#stencil Mick Jagger

[sarahmckayhnd2b]

Fashion Contextual Studies:

Week 3:

Part 1:

1940s: Lee Miller

She is one of the most significant photographer ever, as well as one of the best female photographers. She dominated the scene when it was predominantly male industry.She had a lasting influence in the field, however she was more than that, she was a muse, a fashion model, war correspondent, photojournalist, and more. She became a part of Condé Nast Publications and working with American photojournalist David E. Scherman, she took some of the most famous images of World War II–era atrocities. She did held back and showed all the gruesome and shows the reality of war, thus becoming some of her most memorable work.

When she moved to Paris in 1929 to be a surrealist apprentice under Man Ray and being his assistant. Together they created a new photographic technique called solarisation, through which black and white hues are reversed, creating a halo-like effect. This method was completely accidental as she turned the lights on while developing some photographs.

Very surrealist and entering the uncanny valley just a little bit with their solarisation technique however very elegant and beautiful. Her work can also be quite intimate however does not shy away from controversy such as when she took photograph of an ss guard dead floating in the water or even controversy, her naked in Adolf Hitler bath with her army uniform on the floor or even a fashion shoot with the aftermath or bombs and war visible in the background. She essentially took photographs of whatever it is she wanted instead of sticking to a mould or a specific thing and was not afraid to go after it and keep expanding.

1950s: Robert Frank

He has always had an interest since he was young and came to America to find work. He found work as a commercial photographer, most notably at Harper's Bazaar under Alexey Brodovitch’s highly influential editorial vision. Most well known for his book The American in 1959 which created a lot of commotion and talks as lots thought it was hateful. Controversy covers the book however it remains one of the most influential photojournalistic style photography book.

"He used a handheld camera to present a picture of the US that was provocatively out of sync with the insistent optimism that often characterised Americans' postwar sense of self." Showcasing how things are instead of a different light. Bringing a sense of objectivity in to photography, to view everything as he has, being an outsider. Which he also took in to his career in film. "These works have no allegiance to any particular process, format, or method; they combine Polaroids, 35mm negatives, collage, photomontage, stencilling, handwriting, scratching, and splicing." His work is very gritty, raw and expressive. His images shows a wide view and gives the whole image. He doesn't shy away from capturing things most people don't want to see and choose to ignore it.

1960s - 1970s: David Bailey

He is one of the most influential fashion photography around this time most known for his work with actors, musicians and high class models. He was inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson when he became interested in photography and when he returned from the Air Force, he became John Frank assistant and shot fashion. He published Box of Pin-Ups, his first photography book which included a rnage of black and white images of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, The Beatles, Twiggy, Andy Warhol and many more. He received the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II. He also got awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from the International Centre of Photography in New York. He also has had his work displayed in multiple different gallery in London.

He is seen to the pioneers of contemporary photography. Not only that he, along with others, set the standard for fashion photography in magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, creating the aesthetic of the 1960s as one that was gritty, urban, and linked with music subcultures such as punk and rock. His work revolves around fashion and celebrity portraiture. With this, he shows them through a different view, one more youthful. His style of a stark background and dramatic lighting is seen through out. Shooting in the British 60s, he managed to capture the cultural breakdown of rigidness and class by incorporating the working class and even the punk look into the products he was shooting.

1980s: Richard Avedon

He had a 60 year long career and is one of the most important photographers from the second half of the 20th century. He is a fashion and portrait photographer who often works with a lot of famous people. His work is noted by the strong black-and-white contrast creating an effect of "austere sophistication". In his portraits of celebrities and others, he created a sense of drama by often using a stark, white background and eliciting a frontal, confrontational pose. He revolutionised fashion photography and is one of the first photographer to include people of colour in his work. he also had a massive role popularising the romance of an American in Paris trope.

1990s: Cindy Sherman

She is most known for her self-portraits in disguise, often upon the themes of feminism, criticism and stereotypes. She is a key figure of the "Pictures Generation," a loose circle of American artists who came to artistic maturity and critical recognition during the early 80s. A key person for the conceptual art movement. She first started as a painter and then transition to photographic work revolving around transforming herself to fit a narrative, tell a story or to highlight social critism and standards. She always try to keep them as realistic as possible. She is very unique in the sense that she only does self-portraits.

2000s: Annie Leibovitz

She is a renowned artist known for her dramatic, quirky, and iconic photographic portraits of celebrities. Her style is characterised by carefully staged settings, superb lighting, and use of vivid colour. Her style is most associated with the Vanity Fair look as she was the one who created it, leaving a huge mark in the art world. What sets her apart from everyone else is her ability to capture the personalities of those she's shooting and let it shine through.

2010: Réhahn

Rehah is most famous for his work called the Precious Heritage Project, a way of preserving lots of different cultures of the countries. His work is very bright and colourful and captures the soul. What stands out about his work the most is the fact that it is focused on Asian countries, predominantly Viet Nam, and those natural and random interaction he has with people. Instead of curated studio shoots. This makes his work have an element of fun and mystery to it as it is very hard to replicate the interaction and choose who photograph.

Part 2: You have been commissioned by Ann Demeulemeester to shoot two on location advertisements. Research the brand and tell us in detail how you will approach the commission based on the house style. How will you make the images? Equipment, team etc... (in detail) and where? A fitting location... (in detail).

She is known for her combination of glamorous and sophisticated aesthetic yet rebellious, sharp and overall dark. Her work is predominantly bold black clothing, or they remain quite neutral. She experiment with textures and asymmetry within her work. If there are colours, they will be very bold deep colour.

Inspired by specific looks that have been done previously, the way I would approach a location shoot is to have 3-4 different lighting attachments such as soft boxes, reflectors, beauty-dish and the honeycomb. This is to be able to achieve numerous different moody lighting. Creating shadows. This will let us highlight certain area purposely and bring it out.

The first location I'm thinking of is the Milan Cathedral as the brand has a very chic, edgy and almost grungy-gothic feel to them. With all the different organic shapes and textures in their look, I feel a church which is very poised and stagnant will perfectly contrast these looks full of movement. For this shoot I would say a full day of work will be needed, 8-6, with a full team from 3-4 models, makeup and hair team, photographer and assistance, 4-5 people setting up the place with lights and more. I want to play with the dark romantic feel these looks gives, with this location it will work wondrously together. The church also complements the looks with their own architectural textures and details.

Location 2 I would think to shoot in a desert, what comes to mind to the Antarctic Deserts. Again that light and bright landscape once again work with and contrast all the details of the look even more as it is a plain and desolate background. Again contrast is necessary, as all the looks are quite dark, this will perfectly show it off. Again movement of the garment is also easy to achieve here.

[graphijane]

Semaine 20/2018 = pochoir N°20/2018 a.k.a Mick Jagger.

J'évite soigneusement de m'embourber dans un texte sans fin, à travers lequel je ne vous apporterais probablement rien de plus que votre propre expérience Rolling Stones & Mick Jagger en particulier.

Pour ce pochoir, je suis partie sur un format plutôt petit avec pour objectif de ne pas intervenir une fois le pochoir peint à l'aérosol. Une des raisons pour laquelle j’ai opté pour un petit format, est pour travailler un projet  avec Didier Santonja qui réalise de superbes guitares-box et qui m’a proposé une collaboration peinture pour quelques unes. Affaire à suivre !

Pour la base, mission accomplie : one shot // one Mick.

Pochoir une couche 20/25cm sur papier épais 200gr/m².

Dédicace à mon reup, qui me parle toutes les semaines des Rolling Stones depuis que mes oreilles entendent. Après Sharon Jones, Marsha P. Johnson, Fallon Fox, Oprah Winfrey, Silvia Casalino, Sarah Bettens, Rose Valland, Skin, Björk, Marielle Franco, Nelson Mandela, Emma Gonzalez, Amandine Gay, John Lee Hooker, Cédric Herrou, Seed of ZaD, JD Samson, Casey, & Ladea c’est au tour de Mick Jagger de passer sous mon scalp..!

www.graphijane.tumblr.com Graphijane

[killadeathspray]

Stencil Art - Making 'Mick'

Stencil Art – Making ‘Mick’

Sometimes you begin a painting with an idea. Sometimes that idea gets screwed and you have to adjust your focus. I can’t even remember what this started out as… I had begun a painting and immediately hated it (which happens almost all the time). So I decided to just mess around with a background and see what came of it. I had wanted to do a Rolling Stones/Mick Jagger painting for a while as a…

[orbemnews]

Henry Goldrich, Gear Guru to Rock Stars, Is Dead at 88 When asked about his musical ability, Henry Goldrich would often demur, “I play cash register.” His stage was Manny’s Music in Manhattan, where Mr. Goldrich, the longtime owner, supplied equipment to a generation of rock stars. But even though he sold instead of strummed, Mr. Goldrich secured an important role in rock by connecting famous musicians with cutting-edge equipment. “To these guys, Henry was the superstar,” his son Judd said. “He was the first guy to get gear they had never seen before.” Mr. Goldrich died on Feb. 16 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 88. His death was confirmed by his other son, Ian, who said he had been in frail but stable health. Manny’s, which closed in 2009 after 74 years in business, was long the largest and best-known of the cluster of music shops on the West 48th Street block known as Music Row. It was opened in 1935 by Mr. Goldrich’s father, Manny, and it was a second home for Henry since his infancy, when the shop’s clientele of swing stars doted on him. Ella Fitzgerald would babysit for him in the shop when his parents went out for lunch, Ian Goldrich said. By 1968, when his father died at 62, Henry Goldrich had largely taken over operations and had turned the shop into an equipment mecca and hangout for world-renowned artists. He did this by expanding its inventory of the latest gear and by solidifying connections with suppliers that helped him consistently stock high-level instruments and new products. At a time before rock stars were lavished with the latest equipment straight from the manufacturers, Manny’s was favored by top musicians searching for new gear and testing out new equipment. These included two guitar gods of the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton — to whom, Ian Goldrich said, his father recommended the wah-wah pedal, an electronic device that immediately became a staple of both musicians’ approaches. He added that Hendrix would buy scores of guitars on credit and have Mr. Goldrich fine-tune them to the guitarist’s demanding preferences. Many rock and pop classics were either played or written on instruments sold by Mr. Goldrich. John Sebastian, founder of the Lovin’ Spoonful, recalled in an interview how Mr. Goldrich in the mid-1960s helped him select the Gibson J-45 he used on early Spoonful recordings like “Do You Believe in Magic?” Mr. Goldrich similarly matched James Taylor with a quality Martin acoustic guitar early in his career, his son Ian said. And Sting used the Fender Stratocaster Mr. Goldrich sold him to compose “Message in a Bottle” and many other hits for the Police before donating it to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1970, he sold the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour the 1969 black Stratocaster he played on many of the band’s seminal recordings. It sold at auction in 2019 for a record $3,975,000. Pete Townshend of the Who would order expensive electric guitars by the dozens from Mr. Goldrich, who was not happy when he heard about the guitarist’s penchant for destroying his instrument onstage for theatrical effect. “It was good business,” Ian Goldrich said, “but my father was annoyed that Pete was breaking all the guitars he was selling him.” Unlike many of his flamboyant rock-star customers, Mr. Goodrich always dressed conventionally in a sport coat and kept a blunt demeanor that put his customers at ease. “He had a gruff personality; he treated them all the same,” Ian Goldrich said. “He’d tell Bob Dylan, ‘Sit in the back and I’ll be with you in a minute.’” There was the day in 1985 — it was Black Friday, and the store was packed — that Mick Jagger and David Bowie stopped by together, creating a commotion that halted sales. An annoyed Mr. Goldrich quickly sold them their items and rushed them out. “My father was like, ‘What are you guys doing here today?’” Ian recalled. “He didn’t throw them out, but he was not happy.” When the band Guns N’ Roses asked to shoot part of the video for their 1989 hit “Paradise City” in the store, Ian Goldrich recalled, his father agreed only reluctantly, saying, “OK, but we’re not shutting down for them.” Ever opinionated, Mr. Goldrich told Harry Chapin in 1972 that his new song “Taxi,” at nearly seven minutes, was too lengthy to be a hit. (It reached the Top 40 and is now considered a classic.) And he told Paul Simon, who as a boy had bought his first guitar at Manny’s, that he thought Simon and Garfunkel was a “lousy name” for a group. But he also advised new stars in a fatherly way not to squander their newfound wealth. “He’d take them aside and say, ‘You’re making money now — how are you going to take care of it?’” Ian Goldrich said. Henry Jerome Goldrich was born on May 15, 1932, to Manny and Julia Goldrich, and grew up in Brooklyn and in Hewlett on Long Island. After graduating from Adelphi College, he served in the Army in Korea in the mid-1950s and then went to work full time at Manny’s. His father opened the store on West 48th Street, a location he chose because it was close to the Broadway theaters and the 52nd Street jazz clubs, as well as numerous recording studios and the Brill Building, a hub for music publishers. In 1999, Mr. Goldrich sold Manny’s to Sam Ash Music, a rival store, which largely retained the staff until Manny’s closed in 2009. In addition to his sons, Mr. Goldrich is survived by his wife, Judi; his daughter, Holly Goldrich; seven grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Mr. Goldrich often used his celebrity clientele to market the store. “He recognized value of these people being in the store and it made the business, certainly,” his son Judd said. When a young Eric Clapton, then with the group Cream, was stuck in New York without the money to fly home to England, he offered his amplifiers to Mr. Goldrich to raise funds. “He said, ‘I’ll buy them from you as long as you stencil them with the Cream logo,” Ian said. Then there was the store’s Wall of Fame, thousands of autographed publicity photos of famous customers that constituted a Who’s Who of popular music. Mr. Goldrich helped cultivate the photos, many of which were inscribed to him, and often kept his staff from stacking merchandise in front of them. Mr. Taylor, in a video interview, described being mesmerized by the photos as a teenager and being proud when his own was added. “It was sort of an inside thing, not as celebrated as a Grammy or a gold record or a position on the charts,” he said. “But definitely you had arrived if you were included on that wall.” Mr. Goldrich became close friends with many musicians, including the Who’s bassist, John Entwistle, who attended Judd’s bar mitzvah in New Jersey and hosted the Goldrich family at his Gothic mansion in England. Ian remembered the band’s drummer, Keith Moon, sitting on his father’s lap while drinking cognac at a screening of the film “Tommy.” In a video interview, Mr. Goldrich described selling the violinist Itzhak Perlman an electric violin. When Mr. Perlman tried bargaining, Mr. Goldrich parried by asking if he ever reduced his performance fee. “He said, ‘It’s different, I’m a talent,’” Mr. Goldrich recalled. “I said, ‘I’m a talent in my own way, too.’” That talent was palpable to Mr. Sebastian when he asked Mr. Goldrich to allow him to test out his stock of Gibson acoustic guitars in a merchandise room. “Henry’s famously prickly demeanor receded slightly,” Mr. Sebastian recalled, and he agreed to open early the next morning to allow him in. “He knew exactly what I wanted,” he said. “And I’ll be damned if I didn’t catch Henry smiling as he made out the bill.” Source link Orbem News #Dead #gear #Goldrich #Guru #Henry #rock #stars

[kiraraneko]

CATS as reviewed by a furry

Apparently this is a movie review blog now lmao (listen I just have some Opinions™ I feel like writing down lately) You’ve already heard from a hundred sources about the terrible CGI and bad quality of the film overall, so I’m going to focus more on the characters themselves and how they’ve been translated from stage to film. As someone whose been a fan of CATS since childhood AND is active in the furry community, I hope this will be different from the other reviews. (YES THERE ARE SPOILERS)

Let’s just start this off by saying - everyone who keeps comparing this film to “furry porn” clearly is not familiar with furry porn, because the alleged “hornyness” of the actor portrayals is pretty in-line with the stage play. The only reason this movie comes off as so much more sexual is because the bad fur CGI doesn’t keep your brain from knowing these people are all basically nude. The stage play costumes feature fur tufts and limb wraps that work to somewhat hide the human silhouettes, whereas (even with some characters in coats and accessories) everyone’s fur in the movie is so skin-tight they end up being unmistakably human, so every sway and hip-thrust comes off as slightly disturbing in an uncanny way instead of feline and graceful.

Victoria the White Cat Now here’s where I’ll admit to my blatant bias - Victoria has always been my favorite cat (other than Rum Tum). Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Ever wonder why my fursona is a white cat? (Jumpcut to me as an 8 year old wearing a scarf around my waist, pretending to be Victoria). Her role in the play is small but she’s elegant, beautiful, and an incredibly talented dancer, and I always idolized her for that. So, you can imagine I was pretty delighted to find that she plays the role of “main character” in the film. Now in the play, the cats explain to the audience about who and what they are, with Munkustrap (the grey tabby) serving as a kind of narrator/translator and leader. Since you can’t exactly address a stage audience in a movie, Victoria fills that role of the “questioning onlooker”, which I feel fits her character very well considering she’s both a younger/newer cat to the Jellicle scene and she was the first to accept Grizabella, which connects her nicely to the entire story (both in the play and the movie). What I was markedly less jazzed about was the addition of her own song in the movie. I think it was a nice attempt to expand her role, but as an extension to Memories, I found Beautiful Ghosts to be frankly kind of boring and unnecessary. She’s essentially saying to Grizabella “I was just abandoned and I don’t have anything, at least you have good memories to look back on” which to me, came off as belittling to Grizabella with a dash of “poor me” for Victoria. However, the reprise version with Old Deuteronomy I actually ended up liking much more. It is less condescending when two old cats are singing to one another, versus a kitten who has their whole life ahead of them lecturing Grizabella about a past she knows nothing about. One last thing I’ll note about Victoria is her slight re-design in the movie - she’s been given some light striping patterning as opposed to being a pure white cat. This doesn’t bother me at all as I assume when it comes to lighting and rendering, pure white fur would have been too distracting on screen. Jennyanydots / The Gumbie Cat I’ll just come right out and say that this segment was probably the worst translation from the play in the entire movie, and it happens early in the film, so you’re already questioning what the hell the rest of the movie is going to be like. In the play, she’s a slow-paced and motherly type cat that only becomes energetic at night, when she sheds her fur to reveal a vibrant coat and goes to work teaching vermin of the house good manners and skills like crocheting (as opposed to hunting them, like other cats would do). In the movie, she’s flitting about the kitchen like a hyperactive rabbit, rampantly consumes some of the insects she’s painstakingly coached, and whines about wishing to leave her household. If this butchering of her character weren’t enough, they actually included the fur-shedding bit in an incredibly disturbing skin-unzipping sequence where she steps out of her cat skin to reveal a sparkly dress underneath. Characters in the CATS play occasionally do wear some clothing accessories, but this movie does not know the meaning of subtlety, and various characters are wearing fullbody clothes which even further breaks any illusion of these characters being cats. It just constantly wants to remind you that these are human people in unitards jumping around on a greenscreen. Rum Tum Tugger Undoubtedly a fan favorite, Rum Tum is the rockstar cat who swoons all the kittens and makes a general ruckus, with stylistic influences of Mick Jagger and Elvis. To say the least, I thought his part in the movie was fine, but certainly doesn’t quite have the punch to it that the stage play does. The movie has him breaking into a 50′s style diner while milk is liberally poured for all the younger cats. Both his character and that of the Gumbie cat’s are diminished further as she makes fun of his singing and dance moves - which may have been a funny addition, if it weren’t for her alleging his show-offiishness to a recent neutering. This joke just went a little too far in my opinion, and really detracted from the rest of Rum Tum’s performance. Bustopher Jones A very charming and gentlemanly cat, Bustopher’s sequence started well and then just got really weird. His song prominently describes his love of fine dining, his cheerful demeanor, and his well-groomed fur. The last of which was directly contradicted in the movie, as he rolled around in actual garbage making an utter mess of himself. He’s shown gorging himself through the entire segment with increasing fervor, until it’s just a bit too much to bear witness to. At one point, he’s meant to trapeze into a trash can, but the cat who jumps on the other end of the catapult is markedly smaller, and nothing happens. This is actually quite a funny moment, until once again, the joke goes a little too far and Bustopher comments being “sensitive about his weight”. This is just.. a bizarre comment considering he’s sung an entire song about being charmingly large and we’ve just watched him unabashedly stuff his face for five solid minutes. Applying human weight-shaming to the ideals of a cat is just completely unnecessary, awkward, and contradictory to his character. It changes him from an indulgent but experienced chap into something to be pitied. Asparagus / Gus the Theatre Cat Possibly my favorite segment of the movie, this is the only part I actually teared up at. As a child, I always thought Gus was a very boring character with a boring part, but watching as an adult I can understand and appreciate him much better. Sir Ian McKellen did an absolutely phenomenal job of channeling the frail, endearing, proud character of Gus (despite the wonky camera work of the scene). This might be the only part of the movie that matched, or perhaps even exceeded the stage play version, and I don’t think it’s any surprise that it also happens to be the most subdued sequence, relying almost entirely on character acting and line delivery, instead of fancy effects cluttering up the screen (as this musical should be). The end of his storytelling features some “lightning strikes” for emphasis, created by what I imagine would be a simple shadow stencil, and it added some genuine atmosphere to the idea of Gus as a performer with simple stage effects. It was a nice subtle touch, and I only wish the rest of the movie could have been more like that. I found his line condemning “modern productions” to be more poignant than ever before, and it makes you wonder if this movie suddenly became painfully self-aware.  Also I just want to throw this in: Before Gus’s song, there’s an unintentionally hilarious shot of Mr. Mistoffelees walking up on him drinking milk from a dish, except Gus is mostly in shadow with his cat features obscured and is standing fully upright, so he just appears to be a hobo man lapping at a dish, like someone legit just walked up on Ian McKellen being a complete fucking weirdo.  Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer This segment was another one that just didn’t come across quite right. These two are mischievous partners in crime, causing mayhem and stealing treasures. The '98 film version characterizes them as playful and upbeat, delighting in trouble-making, but they don’t seem to be quite experienced or clever enough to get away 100% of the time. The 2019 version came off as almost.. sinister to me. They coerce Victoria into stealing, frame her, and then leave her to what could nearly be her death, all while sort of talking through their lines with a cold inflection. This is supposed to take after the original “languid” London version, but they don’t play off each other very well and you don’t get a sense of the fun, amusing partnership they’re supposed to have. It’s mostly just watching them destroy several rooms of a house and then leaving Victoria to her fate like utter assholes. I don’t really have anything more to say on these two, it was just kind of bland and forgetful and leaves you disliking them instead of enjoying watching them have a fun romp. Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat I would give Skimbleshanks the award for “most baffling redesign”. As mentioned earlier, this movie takes cats-wearing-clothing to an uncanny level, and this is certainly the uncanny-est. While the play version has him in a cute waistcoat and arm warmers with elbow patches to give a “train conductor” vibe, the movie has him in full bright red overalls, with other reviews calling him “gay nightclub Mario”, lmao! As much as I wanted to enjoy this number, the sight of him was just too weird to look past.  The tap dancing during his skit was a fitting addition to his character - he is quite bouncy and light on his feet, so I thought it suited him very well and really liked that part. His song picks up after that, with all the cats dancing on the rail and there’s more weird camera work, at one point zooming out so ridiculously far it’s actually jarring. The rest of his song was okay, a CGI greenscreen that can do anything you want unfortunately just isn’t as creative and inspiring as watching actors build a train engine representation out of junkyard scraps on an actual stage.  Magical Mr. Mistoffelees The movie really took some liberties with this character, and I’m still on the fence about whether it was a good choice or not. In the play, Mistoffelees is a magician cat, performing tricks through his segment (including the most complex dance routine of any character) while other cats usually sing about his feats (in the ‘98 film, it’s Rum Tum). They went for the younger, unsure version of Mistoffelees in this new movie, and doubled up on it by turning him into something of a comedic-relief character. He doesn’t quite have a handle on his magic, and he trips up on his words and his feet several times through the movie. This would have been fine if his musical number hadn’t been such a let down. This is supposed to be his grand moment, but his “magic” ends up being underwhelming and the chorus repeats for SO long you’re practically begging for it to end. Where “Oh! Well, I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as Magical Mr Mistoffelees?” was once a cheerful and upbeat line, it will certainly become a droning echo in your mind after watching this movie. The added plot of his implied attraction to Victoria I also found kind of weird, though I’ll admit that might just be my personal tastes. I always liked Mistoffelees being a more aloof kind of cat.  Grizabella / The Glamour Cat Alright buckle in, I’ve got some strong opinions about this one. Grizabella is undeniably the star of CATS - she’s an incredibly emotional character, visually intriguing, and her performance in the musical is nothing short of heartbreaking. She was referred to as “the Glamour Cat” in her prime, but it has turned into an almost mocking title as the other cats reject and shun her. We never really know why, but it can be implied she may have been cold and elitist to the other cats who once adored her, or had some other tragic and sudden fall from grace. Despite Jennifer Hudson putting in a damn good effort to play the role of this character, the movie itself let her down. The CATS play and the Jellicle ball which it centers around, while being a musical, is foremost a ball in which cats perform for the honor of being chosen. The dancing is just as important as the singing, and Grizabella’s character is heavily communicated by her posture. She’s hunched, stiff and limping, reaching out for others to accept her, and at one point even attempts to mimic some of the other cat’s dance moves before slinking away in shame. The 2019 movie paradoxically chooses to use extremely tight face-shots for just about every character routine. It is frustrating and claustrophobic to watch a movie where cats who are supposed to be expressing their character through movement are shown from only the shoulders up, just standing there singing into a camera - and this frustration is paramount at the Grizabella sequences.  Jennifer Hudson, singing her absolute heart out with tears pouring down her face, is still emotionally lacking because of the terrible cinematography refusing to show her doing any actual acting. I was so distracted by the mucus running down her face that I couldn’t even connect with her. I thought the costuming of Grizabella was very well done, but you barely got to see any of it. Overall a very disappointing performance, because Hudson was doing all the right things, and it could have been great if the movie had met her even halfway. Macavity the Mystery Cat Played by the incredible Idris Elba, Macavity underwent some heavy changes and expansion in this new movie. He’s the main antagonist of the play, and most of his antics like committing serious crimes and alluding the police are sung about as rumors but doesn’t himself sing, and actually doesn’t have any speaking lines in the play, adding to his mysterious character. When he eventually appears, he battles with Munkustrap and steals Deuteronomy (who is brought back by Mistoffelees). Macavity is usually depicted with vibrant clashing colors, wild hair, and uses quick threatening movements, while the Idris Elba version rein-visioned him as extremely sleek, black-furred, and sly and cunning, often emerging from the shadows to tempt other cats with their vices. He is given numerous speaking lines, and his villainy is expanded on as he kidnaps the other cats in an attempt to be the chosen Jellicle. I actually quite like this interpretation of the character, and it makes him a little more relatable instead of the vicious enigma he is in the play.  Something of note is just how literally the new movie took the rumors of Macavity’s powers. His abilities, which were muted and used sparingly in the play, were used constantly and without hesitation in this movie. He spends most of his time teleporting other characters and creating illusions, but then uses trickery to try and win the Jellicle ball, and fails to demonstrate his power of levitation when it really matters. So whether he does or doesn’t have real powers seems to be.. situational to say the least. Another thing I want to point out is just how uncomfortably sudden Macavity’s reveal is. He spends most of the movie in the shadows hidden under an oversized coat and hat, and then suddenly appears at the Jellicle ball without any disguise on whatsoever. Idris Elba is a damn fine looking dude, and you can clearly see his very human-shaped abs beneath his sleek Macavity fur, which is so close to his actual skintone that I’ve seen him described as “extra naked” and it’s pretty accurate. You just really aren’t prepared for this moment when it happens. Growltiger This guy is a rough and rowdy pirate-esque character with a dramatic love life. His segment was cut from the ‘98 film, so seeing the play in person is just about the only way to experience it. Because of this, it’s probable that many people may not even be aware of this character, so I was pretty excited to hear that he would be featured in the 2019 movie. Growltiger is quite overdue for his time in the mainstream spotlight. Turns out, unfortunately, Growltiger's Last Stand is not what you get. His appearance in the movie is more or less a cameo with a short introduction, and the rest of the time he’s serving as Macavity‘s henchman in the background. This is based on the 2015 revival of him as a dock worker, but I feel it was a weak representation of his character, and really wish he’d been shown in a better light. The movie cuts out pretty much every fight scene, and Growltiger‘s would have been dramatic and fun to watch, especially after Gus’s reminiscing. Instead, he was kind of lazily thrown into a river by Gus, who previously bragged about playing the role of Growltiger on stage, which is kind of an interesting juxtaposition if you don’t think about it too hard. Old Deuteronomy A surprising change was the decision to make Deuteronomy female, played by Judi Dench. I love old grandpa Deuteronomy, but this didn’t really bother me. Deuteronomy is a wise, beloved leader of the Jellicles and there’s not really anything integral about the character that says they couldn’t be female. Deuteronomy carries himself with dignity, but isn’t afraid to dance along with the songs of the other more lively cats, and Judi Dench certainly has an air of authority and respect about her. The character’s songs are reflective and thought-provoking, but once again, the 2019 movie fails to make any of these sequences actually entertaining. The absolute worst part of the entire movie comes at the very end, when Deuteronomy makes horrific, unblinking eye contact with the camera, and slowly talks her way through the Ad-Dressing of Cats. This is absolutely bewildering considering how the movie deliberately sets up Victoria as a main character in place of the audience, only to completely chuck that out the window of a moving car just to break the 4th wall in the most uncomfortable way possible and directly address the audience anyway. What is even the point? I can’t imagine there’s a single person that would watch that and be okay with it. The Ad-Dressing of Cats is supposed to be a cute, fun little recap of everything the cats supposedly taught you, but this movie made it feel like a lecturing stare-down. Other notes The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles was cut entirely from the movie, which is fine because it isn’t integral to the story or anything, considering it was also cut from the stage play when I saw it live. I kind of shudder to think of how The Great Rumpus Cat would have been interpreted in this movie, so I think we were all probably spared some indignities.  While this movie was watchable and certainly an interesting take on the play, it creatively added very little and only succeeded in making me desperately want to go watch the ‘98 musical. I thought at least this movie would be a fun soundtrack to view, but many of the songs just didn’t have the punchiness, joy, charm, or energy that I’m used to. There were parts of it that I liked enough to say this isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s not exactly a glowing review. From the perspective of a theatre fan and a furry: If I want to see CATS, I’m most certainly going to choose the filmed musical over this new movie any day.  I’m infinitely more charmed by the graceful 80′s style dancers of the play than I am by the uncanny valley, painfully human cat-people of the new movie (and honestly I haven’t seen a single piece of fanart for it, so that really tells you all you need to know).

[expatimes]

The famous artists behind history's greatest album covers Written by Leah Dolan, CNNThroughout the 20th-century record sleeves regularly served as canvases for some of the world's most famous artists. From Andy Warhol's electric yellow banana on the cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico's 1967's debut album, to the custom-sprayed Banksy street art that fronted Blur's 2003 "Think Tank," art has long been used to round out the listening experience. A new book, "Art Sleeves," explores some of the most influential, groundbreaking and controversial covers from the past forty years. "This is not a 'history of album art' type book," said the book's author, DJ and arts writer DB Burkeman over email. Instead, he says the book is a "love letter" to visual art and music culture.For the 45th anniversary of "The Velvet Underground & Nico" in 2012, British artist David Shrigley illustrated a special edition reissue cover for Castle Face Records. Credit: David Shrigley/RizzoliFeatured records span genres and decades. Among them are Warhol's cover for The Rolling Stones' 1971 album "Sticky Fingers," featuring the now-famous close-up of a man's crotch (often assumed, incorrectly, to be frontman Mick Jagger in tight jeans) as well as an array of seminal covers designed by graphic designer Peter Saville, co-founder of influential Manchester-based indie label Factory Records. Despite having relatively little art direction experience under his belt, Saville was behind iconic covers such as Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" (1979), depicting the radio waves emitted by a rotating star, and the brimming basket of wilting roses -- a muted reproduction of a 1890 painting by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour -- that fronted New Order's "Power, Corruption & Lies" (1983).New Order, "Power, Corruption & Lies." Featuring 'A Basket of Roses' by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1890 Credit: Peter Saville/Fantin-Latour/RizzoliThe book also includes a sleeve by Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the eminent Obama "Hope" poster, for "7-inches for Planned Parenthood," a limited edition vinyl box-set to raise funds for the sexual health charity. On the cover, a woman's sleeping face is rendered in Fairey's trademark stencilized finish while a red vertical banner screams at her to "Wake Up!" Yayoi Kusama's brief foray into album art also features in the book. In 2013, the Japanese multidisciplinarian designed the artwork for Japanese DJ Towa Tei's eighth studio album, "Lucky." The cover is a simple smattering of red and white polka dots -- a signature Kusama motif. Kusama even features on the album's last track, "Love Forever," where she recites a short poem.In 1992 dissenting graphic designer Barbara Kruger created the artwork for the only LP ever released by short-lived riot grrrl band, Growing Up Skipper. The group took their name from a controversial Barbie released in 1974, a version of Skipper, Barbie's younger sister, who grew breasts when you twisted her arm (the company says the doll matched "little girls' dreams of growing up").For the cover of the LP, "Use only as directed," dismembered Barbie parts appear alongside Kruger's signature black and red 'scrapbook' text. Art Sleeves: Album Covers by Artists by DB Burkman is published by Rizzoli priced at £40.00. Credit: RizzoliThe book also shows Jeff Koons' Renaissance collage for Lady Gaga's album, "ARTPOP" (2014) -- where a statuesque Gaga sits inside Botticelli's giant scallop shell -- as well as Cindy Sherman's work for Arthur Doyle and Maurizio Cattelan, famous for his duct-taped banana, who photographed a toothy, red-lipped grimace for Toilet Paper magazine's 2016 special edition single of Daft Punk's "Da Funk" (1995).The vinyl revivalDespite the ubiquity of digital downloads (or perhaps in reaction to it) both sides of the pond have been experiencing a vinyl revival for over a decade. In 2020, UK sales of vinyl were at their highest since the early '90s, while last year in the US more than 27 million vinyl records were sold-- nearly 50% more compared to 2019. The impact the coronavirus has had on listening habits has been sizable, too, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) found. "The increase in (music) consumption was achieved despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic," they said in a report published earlier this year. According to the BPI, streams and sales in the UK "dipped around the start of the first lockdown".Aphex Twin's "Collapse" EP (1990) was illustrated by London-based artist Weirdcore. Credit: The Designers Republic/WEIRDCORE/RizzoliYet despite the growing comeback appeal of LPs, the accessibility of digital platforms means streaming services are still the main source of music globally.For Burkeman, the digitization of music is positive insofar as it means artists don't need record companies to put music out. But the rise of streaming has also resulted in the forfeiture of exciting album appendages like designed lyric sheets or handwritten notes from the recording artist. "We've definitely lost something as far as experiencing emotions one might feel while listening to a record and studying, analyzing, or simply enjoying the physical object." Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=19698&feed_id=40245

[babettepress]

What’s Lutz got to do with it? On Lutz Bacher & Tina Turner

What’s Love Got to Do With It is the title of Lutz Bacher’s new exhibition at K21 in Düsseldorf. It’s the second exhibition of note this year to borrow a title from Tina Turner: the 10th Berlin Biennale was titled We Don’t Need Another Hero, a Turner hit of a similar vintage, and it's hard to say whether Lutz is playing artworld ping-pong, slamming a slice serve back at that other German art institution, or whether Tina Turner, a black woman and one-time battered wife, who in 2013 rescinded her US citizenship to become a citizen of Switzerland, has become an unlikely antidote to our Trumpian age. Lutz’s exhibition reopens the programme at K21 with three rooms of cryptic objects, surveillance mirrors and fragments of texts, a web of criss-crossing ideas and bleak ideologies, discarded artefacts from her native United States of America. 

The work is more on-the-nose political than I had expected from Bacher, who has a reputation for being evasive. A long, paper artwork runs like a ribbon throughout the rooms: white banner with wavering black scribble, like a seismograph. I have seen images of this work before, installed in a space in San Francisco, where it was presented in 2017 without a text or a title. I did not know, when I first saw it, that this jagged black line (like “barbed wire”, says Frieze[1]) was the signature of the current President of the United States of America, spliced, repeated, amplified. And yet, I think, I innately understood. The violence of that juddering black mark was enough. 

Lutz Bacher, installation view, 3320 18th St., San Francisco, 2017. Source.

Lutz Bacher is not the artist's real name. No one knows her real name, except, I’m sure, some close friends, her bank clerk, her dealer. Since the 1970s she has been making work under the masculine, Germanic pseudonym Lutz Bacher, so appropriate for a conceptual artist making a show in Düsseldorf. Lutz Bacher does not really give interviews and is never photographed, at least in any official capacity. Lutz Bacher’s exhibition reviews describe her, invariably, as “elusive”, “slippery”, “mysterious”. 

When I search #lutzbacher on Instagram, the current ‘top image’ shows a woman that I presume to be the artist, stood alone, a black silhouette against the Donald Trump signature work. Head downturned, frozen in a sort of half-smile. Slight. Self-contained. Pin-striped blazer and what looks to be a scarf around her neck. Appropriately for an artist who has used low-fi photographic and video imagery throughout her career, the image is pixellated, low-grade, and I imagine it was taken covertly at the opening reception of What’s Love Got to Do With It. I imagine that the photographer got a kind of smug self-satisfaction when she captured it, pinching her fingers on the screen to zoom in and isolate the figure, uploaded it, hashtagged it. “I got her.” 

#lutzbacher on Instagram. Source.

Tina Turner is not the singer's real name, either. Born Anna Mae Bullock, or perhaps Martha Nell Bullock, her first recordings were under the name “Little Ann”. It was Ike Turner that named her Tina. He was reportedly inspired by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and trademarked the name so that if Little Ann left him he could hire another singer and she could also perform under the made-up name. He thought Tina Turner was replaceable. 

Lutz Bacher, James Dean, 1986, video slideshow, 16 paired slides shown on two monitors, dimensions variable. Exhibited at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, 2014. Source.

Lutz Bacher is fairly anomalous among feminist artists of her generation in that her work prods at masculinity more than it does femininity or feminine constructs. While her contemporaries made didactic works that sought to dismantle female-assigned gender roles, or focused primarily on the female body as a site of exchange and exploitation, Lutz Bacher, with her draggy name, fixes her gaze on maleness. Hundreds of beaten-in baseballs slumped onto the floor of the Whitney; a diptych of James Dean publicity shots, doomed heartthrob looking two different directions; a hoard of photographs taken by a US soldier stationed at Bien Hoa Air Base in Vietnam, found by the artist in a Berkeley salvage store; a Twilight publicity poster framed behind tinted glass, Robert Pattison’s brooding share receding into darkness; Playboy bunnies stencilled on the steel shells of military planes; cut-outs of Elvis Presley and T-Rexes on a chessboard; a conga-line of frat boy-ish trucker hats snaking across the gallery floor. 

Martin Herbert points out that her work is in an “ongoing conversation” with an ecosystem of male artists and writers – Duchamp, Flavin, Johns, Warhol – and that her work has a preoccupation with “masculinity, domination, selfdefence”. He argues her work “suggests that the fixity of gender roles is the problem, and the best thing to do, via a rewiring of the gaze, is to explode it”.[2]

Tina & Ike Turner perform Proud Mary live on Italian TV station RAI, 1971. Watch.

An ex-boyfriend once told me that Mick Jagger stole his whole routine from Tina Turner. This boyfriend was notorious for invented truths, but watching a YouTube video of Tina and Ike perform Proud Mary in 1971, I’m inclined to believe this one. She inhabits the song so fully, so vigorously, it comes alive in her. Face muscles contorting into wild postures, lips wrestling with words. Shrieking, stuttering and stomping, a ticking bomb. 

Lutz Bacher, Huge Uterus, 1990. Source.

Lutz Bacher’s rebuff to feminist artists who made work exclusively fixated on the female body was her 1990 work Huge Uterus, a video documenting the six-hour long surgery the artist underwent to remove fibroids from her real-life uterus. Lia Gangitano, the gallerist/curator who showed this work at Thread Waxing Space, has indicated that critics’ persistent focus on Lutz’s obfuscation of authorship, their reading of her work as elusive, is partially misplaced. “My experience of Lutz’s work and her practice is really about intimate collaborations,” she argues in an online talk by ICA London, “and incredibly personally revealing work.”[3] She cites Huge Uterus as an example – what could be more personally revealing than a video from inside one’s uterus? But I think Gangitano’s point holds even for those works that do not reveal the artist’s internal organs. The artifice of Bacher’s identity does not prevent her from revealing herself. To paraphrase Wilde, give a woman a pseudonym and she will tell you the truth. 

Cher & Tina Turner sing Shame, Shame, Shame, The Cher Show, 1975. Watch.

I never thought of myself as a Tina Turner fan until the summer of 2015. I was at a party. A housewarming in a glass-fronted penthouse with views of the canal, one of those endless celebrations that continues to unfold for hours on end. By now, we were deep into the second day and most people had dropped off, leaving only a core group of revellers with electric chat. When the sun streamed in through the windows, we stocked up on ingredients for Bloody Marys. 

“This song was released just as both of their marriages broke down,” said a friend as he typed the words “cher tina turner shame” into YouTube. “It’s just the two women, striking out without their husbands. They nail it.” Tina sashays onto the stage in a long blue gown like a beaded curtain. It catches the light as she moves her legs, jellyfish dancing in a sea of diamonds. She sings the opening bars of the song alone – “Shame, shame, shame, shaaaa-ame!” – before Cher is announced with a scream, whoops and applause – “Awwwwwwww!!!! Shame on YOU!”. Cher is wearing the same dress but in pink and they sing the rest of the song as a duet. They have sass, conviction, and genuine rapport, looking into each others’ eyes as they sing. My friend was right – they nail it. 

Lutz Bacher, Accidental Tourist, Greene Naftali Garage, Brooklyn, 2016. Source.

Do you love me? This is the question Lutz Bacher asked her friends, colleagues and collaborators again and again for a number of years. Their answers to this loaded questions are published – unedited – in an artist book of the same name (Do You Love Me?, Primary Information, New York, 2012). In a blurb for Mousse, Stefano Cernuschi says that reading the book "feels like being in the backseat of a car driving fast, and you can’t hear every word that is spoken between the front seats, and mostly you can’t see the faces, but it’s kind of thrilling and also rewarding to be close enough to grasp what they say.”[4] What you realise from reading the answers is that, in answering an intimate question about Lutz, people always reveal more about themselves than they do about her. Sometimes the most personal insights come from talking about something outside of us. 

Just as Lutz Bacher’s anonymity does not make her work any less personal, her use of hyperbole and humour does not make it any less serious. A seemingly throwaway gesture, like covering the floor with glitter, reveals prisms of light breaking across the ground. Glitter, that synthetic, silly substance associated with frivolousness and nightlife, becomes the medium to reveal the transmutability of the cosmos; something so natural, so contemplative, it could be seen as Romanticist, in the same way that a William McKeown painting can be, with its glimpse through an open window into the two-tone fade of the sky.

Elsewhere in her work, plastic vinyl screens are printed with hot, hovering suns, or cool mountains, synthetic vistas that seem palpably real. A spinning milky way is painted on the side of an elongated school bus. I suspect Bacher would reject my literal reading of this work, but this work, The Bus, struck me as apt, because when you’re young enough to ride a school bus, your universe really is that small. 

Tina Turner, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, 1984

Tina Turner was in her 40s by the time she released What’s Love Got To Do With It in 1984. Her big comeback hit after her divorce from Ike Turner, the video sees her strut around New York with lion’s mane hair and a leather skirt, playfully rebuffing sexual advances. Her relatively mature age (by popstar standards) works in the track’s favour. She’s tough but jaded. Given up on love. She carries the pain of her abusive, broken down marriage into the song's guttural vocals, and we believe her when she looks into the camera and sings with conviction: Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? 

It’s like the song was made for her, but really it wasn’t. It was written by two white British guys who first offered it to Cliff Richard, Donna Summer, Phyllis Hyman and even Bucks Fizz, who recorded the song first and planned to include it on their album. They dropped it upon hearing Tina’s version.

*

I’ve since fallen out of touch with most of the people at that party I told you about. Thinking back on it now, it seems like a distant flicker from another time, like when Joan Didion writes that she has “lost touch with several of the people she used to be”. 

I have, however, been a Tina Turner fan ever since. 

Lutz Bacher, Bus, 2011. Digital photograph, dimensions variable. Image courtesy the artist, Ratio 3, San Francisco, Alex Zachary, New York, and Cabinet, London. Photograph by Vincent Fecteau. Source.

Like Tina’s, Lutz Bacher’s success and recognition has accumulated with age. I guess it’s what happens when you refuse to play the PR game, to avoid all the trappings and limelight and sycophancy that comes with artworld ascendancy, but despite her being consistently active since the 1970s, Bacher’s work went largely unacknowledged by the mainstream until about six years ago, when she was included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial and then subsequently snapped up for a spate of solo shows in Europe. I wonder if she is relieved, bemused, or exasperated at her boom in recognition and success. 

I remember hearing at a lecture once that Carol Rama, having been marginalised by the artworld establishment for almost her entire life, and then suddenly awarded the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award at the age of 85, was nonplussed about her late recognition. “I’m not interested in stupid people,” she told The Walrus in 2005. “When I think of the attention I’ve been getting these last few years … so late in my career, I feel sadness. It leaves me somewhat stunned: all of this now?!”.[5]

Does Lutz feel the same way? “All of this now?!” My instinct is no. My instinct is that she is three steps ahead of us, turning back to shoot a sidelong glance every once in a while to see if we’re following yet. Perhaps her pseudonym, her “there-but-not-there”-ness, protects her from our slow-to-catch-up gaze. 

In an interview last year, Tina Turner told The Daily Mail that “when the lights go out, I go back to being Anna Mae Bullock.”[6] Perhaps Lutz Bacher, too, goes back to being whoever the fuck Lutz Bacher wants to be. My instinct is that, like Rama, neither of them are interested in stupid people. 

Babette

[1] Moritz Scheper, ‘Critic’s Pick: Lutz Bacher’, Frieze, September 2018. URL: https://frieze.com/event/lutz-bacher-3

[2] Martin Herbert, ‘Lutz Bacher’, ArtReview, Summer 2015. URL: https://artreview.com/features/summer_2015_lutz_bacher/

[3] Lia Gangitano in ‘Online Talk: Lutz Bacher’, ICA London, streamed live on 7 November 2013. URL: https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/video/online-talk-lutz-bacher

[4] Stefano Cernuschi, ‘BOOKS. Lutz Bacher: Do You Love Me?’, Mousse. URL: http://moussemagazine.it/lutz-bacher-do-you-love-me/

[5] Carol Rama, quoted in The Walrus, March 2005. URL: https://thewalrus.ca/2005-03-detail/

[6] Tina Turner, quoted in The Daily Mail, 14 September 2017. URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4886020/I-taught-Mick-Jagger-dance-says-Tina-Turner.html

[living-fash]

Starmaker by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha

Starmaker by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha

Richard Bernstein, a fixture with fashion and art insidersas well asthe Studio 54 set, captured the allure ofthe disco era through his iconic hypercolored graphic portraits of superstars for the covers of Andy Warhol’s Interviewmagazine.

Bernstein’s boldand graphic artwork was so complimentary to Warhol’s that it was often thought that Warhol created the covers himself. Yet it was Bernstein, an American artist and art director,whose distinctive craft ofembellishing photographs with pastels, stencils, and airbrushing, monumentalized his subjects into dazzling larger than life pop art incarnations of themselves iconic and forever young.

The book features his legendary Interview covers created from the mid 1960s 1990s stars including Madonna, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Cher, Calvin Klein,Jerry Hall, Bianca Jagger,Michael Jackson, and Aretha Franklin, as well as Bernstein’s rarely seen fine art, album covers, and editorial work for TIME, Italian Vogue and Playboy, complete with intimate anecdotes and interviews with his closest friends and collaborators. This volume is an essential addition to any fashion, pop culture, style, or art lover’s library. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

About the Authors: Brothers Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha have worked together and separately inthe fashion industry since 1993. In 1988 they cofounded MAO Public Relations,which still enjoys success in the fashion industry today.

In 2001, they made their first foray into publishing with the popular fashion publication MAO MAG and together they have authored The Stephen Sprouse Book Antonio: Fashion, Art, Sex, & Disco and GLOSS: The Work of Chris von Wageneheim all published by Rizzoli.

Starmaker by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha http://www.livingfash.com/starmaker-by-roger-padilha-and-mauricio-padilha

[platform58]

#SUPPORTARTISTS Regrann from @eddiecolla - On sale now use the link in my bio. April Fools' day seemed the most appropriate Day to release this and here's why... In October of 2017 I got an instagram message from Colin Day, the director of the film “Saving Banksy”. There was an image of a “Banksy 2018 Calendar” attached, on the cover was my piece “Ambition” which has been stolen more times and by more people then I care to remember. Fucking Brilliant! Some twat set out to make a bunch of dough selling a bootleg Banksy calendar and never bothered to check if the artwork on the cover was actually a Banksy. Additionally, in their mind, my piece was their favorite Banksy, thus being placed on the cover. Flattering I suppose, however further proof that whomever produced this thing is borderline retarded. It's a bit like some knucklehead who meets Mick Jagger, asks for an autograph and goes on to tell Mick that Purple Haze is his favorite Rolling Stones song. Just Baffling. After careful consideration I thought the best thing I could do was to buy a whole bunch, alter them, authenticate them and sell them myself. Despite the disclaimer printed on the back of the Calendar which expressly prohibits me from doing so. The idea of being sued by someone who stole and profited from my work seems an irresistible provocation. I waited until well into March to buy these because Calendars get heavily discounted after February. I made 2 different versions of this Calendar both with the intent to outlive their utilitarian purpose. The Oversized Calendar: For this I made a 12 part stencil and hand stenciled the backs of every page. At the end of the year you can rip out all the pages and assemble them on your wall to make a 34 x 70 inch hand stenciled original. Each one is signed and numbered. (note: this was a really bad idea as it was way too time consuming and I have to admit that spite can make a man do unreasonable things.) I think the point I would like to make here is this: Don't be too hard on Idiots, they have a purpose, because sometimes another man's stupidity can be your inspiration. #1xrun #eddiecolla #aprilfools #officiallyunofficial #ambition #permission

[davidastbury]

December 2016

Man at Piccadilly Station, Manchester He has a tongue like a razor –  you have to be careful what you say to him!   Once upon a time he was brilliant; in those days he expressed his superiority in devastating sarcasm – putting his victim down, and doing it in such a way that the chorus of laughter ruled out any response.   He let it be known that he was going to the top in journalism or media –  he had the required charming malice and knew the ‘right people’.  He was a frequent dinner guest at the Dimbleby household and mixed with other luminaries. I have a picture of him from the brilliant days – droopy eyelids mocking the photographer – held tilted back,  smoke curling down his nostrils, Pall Mall haircut, elbow cupped in palm, shapeless Donegal tweed suit, hand-made shoes. And now he’s a haggard old man clutching a carrier bag loaded with cans of beer.  He’s swaying on his feet, looking up at the electronic notice board for his time of departure.

On the Train I’m fascinated by the glances exchanged between man and adult son.  Not having a son myself I am at a disadvantage in this area – or perhaps I am not. There is a way that a man looks at his grown up son – and a way that the son looks back at the father – they are involved, and have their respective viewpoints - whereas I am seeing with the calm eyes of an outsider – they are ‘mono’ to my ‘stereo’.  What they see doesn’t have room for a question – but all that I see are questions! And the main question I want to ask, cannot be asked – perhaps I know the dad too well, or not well enough -  or if I asked it, it might be misunderstood, or be viewed as ‘inappropriate’ (hateful word!) or might solicit a untrue answer which is worse than not knowing at all. So I don’t know and never will. A Rolling Stones Fan... Manchester 1964 She was crazy about Mick Jagger, and spent most of her money following the Rolling Stones tours.  The performances were usually in theatres in provincial cities across the UK – very noisy and very crowded, and although often far from the stage she would fight through the frenzy and get scribbled autographs from Jagger and the boys.  She loved Jagger for his narcissism – his magnificent conceit – his disjointed grace – his hermaphrodite beauty.  Her boyfriend was tolerant about her absences and her fixation, saying that most of us have a peculiarity others do not understand – which I suppose was quite nice of him. Occasionally I would see the two of them in a basement club.  Whenever a Rolling Stones number was played she’d be on her feet (bare feet!) dancing and strutting.  He boyfriend would sit and play it cool – smoking and drinking, slouched in a chair, taking it all in.  Soon everyone around would be watching her too – her miniskirt and striped turtle-neck – her head back and shampoo- ad hair swinging – and most thrilling of all, her eyes tightly shut with the sheer bliss of a true exhibitionist. When it was over she padded across to her boyfriend - riding the wave of our attention - then leaned across the cluttered table and kissed him on the mouth.

Noel Coward once asked John Osborne what percent queer he was. Osborne was startled at the question and replied:   ‘I’ve no idea, maybe fifteen percent.’ Coward tapped his chest and replied proudly:   ‘I am One Hundred Percent Queer!’

HE and SHE As we all know attraction can occur in the most unpromising of environments - and my office was certainly an unpromising environment.   The HE and SHE – both high-flyers in the firm – took a shine to each other, and the rest of us became conscious that love was in the air.   They were an unlikely couple – SHE was sharp and very ambitious, a strident voice, eyes that missed nothing and a tireless, aggressive energy that removed all softness and humour.  HE was unattractively bulky – deeply sarcastic and supercilious.  I wished them all the best. But somewhere along the line things went wrong.  There had been a scene (shouting) in the pub where we used to go after work, and they were no longer speaking to each other.  We all carried on as usual, but the atmosphere was as constricting as it had been before, when they were ‘as one’.   Occasionally we tried to engineer situations where they would have to speak to each other – but it didn’t work with either of them.  It was a bad situation and I was afraid that it might come to the notice of the directors upstairs. At this point I must mention Paul – he was the firm’s driver.  The lowest paid and the nicest man in the company.   He had the honest open face of someone  who would see no harm in anything – a good warm-hearted family man.   His job was to deliver parcels and important documents; he also chauffeured the bosses in the company Jag.  Paul told me that he and SHE had gone up to Birmingham, along with a van load of exhibition equipment.  They were caught in a terrible traffic snarl up, and during the wait, as they inched along the motorway, they chatted about this and that.  And then he asked her how life was treating her. She was silent for a few seconds and tried to speak but found she couldn’t.

Literary Reception There are some high achievers in here tonight.   Half familiar faces – it is amusing to see that anyone who has been on telly a few times develops that downward glance, as if they find being recognised unpleasant, but hoping that you stare at them anyway!  Men of science and letters – women too of course –  in fact a quite a few women writers putting on the agony.   I ask myself: ‘What on earth are you doing here...what do you want?’   And I reply:  ‘A cup of tea.’

Vision Every man I know has the same look.  All their faces have the same expression.  It is as if they were once standing in the street and a beautiful naked woman had walked by – and they turned round to see her again – and she was gone.  And they carry on looking - looking all the time – trying to see her again.

You only have to ask her – and she will tell you.  But she’s unpredictable and so you must catch her when she’s in a good mood or best of all when she’s had a drink or two.  Make it casual – as if asking about what she’s doing next week, or if she is going to buy that coat she liked in South Molton Street.  Keep it nice and reasonable.  You only have to ask her – and she will tell you.

We’ve done our song and dance – kept up the concern and amusement, and now the show continues without our participation – I can sit back and feign concern myself, something which I never expected to do.    What no one knows is that I couldn’t care less anymore.

After Donald Wolfit was knighted one of his troupe of actors immediately called him ‘Sir Donald’.   Wolfit beamed at him and said :- ‘Oh come now...you and I have known each other for years – just “Sir” will do’.

On the Train Young couple.  Married.  She’s taking things out of a bag and looking at them.  They have been shopping for craft items – coloured blocks, stencils, brushes on a card, things like that.  She looks at them carefully, examining them and turning them over; feeling the texture with her long, clever fingers.  I see her looking at some tubes – they are various adhesives, perhaps different adhesives for different items. Her husband glances out of the window and then looks back at her. They are very young. He fell in love with her because she can glue things together.

The Christmas Bumper Book of Memories 2016 January.  It was a cold, grey day when the two cold, grey men met.  I was one of them and the other was a long standing friend – I hadn’t seen him for years.  He had a pained expression and a weak smile, so I guessed he knew.   We shook hands –me struggling to take off my gloves; he offering me his icy paw – and worst of all, he kept hold of me.  There is nothing worse than that.  He asked me how I was and I rattled off my up-beat routine – ‘Everything’s fine, I’ve been given the name of a brilliant homeopath’... things like that.   His weak smile became weaker – I think he has always considered me frivolous, and it was irritating to see that I hadn’t changed.   Still holding my hand he looked at me searchingly and said ‘But how are you really?  Would you like to talk about it?’ In that moment I felt the chill of what Baudelaire called ‘the wind of the wing of the angel of death’.   Corfu It wasn’t the type of holiday she had expected.  The taverna was down a bumpy road out in the middle of nowhere – accommodation was basic – erratic hot water -  meals served on a terrace beneath a wooden trellis, which was rather nice except for the rats that ran along the beams.  The swimming pool was small, and there was nowhere for her to wear the evening dresses she had brought.  She was single and most of the guests were young couples – spending all day and most of the night shouting and laughing and pouring ouzo down their throats. There was only one bus to the village and on the second day she missed it.  The proprietor smiled and said that his brother Hypatos would take her.  She coldly thanked him and waited for Hypatos to appear.  The brother finally came out of the lavatory and beamed at her - he would be happy to take her to town.   He was a fat man, all the more noticeable because he was only wearing cropped cargo pants and when he got astride his small motorcycle she didn’t know what to do.  People were watching – including the proprietor who was grinning and showing his brown teeth. She had no choice but to get astride the machine – Hypatos shouted something and the bike roared away.   There was nothing for her to hold onto – no handles of any sort, so she had to lean forward and stretch her bare arms around Hypatos’ bare belly – struggling to get a firm grip the yielding wobbly flesh – and then the ordeal of being bounced up and down on the hard pillion seat. She came to loathe the proprietor – he didn’t do any work at all, instead he bullied his staff and played the great man of property.  He would smile at her and make expansive gestures, as if inviting her to enjoy his kingdom.  He was impervious to her scowls – he presumed that all women adored him. And this was the story that went around the taverna...to the hilarity of the young couples. Apparently, the proprietor had gone across to her table with two large glasses of milky ouzo and with his widest smile said to her:  ‘Tonight, me and you shag?’

When she was gone the family broke up – we all went our different ways – we just broke up – yet one beat of her heart would have brought us back together.

Eventually all our desires and compulsions change their forms and become a soulful yearning that hides itself in melancholy.

The other day I was chatting with a friend’s ten-year-old daughter.  I asked her if she was still learning the trumpet;  she replied;  ‘Oh yes - I can play lots of tunes’. I asked her what she liked most about the trumpet. She answered;  ‘Well, you can play a trumpet really loud and it stops everyone from talking’.

The Photographer on the Train He’s was no Cartier-Bresson – no snap on the sly – this chap was loaded with the gear – he even had a photographers’ jacket - a sort of sleeveless affair with multiple pockets, as worn by our Royal family when ‘orf’ for a nice day blasting the life out of Highland stags. Anyway....working on the principle that people are pleased when you take an interest in their activities, I started up a conversation.  We talked about cameras.  But he wasn’t responsive as you or I may have been - and then I began to understand.   He viewed my interest as perfectly normal;   in fact he expected it from other people.  His ego caused him to assume that other people’s thoughts will always be centred around him - and that whatever we wish to say isn’t worth the effort of listening.

From the Window A young family walking past – going dark - pavement shiny with rain – car lights flashing – but what a grouping!  There was no chance of getting the big Nikon cranked up in time; and then they were gone, out of sight. Just a man and a woman, arms linked, with a small girl on one side and a smaller boy, trotting to keep up, on the other.   The girl was trying to control her pet dog, which had the rubbery legs of a puppy and was pulling his lead across their path, and looking up as if he deserved praise.  The little boy was carrying a parcel, or a box, which was nearly as big as himself – probably an unopened Christmas gift.  The mother kept reaching to help him but he jerked his shoulders and turned away, hugging the box. And so they continued up the road.  I wonder if they know how happy they are?

Victoria Station She’s going to dump him tonight.   If you look you can see it in her face – it’s all there.  She will pick her moment to tell him – and that will be the end of their relationship – they are at different universities and they probably will never see each other again, and that’s all for the good. But I’ve a feeling there is more to it; behind her determination there is something else  - something important to her – she wants promises from him  - a promise that he will take care of himself – and a promise not to ‘let himself go.’

K She used to get up at six to take her little boy to the childminder – then a bus and a train and another bus to her college.  Her husband, a good-looking piss artist, wouldn’t get out of bed until around noon;  a quick bite to eat then off to the pub.  In the afternoons he would try to read the set books on DH Lawrence but usually he fell asleep or had long, rambling telephone chats with old friends. Around seven in the evening he would be hungry and looking forward to his wife getting home and sorting the meal out. On Saturday nights they would go out together to the pubs near the university.  They would join groups and her husband would amuse everyone with his wild opinions – his voice loud and theatrical, causing people to wonder who he was.  And the drinks kept appearing, as if from nowhere.   Later he would heavily on her, his free arm windmilling for a taxi. Looking back, she told me that this was the happiest time of her life.

Young couple – on the train He’s Asian; probably Afghan.  She’s European, perhaps English, but you don’t see many English girls with hair that shade of yellow – it is as yellow as butter and falls across the sides of her face with a single ripple of a wave near her chin.  Perhaps she’s northern European – superb skin and soft lapis lazuli eyes – a Scandinavian beauty!  Each time he looks at her he reacts with pleasure. Maybe one day he will take her home to meet his parents.  His mother will rush away to the kitchen and make her feelings known in Dari, or Pashto or Hazarangi.  Dad will walk slowly to the mosque – to the familiar green lights and red carpets and books filled with picturesque Quranic promises of bliss –  knowing that the paradise his son has found beats them all.

Mary Notnice and Henry James Henry James sometimes referred to his ‘obscure hurt’, without ever going into details as to the nature of the hurt, what it was, and when it was inflicted upon him.  Most of his biographers/scholars mention the ‘obscure hurt’ and speculate how this might have affected his writing.  The greatest of his biographers , Leon Edel devotes pages exploring the source and concludes it refers to something that happened in 1861 when James was eighteen.  His father took him to Boston ‘for consultation of a great surgeon,  the head of his profession there.’  The surgeon found nothing wrong and dismissed the young man with hardly a word – which James took as an insult.  From here onwards (such are the labyrinths and cadences of James’s mind) we do not know if the phrase ‘obscure hurt’ refers to the physical injury or the resentment he felt because of what the doctor had said. Mary Notnice, at the age of eighteen (the same age as Henry James!) held onto and nourished her ‘obscure hurt’.   I and others were charmed by her peevishness and smouldering resentments.  Of course I never knew what it was all about because details were hard to come by – dad long gone – mum a bit crazy – behaviour so bad at school that she was actually expelled in the last year – it was all part of a package.  But what struck me most was her way of looking back at you.  In that glance you could see her ‘obscure hurt’, and although she looked at you with anger, there was also sadness and reproach – as if you had harmed her in some way.

A Christmas Carol    #1 I asked a young friend for a story of something that had happened to him – not something that he had achieved but something that was out of his control and which he now views as very important.   He must have trusted me, because this is what I got. ‘I sneaked off work and went to the office bash on a lower floor.  I knew one or two people there, but it was open to clients and so on, so I was okay.  It was a great party, massive tree all lit up, loads of booze, loud jingle-bells type music, balloons banging and some serious kissing going on – not pecks under the mistletoe twig, but the real thing.  And I saw a girl standing by herself and I came over all weird – like shivery – and I knew I had to go to her.  I’m normally slow, but I wasn’t this time; I had to speak to her and the first thing I said was; ‘Are you with anyone?’ and she laughed.  So we started talking and this feeling of destiny got stronger and stronger.  You know when people say that as soon as they saw a certain person they just knew that they had to marry them?  It was like that – that is how I felt. And then my phone rang and it was my boss.  I didn’t want him to hear the noise of the party going on, so I said to the girl;  ‘I won’t be a minute, please wait here.’  Then I rushed out to the corridor, next to the lift, and listened as the boss droned on.  Then I rushed back and she was gone – and I never saw her again.  I didn’t know her name, what could I do?’

On the Train She used to save him the seat next to her – she probably got on at Leeds, he got on at my station.   They snuggled up together, glad of the press and squeeze of the tight seating and would chat cheerfully throughout the journey.  But then their little head-to-heads ended and she no longer looked up as we all piled in, there was no longer the shy smile, instead she kept her head down over her laptop, head down, fingers skipping over the keyboard.  The following day I looked out for him on the platform – and there he was, but not in his usual place, and he got onto the train lower down. Naturally I am curious!  All kinds of scenarios are fluttering in my mind – the strongest are comparisons with our antics on Facebook – a hurtful omission - a disrespectful comment – an indiscreet posting - a misunderstood remark!

A Christmas Carol    #2 Some of his very earliest memories were about his local church.  It was Victorian Gothic and was called Saint Stephen the Martyr, which as a little boy he called ‘Saint Stephen the Tomato’.  It was Anglican, but very near to Roman Catholicism in ritual. And then he found himself in the choir – in fact he was allowed to join far below the normal age, and they had to shorten a cassock for him and his white surplice, which his mother had to wash and iron every week, reached below his knees.  The choir practiced twice a week and by the time he was approaching eleven, he was the leader of the trebles and did solos.  Mr Birchall, the choirmaster, privately trained him, teaching him how to sing ‘open-throat’ and would press his hand on the boy’s diaphragm.   The highlight of the church year was the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass.  The church was lit by hundreds of candles, mostly around the choir stalls and chancel, leaving the worshipers in semi darkness.  The choir led the procession    with a Server at the front holding up a massive brass crucifix. They walked the length of the church from the vestry, between the aisles and into the nave, passing the plaques in memory of eminent founders and the shredded and stained flags from overseas battles. The opening carol was sung softly and the boy could hear the squeaking of his shoes on the stone floor.   But it was at the end of the service that his singing became sublime.  Mr Birchall was conducting with his eyes closed – the choir, all male, was at full force – the organ at full volume – the tenors and basses building a solid structure and the boy trebles soared above it, and out of that wave of joy a single choirboy began to rise even higher.  It was the boy’s great moment and he reached the note that seemed impossible, and then he reached an even higher note!  The church was flooded with the sustained brilliance of his pitch – it went on for so long and the other voices meekly faded and the organ too gave up. No one could tell when his voice ended and the echo began.

A Christmas Carol.......  #3 There was a girl in my class and I bet every male teacher in the school was in love with her.  Let me quickly add that I do not mean that this had any element of carnality or pervishness – they simply loved her.   When teaching me they may have doubted the wisdom of their choice of profession, but I think they would have taught her for free.  I’ll just say that she was lovely – even her name was lovely – Tina Pomfret! Anyway – it was time for the upper form’s Christmas dance and I asked (via a friend) if she would be my partner, which meant that I would go to her house to pick her up,  get more dances with her than anyone else, then see her home afterwards.  The answer came back: – Yes! Ricky Nelson, Connie Francis, Buddy Holly, Paul Anka , Neil Sedaka – love you forever! School Inexplicably, he had not been selected for the athletics team.  The inter-schools event was just a few weeks away and his name was not included in the list.  Yet he was one of the best at medium/distance running, but his name was not on the board.  At first he wanted to go and ask questions, but a sort of dread came into his mind, an insight into the future.  He felt that - ‘not being selected’ - despite being competent, might characterise his life. He didn’t know how to shake off the gloom of his thoughts – that feeling of dread - it actually hurt - hurt as much as the time someone banged a desk lid down on his fingers.

Happy Families Can there ever be reconciliation when a father has called his son’s girlfriend a ‘whore’?

Henry James grew up in a house that had an open door to the great and the good.  Leading figures in literature, science and the arts were regular guests.   A frequent visitor was William Makepeace Thackeray, who was venerated by  James Snr and the entire household.  Thackeray would hold court throughout the day, dominating all conversation, setting the content and tone about what the subjects should be, and giving prolonged summaries which no one ever interrupted. The story goes that Henry’s elder sister Alice – I think fourteen years old at the time – questioned the great man’s thinking when he was in mid flow.  The people round the dinner table gasped.  Thackeray turned to her with a look like a ‘ferocious lion’ – and said - ‘Are you suggesting that I am wrong?’ Alice met his gaze and smiling slightly replied – ‘Indeed I am not saying you are wrong.  I am merely asking you to consider the possibility that you may not be right.’

At the recent Kurdish Wedding I was sitting behind a family – mum and dad wearing Kurdish national costume with their two young boys, the youngest sitting on his mother’s knee.    Suddenly, before he could be grabbed, the boy slid off his mother’s knee and landed face down on the wooden floor.  Screams and blood and people slapping their pockets for something to put to his nose to hold back the bleeding.   Being an old fashioned gent I was able to produce – with the speed of a conjurer – a huge, crisply ironed, white linen handkerchief.  The boy slowly recovered from the shock, both parents crouching over him – when his big brother, about five years old, turned to me and gave me the nicest smile I’ve ever received.

The Queen’s Elm, Chelsea  George used to join us on Sunday lunchtimes, when the Queen’s Elm was crowded to the doors.   He was  older than the rest of us, perhaps seven or eight years which is a lot when you are nineteen; and we were all northerners, but he was a Londoner.  He didn’t say much - a man of few words, but he was flatteringly interested in all of us, as individuals – something we welcomed but couldn’t understand.  He was newly divorced but still occupied the marital home – a flat in Tite Street, Chelsea – while his ex was living with her new chap somewhere in France.  She was quite big deal in the fine-arts world and it looked as if she had made the money - George worked in a betting-shop somewhere in the West End. He never showed any spontaneity when he was with us – never made any jokes or wild comments – he was genial and modest, and when his turn came he would push through the crowd to get his round of drinks.  He was genial and modest.  I sometimes saw in his eyes an embarrassment, or a guilt, or perhaps the torment of a wincing sensitivity, but never discovered what was going on behind his mask.  He used to dress in expensive suits and one Sunday I admired his dark blue overcoat.  He smiled and turned it back to show the label  - Crombie & Co.  He asked me if I would like one and I replied that there was no way that I could afford a Crombie – it would have cost about a month’s salary.  George said that he had contacts – he ‘knew’ people and he felt my shoulders and said that a ‘forty regular’ should fit. Incredibly, the following Sunday in the Queen’s Elm, George appeared with my coat over his arm – he carried like a butler!  Nor would he take a penny for it.  The coat lasted years and years – in fact, properly taken care of it would still be around today – and if someone had properly taken care of George he might too.

On the Train I will put my safety first like all the other sensible liberal cowards.  He isn’t someone to mess with because he’s had enough of the whole lot of us – the schools that let him down, the kids with their prizes who told him he was thick -  the laughter at the suggestion of higher education when he hadn’t even got a primary one -  little in the way of love at home and little in the way of friendships -  the employers who exploit him, viewing him as not much more than an animal,  and he takes his revenge by stealing from them – no prospects - no girlfriends -  everything a failure. So we all look away and pretend he doesn’t exist and my heart aches and I don’t know what to do.

Sons and Lovers.....  (a shorter version) There used to be a large academic bookshop in Manchester, where I worked between the time of the Chatterley ban and the Beatle’s first LP.  In the cellar was the ‘Goods In – Goods out’ department, with a small cramped office, in which sat a small cramped man called Eric.   One sunny morning in the gloom of the cellar, I asked Eric if he was okay.  He looked tired and more than usually unhappy.  He replied;  ‘The wife’s crying all the time.’  I asked why.  ‘Our son’s going to Australia; he’s emigrating; got a job and all that and he’s leaving next week.’ ‘I’m sorry to hear that Eric – and your wife is upset about it?’  I said. ‘Yes – she walks around sniffling all the time.’ I struggled to empathise.  ‘It must be difficult for her – and you.’ He glared at me.  ‘Look – less than twenty years ago I was reporting to Liverpool to get on a troopship for the Far East - to fight the Japanese.  She knew where I was going because I told her – although we weren’t supposed to tell anyone.  She knew that ships were being torpedoed out of the water like a row of ducks. He knew that the sea was full of sharks.  She knew that we were going into jungle fighting.   But, bloody hell, she’s worried about him who’s going to get on a jetplane and off to a job at some college or other!  She never got this worried about me – she didn’t cry at all!’ No one cried for Eric.  

On the Train I recognised him instantly as someone familiar but ‘not to be spoken to’ – he slots into the category of people you know, but not directly.  I have seen him on TV being interviewed on science issues – but he is no smiling popularist, more a grumpy boffin resenting intrusion into his laboratory. His subject is spectrometry, as applied to astronomy – checking the chemical structures of stars in the Milky Way.  He is part of an international team who send out an electronic pulsing into space which consists of an endless repetition of  π r2.  The scientists presumed that if there is intelligent life out there, they would pick up this transmitted formula and understand it. So there he sits – the man who sends out π r2  into the universe – looking slightly cross, no doubt sensing the danger of hearing me suggest that Whitney Houston’ s  ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’  might be a better choice.

Pret a Manger A young couple come in – shutting the door behind them but looking confused.  They say something to each other and then go back out.  A few seconds later they are back in.  I watch as they order whatever it is and the man chooses a table, leaving the young woman to load up the tray.  He sits down and then gets up again and tells her that he has changed his mind.  She calls the assistant back to change the order, she then she joins him at the table, but she wants to sit near the window, so they pick up their bags and things and move. They have an attractive staccato eagerness, indicating the newness of their relationship – a quickness at smiling – at finding pleasure in what the other is saying or doing.  Somehow they have influenced the equilibrium of the place – it isn’t the same as it was before they came in!  Very hard to put into words, but there has been sort of displacement, but as I dismissed this as fanciful, a piece of my own imagining, there was a loud bang as a waiter dropped a plate.

Lydia Pasternak Slater – poet, translator and brother of Boris Pasternak.  Somewhere in the mid sixties I visited her at her home in Oxford – a visit made possible by a French mutual friend, also called Boris and also Jewish, who had survived the entire Nazi occupation of Paris hidden in a cellar. I was in awe at meeting Lydia and had resolved to tread carefully when speaking of her brother, who had died only four or five years previously.  She was lovely and brisk and cheerful and we sat in her work room, which consisted of a tiny kitchen at one end and long tables loaded (neatly) with piles of books.  It was like a warehouse and it was easy to see that she took pleasure in the wrapping, tying up with string, weighing, sticking on gummed labels and all the rest of it.  Perhaps after hours of intellectual effort she found a relaxation in this side of the book business.  I told her that I was a bookseller and she wanted to know all about it, where my shop was, what I sold.  It was astonishing that this bright-eyed elderly woman, who had grown up in a home in which Tolstoy and Scriabin and Rachmaninov were regular callers, should be interested in what was going on in my life!  As a little girl she had sat on Tolstoy’s knee! She told me that she loved Oxford – her house was off Banbury Road, I think.  She loved swimming in the river.  She was busy translating a new edition of her brother’s poetry – people say she is the best – and she gave me a signed copy.   At one point I rambled on about poets being the best writers of prose and mentioned Hardy, Lampedusa, Plath, Joyce (who always considered himself primarily a poet), Rilke....’and greatest of all, Boris Pasternak!’

Outside M&S A chance meeting – we could have got away with walking on – but no – we simultaneously broke into huge smiles and lots of vigorous hand-shaking.  Not seen each other for years!  Usual banalities about not looking a day older.   I asked about his family and he proudly told me that his youngest, Judy, was an actress.  As we chatted away I was conscious that both of us were struggling with the question – does our fragile and neglected friendship merit resuscitation and should one of us offer some sort of invitation?  Neither of us did, and eventually he went in one direction and I went in the other. Some while later I Googled his daughter – and there she was!  The last time I saw her she was a shy eleven-year-old.  The webpage was her agent’s so I clicked on her profile – all grown up and smiling – and a list of her career up to this year.  Drama school, theatre appearances, list of plays, list of characters;  television work, list of plays, list of characters; adverts and sponsorships and her personal notes – Specialities; ‘very experienced and competent in fight scenes and does her own stunts.  Can operate helicopter and light aircraft.  Can do rooftop scenes and anything involving heights.  Can work with dangerous animals.  Can do car crash scenes.’ Good old Judy.

Abraxas spends a lot of time trying to be popular in the Assembly – he’s hoping for elevation; he wants to strut in the Agora and see people stepping back.  What a fool!  Doesn’t he know that Khronos, who makes these appointments, has been watching him and knows that he has no feelings - has no love in him - no sympathy for the poor nor for animals. Khronos will overlook many character flaws,  but never coldness.

The Bookshop in the Strand.... ( L’amour toujours ) Roger, the shop manager used to sub-let the basement to a struggling publisher.  All day long The Publisher was unseen but heard – he would be either shouting at people over the phone, or having a weep, or singing selections from the musicals.  Access to his basement was down a weird, wrought-iron spiral staircase; so ornate and fussy that it puzzled me who might have commissioned it; what had been the buildings previous use – a bridal dress shop perhaps? Anyway The Publisher would be down there and we could tell his moods, and the state of his private life, by the songs he sang.  I remember particularly his version of a Marie Lloyd gem  (his voice loud and alarmingly clear to us upstairs in the bookshop)  as he belted out  ‘The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery’.  He only sang emotional songs and if the genders didn’t fit his preference he switched them – which used to really amuse me – I was only nineteen and that was the sort of thing I found funny. One afternoon it was clear that he was in love – there had been a steady stream of jolly songs.  And suddenly he sprang like a demon from his underground den and grabbed Roger – poor, prim Roger – gripping him fiercely and called out  - ‘C’mon you tight-arsed bastard – let’s have a dance!’ The two of them spun around the shop in a fairly decent waltz – The Publisher singing at the top of his voice : – ‘I could have danced all night I could have danced all night! And still have begged for more!.....’

J-----     (the model) She spent hours sitting for him - hundreds of drawing before he even started on the clay.  At first the idea of having her head ‘done’ by Danny had amused and flattered her, but it soon became tedious.  Danny used to tell me how it was coming along – she had a fabulous head and he was inspired – not that he could put his enthusiasm into words – but he’d say things like -  ‘serene beauty on the outside – but underneath!’  To which I was supposed to nod my head vigorously as if I understood. When the head was nearly finished he let me see it.  He had it covered by a wet cloth and it was mounted on a steel armature on a high wooden trestle.  She was so beautiful, timeless, classical – eyes closed;  her head was perfection, superb in profile and full on – the jaw coming forward as she is about to speak.  I said that it was the best portrait I had ever seen.   He said that when it was completed he would take it to a London art school for casting. I never found out what happened after that, the head was no longer on the plinth and he was occupied with a new subject. He wouldn’t say anything.  Even years later, even as an old man, he would not answer questions.  Those that knew him compared theories. Danny destroyed it – something he frequently did with his work. Danny was in love with the girl and she rejected him – very possible, all his involvements were problematic;  in this case the girl had hardly left school, and he was a thirty-two year old who spent a lot of time as a voluntary patient in mental hospitals.   Danny had it cast in plaster and simply gave it to the girl, as a tribute to her beauty. I believe the last one.

Manchester Nights They used to meet in a city centre bar – both going straight from their offices – this was during the week but never on a Friday evening – she had to explain to him.  He would order a whisky sour and a vodka and they would sit in a banquette away from the door but facing the street.  Just a young couple happy together; perhaps in love - nothing very unusual in all this – nothing at all. Manchester was an austere city in the 1960s; not at all like the place it is today.  You didn’t go to Manchester to have fun; it was a place of business; of dark warehouses and triumphal banks.  No one lived in the centre, no trees, no greenery at all, no break from the heavy orthodoxy of commercialism.   But it was nice in the bar where nothing distracted them from each other – except her eyes kept flickering across to the street – to the building facing them in the street.  She was mesmerised by the sign in the yellow street light:- J. & E.W.  Kegan  (Imports) Ltd.

A London Street  #2     1967 Some might have said that Anna’s husband wasn’t up to much.  His name was Joe and he was an unemployed drummer -  American -  always on the point of the ‘big break’ that never came.  He was out nearly every night in the Earls Court pubs, mixing with the rock and blues crowds and would stumble home,  eager to tell his wife about the offer that would soon be his.  He also used to bring people back with him – people who had missed their last train, or were too drunk to go home, or had no home to go to.  Anna didn’t make a fuss, she conjured up a quick supper, locked the doors, fed the cat, carried bundles of bedding for the guests and set the clock;  she had to be up early for her job at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Anna loved Joe’s accent – he was from Chicago but she could catch the Irish origins, which being a Celt herself, sounded very attractive to her.  Hearing his voice took her back to another voice – another American voice – a voice from when she was a girl growing up in her Welsh village.   A very distinguished writer and his American wife settled in a small terrace house, right on the main street.  No one knew why they had chosen to live in a Welsh village, known only for slate mining.   The man was really odd but word had it that he had been twice nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature, so that stunned the locals into silence.   His output continued, but his major books had already been written and published. And then he became ill and was taken to hospital in Chester, and was quickly discharged and returned home to die.   His widow remained in the village – she hardly ever went out and had no visitors. But a friendship developed between Anna and the widow – Anna was sixteen or so and the widow was in her seventies.  They sat in the tiny living room and talked endlessly about Anna’s life at school and what she wanted to do in the future.  She was happy to chat and tell the frail, bright-eyed lady everything about herself;  she told her things that she would never mention to anyone else. She started to love the woman’s voice –  it was the voice of Emily Dickenson. One afternoon Anna followed her up the narrow stairs to see the room where her husband had worked.   It was small and unfurnished – just a bookcase and a desk and a chair at the window.  There wasn’t a carpet and the wooden boards creaked under her school shoes.   The desk was plain wood with a sloping top – like clerks used in Victorian times.  Sunlight poured through the dusty window, but only on that side of the room.  She looked down and saw the river and how the weeds looked like a woman’s long hair being rinsed.  The woman was explaining something and her words lost their meaning, it was just the music of her voice – highly educated, soft cadences, summer afternoons,  a slight insinuation, love letters so old that the paper melted and crumbled in your fingers.  She felt faint and the woman quickly reached out for her –  and then the woman said, in her best Boston voice – ‘I think you and I should have a nice glass of whiskey!’

[killadeathspray]

Making Mick

I can’t even remember what this started out as… I had begun a painting and immediately hated it (which happens almost all the time). So I decided to just mess around with a background and see what come of it. I had wanted to do a Rolling Stones/Mick Jagger painting for a while as a tribute to my dad, so I thought why not try it out on here? ‘Mick’ came together as a 3-layer stencil. White, grey,…