea and tell me (whiney voice) “I don’t like tomatoes, I don’t like carrots.” Don’t tell me, I don’t care. If you don’t like it don’t eat it.
I was wondering what it is that makes artists feel like they should have a manifesto and a movement in the first place. Most of the musicians I like can do little more than mutter or grunt when they’re talking about their music; that’s fine by me. In fact, I don’t think that any piece of writing, any expression of opinion, has any merit apart from itself. It doesn’t matter if the subject or the writer is a film star, a painter or a politician. If the ideas are dull, if they don’t make sense, they’re not worth the ink. So what are painters, who communicate best through painting, doing writing? And then I realised that it’s just the same sort of time-wasting displacement activity as creating web-sites about your work when you should be working and there’s nobody more guilty of that than I am.
There’s a song on Neil Diamond’s new LP, 12 Songs, that I’m quite fond of. When I first heard it I thought it would be an ideal candidate for putting on one of the tapes I make for my grrls to listen to on long car jouneys. It’s a jolly, cheerful, soppy Sesame Street kind of song all about the nature of love.
Love is all about chemistry
Isn’t something you go off to school to learn
It isn’t math or ancient history
It’s the kind of thing that comes down to simple terms
It’s not about you
It’s not about me
Love is all about WE
Yes, it’s all about we
But I was forgetting the simple fact that there’s only one word in those lyrics that has any significance for children. Wee. One of the evil collection of elite words that will cause instant, tireless mirth in any child. Wee, Poo, Fart. They’re all solid gold, magic words as guaranteed to make children collapse with laughter as the sight of a man falling on his bum. There’s another one. So Neil Diamond must have never played this song in the presence of any child. If he had, he’d have heard this.
What’s so amazing is that Nintendo have gone and made the very same mistake. They’ve called their new gaming console “Wii”, pronounced “Wee”. It’s amazing. Has nobody who works for Nintendo ever spent any time with children? Or maybe their kids are so ernest that they wouldn’t find it funny. However, the connection with bodily functions is stronger that it first seems. Maybe the whole thing is intentional.
The novel one-handed device contains motion sensors that allow players to control the action onscreen by pointing it at their television and waving it around.
Heh heh.
Remember the Beatles? They were famous a long time ago and they started a record company called Apple Records. The record label also signed a handful of other artists, including John Tavener, Ravi Shankar and James Taylor. In other words, it’s not a well-known record label. Now they’re trying to sue Apple Computer, I bet you’ve heard of them, because they claim that the iTunes music store infringes their trademark, a nice juicy green apple. The record company is run by former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison. They obviously don’t have a clue about the modern world at all. Instead of suing their world-class rival they would have done better to open up a rival online music store called Apple Tunes or something. They might then have had a chance of actually selling some of the music that they’re so precious about.
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