GNOSTIC OPTICS - The Creativity Of Your Self

'I am the one who conceals and then reveals your Self
But when you conceal your Self, I shall appear.
When you appear I'll hide.
Hold me to your Self from comprehension and regret.
Take me to your Self in ugly and ruined places.
Rob those who are good, even in their ugliness.
Ashamed, take me to your Self shamelessly;
scold my organs in yourself.

Advance, all that know me and my organs
establish high creatures amongst the lowly.
March onto childhood; don't hate that state
because it appears tiny.
Don't reject greatness in smallness.
My nature is peace; but war comes from me.
I am an exile and a subject;
I am substance and unsubstantial.

Those who do not cling to me are ignoramuses,
but those who dwell in my substance know me.
Those who are close do not know me.
When you are near I am distant.
On the day you are distant I am close.
I am within, in your heart;
I am your true nature,
the creativity of your Self.'

Taken from the chapter Thunder, The Gnostic Gospels
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 7

 Apparently........

Documentary

Footage

Unearthed
Of

Unknown
Peaceful
Protest
Twenty
Years
Later

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1980 - The Friend Catcher by The Birthday Party

I appear to be mining my love for heavily feedbacked guitar with some recent posts in this series. Here is another one, this time from The Birthday Party's debut album - Hee Haw. Though the Birthday Party came to prominence in the post punk era, they were only loosely related to that. They certainly took some of its desire to explore the boundless musical extremities, similar to The Pop Group. Despite Nick Cave's youthful exploration of dissolute histrionics, he is also exploring the quirks of a number of his own literary interests. His liking for drawing dark, twisted folklorish characters in his songs is exemplified here in The Friend Catcher. Musically The Birthday Party had few references to traditional rock, preferring to amplify a perverted mix of fairground, music hall and nursery rhymes. Everything turned up to a high volume of unsettling weirdness.

You can see the stylistic trajectory of Nick Cave's early career stretching out from this one track. Blessed as he was with a talented band of fellow musical brothers on the fringes. Tracy Pew on bass, given to consuming alcohol and drugs to the excess, who would to die six years on from this moment. There is Roland S Howard owner of the wild despairing guitar sound. Leaving the band before they morphed into the Bad Seeds. Died at the age of 50 from chronic Hepatitis C. Leaving only Cave and Mick Harvey from that band. Cave appears always to need a close musical collaborator and Harvey provided that for a long time. Caves dominant creative urgency and drive is, I imagine, a satisfying wave to ride with for a while. Aligning your own momentum to it. But it might also cramp or suffocate one's own.

She, by my chinny chin.chin.
Eee-oh Eee-oh
Like a zippo smokes the way
Hope, around
You and your lungs and your wrists
They throb like trains
Choo choo choose
It's a prison of sound
I poke around...

Whatever this is all about, it doesn't come across as remotely healthy. Painting a heightened picture of the darker side of humanity. A malign gothic gremlin emerging from the shadow side of our murky collective psyche.

 

FILM CLUB - The Battle of the River Plate

The Powell & Pressburger Season - 1956

During the early years of their professional partnership, Powell and Pressburger between them created a style of war film making that felt like 'cinema verite' even though it wasn't.  One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing was one such film, Frequently they used an actual event as the basis for it eg Ill Met By Moonlight. With The Battle of the River Plate they were using accounts of a pivotal incident in World War 2, and reconstructing in film a version that presents it as though it were a page by page reenactment. This is not a constructed drama with an essentially made up storyline. This is what happened. Their role in the making of this film, is to extract the drama from that event, and not build in some sort of artificial highly romanticised facsimile.

The film revolves around the activity of The Graf Spee, a German 'pocket' battleship which had gone to ground. Emerging to trap, capture and destroy cargo vessels bringing much needed supplies to the UK. Captain Longsdorf ( Peter Finch ) the German commander, is not at all your classic Nazi baddie, he's actually quite kind and understanding, a bit of a gentleman. Treating his captured crews with such dignity and respect that they hold him in high regard. But he has a job to do, to blow up supply vessels, so the Allies have to put a stop to his activity. The ships The Ajax, Achilles and Exeter, lead by Commodore Harwood ( Anthoy Quayle ) are the first to catch up with the Graf Spee and engage it in battle. The Exeter becomes severely damaged and is forced to retreat to the Falkland Islands. 

The Graf Spee limping away to Montevideo for repairs. Uruguay as a neutral country, permits the German pocket battleship only to stay for a couple of days for basic repairs. If it were to stay any longer the ship will be impounded. The British need her to stay, for the longer she remains in dock the more Allied ships will be arriving in the vicinity. When the deadline arrives, what will the Graf Spee do - make a run for it - engage in a suicidal confrontation? In the end Captain Longsdorf, realising he is facing a no win situation, takes his ship out of harbour, evacuates his crew and destroys the ship. 

The Battle of the River Plate is filmed in glorious technicolour that is beautifully sharp and so clean edged. As ever, Powell and Pressburger find a subject matter that suits their desire to subtly subvert your expectations. Yes, the battle sequences have guns, explosions and heroic endeavour, but this has a much grittier and slower paced realism than that. A real battle at sea being as much about the tactics and skills in out maneuvering. Getting as close as you can, without grievously endangering your own ship. The actual conflict and conflagrations are these brief intense clashes. The character of Capt Longsdorf is allowed to have some nobility and an ability to self sacrifice. He cares about the well being of his men, almost above and beyond the act of winning a sea battle. Ten years after the end of the war, it feels odd that in their last two films they returned to wartime subject matter. Perhaps they felt they could extract more from it, now they were in peacetime. But it is an odd trajectory to take after the richly colourful imaginatve films they'd produced during the forties. Maybe this was a sign that the partnership was beginning to run out of steam.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

CAVE NOTES - An Imperiled Life

 

'Each life is precarious,
and some of us understand it and some don't.
But certainly everyone
will understand it in time.
And because of that,
I feel a kind of empathy with people
that I never felt before.
It feels urgent and new and fundamental.
For the predicament
we have all found ourselves in
- the predicament of an imperiled life.'

Taken from Faith, Hope & Carnage
a series of conversations between Nick Cave & Sean O'Hagan
Published by Canongate.

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 6

 Apparently..........

The
Shocking
Truth
Of
A
Peaceful
Protest
That
Upset
No
One

FAVE RAVE - Annika

 At the beginning of every episode Annika ( Nicola Walker ) will speak into camera confidingly, usually about a subject, so far its been Captain Ahab, the Valkyre and Ibsen. And somewhere in the middle of this ramble through mythology or drama will emerge a theme to the crime she will be investigating this time. The 'to camera' confessional continue throughout each episode,as she ruminates about ideally the best things she could do to better support her daughter Morgan, just before she ploughs into it with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. The dialogue is snappy, constantly full of these little verbal quips and literary witticisms. Combined with a really solid crime drama I just love this show.

I also renew my love and devotion to the work of Nicola Walker. An actress who is just the bees knees as far as I'm concerned, I can't see anyone else doing what she does with the character of Annika. Its magical to behold, able to emotionally turn on the head of a pin, with just an intake of breath, or a sly look. Its a masterclass in how to break up phrasing and silences within sentences to tell you so much more than what she is often speaking. She is supported by a very solid crew of actors in the background, including the inestimable Kate Dikie, who so far has only had about five minutes screen time but has already communicated that Annika's boss, is a bit of a stern mischievous minx. Think Michelle Gomez in Green Wing. 

All six episodes available on BBC I Player

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Unfathomable Silence

' I am the unfathomable silence
and the thought that comes often,
the voice of many sounds,
and the word that appears frequently.'

Taken from the chapter - Thunder, The Gnostic Gospels
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

FILM CLUB - Ill Met By Moonlight

 Powell & Pressburger Season - 1957

Almost as though they were wishing to complete the circle, Powell & Pressburger returned to making wartime themed movies, having had great critical and commercial success with The Battle of the River Plate. Ill Met By Moonlight was there last movie working together, under a one off contract with the Rank Organisation. Difficulties over the script, with that contract with Rank itself, brought out tensions in their collaboration. Dissolving their Archers working partnership quite amicably. And so came to an end a golden era for British film making of over twenty years and as many films. They briefly reunited in 1966 and 1972 to make two films, but the magic in how they worked together had gone.

Powell had very little good to say about Ill Met By Moonlight, he didn't like the script, he didn't like the casting, he didn't even like his own direction. And for an Archers movie it is a little lack lustre, and tends to turn real life events into a bit of a cliched Boy's Own adventure yarn. The Cretan population become these overly jovial backslapping, heroic cheering eccentric peasant caricatures. Its based on a book by W Stanley Moss of wartime activities in Crete that he was part of.  Patrick Leigh Fermer (Dirk Bogarde) is in charge of a daring plan to kidnap General Kreipe (Marius Goring ) and export him to Egypt. Quite why they need to do this I don't remember being fully explained.

Patrick Leigh Fermer was renowned for his charismatic leadership skills and courageousness. Whilst Bogarde is as always a captivating screen presence, there is an essential lack of rough physicality to him that means the part feels ill-fitting. Goring's portrayal of Kreipe has all the wily bosh cunning one might expect him to have, his acting dominating the screen every time he is given the opportunity. The easy naturalism of Bogarde's performance style when it meets Goring's more broadly sketched character is one example of how the film has an uneasy inconsistency of tone. 

Powell, as ever makes great dramatic use of his setting, the spectacular panoramas of the mountainous landscape of Crete. Its a definite choice to film in black and white, not just an economic one. It lends a wartime period quality to it. As most of the action takes place under moonlight, black and white brings starker and more atmospheric qualities, which colour would only have distracted you from. The controversies and tensions surrounding this production appear to have unsettled the usual sure footed nature of their working ethos and method. Its not a bad film, but not great one either. I'm sure, if they'd had the choice they'd have wanted to go out on a slightly better film than this. Ill Met By Moonlight is very middling and uncharacteristic of a Powell and Pressburger movie.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 5

 Apparently......

Peaceful
Protest 
Permitted
Because
They
All
Had
Really
Tidy
Hair

QUOTATION MARKS - Nico versus The Whole World

'Jim Morrison tells me
that people are looking at the streets,
while I am looking at the moon.
I do not feel connected enough with the issues
to throw stones at a policeman.
I want to throw stones at the whole world.'

Nico

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1974 - You Forget To Answer by Nico

In 1974 Nico found herself on the same record label as friend and former Velvet Underground member John Cale, who'd produced and played on earlier albums. Together they performed a concert at London's Rainbow Theatre, along with Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Kevin Ayers. Edited down it made the album titled - June 1 1974. This was the album that introduced me to Nico's distinctly enigmatic, melancholic music. She only sang one song on the June 1 !974 album, a rather daring nine minute plus version of The Doors song The End.  Eno, Manzenera and Cale were all subsequently to appear on her fourth album The End later that year. You Forget To Answer is from that LP.

Nico, John Cale & Brian Eno 1974

Listened to now that album is remarkable for its emotional range and musical versatility. Previous Nico albums tended to sound quite dourly uniform, with just Nico, on her harmonium, and sparse musical accompaniment. Here the music has more of an expansive breadth, almost a lushness to it, whilst still remaining intrinsically a romantically bleak view of the world. Its brim full of her sadness and references to Nico's life and loves. There is real pain here, and I find You Forget To Answer is particularly touching. At this time she was in the middle of ten years in a rather dependent, and occasionally abusive relationship, with the French avant garde film maker Phillipe Garrel. When it came to falling in love, Nico knew how to pick em.

Nico & Jim Morrison

You Forget To Answer, however, concerns a much earlier besotted love affair with the late Jim Morrison. The only lover, so she said, who truly made her happy and appeared to understand her. But he was already married, and eventually returned to his wife. It was during that relationship with Morrison she'd begun her serious experimentation with drugs and resulting dependency on heroin. You Forget To Answer is about a particularly distressing memory, of her misery at having phoned Morrison and being unable to reach him, on the day that he died. The song is filled with tender longing, a sense of regret at the fate of their relationship, and how unbearable the loss of him still felt to her three years later. It is a somber yet beautiful elegy to Morrison, it encapsulates the overall musical tone and theme of the entire album - death and bereavement. It opens with a gorgeous descending synthesizer from Eno, falling in immense emotionally mournful waves. Cale's guitar plangently pulls rills and rings out across the track. Whilst Nico intones in her characteristic manner -When I remember what to say, You will know me again. And you forget to answer.  

You Forget To Answer is classic Nico, brave, open, uncompromising, morbid certainly, yet daring to go deeper. As ever, The End received a mixed reception. The mostly male music reviewers being pretty negative, essentially hanging their misogyny on her and effectively saying - cheer up love, get off the smack and get a life - oh, and maybe stop making this dreary music while you at it.. Which sort of entirely misses the point of the album really. She was, unbeknownst to her, preparing the way for a whole host of adventurous female artists as diverse as Patti Smith, Bjork, Karin Dreijer and Anna Von Hassewolff, to follow in her wake.

FINISHED READING - You Are Beautiful & You Are Alone by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike

 A Biography of Nico

You Are Beautiful & You Are Alone, is a line drawn from a Nico song, self revealing as her songs often were. It's an existential metaphor for Nico's whole life. If Jennifer Otter Bickerdike has one aim in this biography its to salvage the real Nico from being permanently buried beneath her own self constructed mystique. Christa Paffgen turned herself into the Nico persona, early on in her life. That name Nico protected her, but also imprisoned. Becoming this coldly aloof presence, that she could hide all her pain beneath.

Nico fought her whole life to be taken seriously as a genuinely creative artist, often having to deal with being ridiculed. Reduced to a figure of fun, someone regularly chastised and lampooned in the music papers  In her time she was hardly taken at all seriously. If you listen to her albums however, these are not easy pieces of music to listen to. These are seriously challenging pieces of music, sometimes mesmeric. They're uncomfortable, they don't sit easily on the ears. They provoke a visceral internal response that often turns into abject rejection, because they are so distinct, so hard to accept. You could never have Nico's music played as aural wallpaper.

She suffered, as many beautiful women do, from being primarily judged on her external appearance. It was true, she was a stunning looking woman who attracted huge amounts of attention simply by entering a room. But not just because of her self evident beauty, but because there was a sense that here was a person in full self possession of who she was. Her early adult life as a successful model set the template for how she would be viewed for most of her life, Much as she hated it, she was often reduced to exploiting it simply to survive. She understood all too well what the world thought her USP's were, however self betraying it felt to use them.

Her scene stealing appearance in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, gave her the idea she might have a career as an actor. This helped eventually to extricate herself from a soulless dissatisfying  modelling career. Ending up in New York, she became one of a succession of female Superstar's in Warhol's art films. Warhol proved to be only one of the many men she allowed to steal agency over the direction of her life. Once Warhol adopted The Velvet Underground as his house band he announced that they needed a more charismatic lead singer upfront than Lou Reed, and proceeded to crow bar Nico into the band. Never a welcome move with the band, as you can imagine. It is discomforting to note, that even in 1996 when the The Velvet Underground were installed into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, no mention was made of Nico, of her ever having been part of the band. But by then she was dead and easily cut out of the story. Had she been alive she'd have stormed the stage demanding her place be acknowledged. Her exclusion being nothing short of inexcusable and retrospectively vindictive.

Nico's deep, mordant vocal style on those very few tracks she sang on the first Velvet's album, became so captivating and iconic. Filled as they are by the qualities of her voice with its shadowy languorous tone, as though lost in mournfulness and existential melancholy. Lou Reed may not have liked giving her his songs, but she made something of them he was incapable of. Her life was dominated, and so frequently exploited, by the men in her life who were supposed to be her lovers or friends. The only man who comes out of this with even a morsel of respect left is John Cale.

Her self penned songs are weighty affairs, often given titles that bear down on you with the immensity of their portentousness - Frozen Warnings - Janitor of Lunacy - Fearfully in Danger. Nico in later life struck this truculently defiant yet very sad figure, striding around 1980's Manchester. Being feted by all these young bands who owed her so much. Her influence continues to this day, clearing the space for the music of Bjork and Anna Von Hasselwolff.

That brief time of legendary musical involvement in The Velvet Underground was something she was forced to live off in later life. Endlessly touring to fund her heroin habit. making the occasional album, both often to a critical pasting. Rarely to be invited back. This became her travail. Moving around the world to perform, carrying just the travel bag she kept all her possessions in and her trusty harmonium. The persistent pain of her separation from Ari, her son. and that Alain Delon his Father wouldn't acknowledge paternity of. All of these are covered in quite forensic detail by Bickerdike. She pushes at the stories and the myths surrounding Nico, searching for the truth about notorious incidents. She gets multiple views in an attempt to excavate what really might have happened. Nothing is ever as it first appears. 

Some of what Nico does, can on the surface seem reprehensible, encouraging her own son's heroin habit, the wildly erratic behaviour, the rudeness, the insults, the racial slurs. Most of them Bickerdike places at the door of a lonely, permanently stressed out woman. The unrepresentative behaviour of decades spent as a heroin addict. The actions of a woman attempting to speak directly, plainly and uncensored in order to be true to herself. A woman whose darkly tragic family upbringing in the latter years of the Nazi era, haunted everything she subsequently did. Right up until she died at the age of 49, just when she felt finally free of drugs, men, and opprobrium. Always to be beautiful, yet always to be alone.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 84 - Semantic Understandings

Monday 15th May

Last week was a challenging week, one among many, interspersed with clusters of good days. Painfully poor days in the shop followed what was the Coronation Bank Holiday weekend bonanza. Then an OK Friday and a brilliant Saturday, the best trading day of the year so far. Thus concluding on a high our long stretch of work, where both of us being in the shop part of every day for thirteen days in succession. Hopefully we wont have to do that again for a while. It was unexpectedly more grueling than we had envisaged. 

Though the half days make it easier to manage emotionally, it does mean when you need to be open 6-7 days a week, you never get a full day off or time away from it. I find this means progress on my making becomes fractured and slow. Without some adjustment, this will not be a sustainable working schedule over the high season months June - September.  

Sunday and Monday were our first full days off together for over a fortnight. What a relief it was to just go out, relax and let go to a degree of shop related things. Sunday, a cold damp start. Stopped off at Stiffkey Stores for coffee and a slab of their excellent Peanut Blondie. By the time we reached the Farmers & Makers Market at Raynham Hall it was glorious and warm sunshine. As we'd donned our winter coats, we were over dressed and over heated. The craft fair looked like the sort of thing we might easily do well in. The genuinely artizan rubbed along with the handmade, but sometimes village craft fair level of stallholder, plus a smattering of mass produced stuff being misrepresented as craft. So, no one vets or curates the stalls I expect, they just sell you the pitch and you turn up. Good food area, short on seating, rubbish bins and loos. It was set up inside what would once have been a walled garden, but this makes for an easily self contained trading arena away from the hall.

In my search for apt business names, I sometimes am taken entirely by surprise standing at a road junction waiting to cross a road. A blue estate car pulled up in front of me. It's livery informed me they provided professional mobile foot care and that they were called - Momentoes.

Wednesday 17th May
There is as I speak a rather alarming event going on in London. Its a series of conferences run under the banner of National Conservatism in European capitals. Now no one appears to know how this thing came to be, nor how it turned up here. Its  American Fundamentalist Christian based, and funded by The Edmund Burke Foundation, but what sort of individuals provide that financing would be interesting to know.  But we have former and current members of the Conservative Cabinet falling over themselves to give speeches at it, as if this is all totally legit and above board. There have been some speeches which were frankly barmy and insulting to ones intelligence, which if you stop and give what they are saying any thought whatsoever, you will find simultaneously laugh out loud ludicrous, whilst also being deeply worrying. This seems the beginning of a further raising of the far right's profile and presence in this country. The very far from honourable David Starkey gave a speech on the last day, in some respects this is the sort of party he loves to go to, frothing and angrily fulminating at the mouth.

The Tory party, obviously concerned about its future post the next election, is already sniffing about in this particular trough to see if any of its pig swill will save them from themselves. As a group National Conservatism has already been abbreviated by mischievous elements in social media to The Nat C's, so you can see how this development is being viewed and where it is ultimately pointing. This is where the Conservative Party, like The Republican Party has already in the US, totally loses its brain and all sense of being in touch with sane reality. If this hasn't already happened.  Pritti P and Nadine D, in the same week have been speaking at a newly formed sub group of Tory MP's, The Conservative Democratic Organisation. Roughly speaking its Bring Back Boris on hallucinating steroids. These groups are just the beginning of a scrabble to find a new soul for the Tory Party, and the right and far right wings are making sure they are the first to lay out their stalls.

Another roadside revelation happened whilst I was walking home to the village. Just about to turn the corner into Upper Sheringham itself when a van drove passed me offering - a range of stair lifts, care services and mobility aid products, called  n-able.

Thursday 18th May
At the Coronation Makers Fair we were approached by a guy wanting to set up a regular Makers Market in Sheringham, Initially, once a month on a Wednesday when there is already a traditional, but small market. With ambitions to develop it into being on Saturday or Sunday at a later date. At the moment it is still in the planning stage, but this is quite an exciting development if it happens. There is no idea, as yet, about how much this will cost in site fees. Hubby has also been in touch with the woman who runs the Raynham Makers Market. And we've been booked for future fairs, one in August another in November.

Whilst wandering around the Farmer's & Maker's Market at Raynham Hall, we bought food from a trailer. They were selling 'Buddha' type poke bowls, offering - rice, chickpeas, edamame, mango and red cabbage with delicious chilli flavoured vegan mayo sauces. Very appropriately called - Poke-Nom

Friday 19th May.
At present I don't feel I'm sufficiently on top of the work I'm doing, it is on top of me. I'm always seemingly playing catch up. No sooner do I complete one job I'm back making more of something I made barely a few weeks ago. Larger jobs like furniture upcycles, or mirrors, are not getting a look in at all. Ditto book keeping, website photography etc. My frustration descends into a disinterested apathy. But more concerning is there not being sufficient time for projects that are just for my own enjoyment. I finished last week a shrine project for Our Lady of Walsingham that I've been working on fitfully over the last eighteen months. I'm satisfied with the end result, but the process of getting the thing finished has been more testing to my engagement than enjoyable. Work- Life balance is a bit out of wack, and I don't currently have a way forward in the adjusting of it.

Stupid Politician Opens Mouth Speaks Stupid Idea

Anne Widdecombe still full of practical, patronisingly insensitive suggestions, but totally batshit now, has told hard pressed families not to put cheese in their sandwiches. If you haven't got the money for food don't buy it! You are supposed to just bare with the starvation I suppose. I bet the Cheese Marketing Board, if it still exists is thrilled about that. 

Its the War on Cheese next chaps!  

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 4

 Apparently..........

Man
Discovers
Peaceful
Protest
Had
Been
Going
On
In
Garden
Shed

SHOPPING AROUND - A Little Bit O Red

As is always the case with high street retail, there comes the time to hold a Sale. To be rid of all those stock purchasing mistakes, left overs, end of lines and odd hangers on, you are thoroughly sick of the sight of. We have found from experience that in Sheringham, its best to run our Sale in the Spring. Not in January when there is no bugger about. And so after all the kerfuffle of the Coronation weekend, and the Makers Market - which went very well 'thank you kind sir'. we put up our Sale after the second Bank Holiday weekend of May. To run until? Well, to whenever we think its not worth pushing it anymore.

The week after the Coronation was like death warmed up.  All our Bank Holiday visitors scarpered on Monday. Leaving us at the perilous unpredictable mercies of coach parties and the few who'd stayed on because they'd nowt better to do.  I knew the signs were bad on Wednesday as I walked across the car park, on my way to do my afternoon shift. There was a coach parked from Barnsley whose eventual destination was Great Yarmouth, which is the definition of the kiss of death for us. Had they been from  the Home Counties or North Yorkshire heading towards Holkham Hall, we'd have be on the money. As a consequence we had one of our worst days take this year. 

In our Sale was a small decorative glass panel with a wire hanger, made by the same makers as our range of very successful glass cards. Reduced from £6.95 to £3. A bargain you would have thought. A lady and her husband came in to the shop, they spotted the glass hanger. 

'You've not got anymore of these 'ave yuh?

'No, that's the last one'

'Only these are a much better idea than the cards, cos you can hang em up after'

'Well, yes, we thought so. But they weren't as well presented as the cards, so they didn't do very well'

'Oh..... mebe we'll av the cards then'

The husband went out to give them a second look, only to return empty handed.

'Ave just discovered they're made in Wales'

'Yes, they are'

'We like to buy stuff from where we been'

The wife returned to the glass hanger, picked it up and muttered disconsolately

'Pity its not more red though, I like red things, see.' 

She brought it over to the counter and sighed, stroking it gently as it lay there as thought it were an ailing animal on its last legs.

'If only it had just a little bit o red on it......  These ud make really good fridge magnets you know'

'Maybe, as they're transparent you'd have to find a way of fixing the magnet so it didn't show'

'Oh Yeh,..... I suppose so.

Followed by a very long pause, then another deep sigh.

'If only it had a little bit o red on it just here, or somewhere on it.......... I suppose I could buy it for miself '

She gave me three pounds, pushing them towards me with a slightly resentful implication. as if I'd made her buy it. I put the hanger in a paper bag. And she and her husband left, leaving behind a dark cloud of feeling that I and the shop, had somehow failed them in their not unreasonable expectations of us.

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 3

 Apparently..........

THE
ONLY
TRUE
PEACEFUL
PROTEST
FALLS
ASLEEP
ON
THE
SOFA

GNOSTIC OPTICS - The Filthy Coat

'Such is the habit,
the filthy coat you've put on,
that is yours, 
for it suffocates you and drags you down
into its cruel self, into the gutter.

Otherwise, through aspiration and seeing
the beauty of Truth and the Good
that dwells in you,
you will come to despise this vile enemy
who plots to destroy you.

It ruins the mind and pollutes the senses
by muddying them with gross materialism,
filling them with disgusting lust
for inane pleasure,
to prevent you from understanding
what you should understand.

And what is worse,
it will stop you from seeing forever
what you should really see.'

Taken from Forgetfulness of God
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

MY OWN WALKING - May Journal 2023

I recently visited our local Men's Shed in Sheringham, thinking it might be a useful place, for doing something outside of shop related stuff. There is nothing wrong with what they are trying to do, in fact it is quite admirable, but it just wasn't for me. It also threw up a lot of uncomfortable associations I have with being in quite 'blokey' environments. I feel unwelcome, like I'm on the outside of such situations. I think this is a learnt wariness, ' a being gay thing' of not feeling fully accepted here, and hence uncomfortable, in such overtly hetrosexual male contexts. It was a drop in morning workshop session. An extremely well equipped set up where you can take a personal project and make it. In a context of other men doing similar things, and sharing skills. Anyway, in the end this just began to feel like more of the same sort of work I'm doing every day.

This has thrown up questions of what exactly I am looking for with this extracurricular activity?  There is also another issue, with the type of things I tend to be interested in, it may not be easy to find kindred spirits here in such a conventional small town like Sheringham. I may have to face up to that, though I'm not giving up yet. I've experienced a bit of a set back, and I'll have to give this a bit more thought. The Exchange men's group I've started going to I fit into very easily. Though I can feel a bit of a fraud, because any 'issues' that I encounter with myself, can seem minor in comparison to other guys there, many of whom are getting over major addictions and loss. In many ways I am a more resourceful and together person than perhaps I realised. But that could be what I contribute to the group. And 'my issues' well I still need a context like this to talk them through in.

It is interesting to reflect on contexts where I have or have not felt comfortable being openly gay, or been able to just be me unconstrained by labels. Certainly a Buddhist Sangha was one. I didn't need to define myself in any way there. Which explains why I clung on to the idea of Sangha, even after I left Triratna, making a subsequent search for a new Sangha to join. Which, though understandable, was some what futile. I guess we all need some place we feel we belong to. For some its in there national identity, for others their church, even in more secular contexts like politics, sports clubs, choirs or pubs and clubs. We seek out contexts to commune in, mostly based on a shared interest or enthusiasm. Its a context within which to relate ourselves to others, and vice versa.

In a socially conservative area like North Ñorfolk it can be hard to judge quite how open one can be about who you are. I find I am not always comfortable to refer in the shop to 'my husband', sometimes using 'my partner' because it feels safer to hide behind its ambiguity. The need to self censor in this way makes it harder for me to relax into being fully me. I think we'd both be quite surprised how well we are known in the village - 'the boys' And for them that level of knowing is fine. But whether or not I am going to be courageous and open in a context, depends upon how well I read the room, so to speak.

But there are other ways in which we all self censor our openness. When one encounters someone mouthing off their political or moral opinions for instance. Do you open your mouth to challenge or correct them? Or do you chose to divert or ignore the conversation, or move entirely away from the offending individual? We partly do such things out of cowardice, from fear of provoking anger, antagonism or violence, or simply wishing to keep the peace, not to publicly rock the boat. Never to mention your difficulty parking in town ever again in their presence. Even within our own families there can be no go areas. Freedom of speech, paradoxically can also mean the freedom not to speak, to withhold your opinion. To judge when or when not to speak. When you feel you are being bullied or deliberately provoked into making a response. Or its not the right time to tell so and so your opinion about them, their decision, or their behaviour. There is a need to be appropriate and timely.

WATCHED - The Worst of Eurovision 2023

This year there have been teenagers and man child's performing and you would be hard put to tell the difference. Their vocal prowess often severely limited in range. Some can really only bellow from the top of their larynx and are utterly lost to an asthmatic whisper with anything requiring greater subtlety or sensitivity. It is worthy of note that these are all gentlemen, with somewhat enfeebled singing voices and presences.

DENMARK - Reilly

You would never guess this guy was twenty five years old,  knock ten years off and call him a 'twink'. If 'he' is indeed the preferred pronoun here. Like the song itself, there is a degree of ambiguity surrounding Reilly. But for all his moving around and through the stage set, lying prone on the floor appears to be a preferred singing position. Either he couldn't firmly hit the right notes, or the tune itself was actually so intrinsically vague and elusive you have to assiduously hunt it down. There was only the merest suggestion of a melody being wafting through his vocal chords. I waited and waited for something to catch my ear, a hook line or a beautiful ascension of notes. But nothing happened. This was just as pink gem splattered aural void.

GREECE - Victor Vernicos

Now this young chap was indeed sixteen at the moment of this his first musical offence. But no one has yet arrested him for it. But boy does he need to return to drama school and learn how to sell a song. Here he is dressed in kakhi coloured gym wear, bobbing up and down repeatedly, or jumping in the air, as though someone has taken his trampoline away. Poor lad doesn't know quite what else to do. The boy either cannot hold a note, is under rehearsed, or doesn't know the song at all. There is, of course, the outside possibility that there actually is no song to be learnt. Poor Victor having to resort to coughs, whines and muttering phrases under his breath. Hoping to get to the end of this nightmare without anyone clocking that they had only a phantom song all along..

SERBIA - Luke Black

And so we go from underselling to overselling. Performances far far too high in concept and far far too low in song quality, are no strangers to Eurovision. Quite what this one was about I could not fathom. The least they could do was to make it obvious, you would have thought.  It is however presented with such great solemnity and an implication of a profound, if not revelatory, meaning. Here is Luke in his new romantic blouse without a shred of a tongue in cheek, lying on a loosely formed white dental palate. Surrounded by a gaggle of subhumans with no facial features who pull and writhe in torment until Luke relieves them of their vacuum cleaner pipes. Portentous? No, say not so!

WATCHED - Eurovision 2023

The BBC's presentation skills on this show, in this year, are so finely attuned. Ensuring that it is both located in the UK but reflects the Ukraine through it, and the country of each entrant. Not an easy thing to do at all. The three presenters Alisha Dixon, Laura Pausini and Hannah Waddingham are extremely competent and fluent, they don't fall into the usual stilted Euro tropes, badly timed jokes etc. So everything runs smoothly, but with maximum theatricality. No cringing. Oh except for when Alisha Dixon did a rap. That was truly awful. No person with a bow on her dress that size should ever rap, its just inappropriate.

A bit of a fashion this year for either lying on the floor singing to the lighting rig, or directing your vocals bent over as though vomiting, screaming and bellowing to the stage floor, or doing thrusting dance breaks squirming erotically all over the floor like a floundering koi carp. Beyonce really should get this sort of thing copyrighted The staging though unfailingly dramatic, does not distract from the songs which are quite noticeably weaker this year. Some of them are mere whisps, so softly sketched you can hardly discern a tune Denmark. Others have a quite contrived outrageously bonkers style to them that it quite diverts your attention away from the feeble nature of the song.  Serbia and Croatia being the best/worst example. Some songs are simply lazily written and performed so feebly you come away feeling angry and despairing - step forward Greece. Some appear to think they are writing a mini operetta with many abrupt changes in tempo - Armenia. 

Every year you look out for the out and out banger or something so bonkers you just instantly love them. But this years entrants are relatively tame. Songs, real songs, are in very short supply. But anyway here, nonetheless, are my favourites in no particular order.

FINLAND - Cha Cha Cha

There is at the beginning of this song a huge sense of something menacing being unleashed. It has the simplest catchy verse of the contest - Cha Cha Cha Cha Cha Cha. He gives it all great gusto. The song is, however, inherently weakened by its structure. It builds up very nicely, then two thirds of the way through it changes tone entirely. When normally you would step it up a gear to something louder, crazier or even more magnificent, it turns the dial right down to Eurovision Gooning Normal. Unsurprisingly struggling to regain the momentum thereafter. 

SWEDEN - Tattoo

You have to hand it to Loreen she has probably the best vocal chops on show in the entire competition. Given a song like Tattoo she extracts every ounce of drama possible out of it. Accentuated by the compressed nature of the staging. She is, however, blessed with a well written song, unlike some we could, and have already, mentioned. Currently the bookies favourite, there is a bit of traction developing behind making this her second Eurovision win. Having won with Euphoria in 2012. Also there is a distinct shortage this year in the histrionic power ballad arena.

ISRAEL - Unicorn

Very slickly performed, this sort of corners the Dua Lipa end of the market. The chorus reminds me of The Spice Girls for some reason. She also does a dance break where she writhes with great pelvic floor gusto all over the stage. I mean really, does she have to? This is all Spain's Chanel's fault who did a much better, and hence, storming dance floor routine in the 2022 final.

AUSTRIA - Who The Hell Is Edgar?

A song about being inhabited by the ghostly spirit of Edgar Allen Poe. Catchy repetition of Poe Poe Poe. Its really about the paltry payment rates for music streaming. In a crowded market this competes well for the most off beat witty song of the competition. Not quite the clincher though. It loses its mojo, and doesn't quite know how to conclude its premise by the end.

BELGIUM - Because of You

In the straightforwardly camp department this fits the bill. We have Gustaph dressed in white jacket and voluminous pink shorts with an out sized white hat. A conventional dance tune, his voice is a bit like Mick Hucknall crossbred with Sam Smith, he has great backing singers and a pet trans dancer called Pussy. 

Runners up who - Failed To Qualify

MALTA - Dance ( Our Own Party ) 
Otherwise known by the sillier alternative title - I Feel Better In My Sweater. Probably suffered from utilising an old Euro trope, one already used by Moldova twice over in previous competitions - the catchy saxophone break. Inexplicably changing to glittery sweaters half way through brought them no extra devotees.

GEORGIA - Echo 
Dramatic staging and probably one of the most adventurous musical arrangement of the competition. Unfortunately won not enough fans. At least she wasn't trying to channel Beyonce. 

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 2

 Apparently............

THE
ONLY
TRUE
PEACEFUL 
PROTEST
NEVER
GETS
OFF
THE
TRAIN

CAVE NOTES - To The Very Limits Of Suffering

'God is the trauma itself'

You're going to have to explain that one. What do you mean by 'God is the trauma itself'?:

That grief can be seen as a kind of exalted state where the person who is grieving is the closest they will ever be to the fundamental essence of things. Because, in grief, you become deeply acquainted with the idea of human mortality. You go to a very dark place and experience the extremities of your own pain - you are taken to the very limits of suffering.as far as I can see, there is a transformative aspect to this place of suffering. We are essentially altered or remade by it.

Now this process is terrifying, but in time you return to the world with some kind of knowledge that has something to do with our vulnerability as participants in this human drama.Everything is so fragile and precious and heightened, and the world and the people in it seem so endangered, and yet so beautiful.

To me it feels that, in this dark place, the idea of a God feels more present or maybe more essential. It actually feels like grief and God are somehow intertwined. It feels that, in grief, you draw closer to the veil that separates this world from the next. I allow myself to believe such things, because it is good for me to do so.'

Taken from Faith, Hope and Carnage
a series of conversations between Nick Cave & Sean O'Hagan
Published by Canongate 2022 

 

FINISHED READING - 1000 Years of Joys & Sorrows by Ai Weiwei

Two remarkable lives are bound together in this book, two different artists from different eras, but the same family  Who both suffer at the autocratic hands of the Chinese Communist Party.  Ai Qing, was Ai Weiwei's Father, an internationally renowned poet, whose political opinions would mean the CCP would stop him from being able to write, and be published. Then to be sent into exiled isolation, with his family barely eeking out a living in a hovel dug into the earth. Accused by Mao Zedong of being a rightist he became a non person. Ai Weiwei can remember the cost, the sight of his own Father being prevented by his Mother from taking his own life. In many ways this half remembered biography of his Father is more deeply affecting because it is seen from one remove. For though Ai Weiwei was occasionally present in this story, much of his Father's life has been researched. It comes second hand. Ai Weiwei admits there was an emotional distance between himself and his Father, and this is certainly communicated in the recollection of it.

The second half of the book is Ai Weiwei's autobiography. His own lived experience of the devious machinations of the CCP. It therefore bares a different emotíonal signature, because it is more deeply rooted in his experience. Recounting the repeated attempts to silence him, and the infamous eighty one days under arrest. He tells you all that led up to it, that time under arrest and its aftermath. The affect it had on his family. His son Ai Lao turning out to be preternaturally sage like in his utterances. 

Ai Weiwei does comes across as quite a tough cookie, very persistent, and really astutely nimble in his responses to tricks in his interrogator's questioning. Sharply aware of the consequences in saying or not saying, in agreeing leading to the wrong thing. But then he has incredible integrity, courageously brave in his artistic practice, with his online campaigns to highlight the hypocrisies, corruptions and various oppressions of the communist governmernt. His compassion for others is also hugely admirable, coming across as a quite ordinary, relatable figure. A fascinating, often horrifying, yet salutory book to read. As we too appear incrementally to be heading in a similar authoritarian direction.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8