Great to have Ken back this morning. Mornings at home are back on track. First Popmaster and the second contestant got the full 39 points, nice bloke and so refreshing when someone actually knows the answers without hesitation, a joy to listen to. There is a podcast if you missed it.
Ken is on Greatest Hits Radio and just the same as he always was, of course.
Yesterday I thought I would enter the Bridport Poetry Competition so I am writing a poem. It is not to be published anywhere at all if it is to be entered in the competition so no snippets here. The Bridport Competition is one of the most prestigious poetry competitions in the country, that of having a high status as the definition goes, and when our poetry class said on Zoom one day about entering competitions I was the only one who said I would go for the top one and bugger all the rest of the little ones. In for the best or not at all. Of course I don't stand a chance because past winners always have something of a poetry cv behind them and other awards and creative writing MAs and stuff like that. But so what. I'll have a go at anything.
Poetry writing is extremely difficult. I have learned that even top poets such as Simon Armitage take hours and hours and weeks and weeks to write one poem and make loads of notes first and then lots and lots of drafts before anything like the finished poem comes out. But the end result always makes poetry writing look easy.
One of my favourite contemporary poets is Tony Harrison. He is still alive and writing I suppose. He is 85 now. He was quite controversial once upon a time. The poem that was controversial is called V. It's a poem about England then and the working class and Thatcher and in your face and harsh. The poem is V and Harrison is in a graveyard overlooking Leeds and his father is buried there and Harrison writes what is revealed of life at that time from the graveyard and the graffiti and it is rough and to the point without apology. It got read out on TV at the time and some were shocked in 1984 because of the words .
Yesterday was a tiring day made even more so by the evening out the night before at the local pop-up theatre to see the touring acting troupe which found me still watching the last play at way past my bedtime.
So last night I made up for it by going to bed at 7.30 when tiredness overcame me and I just had to go to bed.
Yesterday began with the visit to the ear clinic. I made a decision to drive and park as near as possible. Even this resulted in a 25 minute walk. I arrived early because it was a new location for the clinic and I didn't want to be late. This was worth it because as soon as the first patient came out Nick waved me in even though I said I knew I was early and was prepared to wait. The ears were both extremely waxed up blocking my eardrums and it took a while to deal with but successful in the end and I am now hearing 100%.
I decided that even though I was in the city it was going to be a four hour wait for the seminar in the afternoon and I am not happy these days to wander around the shops and it brings me no contentment whatsoever so I decided to go home again and come back later. It all worked fine, I was able to have lunch at home and go through my notes on the Mechanical Reproduction of Art ready for the seminar before returning to the city by train later.
2pm I returned to the city. I arrived in time to read the local paper and get a coffee but not in McDonalds as at that time of the day it is too busy to get a table. I sat outside at a café and breathed in the cold air to which I have grown much more accustomed after two years of outdoor living during Covid.
The seminar went very well and the interest in Walter Benjamin's 1932 essay and its relevance to today in terms of photojournalism, persuasion of the masses, power of photos to tell a story. and the loss of the aura (uniqueness) of art in the photograph was good and prompted much discussion.
I got home and found that because I have had such a busy week I had no clean plate to eat my tea off so resorted to a serving dish which worked equally well if not better than a normal dinner plate. The dishwasher has now dealt with all the dirty crockery most of which was already in the said machine but it had not been switched on. Later, as described above, I went to bed early.
The day before, on the same day as the theatre evening I had my History of Art class where Susan asked in a comment who we looked at. It is not until now that I have time to tell you. We looked at two Welsh Artists.
The main artist we looked at was Shani Rhys James. A contemporary painter who was I believe featured in the Channel 4 programme during Covid of What Do Artists Do All Day. I will take a look to see if it is still available. Here is an example of her work and probably best sums her up rather than any of my words. Very colourful and very typical example. I like her work a lot. (The woman in the painting is the artist's mother).
The small troupe of four actors entertained us with two medieval short plays or plays in a medieval style of touring actors around the countryside of old. The first was in a Shakespearean style in verse and was the story of the Annunciation. I had no idea what to expect and was totally unprepared for this but I soon I understood that we had Mary and the Angel Gabriel before us along with Joseph and we were in the presence of joy and celebration. I thought of school, Edward Burne-Jones and his painting of the Annunciation, and all good things. The message of the play I suppose was love and tolerance. For me it worked very well.
The second play had a more modern slant and was set in an allotment garden with a man trying to be a good man with growing his vegetables and tending his plants but being thwarted by two set only on devilment and upsetting him. In the end of course goodness saw through and we were reminded that it is our responsibility to be good people in more Shakespearean type verse.
Each play lasted for one hour which was just right.
The hall was full and the little troupe of four energetic young actors were well appreciated. Their props were boxes and good lighting which worked like magic to bring the stage to life. I noticed from the programme that they were backed by many helpers in bringing the production to the stage although we did not see them except for a round of applause for the lighting man at the back of the hall.
I enjoyed my evening out with a friend.
Now I must go and get on. I have things to do today.
Another grey morning with plenty of rain overnight. Well at least the drought of last summer is being made up for and nobody can complain about lack of water in ditches and dykes, yellow grass and shrivelled leaves. Spring is bursting through green and bountiful and all is returning to how it should be in this green and pleasant land.
This afternoon I have the last History of Art class, not the same group as tomorrow's seminar, and I have no idea who we will be looking at or whether we will be presented with a test paper. I have a feeling that Mike will ignore the request for written tests from us.
Tonight I am out which is a rarity having been invited to an evening of short sketches to be performed by an amateur touring drama company funded by Arts East who survive on a small budget of government funding and ticket sales. A friend has organised the tickets and I am to meet her there. It is nearby and a short drive away. We are supporting these local entertainments like the poetry readings recently on the basis that support them or we lose them and they are of course very good with enthusiastic organisers and actors most of whom are young people. Goodness knows how they survive, on enthusiasm and luck and followers who hopefully turn up and pay for a ticket on the door I suppose.
I will tell you how it went in the next post.
I did not feel bright enough to post yesterday. Partly due to not seeing anyone for a few days and partly due to the clock change and a general malaise that I can't put a name to except that I am currently deaf in one ear and that totally upsets my equilibrium and being told I have to wait until Thursday to see my ear clinic man who will clear it for me.
I am one of those people who finds not being able to hear totally debilitating. I can't hear the kettle, the car engine, the tv, where any sound is coming from, the woodburner heating up clicking sound is like it is coming from the other side of the room when actually it is coming from right next to me on the other side, etc. etc. (Everything sounds wrong). My brother rang me on Sunday and hearing him was ok with the good ear but that is not my normal phone ear so it became awkward. The phone ring sounds different for starters which I also find disconcerting.
He said they were going out so I said just as well because I can't hear. (He is the one who said my ear problems, when they occur, change my personality). Anyway all should be well on Thursday morning and just in time for the History of Art seminar in the afternoon when I present on Walter Benjamin and the age of the mechanical reproduction essay that I wrote about over the weekend.
I now only have to decide about the train for that day as it is a lot for one day, the strike is off which presents me with a decision Do I drive or do I train and do a lot of walking? When I can't hear all decision making goes into reverse. I think I am probably weird in this respect. When my brother can't hear he doesn't seem to care which is a lot of the time.
Today was good but I would like to have had better hearing however I sat according to the good ear best side. It was our last philosophy class. We had end of term exam because the government has declared that we need to provide evidence that we are learning something. I doubt that anyone will read our answers although they are to be scanned to the relevant funding body's office. Our tutor went through the answers with us and I did alright. He will read them I am sure but I think it will end there.
I was pleased to see people today and we had lunch together and it cheered me no end although I was aware that I was possibly shouting and was missing things. I went for my now usual McDonalds coffee first and took a friend with me who I bumped into on the way between the station and the city centre and introduced her to McDonalds touch screen ordering. She has worked around the world. was married to a philosophy professor at York and has always refused to go to a McDonalds in Slovenia having avoided McDonalds for a year when she worked there alone (we discussed good relationships and the fact that you don't always have to do things together so she left the philosophy professor in York for 12 months and did her own thing). Today she experienced it and we chatted like it was a local café anywhere in the world (one to one with a deaf ear is not too bad) and she is hooked on the coffee at least being ok and the ambience being more than passable.
I have just received an email to say that one of the Davids that I lunched with in Cambridge and London has passed away very suddenly. This is very sad news. He was a one off. I only knew him for a short while and he was a friend of the David I met in Ukraine. RIP David.
Well it's Sunday morning and here we are again. I have just done Wordle in three so that took care of about 30 seconds. I have had a bowl of rice krispies and milk and a cup of green tea.
Fire cat is sitting on arm of chair with me.
It looks like it has been raining all night. It is still raining and grey and dull.
I have no plans for today
Last night I read aloud in the house the essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (German critic, essayist, Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)) which I have not read since I was an art student 25 years ago and in a moment of madness I have volunteered to speak about next Thursday at my History of Art seminar. This volunteering was seized upon by my tutor Fiona and who by email has asked that I at least quote from the essay at the seminar when I said I did not have copies for all to read. I have only my book wherein it is contained from college.
So that is what I was doing with Everything Everywhere All At Once on quietly in the background having found it was freely available on Prime for the comfort and joy of it as well as eating a kebab and drinking red wine.
I recommend Walter Benjamin to you and if you can get hold of Illuminations please do. (Illuminations is the collection of essays wherein this particular one is contained). My copy also has a wonderful 40 page introduction by Hannah Arendt which must be read.
The book contains the essay along with other essays such as how to make your own book collection entitled Unpacking my Library which I am sure will be of interest to some of you book fiends. "And you have read all these?" he was asked "not one tenth of them and I suppose you use your Sévres china everyday" he retorted. And another entitled The Task of the Translator.
This is a gem of a collection of essays and one I will re-read the whole of once Thursday is out of the way.
In the essay I am reading Benjamin was ahead of his time in lamenting what was to come in the immense transformation that art was going to see from the intervention of mechanical reproduction in the destruction of the aura, uniqueness, of the original work of art by the use of photography. The viewing of all the most splendorous of works from all over the world anywhere, by anyone, and the loss of the cult and the spiritual origins of the work.
He was actually coming from a political point in the rise of Fascism at the time in Germany and the power of propaganda photographs and the ability it had to send political messages and the unavoidable negative consequences.
When the Nazis took away his library and his apartment whilst he was escaping Paris to safety in Spain (on his way to America) he took his own life in the mountains. Life was no more for him without his books.
I only took that original class at art school by chance having thought on the spur of the moment it would be a good idea to take the opportunity offered to mix with some other students from the print faculty rather than stay exclusively with the fine art class I was in. I had thought that maybe some others would do the same but that did not happen. I arrived in a class of about twenty 18/19 year old boys all of whom seemed much cleverer than me and very confident. (For some reason the class did not attract any girls). The class turned out to be one of the best and I would learn to think outside the box here more than anywhere else. We were sent out on camera expeditions in the city and each bring a print of something obscure we had photographed and those 18/19 year olds opened my eyes. This was just before the time of the digital film and would involve film and taking it to be developed and quite often the single use camera as exercises in photography. I don't remember the name of the class but I made a good choice.
I have also chosen an iconic image for Thursday from the press which is the man in front of the tank in Tianenman Square, The Tank Man. I can't get an image to publish but I am sure you know the picture I mean with the man standing in front of a row of advancing military tanks.
