As it's a feverish time of year for lists - presents to buy, 22 ingredients to stuff into a bird's bottom etc - I thought I'd add to the collection by compiling my own list. It's a favourites of the week effort and counts as a list because it has two items.
1) Tim Sanders pocket cartoon, sited at the Political Cartoon of the Year Awards at the Political Cartoon Gallery. Two glamorous girls wearing little slips of dresses stand at a bar, holding a newspaper saying 'Arrested Tory - Row Continues'. One girl comments "Mind you a lot of these MPs like being handcuffed." Well it's probably just my age and the fact it reminds me of the Tory tradition of sex scandals.
Sanders offering was positively sweet compared to Peter Brookes' take on Lucian Freud's 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping'. Gordon Brown has been substituted for the benefits supervisor and appears to be decomposing, his skin has a creme de menthe glow and seems to be melting into the shabby velveteen sofa. My sympathies are with the benefits supervisor who is really rather attractive. I can't remember her name but she gave a very good interview to John Humphries on the Today show which is more than most people can manage.
2) Eunoia by Christian Bok which is pretty much a pocket sized book to go with Sanders' pocket cartoon. Eunoia is the shortest word in English to contain all five vowels and means 'beautiful thinking' even though it sounds like a complaint which renders you unable to speak clearly (there'll be a lot of that about over the next few weeks - no, I did not say 'Here comes the psychotic who has ruined every family Christmas for the past decade' I said 'How lovely to see Uncle Cyril and looking so well too'.)
Back to Bok's book - it contains five chapters and in each only one vowel is used - only A in chapter A and so on. The resulting verbal gymnastics are amazing and often beautiful too. Here's a very topical snatch from chapter A:
"Hassan can watch, aghast, as databanks at NASDAQ graph hard data and chart a NASDAQ crash - a sharp fall that alarms staff at a Manhattan bank. Hassan acts fast, ransacks cashbags at a mad dash, and grabs what bank drafts a bank branch at Casablanca can cash: marks, rands and bahts."
Clever or what? Or: Clever we feel, we reel, ejected, expelled then defected. Oh give up woman and return to the stuffing.
Sunday 14 December 2008
Saturday 6 December 2008
Stories and portraits
This week I was fascinated to read about Tracy Chevalier's time as artist in residence at York Art Gallery. Chevalier's novel, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' was inspired by Vermeer's portrait of a young woman wearing a pearl earring and a blue and gold scarf, wrapped round her head, turban style.
During her time at York Art Gallery Chevalier encouraged visitors to write stories about the paintings they saw - a brilliant idea which set me thinking of paintings I'd like to write about. First up was a portrait of someone wearing a turban - yes, I've always had a sadly derivative mind. My justification is that I did actually have a dream about this painting of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, which is attributed to the Venetian artist, Gentile Bellini, and now lives in London's National Gallery.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet, as he is known in Turkey, conquered Constantinople for the Ottomans in 1453. In Bellini's portrait, completed in 1480, Mehmet wears a large white turban which must contain enough material to rig out a boat to sail from one end of the Bosphorus to the other. His nose is long and sharp, his skin yellow, he doesn't look at the artist but gazes off to the side, occupied with his own thoughts. As one art critic said it is a face that always catches the eye, set amongst the pink northern European complexions which populate so many of the National Gallery's paintings.
I dreamt of Mehmet's portrait on a night coach from Ankara to Istanbul, snowflakes whirling past the window, my hands doused in lemon cologne, part of my mind waiting for the wheels to lock into an icy skid. Mehmet slept too, in a tent outside Constantinople's walls, dreaming of conquest and a more comfortable bed in a palace. His white turban sat on a small wooden chest, still maintaining its position above its owner's head.
I watched the string of prayer beads Mehmet held in his right hand. They began to move of their accord, half flowing in one direction, half in the other, like the famous Bosphorus currents. Byzantium rippled through his fingers, trying to fathom out its next move.
The next morning the coach stopped just outside Istanbul. I drank tripe soup and thought about Mehmet waking in his tent, the snowflakes turning into the pale faces of people worried about the next war.
During her time at York Art Gallery Chevalier encouraged visitors to write stories about the paintings they saw - a brilliant idea which set me thinking of paintings I'd like to write about. First up was a portrait of someone wearing a turban - yes, I've always had a sadly derivative mind. My justification is that I did actually have a dream about this painting of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, which is attributed to the Venetian artist, Gentile Bellini, and now lives in London's National Gallery.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet, as he is known in Turkey, conquered Constantinople for the Ottomans in 1453. In Bellini's portrait, completed in 1480, Mehmet wears a large white turban which must contain enough material to rig out a boat to sail from one end of the Bosphorus to the other. His nose is long and sharp, his skin yellow, he doesn't look at the artist but gazes off to the side, occupied with his own thoughts. As one art critic said it is a face that always catches the eye, set amongst the pink northern European complexions which populate so many of the National Gallery's paintings.
I dreamt of Mehmet's portrait on a night coach from Ankara to Istanbul, snowflakes whirling past the window, my hands doused in lemon cologne, part of my mind waiting for the wheels to lock into an icy skid. Mehmet slept too, in a tent outside Constantinople's walls, dreaming of conquest and a more comfortable bed in a palace. His white turban sat on a small wooden chest, still maintaining its position above its owner's head.
I watched the string of prayer beads Mehmet held in his right hand. They began to move of their accord, half flowing in one direction, half in the other, like the famous Bosphorus currents. Byzantium rippled through his fingers, trying to fathom out its next move.
The next morning the coach stopped just outside Istanbul. I drank tripe soup and thought about Mehmet waking in his tent, the snowflakes turning into the pale faces of people worried about the next war.
Sunday 23 November 2008
Mexican poet laureates
Xochipilli (see below) now resides in the British Museum which may explain why he looks rather morose for a god of poetry and dancing. He is hemmed in with a sculpture of a rattlesnake at his back and camera-clutching day trippers like me goggling in front.
I wanted a picture of X, partly because his name means 'flower prince' and partly because I'd just read an article in Red Pepper about poetry and activism. The Red Pepper article talks about poetry used as a weapon against oppression, a way of challenging authority and exposing the lies and shortcomings of those who have power.
As poetry often has pattern and rhythm, like an incantation, it can act as an adrenalin shot, revealing the world more sharply, if not more clearly. So is its natural home on the barricades or can it just as easily become an ode to the general in his palace?
One of the wonderful things about poetry is that it can often feel like a personal message, whispered to you alone. Paul Valery said prose is to poetry what walking is to dancing. Perhaps Xochipilli, god of dance and poetry, had whispered in his ear.
Evidence of poetry's enduring power is embodied in Xochipilli. Here is a medium so alluring, so persuasive it has to be controlled, channeled through an officially designated representative - a sort of Aztec version of Britain's poet laureate. Maybe that's why X looks depressed, he's contemplating yet another official royal occasion to be celebrated in verse.
I wanted a picture of X, partly because his name means 'flower prince' and partly because I'd just read an article in Red Pepper about poetry and activism. The Red Pepper article talks about poetry used as a weapon against oppression, a way of challenging authority and exposing the lies and shortcomings of those who have power.
As poetry often has pattern and rhythm, like an incantation, it can act as an adrenalin shot, revealing the world more sharply, if not more clearly. So is its natural home on the barricades or can it just as easily become an ode to the general in his palace?
One of the wonderful things about poetry is that it can often feel like a personal message, whispered to you alone. Paul Valery said prose is to poetry what walking is to dancing. Perhaps Xochipilli, god of dance and poetry, had whispered in his ear.
Evidence of poetry's enduring power is embodied in Xochipilli. Here is a medium so alluring, so persuasive it has to be controlled, channeled through an officially designated representative - a sort of Aztec version of Britain's poet laureate. Maybe that's why X looks depressed, he's contemplating yet another official royal occasion to be celebrated in verse.
Monday 10 November 2008
Stained glass and stinging nettles
I can't resist returning to St Margaret's church at Lower Halstow, even though my first visit involved a long walk and a lot of stinging nettles - good for the circulation according to Pamala, my unsympathetic and much fitter friend. So is corporal punishment I assume but we won't pursue that subject now.
St Margaret's sits at the head of a creek on the Kent marshes - Great Expectations country. The air smells of grass and salt and at low tide there's a network of tiny streams wandering over the mudflats. When the tide rises the fish begin to jump.
On the summer evening when Pamala and I picnicked and I suppurated from plant inflicted wounds by the creek the fish show was spectacular. So many were leaping and fly catching the water's surface was dimpled all over as though we were sitting in the midst of a great rainstorm that was coming from below rather than above.
So to the font - it's lead and dates from the eleventh century. The figures on it are angels and kings and they stand beneath archways, one next to the other, in a ring that reaches all round the font.
One of the charming ladies who guards the church has a theory the font was brought to England from France by an Anglo-Norman aristocrat who owned land in north Kent and Romney Marsh. As the font must weigh a ton I can't imagine why he bothered. Still it was the days of plentiful, cheap horse and serf power and it's a rather romantic idea. The night after visiting St Margaret's I dreamt of the font floating up the creek on a rising tide like a little leaden coracle.
As we've just passed Armistice Day I must mention St Margaret's stained glass 'Abide with me' window. It shows a soldier in the trenches facing an apparition of Jesus. In the background the sky is splintered by an exploding shell.
The window is based on a Christmas card Brigader General Roland Bradford was going to send to the men of his platoon in 1917. Bradford was killed in December 1917, just before Christmas, aged 25.
St Margaret's sits at the head of a creek on the Kent marshes - Great Expectations country. The air smells of grass and salt and at low tide there's a network of tiny streams wandering over the mudflats. When the tide rises the fish begin to jump.
On the summer evening when Pamala and I picnicked and I suppurated from plant inflicted wounds by the creek the fish show was spectacular. So many were leaping and fly catching the water's surface was dimpled all over as though we were sitting in the midst of a great rainstorm that was coming from below rather than above.
So to the font - it's lead and dates from the eleventh century. The figures on it are angels and kings and they stand beneath archways, one next to the other, in a ring that reaches all round the font.
One of the charming ladies who guards the church has a theory the font was brought to England from France by an Anglo-Norman aristocrat who owned land in north Kent and Romney Marsh. As the font must weigh a ton I can't imagine why he bothered. Still it was the days of plentiful, cheap horse and serf power and it's a rather romantic idea. The night after visiting St Margaret's I dreamt of the font floating up the creek on a rising tide like a little leaden coracle.
As we've just passed Armistice Day I must mention St Margaret's stained glass 'Abide with me' window. It shows a soldier in the trenches facing an apparition of Jesus. In the background the sky is splintered by an exploding shell.
The window is based on a Christmas card Brigader General Roland Bradford was going to send to the men of his platoon in 1917. Bradford was killed in December 1917, just before Christmas, aged 25.
Saturday 8 November 2008
Sitting with the scent of wet fireworks in my hair and listening to the wind and rain at the window I've just realised All Souls day has slipped past me unnoticed. Squeezed between Halloween and Guy Fawkes All Souls probably never stood much of a chance in Britain, at least not after Henry VIII sat on Catholicism.
Coming from a household that liked a party and mixed Orthodoxy (Christian variety) and atheism under a capacious C of E umbrella I was accustomed to celebrating All Souls and feel rather guilty if I don't spare a thought for the dear departed.
My mother - the Unbeliever - is a great All Souls party woman. She makes circular cakes similiar to Viennese whirls and dusts them with coloured sugar so they look like multi-coloured haloes. One year she even got hold of some Mexican 'day of the dead' sugar skulls and we lined them up on the mantelpiece and lit candles to them. Godmother - Orthodox - performed a vodka toast and danced the mazurka.
On a more serious note I think an All Souls celebration can be a good way of introducing older children to death's place in life. Keep the dead as friends and companions - talk to them and they'll talk to you.
Coming from a household that liked a party and mixed Orthodoxy (Christian variety) and atheism under a capacious C of E umbrella I was accustomed to celebrating All Souls and feel rather guilty if I don't spare a thought for the dear departed.
My mother - the Unbeliever - is a great All Souls party woman. She makes circular cakes similiar to Viennese whirls and dusts them with coloured sugar so they look like multi-coloured haloes. One year she even got hold of some Mexican 'day of the dead' sugar skulls and we lined them up on the mantelpiece and lit candles to them. Godmother - Orthodox - performed a vodka toast and danced the mazurka.
On a more serious note I think an All Souls celebration can be a good way of introducing older children to death's place in life. Keep the dead as friends and companions - talk to them and they'll talk to you.
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