Favourite Things

Originally posted 22nd September 2011

On my 60th birthday,
When the dog bites,
when the bee stings,
when I'm feeling sad - - - -


I went to a kind of talk at Icon the other week hosted by Ruben and Karyn. They gave out eight favourite things and why. It was informative and entertaining.
(not in one go) I will endeavour to list mine:

Painting

The Lake by Kandinsky.

I first discovered Kandinsky when I was initially learning to paint properly at 21, after my foundation course had finished .
I particularly liked his early-ish paintings that had very strong connections to Russian folk law. Wide open spaces, all very romantic, steeped in a past that was changing, but at the same time containing a very "cosmic" energy.
His own comment was " explaining the mysterious by means of the mysterious".



He spelt out the vastness of the heavens and the largeness of the land. He certainly does this in "the Lake" in a kind of almost naive simplistic kind of way.
The boat men are just passing through life's journey.

I love the way he dissects the sky and the beautiful colours that he uses. This makes me realize that I haven't seen this painting for a long time and that maybe I ought to be thinking of making a painting "after it" myself.

Music:

The Rites of Spring, by Stravinsky.
A good piece to achieve a parallel universe on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1OQkHybEQ

Song:

Understanding, by the Small Faces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUyCss-KeXY
 

Must be the "B" side single of the sixties that got away.
I believe that this was the first time that a whistle was blown on a record before disco got hold of them. - the first time I ever heard one anyway!
It must have always been overshadowed by "All or Nothing" on the other side.

Starting with the bottom keys on a piano it sets the framework for many "metal" songs 6-10 years later.
The main thing that gets me about this track is that most of the band must have been teenagers when they wrote it - and to talk about love being an understanding thing at that age is pretty impressive!
Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was the first record to really knock my socks off!

Poem:

O by the by, by e e cummings.

o by the by

has anybody seen

little you-i

who stood on a green

hill and threw

his wish at blue

with a swoop and a dart

out flew his wish

(it dived like a fish

but it climbed like a dream)

throbbing like a heart

singing like a flame

blue took it my

far beyond far

and high beyond high

bluer took it your

but bluest took it our

away beyond where

what a wonderful thing

is the end of a string

(murmers little you-i

as the hill becomes nil)

and will somebody tell

me why people let go

 

To me, the father of contemporary poetry, pop songs et all.

Basically I love it because it is so uplifting (and true).

Story:

Kim, By Rudyard Kipling.

I see Kipling as one of the great story tellers.
I believe he was quoted as saying that there are only twenty five stories that can possibly be told. - or something similar.
I reckon he covered a few of them in the "Just So" stories.

But for me, his monumental one was "Kim".
-who tries to discover himself, warts an' all.
I find it a cheerful read, despite all the things that can and do go wrong.
I love the way that Kim deals with things with his simplified thought processes, weaving through and around all kinds of complexities.

I enjoy the book having various off shoots, profound announcements, like "you don't become a man until you've killed a man"
-taken out of context, but coming from and explaining someone else's life story.

Possibly a good book for teenagers to cover in school.

And lastly - the taste that lingers is that it is an upbeat assessment of life's trials and tribulations.
"Think positive" is a slogan that could very comfortably fit with it.

Place:

Chamba, H.P. India.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotos-g1156021-Chamba_Himachal_Pradesh.html#32121524

Person:

Ken Kesey (and the Merry Pranksters)

This lot, or episode sums up for me, the raw thought that lay underneath the psychedelic thing in the sixties.
Covering the happenings, spontaneous free flowing expression and artistic jumbling up of various forms of statement.
Ive read Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test", Ken Kasey's Demon Box and also his picture book produced at the time, coverage of events that stemmed from his farm and the bus. And of course also "Sometimes a Great Notion" and "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest".

I would have liked to have been there, but wonder if I'd have survived.
It struck me that the Pranksters endeavour was not based on "love and peace" but on discovery. (Although there is nothing wrong with the former!)
He had already gone "fuck it" to Vietnam and the great American dream, he was onto the next stage without particular political axes to grind.

Jumping back to the love and peace thing, was the best way for the community to survive - -  Good Vibrations.
Anything heavy and you could screw somebody up for life.
People (at times ) try to gage when post modernism began - sure, one could say "Da Da" but there was a lot of it here, in breaking down barriers and definitions.
Much present-day performance stuff seems to be a glorification of that scene.

Film:

Pinocchio, by Walt Disney.

 

More to do with what I related to as I was primarily growing up. I remember going to see the film by myself one Christmas eve when I was about nine. I think the barrage of colour and composition had a lot to do with it.

During my first interview for a foundation course in 69, they asked me which artists inspired me - to which I replied Disney.

They weren't overly impressed!

 

 



Architecture:

The Watts Towers.

 

Magnificent man made conglomerate.

The ultimate in "folk art"