Amen, there’s a ring around the moon… there’s a light inside my chest that switched on when we first met and it will not let me rest… Amen. This is my favourite Jolie Holland song from Escondida.
Amen
Im Planetarium
Kap. Wlodek from their 1999 album Aus Glücklichen Tagen on Trikont, sehr schöne Musik.
Beautiful Cosmos
This is for Ivor Cutler, in performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with The Roches, in the next seat at a Dollar Brand concert at Camden Town Hall, in the same train carriage from Hampstead Heath to Gospel Oak, now sadly departed. Also for Cosmo the cat, Beautiful Cosmo. These colour photographs are 100 years old from Russia. Cosmo is 15 years old from a cat shelter in Haringey.
X-Ray Discs
Two framed flexi discs from the 1950s Soviet Union where underground samizdat recordings were pressed onto discarded x-ray film for the distribution of jazz music, which was prohibited after WW2. Continue reading “X-Ray Discs”
Mingus Says…
Conference Of The Birds
David Rees Davies brought us a few of his joyful paintings of birds. These are the first arrivals and hopefully more will follow soon, maybe a spring migration. He sent some words too. Continue reading “Conference Of The Birds”
Folly Hill Return
July just before the Olympics I sat on Faringdon Folly Hill. Bright sun. Clear colour. White Horse Hill in the distance. From the west a ripple of coloured bands. Wavering smoke rainbow. Drawn through the Vale of the White Horse by a squadron of the Red Arrows as they practiced for the Olympics. Paul Nash battle of Britain paintings enacted just for me. Continue reading “Folly Hill Return”
Beckett At Sixty
Samuel Beckett rehearsing Endgame and ‘having an idea’ with the San Quentin Drama Workshop at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in 1980. I worked there intermittently in those days, even had a small exhibition of my paintings there, and the house photographer Chris Harris, knowing how much I loved Beckett, gave me a print of this photograph for my birthday. Continue reading “Beckett At Sixty”
Sutra
Five years after its first performance I finally got to see Sutra last week at Sadler’s Wells. It was worth waiting for. It’s an intense, concentrated burst of energy. 20 Kung-Fu monks behaving like curious cats in an exuberent exploration of the ins and outs of boxes. It opens with a ‘choreographer’ (down right) describing a moving line by hand over miniature boxes whilst a monk (centre stage) dances the same line over full size boxes. This duality continues throughout the performance, playing with ideas of thought/action, self/other, inner/outer, micro/macro… Continue reading “Sutra”
Five French Gardens
I was looking at Greg Becker’s Pinterest page, The Wild Allotment, a lovely collection of green-fingered imagery and a great escape from our endless winter. It got me thinking about visits to other, slightly more manicured gardens, but most importantly gardens filled with sunshine. Indulge me while I recall warmer days. This is Le Prieuré d’Orsan where we stayed for one memorable night in 2006. Continue reading “Five French Gardens”