So, I’ve recently been feeling a little out of myself. Or rather, quite in myself, but unable to reach out of myself. Trouble communicating. Even though I’ve been writing a shed load for nano (still barely ahead of schedule, but I don’t feel like I can write tonight…we’ll see).
Anyway, there’s a secondary problem exacerbating this. It’s the reason I feel in myself (present within my body, in a kinda Tai Chi kinda way as opposed to just introverted and angsty, which is what all of this may seem like…partly because that is actually my mood this evening). But it’s also creating distance between my self and others. And one of the expressions of this I’m about to talk about.

So what’s the thing exacerbating this.

I’ve stopped drinking, at least for a while. I’ve been undrunk a month now, and realistically, it’s great for me. Like I say, in and of myself I am more physically present, more feeling, and more awake.

This is all great.

Sure, it means my social life has taken a bit of a dent (culturally, we English, and particularly we Brightonians, and particularly the majority of my friends, and particularly me, associate socialisation with boozing, we do it in pubs, we get wasted at parties to meet new people etc etc etc), and that’ s making me lonelier, but it’s not that bad. If I’m in the mood I can still party, I can still talk, I can still be nuts. To be honest, if anything I’m more outgoing than when drunk, and without the added self centredness and obnoxiousness.

Well, okay, maybe I’m still self centred and obnoxious, but it’s not quite as noxious when I’ve got some level of control over it.

But yeah. Essentially, without the depressant effect of alcohol I seem to be more manic, more fast paced, and constantly trying to chase after my thoughts. This roughly equates (though not quite) to me being just as capable of being sociable as always. Occasionally I’m even interesting (or at least I hope I am).

So where’s the big problem?

Essentially, it boils down to having to explain to people.

I’m at the pub, I’m not drinking. I feel like I have to explain to some extent. Even just an ‘I’m not drinking at the moment’ should be enough to stop people offering, and then I can just kind of get on with being my weirdass self.

But I have to explain. People always ask why.

I don’t want to over-egg the situation and start calling myself an alcoholic (though at times, it’s certainly appeared that way), especially as that effectively amounts to an attack on the drinking habits of quite a lot of my friends (many of whom drink much more than I have for a few years now).

But I have to say something. The best I can boil it down to though, is just ‘when I’m drunk, I act like a dick, and often do things I regret later. Then when I sober up, the hangover and the regret usually leave me miserable  for a few days afterwards’. This can then continue onto the obvious result of ping ponging back and forth, without ever feeling myself. But people normally lose interest by then (perhaps mostly because of that aforementioned implied criticism).

It makes me feel like an outcast, even engaging with them about how I feel in that way (‘boys mustn’t say things like that’…nobody says that, obv, but perhaps some do feel uncomfortable), is enough, but actually acknowledging that it’s enough of a problem to stop me from drinking, and thus it’s a big problem (because I enjoy booze alot, even on an aesthetic level, I’m into my bourbon, and I’m in to my ale, and not just for the deleterious effects). It’s a huge thing.

Only mostly nobody does mind, but I don’t see that. Mostly people except the explanation, it makes sense, maybe a lot of people feel like that.

But I feel like I’m wearing this huge millstone around my neck. Dragging it’s weight behind me. And on it is written a thousand discouraging phrases ‘I’m an alcoholic’, ‘I can’t handle my drink’, ‘I’m not a real man,’ or whatever.

I’ve dislodged the monkey from my back and replaced it with a giant rock.

At least monkey’s are cute.

And it’s absured, because I take no insult from any of those comments. Alcoholics are just people who need help. People who can’t handle drink are just people who can’t handle drink. If they enjoy getting drunk, then they get drunk cheaper, if they don’t, then they usually learn quite quickly to be sensible (a learning process that has taken me years, apparently).

As for not being a real man. Don’t make me laugh. My mobile phone is defiantly pink (and I love it) and my skirts are short and my dresses flowery. I have no love of masculine ideals (though, if I’m honest, in certain company I attempt to at least fit in with the macho people that surround me. This is often tricky).

Okay, I contradicted myself a lot. But this is the problem. I know it’s not a problem, but I make it one anyway. I don’t care if people think less of me, and I don’t think they really do.

But I’ve been using the crutch of booze to make new friends for so long (and now I appear to have swung for the crutch of being ‘weird’ and ‘quirky’ and often ‘a bit over the top’ instead) that I find it hard to live behind.

But you know what. I’ve been dependent on all this stuff for so long, that part of me is just glad to acknowledge it.

All my life seems to be built around dependencies. I don’t know how to walk without crutches.

But maybe now I’m just trying to walk. And maybe one day I’ll run.

The above painting was done by me (and poorly photographed also by me) whilst in the midst of an incredibly low time recently.

Many people who have seen commented that it’s very bloody dark and depressing.

As is often the case with me and depressing things, the message I take (today at least) is actually closer to uplifting.

That figure, with the weight of the world bearing down of him, Is walking away from the hole that’s trapped him for so long.

Putting away childish things and what not (I hate quoting scripture, for fairly obvious reasons, but that is definitely a great line).

There is always a forward.

Let’s hope I can learn that for realz.

—————-
Now playing: Pivot – [O Soundtrack My Heart #06] Sweet Memory [foobar2000 v0.9.5.2]
via FoxyTunes

So this is a dias de los muertos post, in memory of a fine young lady whose died today last year. Tomorrow I picnic with her (weather permitting), and today and tomorrow I will spend thinking of her and others I have lost.

Dying young is clearly a tragedy, but it sometimes makes it easier to remember how brightly some people shine. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but the two good friends I’ve lost prematurely (both 19 at the time of passing) seem like two of the brightest stars I’ve ever met.

My memories of Edie are almost entirely filled with laughter, the title of this post counting as one of the happiest moments of my life. As we strutted down an autumn path, damp leaves and puddles scattered underfoot, we belted out, myself, Edie and another dearly loved friends, three different songs simultaneously. Edie didn’t know the words to Multiply, so she chimed in with the Postman Pat theme music, Lou had something else on her mind entirely, and sang something different.

The rhythms just about worked, there was a lack of tunefulness, but there was so much joy and absurdity that every time I look back to it I smile, laugh and feel warm inside.

We all need to remember that the world is silly, and we normally need to work to encourage it to be more so.

There is room for emotion and excitement everywhere. That’s something I’ve learnt. It’s okay to feel and it’s okay to express it.

It’s okay to miss people, but it’s better to remember the joys you felt with them. Admittedly, that’s what you’re missing, but never forget that that’s also what you got.

Every moment is valuable, and anything that happens could easily not have. I am incredibly lucky to have known such fantastic people throughout my life. I have acres of memories of connection, contact, love and joy. This is the gift people have given me and it is something I carry with me forever.

Contact with people creates a large part of who you are, so nobody truly disappears. We live on in the people we touch, and the people who touch us live on in us.

That’s beautiful.

I think I’ve mentioned all this before, and this next bit too.

Apparently Marconi believed in his latter years that sounds never ended, they just got quieter and quieter until we could no longer detect them. He hoped to use appropriately advanced equipment to listen to the Sermon on the Mount.

I’m just happy to believe (or even to just hypothesise) that it means that as well as the ripples we leave in other people, there is some part of everything we’ve done out there. The sound. It’s humbling; reminding us that we leave a mark. We must be accountable for our actions, but also, we never lose anything.

The same is mirrored in the Conservation of Energy. ‘Life is not ended; only changed.’ Or something like that.

Anyway, somewhere, possibly, drifting into the ether, is an incredibly quiet (and incredibly disharmonious) three-part harmony, three different songs, clashing merrily.

That makes me happy.

Love you Edie, love you Will, Love you Julie, Love you Nan and Gramps (both Gramps), Love you Alison, Love you Harry.

Love everyone I’ve known and lost. And love everyone still here.

—————-
Now playing: Pan American – [Quiet City #07] Het Volk [foobar2000 v0.9.5.2]
via FoxyTunes

My friend G has decided to say goodbye to Brighton by staring intently into my wall.
A cheery surprise at my door, it quickly emerges that he has drunk a few pints, won some games of pool and taken about half a gram of horse tranquilliser. As we discuss, and go through, the process of coffee making, he becomes incoherent. In the space of three sentences his eyes have glazed over and the words slowly slid apart.
In the time it took me to type those last two sentences he has fallen backwards. I know there is no need to check, he grunted recently his assent to the idea of sitting in the living room, and this tells me he is in the usual coma.
If he times it just right his coffee will be at a drinkable temperature by the time he’s conscious enough to drink it.
I don’t disapprove of this, but it’s an odd visit. This will be my last memory of him in Brighton, for now at least. He’s heading back to Bideford, the place he fled three or four years ago.
That was when I first met G.
I will go and check on him anyway, though I know he’s fine.
He’s fine.
As I was saying. Bideford got too much for G a few years back, mostly due to the emotional cliché of woman trouble. Now he returns there, as Brighton is too much for him. The emotional cliché of woman trouble, possibly exacerbated by the drug filled squat subculture.
He said he was fine. Or rather, he said yeah when I asked. As he stares at the ceiling of my tiny galley kitchen, I notice how brightly the light is sparkling in his eyes.
G has always had incredibly pretty eyes.
Elsewhere G is more haggard and scruffy and dirty and typical of a punk squatter K-head. Though from the right angle he has a majesty in his features, and as someone who knows him, I can’t deny just how beautiful he is.
While this all happens, I’m still involved in expanding my understanding of the Velvet Underground. Yet again, a classic band, that I’d nod and smile whenever someone asked me if I liked them, without ever having investigated beyond the cliched hits. I could probably even name a few albums at a push.
Now I find myself lost within the varied voices swirling around me. I’m bad at picking out individual threads of language from the hubbub, so the meaning of the poetry here is lost to me, but the interleaved vocals of this Murder Mystery is swimming around me. Flooding me with something between unease and involvement.
I feel close to G now, with my back to him as I type about him without his knowledge.
Am I ignoring his suffering?
I doubt he’s suffering, but ti’s disturbing.
Unease and involvement. I wonder if there is a word for it, the way you are drawn close to something that scares you.
No, It’s not the Uncanny, I don’t care what Freud and Nick Royle say.
I feel like I’ve broken the intimacy of this writing with that line. That self conscious attempt at intellectualism. I think I lost the purity of it all at least half a page ago.
G has woken, I think he’s using the toilet.
On the other hand, he may have just left.
For good.
For now.
We’ll see.
This has been a love song, in case you didn’t notice.
Thank you for your attention.

So, it’s been a while. But lets not linger any longer, for there is business to attend to and I am stealing someone’s wires to send this out.

When I sat down, I wanted to write a review two acts that got me most wrapped up at the Loop Festival, held in the centre of Brighton this weekend. I’m doing that, but that’s not all.

Because I want to talk about my body.

Nothing new here then. Let’s start with the bands shall we.

Chronologically, we begin with Fever Ray, who headlined the second stage on the first night. They had lasers.

Fever Ray at the Corn Exchange, by EdwardFilm reproduced under a creative commons license.

I’ve never been enthralled by lasers before (though as a bit of a geek, I probably should have been at some point). But these had a magic in them. Well, that’s an exaggeration, there was just lots of incesnse pouring out of the stage and running through the lasers into the smoke, creating a slice of intricate chaotic patterns above us all as the band took to the stage.

Lets flip back a little. I hadn’t heard any Fever Ray before this evening, but it is essentially the solo project of one half of the Knife, famous for doing the filthy electro original of that wanky Jose Gonzales song that played in every trendy shop about two years ago…on loop…all the fucking time.

The original’s better (and is forever wrapped up for me with Anders Loves Maria, where a particular sex scene takes place with the music in the background. I found a copy just so I could understand what Eggstorm was on about, and it was worth it).

Big fat anyway.

The point is that the band were shrouded in darkness, and the titular Ray of Fever, had the most terrifying mask on (well, I thought so), it was dark that you just got the silhouette of a huge mass of dreadlocks pouring out of the top of a ragged cape.

Back to the lasers.

Basically, the lasers were dangling just over the top of our heads, so near the front (where we were) the slice of smoke became a ceiling, and I suddenly felt as if I was in the living room of that terrifying ogre that lives around the back of the diner in Mullholland Drive.

It was somewhat intimidating. And it (possibly along with the heroic/foolish quantities of alcohol consumed) entirely overwhelmed me. I was wrapped up in the pulsing thick simplicity of the bass and drum being torn and lashed into by shrill piercing vocals.

It was quite good.

My companions for the evening seemed genuinely worried for me though.

And this is because of the effect to my body. I was rooted to the floor, unable to talk or communicate through anything apart from desparate, pained eyes, and subhuman grunts.

I’m not actually exagerating. I couldn’t control my movements apart from a kind of throbbing pulsing sensation, rhythmically tied to the music.

Now, dancing is a strange thing. I can’t get my head round it sometimes, but I love it. But why do we do it? Am I performing something? Or expressing something? Does my mind try to transfer the emotional intensity of the music into some kind of physical gesture, or do I just like moving in a vaguely out of control (but rhythmic) fashion?

Why do we do it, where does this need to express through movement come from?

For me, at the msot extreme times, it is rooted in the perineum and the pubis mons, and it feels like it surges outwards. The only way to exorcise this almost cramping building of tension is to flex and stretch and move.

I often bite.

Now, this is still married to when I hear something and I whoop and holler and then fling my arms and legs in time to the beat, but it is more. It seems more personal, because I am bursting, but I can’t express the feeling. I always try and I often fail (probably much like this here writing business, which again seems useless, almost more so because it attempts to in such a less subtle way, at least dancing keeps the abstract and immaterial from becoming too concrete and so trite…but that’s probably another story).

Anyway. That’s how I felt. Overwhelmed and ripped apart.

It was good. Though I suspect without being wrapped up in it and at the front then the music itself wasn’t strong enough. It was more about the phsyical and emotional experience that was built around you.

The next day, I got the same overwhelmed, but it was the exact opposite.

Múm were an utter joy to witness.

Múm at the Corn Exchange, by Prusakolep reproduced under a creati ve commons license

Here was a band with an utter lack of pretension, without even a sense that they were putting on a performance, so much as simply enjoying sharing their music.

The thing that stood out was the band looked at each other with genuine affection. They bounced and sang and laughed and chatted with each other, and infected the audience with a similar charm.

And that intensity overcame me again. The band did not play the sort of music I expected, instead of dark electronic atmospherics (with an uplifiting and inspiring edge) you had raucous, playful delightful romps. You had bird song recorders and childlike singing and roars of excitement. The vocal performances were outstanding, with a full range put to great use and intriguing use of harmonies. All wrapped with perfect drum and bass breaks and keyboard trills and everything else you can imagine. Instruments were thrown around stage so that everybody could join in, and, without that much inter song banter, the band seemed to welcome the audience into what genuinely felt like a family like environment. This band appear to genuinely love playing together, and love each other as close friends do.

If that’s all an act, then it’s an impressive one.

They topped off the set by singing the title track of an upcoming album ‘Sing along to songs you don’t know’, and encouraged the audience to do exactly that.

The song turned out to be about how much they loved the audience and wanted to take them home with them.

It was a sentiment exactly paralelled by something said by one of my companions.

And the affect on me?

Screaming and yelling and howling and bouncing and flinging and swinging and everything else imagine. I couldn’t stop moving. This positive energy oozed outwards and filled me with childlike glee. A regression back to simply loving being alive and the wonder.

To put it simply, it was the exact opposite of the rooted and internalised emotion I felt the night before during Fever Ray.

But it was the same. It was the same overwhelming energy passing through my body. The same building feeling reaching out from my sacral and basal chakras (if you want to get all hippy about it, rather than the clinical assessment already mentioned). And throwing my body around. Dominating everything that I feel.

Cackling with glee and squealing with delight, I am overwhelmed again.

——————

It’s incredible to me that two entirely different bands can do this to me. It feels as if these two groups of strangers reached into me and pulled something out, not to hurt or damage me, but to get me to show it to the world. To pour it out. Let it see the light of day.

I love self expression, though I worry that the extent to which I do it is egotistical and self obsessed.

But there’s a magic in the way the strands of performance, emotion, rhythm, environment and body plait together to create a (dare I say it) almost divine experience. A deeper contact with self, and a deeper expression of what you connect to.

Maybe I’m just an old romantic, but it delights me endlessly, even as I’m afraid of it.

—————–

Just to wrap up, for those still with us, my other big recommendation from Loop would be Portico Quartet, but we know that already. Judging by the proximity to tears on the second hearing of their forthcoming track LifeMask I’d say the new album is going to split my spirit in twain and glue it together in a more appealing shape.

I was annoyed by the number of only slightly more interesting that the middle of the road guitar bands present, but the pick of that particular crop was Plugs (though they are friends of mine, so I probably would say that), despite some technical problems (I couldn’t hear the drums very clearly, to the extent that I told the rather surly soundman who ignored me).

My favourite new discovery were Win Prizes, who sailed through my hangover with panache despite having a dreadful name.

Oh, and Mira Calix was absolutely incredible if you can handle that kind of abstract weirdness. I could, and I did, and it was incredible.

So it was a good weekend.

Dog Love by Boris reproduced under a creative commons license.

Right, those of you following me on twitter will have an idea of this already. But I wanna expand my thoughts, and I ain’t been on here in a while, so it seemed only rightly that I follow this thought process out loud for a wee spot.

So let’s go.

So I saw an advert this morning.

I can’t find it online (I didn’t look too hard) but if you’re in the ‘You ‘kay?’ you may spot it. It’s for Cesar brand dog food and the basic gist is a load of shots of dogs looking cutely at their owners (or whatever) with a voiceover telling you it’s not….

Scratch that, I found it, because I wanted to be a little bit more accurate:

Right.

So basically, we’re told that we should buy the dog food, to show that we love it just as much as it loves us.

Now. I’m sure you can imagine my first reaction. It’s the reaction I’m looking for when I watch telly in the morning, as it’s the reaction that starts to wake me up and get my brain working.

Anger.

Anger at bullshit. (Which is why I watch the Wright Stuff every morning before work…it wakes me up big style).

Anyway,

Clearly dogs follow us around and get our paper and hide from the rain (wait..what?) not because they love us, but because we give them food.

There’s something quite sweetly off base about saying that we give them food to show our love, because it’s the only reason they follow us around. It’s that natural pack instinct to socialise in a group that will help you feed. That’s why dog’s bond to people. Most of the dog owners I know acknowledge this…and doing dog sitting works the same way, you become a recognisable part of the pack (and need to establish yourself as alpha or the dog will ignore you) and then it will treat you in the same way it’s primary owner does.

Then it hit me.

So it is love then.

Not to get too cynical here, but basically, yeah.

We search for a useful pack. Friendships are good, but you really need a tight knit pack, and that’s why we fall in love with people who can provide and protect.

And I don’t want no gender bullshit in there, the fact is that both sides of the partnership provide and protect, in cisheteronormative straight relationships, sure that divide normally goes a certain way, but it’s still different kinds of protection and provision.

So you buy each other treats to confirm this bond, maybe even sex it up a little to really cement it.

And it’s just these pack instincts, these simple drives that we’ve developed into complex social codes and systems.

Funny how often I forget that one.

—-

I’m stopping now because my rambling is terrible, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written, not sorry for you (well, I am that too..but) sorry for me…because I appear to have forgotten how to do this properly.

Fucksticks.

—————-
Now playing: Arthur Russell – [Love Is Overtaking Me #07] I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face [foobar2000 v0.9.5.2]
via FoxyTunes

I know I promised to start all posts with a picture now. But I’m having a problem with my tiredness and my ‘pooter, so I promise to make up for it with next post with a pretty picture of me.

——-

There is a saying that great genius matures late. If something is not brought to fruition over a period of twenty to thirty years, it will not be of great merit. When a retainer is of a mind to do his work hurriedly, he will intrude upon the work of others and will be said to be young but able. He will become over-enthusiastic and will be considered rather rude. He will put on the airs of someone who has done great works, will become a flatterer and insincere, and will be talked about behind his back. In the pursuit of one’s development, if he does not make great effort and is not supported by others in his advancement in the world, he will be of no use.

- Chapter One of the Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, quoted from here.

I don’t particularly want to over commentate on this, but I think the above is scarily true for me. Occasionally I turn to a random page in the Hagakure (of which there is a copy in my bathroom) and it speaks to something deep in me. It asks me questions I’m truly afeared of.

I think I am arrogant and showy. I intrude upon others and am over-enthusiastic and rude.

I need to find ways to slow myself down and let myself grow gently.

These promises to myself so often amount to nothing. But I swear I will try.

I turn 25 on friday, and feel the need to start putting my self in order.

I have said almost all of this before. I hope I never have to say it again.

—————-
Now playing: Opsvik & Jennings – [Runeology 3 #03] The Last Country Village [foobar2000 v0.9.5.2]
via FoxyTunes

Arthur Russel – This is how we walk on the moon

Basically, I feel a little guilty about not posting since forever, so I’m making up for it with a super short post full of delightful videos. It’s something at least.

We start off with the song that’s been in my soul lately. I’ve had this track on my computer for a while, as part of a compilation. It was always the track that stood out, but I wasn’t sure if I get it. A few months later I find it’s got under my skin. I started listening to it on repeat, and then whenever I wasn’t near my computer I was singing it to myself, or whistling the cello line, or yelling the brass part.

It’s beautiful, it’s so incredibly beautiful. There’s a simplicity to it, but then there’s depth to. I tried to play along to the cello line with my melodica, and suddenly the subtlety and brilliance of his cello work was revealed, each note conceals hidden depths, it’s constantly varying, never resting, yet you barely hear that magic.

Then that brass part is ludicrous. Suddenly bursting in with a deft foolishness. Gorgeous.

Music inspires me, but it also physically grips me.

I’ve noticed lately that my emotions are become more physical. Music is turning me on more. The other day I started to retch when someone described a horrid hairstyle to me. I feel love as a swelling in my breast. Yesterday I was working in the pub, listening to Joanna Newsom, and it was so hard for me not to burst into tears. My body was filled with awe at the beauty of what she does. I drifted away from reality and was inside my own chest, swelling to the size of a hot air balloon and drifting over the horizon.

Here’s a track that reminds me of a good friend who is away travelling. This isn’t the one that almost burst my heart, but it fills me with optimism and excitement nonetheless.

Joanna Newsom – Peach, Plum, Pear

Her voice bursts open like my heart. The harp is beautiful. I feel impassioned, and awed.

My mind lately has been breathing stuff in. I can feel ideas brewing and spinning. I have plans and thoughts. I feel creative again for the first time in years. This is wonderful news, even if I have yet to really start creating.

I feel like something that has been lost has been restored. I can’t explain it, but it’s wonderful. Last night I saw the sky set on fire for the tiniest burst as the sun descnded. Sometimes magic is just a question of timing and perspective.

Creativity is all about perspective (sometimes). You can find a new angle on something. You see the world slightly differently.

Sometimes I think of the world as being a weird impossible cut out and keep construction. I imagine that you could collapse it all down into a flat piece of card that was once scored and folded and glued together into it’s current form.

Only it doesn’t work, because there’s so many points of views that it could never be flattened. There’s a million different eerythings, and they all try and exist in the same point and it’s impossible.

But that’s what makes reality so remarkable. The fact that it’s there. Alive and well. Beautiful and existing. A thousand different moments and perspectives and thoughts wrapped up in every concrete moment in space.

Don’t forget that the world is crazy and beautiful and forever changing.

——

I leave you with the shock revelation that Moby can occasionally write a beautiful song instead of trite boring blandness. Also, less shockingly, David Lynch is incredibly engaging and imaginitive.

Moby – Shot in the Back of the Head -Video directed by David Lynch

—————-
Now playing: Joanna Newsom – [The Milk-Eyed Mender #01] Bridges And Balloons [foobar2000 v0.9.5.2]
via FoxyTunes

Corner of my bedroom, complete with Manet’s Execution of Emporer Maximillian and a Lichtenstien with a title I can’t find.

First up, apologies for the puns in the title, sometimes (most times) I just can’t help myself.

Right.

Art.

Hmm.

To me, the most powerful and beautiful art unfolds.

I mean. The pieces that I love. Or rather, one category of pictures (or whatever) that I love, have a factor in common. Multiplicity of meaning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the potent, filthy erotic monstrousness of Francis Bacon. But I don’t come away thinking, I come away feeling. I love that feeling, and that is the other category of art i love, the stuff that makes me feel baptised in…something. Whatever it is.

But these two paintings, there’s something more ethereal in them that I love. It’s all about meaning and interpretation. It means that they excite me now, in a way that I don’t think many people understand.

I’m going to try and make you understand now. I will probably fail, but let me know what you think.

Let’s get back to unfolding. It’s a recurring feeling. It’s not like turning an origami swan, it’s more like turning an origami swan into a smaller origami swan, like a fractal.

Down the rabbit hole.

I’m going to anchor this with something more solid, like a picture of the piece we’re looking at first.

‘Although he holds his brush and palette in his hands. I know his heart is always with me!’

I discovered this piece upon moving into a house. The poster was on the wall, and it gazed over our kitchen table for the whole year. Everybody wanted to take it down, because it looks (apparently) uncannily like a friend of some of the people that lived there, and it freaked them out (aforementioned someone passed away in tragic circumstances sometime before). I insisted it stayed up, because I thought it was magical. When we moved, I took it with me, and it’s always been on one of my walls.

What is it that strikes me about it?

Well, I’ll tell you what it isn’t.

It’s not the image.

It’s not the whole ‘Pop art’ thing either. No praise of kitsch or low culture. No blowing tiny items up to a level where they become art. No celebration of the infantile or banal. No. It is none of these things.

Not for me anyway. And that’s what everybody says when they talk about Lichtenstein.

I think they miss the depth, or at least, the critics I’ve read miss it. They miss a lot.

For me, it’s the wordplay. The thought bubble, and the way that interacts with the artist, the girl trapped in the image, the viewer and society at large.

Like I say, once I start looking at it and engage my brain, it starts unfolding, until it has engulfed everything.

I still don’t have it all in my head. I still find it challenging to think how the very thing that fascinates me represents a critique or reinforcement of the male gaze. I rarely even try and explore that avenue.

Let’s look at what I’m trying to talk about here. That might help.

She (the flat static image) is pondering her relationship with the Artist, Roy Lichtenstein. She sees him, from the canvas, painting her. He is entirely focussed on his art, the creation of a beautiful meaningul object. But in true pulp style, she is in love. She senses, beneath his art, his love for her. She is in his heart, and he is pouring that heart onto the canvas, which is her.

And then my heart skips a beat, as I wonder if she’s right?

What was Lichtenstein thinking? Who is this woman (eerily like someone I’ve never met, but who has had an impact on my life)? Did he sneak a lover into one of his pictures? Or is she just an object? Is he aware of his objectification? Is she? Why does she decieve herself? Is Lichtenstein an aware tool of the patriarchy? Why does he create this woman for us, society, or me?

What is she playing on the piano?

Is the whole, together, a statement about art? Is it a parody of assumed relationships between artist and model? Is it simply a sad, mournful statement, that some people fall in love with people who could never love them back?

I always settle on melancholy, but maybe that’s just me. THe fact is that I feel like I can always break it down another layer, in ways that I can’t describe.

I do this for hours. And with each new level of discovery, I am more in love with the interplay between everything. It is the meaning that gets me, not in anyway the aesthetic appreciation. Aesthetically, I find it bland and static. Well. It’s striking, in a way, but it doesn’t excite me.

But behind the image, is something far greater.

Next.

Manet’s Execution of Maximilian – Fragmented , and with earlier (complete) versions.

Édouard Manet’s painting, perhaps requires a brief history lesson. I’d recommend a read of the article I just linked to, it’s fascinating, though I’m making a point of not re-reading it now, as that’s not really what I want to talk about. This one is perhaps more ethereal than the last, but I’ll try my best.

Basically, it’s the fragments.

The history lesson will tell you more about why it is like this. But I don’t really see the magic in the image until it’s broken up like this. Not even because of the politics behind that.

Once again, I think the critics are missing the point, at least the ones I’ve read.

I love the way the different elements are frozen in blankness. Isolated from each other. The focus (perhaps) of the piece, is entirely missing. The Emperor is nowhere to be seen, though someone who holds him is still there. The puff of smoke is all the evidence of the action. We don’t know who or what is being held, but it’s absence is telling. Like the red hatted sergeant, it is distanced, and cut off from everything. Not just his attention, fixing the barrel of his gun, not paying attention to the destruction he is supposed to be leading. He washes his hands. And he is cut off. A fine line breaks him apart from his unit.

And so we see the world, as a series of fragments. Like the old cliched story of the blind men and the elephant. The whole picture is absent, we only see tiny elements. We can’t have everything, and (if you want to take it that way) the victim is removed entirely.

Which makes it briefly about news media.

Or is it just about alienation. The way we stand aside and watch things happen. Or the way we may never see our firing squad.

I love it. I can’t explain it. But somehow it’s fragmentary nature speaks more to me than a whole painting like this could. It engages my mind and makes me challenge the very image I am gazing at. Questioning it and everyone in it. They become more relatable, because they are only one piece of the puzzle, like all of us.

I find it incredible.

One last picture, which we’ve already seen, but bears repeating.

My corner again.

So the reason I decided I wanted to go in depth into this post, and these pictures, is because of this picture. Whilst scouting around my room for my last post, I was just snapping everything I cared about, and I took this picture of my two pictures.

I saw something I had never seen before.

The way I had arranged them, meant that Manet’s Firing squad was shooting Lichtenstein’s Pianist in the heart.

Another layer started unfolding, entirely unique and other. Entirely accidental.

No authorial involvement whatsoever, and suddenly I had a new meaning created. We have the forces of oppression, fragmentary (not knowing themselves?) and male, shooting an image of femininity, totally unaware of her imminent doom. Somebody please tell her it’s not a palette and brush (false consciousness?), it’s a gun.

The oppression of the patriarchy, and the way people stand by and watch, ignoring it, whilst the oppressed are left unaware and fooled?

It’s a horribly depressing image, and incredibly infantilising to women (many of whom are aware of the bullshit that slowly tries to destroy them) and it lets the men get away with it (what’s this ignorance business all about…they are murderers, surely…all completely guilty and involved).

The stories multiply. The meaning increases, and the whole thing unfolds.

And tomorrow it will tell me a different story entirely.

Which is one thing I love about art.

***

All images low res photos of reproductions. Copyright definitely not mine, but I feel it’s fair use. If representatives of the copyright holders ask me to remove them, I will, but it will make me sad.

The view from my head in my bed where I think

Today’s post is gonna be weird. I couldn’t decide what I was going to write. Then I decided to continue a thought process that’s been being explored in an e-mail conversation with the Sea Witch. That conversation was all about (partly) how much I over-analyse things, and the paranoia and mindfuddlement that stems from that.

I’ve decided recently (as you may have noticed) that I wanted to improve the visual nature of my blog. This entailed a promise to myself to make sure there was an image/video at the head of each post, at the very least. Something to break up the huge swathes of writing I’m normally built on. This has made me happier with my blog, even though my posting is still so intermittent.

Anyway, I a;sp recently acquired (ahem) a rather poor quality digital camera. So i can now take pictures albeit slightly low res washed out ones (though the wash is partly the beautiful sunny day’s fault).

As we can see above, I decided to illustrate my mindstate, the befuddlement and overanalysis that plagues myself (but also is it’s very foundation, surely?) by showing the view from my pillow (somewhat).

But then I ended up pootling around my room for fifteen minutes taking pictures of various nooks and crannies that I feel represent bits of me. Or at least might interest those of my long term followers who’ve been curious.

So here’s some bits and pieces of my personal space, with some thoughts and analysis attached.

First up, my ceiling, or rather it’s hanging. Which as you can see is a beautiful mess. Suspended in the air, I have created a cave of fabrics and icons. Above you can see the sunshine corner. Complete with a wooden sun, the Brian Wilson Smile Sun, some sunny fabric and (though you can’t really make it out, the head of a dalek. It’s a pretty mess. Which I like, as you can imagine. Unsurprisingly, these hangings make me feel at home. I hated this room when it was all white walls, and now it is busy and exciting and random and strange, I am happy in it.

Like my life. Though this need for chaos may be part of the problem.

But let us move on.

Bradley’s Nest, with fairy, web and tie.

The opposite corner to the sun corner is a darker, more erratic affair, but it contains a link to the past. Bradley has been a close friend since I was a in my teens. Which is a bit of an odd time. If I remember right, my mum bought him for me as a good luck charm for my GCSE exams. I didn’t bring him along to any of them, but by Sixth form he ended up in the common room at school. Eventually, when I got named prefect but decided I actually wanted to spend my lunchtimes getting stoned, I gave him my ‘badge of office’ and told the head of sixth form to speak to him if he had any problems with my performance. Bradley was a terrible prefect, but he got me out of trouble, somehow. I think certain authority figures have no idea how to deal with me when I’m in irreverent insane rebellious mania mode.

The Fairy has ties to Brighton. It’s a shirt I saw when i first visited the town, but felt uncomfortable buying as it was clearly lady clothes (this was long before my gender identity started liquifying, or at least before the dam had been opened). I loved it though, so when I heard Fat Mark (not her real name) was visiting Brighton, I demanded she buy it for me. She did, despite thinking it was horrible. I’ve only worn it once as it is a million sizes too small for me, but I try to have it on display in every room I live in.

Looking down from my window, those are my wind chimes

Except they aren’t my wind chimes, as I don’t have wind chimes. I want some wind chimes, but I’m really picky about the tones I like in them.

This is my tree which I love. I picked my bedroom, which is the smallest in the house, because of this tree. Looking out my window makes me happy. Thank you tree.

Eucalyptus trees will grow and grow until they fall over. This may be analogous to some of my personal weaknesses and problems.

This is what I see when I see about you (kinda)

My workspace, without the surrounding mess. There’s nothing psychologically interesting here, apart from the horrific Bacon in the background. I have lots of Bacon on my walls (Francis, obv) because he disturbs, fascinates and excites me in equal measures. That’s a tricky achievement, I think.

Strange images. Pieces of my mind, on my wall.

This is the wall I stare at most often, so this is the one with the most pictures and things on. There’s not really a quality control on it, some choices are fairly random (lopsided picture of gorilla eating banana for example). There’s a leaf heart in the middle that I forget who gave to me, and that makes me so sad. For someone to pick out a leaf that looked like a heart, to single out me to recieve that heart, and for me to then forget who it is, shows that I am a self centred, arrogant and inconsiderate horror of a person.

Three more bacons, two of which appear to be staring each other down. Which I love.

To the left we see three pictures of me and my passed on friend Will. We had both taken lots of handpicked mushrooms, and were twisted, but what is shown here is a little three stage tale of unspoken, simple love. I light his cigarette, and we enjoy in each other a sweet moment. I love Will and miss him forever, and those pictures with me shorn of most of my hair, never fail to make me delight in memories of him.

We have two genderqueer images, left and right. A portrait of a dragged up James Bidgood from the Matmos Homo-portrait album (their words, not mine) ‘The Rose has teeth in the Mouth of a Beast’, and a painting of desire of the endless, a horrible character with no gender, here being a very beautiful kind of ungendered sexy.

Two pictures by Rebecca Clements, one mashing up Bacon and Marnie Stern, one that is just the most beautiful thing on my walls, a tree bird flowering onto a gorgeous purple background. There’s a better image of the Treenix here. I adore it and cherish it for it is beautiful.

The two large images at the top strike me with utter beauty and are special, but I can’t remember who either of them are by. They are both cut from newspapers. The one on the right in particular often leaves me gobsmacked, despite having seen it everyday since forever.

At the top, invisible, is a list of positions in the new Tai Chi form I am learning. I am rubbish at it, but I recently crossed a threshold that means I have hopes for the future. I made the realisation that the new form is different from the old form, and that made things click somewhat. This is not as stupid as it sounds. Honest.

I have more stuff than I could ever need. I try to use it often.

Just in case anyone thought my room was tidy and in harmony, I must point out that relatively speaking, it is at the moment. But it still has a corner of it that is this crowded with stuff and nonsense. Books, CDs, records, DVDs, letter, notepads, my I Ching oracle, an accordian, Go peices, a beer (vintage), some comics, a glove and a painting fill huge amounts of space. This is all important and must be to hand at any time (yet rarely get’s touched. Oh, and that’s my record deck, or one of them at least.

More (unusual) clutter

There is an old abandoned fireplace in one side of my room. It is one of my bedside tables (in effect). Amongst other things, hear we have, my melodica (new and shiny) my hair collection (several different people’s hair) and my ‘trophies’. The stone spring affair is my favourite. It was a present from a much loved friend from my first year at Uni, the beautiful Bliu one (who I must try and get in touch with again), she gave me this small weird and ramshackle sculpture because she knew how much I liked the tree spirits in Princess Mononoke. This was her attempt to make one for me. It is beautiful, despite it’s not coming out anywhere near how she planned.

Me bursting out of my decks. Pic courtesy of Isadora of the Half Sisters

At this point we approach narcissism, as I reveal the outside of my bedroom door. In order to make it clear that this room is mine, it has lots of pictures of me on it. Most drawn by people other than me. This first one is the most recent one to go up. I love it already. It was a hastily scrawled image of me dancing behind my decks at the gig I did last Sunday. This was the best DJ set I’ve done in a while, despite technical difficulties. This image captures something of the way I project myself outwards from my musical tastes. And also demonstrates that my head is massive. And that I love to perform. And that I am quite monstrous really.

So it’s a good picture, even just in terms of transmission of ideas.

Like I say, I love it.

Apparently, even at a very young age, I looked a bit like a serial killer.

Due to a hatred of form filling out, this is still the photo in my most up to date passport. I need to get that sorted, as currently I can’t leave the country. Which is dreadful. Isn’t this cute. This was taken at age eleven. It was in preparation for my first and only trip to America. It was raining, so I had a hood up on the way to the booth, but I didn’t notice the ludicrous hood hair. It has since caused much embarrasment, though now I wear it as a badge of identity. Laugh at my weird young ways. I say. Apparently.

Ink and Tipp ex Me by Significex

Tranisition into digital form hasn’t done much for this picture, but in real life it looks incredibly like me, and is beautiful. I have many reasons to thank Significex. This picture is one of them, as it is wonderful. Again, it captures my ‘ebullient’ (in quotes because it’s a polite way of saying obnoxious, at least in this case) nature brilliantly.

Another spot on representation of the author.

At work I interact with a lot of children and young people. The way I generally get them on side is by deprecating myself and letting them take the piss out of me. This almost always seems to work, and allows me to talk with them as equals. It’s a quick way of getting trust, but it means I lose my authority quickly. This is good, as I’m not a fan of authority. This was drawn by a nine year old who was taking the piss out of me the whole time. I told her I loved it. I did love it, and I still do.

Art, Untitled, by Me

I have little to no artistic ability, but I enjoy doing what I can do, which is doodling and colouring and creating textures. I guess I could claim an experimental mind set, but really I just don’t know what the rules are so I just enjoy myself. When I do make something, I often love it, despite it’s difficulties. I love this, for example, hence it being a badge of my identity, along with the superior images of me presented above. I love this weird collage of textures and collage. Ink and water colour and crayon mashed together, the cut and ripped and taped together. It gives me satisfaction whenever I see it, though i doubt anyone else sees what I says. Which is true of everything and everyone, of course.

That’s enough for me.

Teaser

One last shot. I want to go into depth about this, but what I have to say here might actually be interesting so I’m going to save it for a seperate post all it’s own. On the left we have a Lichtenstein painting, with the Pianist thinking ‘Although he holds his brush and palette in his hands, I know his heart is always with me!’. On the right we have the extant pieces of a Manet painting showing an execution. For multiple reasons, these paintings fascinate and bewilder me.

I’ll leave you to guess my reasonings, and will hopefully remember to fill you in on them soon. (Feel free to poke me if I don’t).

***

So that’s a whistlestop tour of my bedroom and it’s coverings. I missed out some photos I decided were even more boring than those above. I hope this has enlightened or entertained you at least mildly. Anyone want to make some assessments of my personality and brain on the basis of what I’ve shown you? Or just point out that I started out with a plan to write an interesting post, and somewhere along the way it became intensely boring?

Answers on a postcard, or in that little white box down below.

Reproduced under a Creative Commons License - Courtesy of DrinksMachine on Flickr

I’m tired. So there’ll be a lack of coherency, but that’s fine, I don’t think anybody has any expectations round here.

It’s not often that I have thoughts at nine in the morning. Let alone coherent ones that stay in my head long enough to be interesting.

This, coupled with the fact that aforementioned thought occurred whilst I was making tea and watching ‘Roary: the Racing Car‘ on Channel Five (bastion of trash), leads me to doubt the validity of everything I am about to say. But a week later it is still stuck in my craw/brain.

It’s been a while since I watched a kids tv program, and I forgot just how moralistic they are. Every tale must end with a lesson to share and be nice to people, and be accepting of those that are different and all that jazz.

Now, I have nothing against that particular jazz, in fact, I don’t think a moral sentiment expressed in kids tv isn’t correct, in the most simplest sense. We should be nice, we should share and we should be tolerant. These shows don’t seem to wage into difficult territory, for obvious reasons (now I think about that, Flying Rowan told me a while ago about a show that had sex advice for children, that was remarkably honest about talking about real sex and sexuality in a straight forward way, I’d like to see that, but that’s probably for another post).

Anyway.

There’s nothing wrong with moral lessons, except perhaps that they might just teach children that the tv is where they should go for their moral lessons.

You spend the first (and supposedly most important) five years of a kids life dumping them in front of Thomas, Roary and Bob, being told constantly by the tv to be nice and kind and lovely. You may even then go on to reinforce these messages by referring back to these people/programmes when the issue comes back. I don’t know how parenting works these days, but I’m sure that it must happen sometimes, and I don’t even think it’s necessarily bad for kids to watch telly, as long as they are still being talked to and communicated with and treated as the little humans they are.

Anyway, back to the point.

You teach them to get moral guidance from the weird plastic people on the telly.

Then they grow up a little, and you let them watch Hollyoaks.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

I’m not one to start lambasting television or videogames or whatever new fangled ideas those boffins in the red bricks come up with next. I really do think that there’s little problem with a good healthy dose of fucked up media content. Let’s face it, the kids, much like all of us, are going to be bombarded with this sort of nonsense all their lives no matter what they do.

But do we really want to teach them to learn unquestioningly from it?

The answer is no. The one thing we want to teach them is to be critical of what they see, to look for the machinations and thought processes behind it. Kids today are, according to lots of research I can’t be bothered to find, and plenty of anecdotal evidence from young people I work with, increasingly ‘media-literate’. They are savvy to the ways of the ad exec. They are more aware than you’d expect about the way the world works, and are often wiser than we give them credit for.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t susceptible to accepting hegenomic norms.

I guess I’m technically asking for less moral programming for kids. Or perhaps just less moralising full stop. Let’s teach our kids to question what happens in front of them, not just listen to the plastic race cars that don’t just tell them what is right, but ask you to buy them in the ad break.

Ooh, I didn’t even think of that. What a lovely way to teach kids to treat other people as commodities. Anthropmorphise everything, and then sell it to them in betwen the shows.

Maybe this is the sign that I’m genuinely becoming and old stick in the mud.

But won’t somebody think of the children?