Category: Uncategorised

I’ve decided – not for the first time – to stop using Facebook.

Why? For several reasons. First, I waste a lot of time on FB, trawling through stuff I’m not really that interested in. And second, and most fundamentally, the way FB is run, and who by.

The amount of toxic crap FB showers me with… it’s just not something – like advertising generally (and especially gambling advertising) – I want to expose myself to.

I need to discipline myself to focus on things that will keep me happy and healthy, and help support me as a creator, not just a zombie consumer.

As billionaires go, Zuckerberg seems more enlightened than most. But I think, along with some others, that such obscene wealth – concentrated in the hands of just one person – in the world as it currently is, should not be allowed.

Somebody – ironically on FB, I think? – said such folk should receive some kind of ‘congrats, you won the game of Capitalism’ type medal, or award, and have the bulk of their wealth redistributed for the benefit of the many.

Not only is such concentration of wealth obscene and immoral. It’s incredibly dangerous. Money is power in our current world. And such wealth gives certain individuals ridiculous leverage.

What Elon Musk is up to, right now in the US, in cahoots with the orange sock puppet, Trump, is extremely worrying. Gutting government in order to essentially privatise and make corporate the running of one of the worlds’ most powerful and dangerous powers.

Anyway, in an attempt to live a better live, FB… adieu.

I can’t believe it… I’m making art, and enjoying it. This is getting on for a first, in absolutely donkey’s years.

It’s not just that I’m doing it at all. That in itself is something. It’s that I feel as if everything up to this point is somehow coalescing, in a good and meaningful way.

I’m no longer fretting about my diverse magpie strands of interest. I literally seem to have shed that complicated sense of impostership, to mint a new word.

I’m happy to take whatever I’m interested in – which is very varied – draw on it (note artsy pun), and then synthesise and filter it. Or should that be vice versa?

A couple of CDs plopped through the letterbox this morning:

These two new arrivals run the gamut from massively and happily more than I’d hoped for, and ‘oops, wrong item!’

The Houston Person disc went straight into the CD player, in Flo’. And, to my surprise and delight, it turned out to contain both of Person’s last two Prestige recordings, Broken Windows, Empty Hallways, and Sweet Buns & Barbeque. Both from ‘72, the year of my own ‘release’.

I thought I’d only got Broken Windows, Empty Hallways, and that I still needed to find a CD re-ish of Sweet Buns & Barbeque. But no, they’re both on this one CD… result-o-rama!!!

I’m hoping the Freedom CD will be good, as well. But there was some disappointment on opening the parcel, as I thought I’d ordered the Soul Jazz book, not the CD. So I still want/need to get the book…

Houston Person does an instrumental version of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, on Broken Windows, Empty Hallways. And that got me thinking about how, whilst I have most of The Beatles’ albums on CD, I have almost nothing by any of them post-Beatles.

I do have George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and Wings’ Band On The Run. But that’s it. No Lennon, nor any non-Wings solo McCartney. I must remedy this!

I must admit, All Things Must Pass, is, to my ears, distinctly underwhelming. and then there’s the solo stuff by Ringo. His first post-Beatles album, Sentimental Journey was universally panned. And his next, Beaucoups of Blues, is a country and Western record!

But back to Houston Person, and co. This single CD reissue of his last two Prestige recordings is great. A real treat. A stellar cast of sidemen, with such luminaries as Grady Tate, Bernard Purdie and Ron Carter, amongst others, really deliver.

In the seventies, and even right up to the present, many soi-disant jazz purists (moldy figs!) sneered at the way jazz of that period returned, somewhat, to one its many roots, inasmuch as repertoire is often culled from popular songs of the day.

I don’t mind that at all. Although of course it depends what the songs are, and how they are treated. And the arrangements here are great fun. There are elements of pop, easy-listening, and even TV or movie soundtrack. Making for a rich yet funkily jazzy whole.

I recall reading, on several occasions, people wondering why coffee has become a cult.

One example of this may have been a Viz piece (I can’t recall exactly where it was) lampooning the idea that having a coffee was an ‘activity’.

I’ve been pleased to discover that it’s not just me who wonders why this particular bean has risen to such cult status. Reading stuff along the lines of, ‘is it ‘cause coffee might be the legal wonder-drug of choice fueling capitalism?’ type stuff.

Turning a stimulant that’s long and often been sold as a natural pick me up or energy booster into a cult hobby is a (literal) capitalist wet dream. Worship what allows you to work harder/longer.

Coffee can of course be very nice. But I’m amongst those who feel coffee worship has gone way too far.

Yesterday and and today I’ve suddenly and unaccountably felt the return of the desire to get creative, and make some art.

It scares me, in ways, truth be told. Because I really don’t know what I want to do. I have a lot of ideas. Some of which concern learning a thing or two from Tove Jansson. Hence the pics of hers in this post.

You might note the nature theme. And in particular, woods and trees. Or the archetypal dark forest. Jansson often has her little folk exploring and adventuring in these archetypal settings: caves, mountains, forests, the sea. And home, of course.

I love trees, and nature. And I’d like to distil something from combining a study of Tove’s stuff, and elements from other sources; some of it my own, other bits borrowed, or plain stolen.

‘I only want to live in peace plant potatoes and dream.’ Wow! Now there’s a philosophy to live by.

I also love the way that in becoming ‘the artist’ (beret), Moomin becomes blind, and walks off a cliff. To my mind, as much as this scenario sends up the folly of life generally, it also captures the essence of being an artist. To make art is, or can (perhaps even should) be, stepping off the ledge, into the unknown.

Which idea returns me to the theme of my second paragraph in this post, above… ‘quest into the unknown’!

Bah!!

I was inhumanly tired today. So much so I was laboured in my breathing, moving slowly, and got ‘the shakes’.

The latter made me think I must be hungry, or having some kind of sugar or energy crash. So I had a bite of late-ish lunch (about 3.30 pm) at Anne’s Thai Café. Spending money I can ill afford. But I figured I simply had to eat. And eat well.

I got home about 4 pm. And proceeded to sleep on the sofa for about 90 minutes to two hours. To be awoken in the dark, by Teresa getting home, somewhere near 6 pm.

Of course, at any point from waking up till about 6 pm I could simply lay down and go to sleep. But come bed/sleep time? Not a fucking chance! Despite two Valerian tablets and a small tot of ‘medicinal’ whiskey.

I’ve been sleeping really well for ages. Why, in the last week or so, has this godawful insomnia suddenly reared its ugly mother-loving head?

And of course it hits worst on nights like tonight, when I have an early start and a long day at work tomorrow. It’s like my mind and body are determined to fuck me up!

I suppose I do need to exercise much more regularly. We did do our ‘seniors’ Joe Wicks-ercise this evening (first time in aeons). And I should also try getting up earlier, and not sleeping during the day.

But as already noted, I’d been sleeping very well despite the lack of exercise, or early rising, and with much daytime sleeping, before. So why this sudden outbreak of insomnia?

Human language isn’t strong enough to convey how I loathe insomnia. I just wish I could switch off my conscious mind. That seems to me one of the prime issues. Super itchy feet at night don’t help tho’, either.

The latter’s been an issue for me for quite a while – a few years, I’d say – of late. I use athletes’ foot powder, when it gets unbearable.

Why is it my body and mind are at war with themselves? That’s also essentially what psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are; manifestations of the body’s own immune system at war with itself/the body!

Gaaah!!!

Already this evening I’ve tried just laying there, hoping I’ll drift off, eventually. Two Valerian pills (I take one or two most nights). A small dram o’ whiskey. Meditating (mindfulness of breathing), soothing rain sounds, different positions, reading a bit… all sorts!

But nowt stops the racing febrile mind. Sleep, which I could do at the drop of the hat all the live long day, just will not come…

This arrived today. Disc one is currently playing.

I’m planning to watch as much of the Julian Bream BBC TV Master Class stuff as I can find. And it was watching a bit of one of them that prompted me to buy this 3-CD set, of his early recorded works.

I’m hyper-exhausted today. Which is quite common for me these days. It’s never pleasant. But at least I can lie back, relax, and enjoy this sublime music. Indeed, the beauty of it is a balm.

The CD player appears to be stuck in a looping mode. When CDs end, they simply start playing again. Actually I don’t mind this at all. As the music on our CD player is always the best, auto-repeat is something of a boon!

One thing struck me, very forcibly, just now, as disc one of this wonderful set auto-restarted, was Bream’s command of nuanced tone/expression. Which, funnily enough, was something he was talking about, and demonstrating – alongside a very gifted student – on the Master Class episode I recently watched on the BBC iPlayer.

This consists of such things as touch – the soft parts of fingers, or the nails, for example (affecting volume/tone) – the position of the left hand – over the sound-hole, or closer to the bridge (again, affecting both tone and volume, albeit in subtly differing ways), and then how the left hand holds the notes, which – combined with the right – gives control over attack/release.

False harmonics, tapping or thumping (or whatever) the body of the guitar. There are so many things one can do. These latter are things more modern guitarists have taken to creative extremes in recent years. But Bream demonstrates in his playing a much older deeper tradition, of expressivity, that’s always been inherent in all great music.

Five records are combined over three CDs: four for the Westminster label, and one on RCA. Disc one, still playing as I type this, is all Spanish composers, and draws on his records Spanish Guitar Vol. 1 and Spanish Guitar Vol. 2. As the album titles convey, this is all guitar.

Disc two finishes off the Spanish material, starting with the last three tracks off Spanish Guitar Vol. 2. It then moves on to Bream playing Bach and Dowland. CD three is roughly half the rest of the Dowland material, and finally The Art of Julian Bream, which has a more smorgasbord type selection of material.

I haven’t heard discs two or three yet. But, if they’re on a par with disc one, as I fully expect they will be, we’re in for a treat. I paid just under £18 for this three disc/five album collection. I generally try and spend less, in these straitened times. But this was easily well worth it.

I was going to give this film four, or maybe four and a half stars. But when it finished, I knew that I loved it. And very little in life – this film included – is perfect. So it’s the full five. I really love this film.

And one of the main reasons – actually in reality several strands, but let’s keep things simple – is also the reason a lot of folk (e.g. this movie has, at the time of posting this, a score of just 14% on rotten tomatoes!) don’t like it.

And that’s the fact it’s not a typical gunslingin’ type Western. Set in Kentucky, it could be said, rather, to be an Eastern!

I love this movie. Sure it’s a bit hokey. But it’s very unlike most Westerns. In fact it’s not really a Western, at all. Or certainly not in the usual sense. And the folk who judge it as such are way off the mark.

It’s actually a story about human relationships. And a father and son relationship is at the heart of it all. The fact that it’s about a father and son trying to seek their fortune in Texas, and that it’s set in frontier era America.

Burt not only stars in this film. He also directed it. And I think he did a terrific job. But then I’m really quite sentimental. I know that it’s a very cornball take on a certain view of a certain time in American history. But it has a great deal of intrinsic value. And I pity those that can’t see that. They’re really missing out. 

This film has heart. Soul, even. It’s about humanity. At its best and at its worst. It’s about visions of what humanity is, and what it might be. What humans do to each other, to control each other, conform, and suchlike. These are good themes.

And these are themes that are disappearing from mainstream film, and entertainment more broadly, as it becomes ever more shallow, and – of the irony – conformist. 

There are elements of the trad Western in the mix. The McGuffin driving the plot is a blood feud between the Wakefield’s, and the Fromes. Big and little Eli (and their pooch) are being pursued by the relentless cold hearted Frome brothers.

The charm of the film works on numerous levels: it’s beautifully filmed, with beautiful actors; the music (Bernard Hermann, no less!) is great. The script, if a little hokey – the dialect is a bit like a Yankee equivalent of Dicjens rendering the British working classes – is very good.

One of the strongest cards the film plays is a kind of mytho-poetic meeting of and conflict between salt of the earth goodness, and various forms of so-called civilised compromise or corruption. Even the name of the town, Humility, where they wind up stopped on their odyssey to Texas, is redolent with this parable like quality.

Lancaster’s physical charisma, or more bluntly, his masculine beauty, is powerfully on display here. And Donald MacDonald, as Little Eli, is perfectly cast, as the literal ‘mini-me’ child. Father and son not only look (and dress) alike, but allow the story to compare and contrast how man and boy react to their experiences.

The story is based on the book, The Gabriel Horn. And this rather Freudian symbol of manhood figures large in the movie. Once again operating more on the level of folk tale or parable than documentary history.

Another charming aspect of this film is how it embodies a loving homage to a bygone era, of both optimistic colonialism, and the minutiae of American life at that time. so called revisionist Westerns would come along later, to look at the darker sides of these times. But this is – despite several grittier threads (the blood feud; innocence vs corruption, etc.) – for the most part, a celebration of a semi-mythical past.

Having said all of this, this tale of an epic colonial trek is, for brief moments, shockingly violent. But it’s done in a very tame or sanitised way, by the standards of our own times. And in this particular respect, whilst the film as a whole is more myth or parable, it’s actually a helluva lot more realistic than most macho fantasy gunslingin’ Westerns.

Having just used the term macho, it behooves me to address the feminine aspect of the film, as beautifully embodied in the forms of Hannah Bolden (indentured, or white slave girl), on the wilder side, and Susie Spann (school mistress/teacher, in Humility, played by Diana Lynn), as the more tamed or civilised femme.

As a dewy-eyed romantic, I love how this aspect of the film is handled. But ladies might find it less attractive nowadays? I don’t know… There’s a degree of male fantasy at okay: Big (and noble/beautiful) Eli gets his pick of the squaws here!

Having just referred to the indigenous folk of the US, it’s worth noting they are – from what I recall (writing this the day after viewing) – entirely absent from this very romantic rendering of 19th C. America. And ‘the negro’ is only represented by a troop of singing and dancing performers, on the riverboat. This latter vessel is almost a character deserving its own credit in the film.

One of only two movies Lancaster directed (what’s the other?), I love it. And it makes one wonder what else he might’ve done. Given the opportunity.

PS – There’s a few good articles about the film/DVD online, such as here, or here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01kvxrx

Wow! How wonderful. The BBC, doing so well what it once did so often: educate, entertain, and inform.

Sadly I don’t seem able to embed the video, at least not like I can with YouTube vids. But there is the link.

Thanks to Cy, whoever they may be.

I don’t really know why – even though it’s explained in the liner notes – the more recent official release of Turiya Sings stripped away the strings.

I hear what Ravi (?) Coltrane is saying, when he says [find quote] … But surely they could have, and indeed should have, put out a set including both versions. It’s quite astonishing that even her own progeny feel the need to ‘curate’ (or tamper with?) Alice’s work.

The negative reaction to what Alice did with some of her husband’s music, most specifically on the brilliant – but much maligned (at the time) – Infinity, is the clearest antecedent.

I believe there is a CD version of the full Alice mix, on the Italian B. Free label (I’m trying to get a copy). But in the meantime, at least this is online, so we can hear what Alice intended.