Come and Keep Your Comrade Warm.....

Hello again, 

So here I sit drinking a beer and watching the nonsense that is Tom Cruise's ultimate film "Cocktail" and I thought what way could I better spend my time? well um doing this.. obviously.. 

So here I am back again to regale you with not only the excitement (sic) of my life, the wonders and enjoyment.. What have I been doing? Wondering, firstly, how with no real talent Tom Cruise's character got into not only uni, but got A JOB bartending, flaring or whatever... having had no skills whatsoever.. and is now running his own bar in Jamaica (and if it's not his own bar then he's in charge of it enough to fuck every girl there and make cocky comments til the cows go home...)

What is life but a lot of bad '80s movies? sigh. 

Wrong!!! I have had many a time in the last few days watching interesting documentaries.. most notably about Island records.. It was rather enlightening, and saddening that I can't set up my own record label... and get Roxy Music, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff etc. The Harder they come... the harder they fall apparently.. seems apt... on it.. But anyway a few excellent songs that were on the programme include early Roxy Music,( look at video..... make me a deaaaal and make it straight...) a time to reminisce of times (that fair enough I wasn't alive for) when Bryan Ferry wasn't a twatty fool who fathered some ignorant toffs.. but had amazing sequined coats, a sexy quivery voice and looked like an extra from the glam rock lord of the rings.. (especially with Eno behind me.... he has elf king hair written all over him)


We are flying down to Riooooooo...

Speaking of Eno I have been regularly listening to the lovely and echoing "Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and him... which has a creeepy, nihilistic video .. about oddness, there are strange overtones in the music I am playing I suppose.. I also suppose I like to express something to the neighbours by playing it loud enough for them to hear. but who needs modern nonsense.... more Bowie than now-ie (oo god that was awful)

As on my travels through the Pool of Livers I have found some kind of vague employment (fingers crossed) and I'm not entirely sure what it is doing.. but as the blind leading the blind lamb to the slaughter I shall go forth put my artistic and creative tendencies to one side and maybe try and find some kind of artistic intent in the world of bank related madness..... After said job finding (in unnamed bank related establishment- in these recessional times I think it's best to stay unnamed... boo hiss big banks boo hiss bankers.. boo hisss selling your soul.. boo hiss aaaargh)

So after the walk around town job hunting, (and putting a CV in for work at a boutique that previously fucked me around- beggars can't be choosers) I went to the miraculously beautiful Walker Art Gallery in the centre of Liverpool. If you've never been stop reading now and fuck off there... It's gorgeous entrance hall makes me smile ridiculously and want to cry at the same time as it smells of art, and work and and paint and sweat and beauty.  The first gallery, full of statues, is exquisite, and I could sit in there trying to read the faces of the marble creatures, the gorgeous head of female warriors, Zeus, and the beautiful (with a lovely hat) Cupid in disguise.. Venus, all the classical, grand stone creations about to move, if you'd just watch them long enough.. smiling and weeping... A feeling of utter inadequacy swells and the budding artist in me both at once exhales and inhales... knowing on one hand that this is what you want to do with your life, dedicating it to the pursuit of beauty and light, but also the fact that you may never fulfill any kind of pursuit in any kind of achievable way .. not like Millais or Sickert... 

A tranquil vivacious sea with bathers in it.. a pontism beauty, Freud's sense of snide humour (on his model, Harry Diamond, remarking that he'd painted his legs too short he simply said "They are too short") the mystical and Romantic classicism of the Pre Raphaelites, depicting effigies of Keats' greatest poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, with "purple passion" and "burning Porphyro", the gorgeous Romantic colours, shining a light of a cold, bitter and chilled winter outside through a coloured glass window into the gloomy castle lit only by the young lovers' passion and pure love. Hunt shows the debauched revellers of the castle being passively judged by the young lovers, as they flee hideous captivity in each others' arms.. sigh.. 

Or Millais' heartwrenching Rosalind in the Arden forrest, cross dressing and beat like she's just been ravished in a cross dressed forestry related orgy.. only in an innocent kind of way...
or his Isabella.. all the school ALevel related nonsense goes out of the window and you can try and appreciate the young girls' passionate act of love, even in the morbid nature of Isabella's keeping Lorenzo's head in a pot and the gristly teeth of her hateful brothers. 

and my favourite, if not inaccurate, Funeral of Shelley, (quite apt as our fish named Shelley also died at sea this week.. ) attended by Byron and Leigh Hunt in a brooding, cloudy heartwrenching gathering clouded beach of sadness.

So yes, there I sat in the presence of Holbein's impending doom filled stare of Henry VIII's tight ladened legs knitting and being calm and quiet, in a room filled with Kings, Queens, Ladies, Knights and me.. The heating was broken in the Walker so they apologised for the fluctuating temperatures, but maybe it's some kind of installation, the rooms are of different temperatures, life goes through different temperatures, too hot too cold, or just right.. bored, too bored, too busy or too utterly depressingly saddeningly crushed within an inch of life... either too much or too little.. but strangely the Holbein room was perfect.... I sat and stared and wondered and thought of little of importance and felt happy for a bit.. which was nice.. Gosh I do sound rather maudlin but I promise tis no fear gentle reader.. I was just perchance feeling melancholy, glutting my sorrow if you will.. 

I shall just have to be a wishful artist in the body of a bank assistant... trapped in the blue polyester of the working world, banished of feathers and lights and fur trimmed nonsense items of which I love.  I have to find some kind of way to not sell my soul, achieve some kind of creative satisfaction and live off something.. the impossible dream non? Ceci n'est pas une pipe? Ceci n'est pas une banker.... ceci c'est le dernier de l'idealistic Romantiques.... 

Maybe I'll just buy a big sign like those outside old cinemas and put my own name on it... in various roles... just to make myself feel better.. or maybe just like I've achieved something that day... 

I've had to make do with covering my bathroom in Pre-Raphaelite postcards.. though as I've nicely put before listening to music makes things seem a lot LOT lot better.. as I sit and whimsically paint pictures of those I love, and attempt maybe to detract from the whimsy itself, (but then again maybe I should just chose to embody Whimsy in a painting.. without crying clowns, small children or bubbles... just something whimsical.... Ironically.. Whimonically...

I've dedicated myself to a new scarf however, a short lived but nonetheless entertaining pursuit as I wait for the light to return to my window so I can paint the funny houses across the street.. So enough of the self indulgence really... what music shall I recommend this week dear lover? (sorry house in joke and if anybody in my house does read it then I'm sure I'll get some weird comments at some point) OH yes how could I forget...? The annual get drunk and dance like an old Drunken twat weekend (otherwise known as The Mathew Street Festival) hit the cobbly streets of Liverpool last weekend.. and it was beyond amusing... many highlights included other people making twats of themselves.. If you are unfamiliar with the weekend it is basically a festival with some of the biggest headliners in the world like, ever.... only the tribute version.. (ironically I saw some kids busking "Tribute" by Tenacious D in the Cavern Walks shopping centre.. actually come to think of that it was a rather ironic display all round, as they were face painted and playing drums on the bins) 

Of the bands I saw (only two or three to be honest) I was most disappointed by the silly man who was claimed to be the prominent Bob Dylan tribute act in the world or something silly... he only sang like Dylan (marginally) as a joke.. and sang the remnant of his set in a faux Americana country (cuntry) way throughout.. ruining amazing songs and enducing mass sing song versions of Blowin' in the Wind (with much handwaving) which were at once both horrid and kind of sweet in a mass British summer is over and we're all pissed way.  The only redeeming feature was a brief interlude when the American MC read some Woody Guthrie writing.. about a gorgeous little piece of paper going in the wind, not only travelling through life, and other people's lives... either burning, but being burnt on someone's memory still... 

THE best thing I saw had to be oldish woman, dressed in TIGHT WHITE JEANS.... who at first I thought was line dancing in a vague tarty WI way, but I slowly realised she was doing her much honed Mick Jaggger impression... how one can keep a straight face whilst watching her hip thrusting and finger pointing, all with the pouting and the grabbing young jailbait men to dance with in exchange for substances it was like a stones tribute band in the audience. 

The beautiful city streets do however, have an amazing atmosphere about them at the best of times, it's most definitely my favourite city in the world (maybe on a par with Paris) and the festival turns it into some kind of topsy turvy world. Amusing and a voyeur's dream... Walking down Church street you can see the excitement in eyes of the little (sorry but they were small) Japanese Beatles tribute band, dressed in Mop top outfits fully equipped with groupies, instruments and a Yoko shaped lady friend (a bit out of the time sequence but ho hum)

I've got some pictures to share but my computer is being rubbish so I'll post them at a later date.. but picture the lovely scene, having been hassled by two little scamps (ok they were about 15 but looked 12) to take booze off their hands, (weird and backward) cos they were scared of the fuzz, we walked through the rain, drinking a can of fosters getting suitably drizzled on, stopping only to shelter under a bridge, watching a bunch of charming little skater types sing covers in the rain... Back in the USSR ...

Soggy and disgruntled at having to watch a Kings of Leon tribute band sing Sex on Fire TWICE... (with little 7yr olds singing along in a creepy kind of way) I headed home.. later the sky was beautiful, the moon full and life strange and creeping.... 

Waiting to get my own bar, jump upon the bar telling poems, singing silly songs and find some kind of satisfaction....

What I've mostly been reading:David Nicholl's "One Day" which is awfully sad as it's somewhat poignant that I've yet to do much with my life much like the people in the book.. going from the day of their graduation two people meet, are they going to be together..? who knows.. but there's something there.. what is something who knows eh? but I couldn't read it for very long as it made me more sad than usual.. and I've gone on an amazon binge with my little money and bought a lot of French Poetry, mostly Paul Verlaine, and Dada related literature.  

I've mostly knitted: my scarf .. a delightfully huge and pom pommed yellow and grey mass of softness.

I've mostly listened to:Beatles covers, and silence. Devendra Banhart.Beach House and sad songs.

I've mostly been cooking: roasted stuffed peppers filled with Cranberry Wensleydale cous cous.. sounds ood tastes loooovely.. genius.

I have mostly been doing: stupid quizzes on Sporcle, though I do now know ALL of Shakespeare's plays.... go, waste time.. 

I've also fallen in love with a rather dark and sad painting of Ophelia by Henrietta Rae and found this Rimbaud poem.. enjoy..

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire; 
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

III

- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Arthur Rimbaud

Til then dear reader,

Cocktails and dreams...

xx