crackers

Next Christmas I shall endeavour to make my own crackers; the ones we bought this year were, like every year's, terrible.
In place of jokes I've decided to insert Brian Sewell Riddles. Festive pullers will be prompted to guess the artist from the Evening Standard review clips.

Here's three examples for beta testing (hint: they're all British);

Now the Grand Old Man of British Painting, he is presented as a painter of an improbably gaudy Yorkshire landscape, his current obsession, with a handful of earlier works to support the general assumption that he has always been the Turner of his day (as well as the Michelangelo). 

Throughout his long life he observed the company he kept - in particular its underbelly - in largely informal portraits that often verged on ambiguous narrative. He seems to have liked, perhaps even loved, dogs, but to have cared little for human beings, apart from the cool curiosity with which he observed their genitals.

The once interesting and provocative multi-millionaire mass-production wide-boy of the Young British art world is Tate Modern's predictable choice for the Cultural Olympiad. With the spot and spin paintings, the shark and subsequent specimens in formaldehyde (the farmanimaldehides), the medicine and instrument cabinets and other installations, this will be more or less a retrospective exhibition of his various impertinences.

cat & bird

I've found it easier to 'get' poetry when it is spoken rather than on a page. I could recite it to my self but there's the distraction of self-awareness to deal with, not to mention the sound of my own voice, an acquired taste, possibly, but, generally, as a method it doesn't work for me. Other people reading it is much better. Providing they don't perform it. Of course - not naturally, which most find impossible to do. Only the poets should be allowed to do this, like Michael Donaghy reading his poem, Machines, in my first poetry post.

Unfortunately, the following poets passed before technology allowed their voices to be recorded. However, Zita Frith does quite a good reading of these. Not too act'tor-ish.

The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I think the kestrel was the first non-garden bird I came to recognise and know. Then, a few years ago, I noticed I hadn't been noticing them as often as I once had, maybe I had become bored with sighting them, moved on to other birds, then I came across one hovering just yards above me while walking the dog and I knew you couldn't fall out of love with the things. Some time afterwards I heard on the radio that their numbers had seriously declined in the UK. The usual suspect for this is human interference in the environment, destroying the habitat of their prey; small rodents and birds. Everything is so interconnected.

For I Will Consider My Cat, Jeoffry, a title that I doubt will ever fail to put a smile on my face. No doubt Christopher Smart was serious in his gratitude to God for having Jeoffry (this piece is an excerpt from his monumental work, Jubilate Agno, or Delight in The Lamb, though he was at the time confined in an asylum by his in-laws for mania). But still it makes me curl up because I've had a few cats in my time, and how often do you get the opportunity to delight in such expressions as ''gravity and waggery''? Not to mention the idea that any grown man should call his cat Jeoffry!

The percussion accompaniment is by Brendan Murphy, an untitled piece. Although, as a general rule, poetry needs no music, this time it doesn't distract from the words.

***

I'm trying out Wordpress for size. I'm not sure if it'll merely mirror some of the posts here or be a whole different set of posts. It may be more autobiographic. I don't know...

hiromi uehara

Strolling through a fine Esbjörn Svensson Trio mix on Youtube this morning I discovered, sandwiched within a tranche of Thelonius Monk tunes, this. At first glance it looks like a return to showy excess: six stringed bass, too many drums, a corral of keyboards, and not to mention two necks on a guitar... Hold on though, this is pretty funky jazz, and sounds exquisitely clean.

The pianist is Hiromi Uehara. Her band is called Sonicbloom. Well, I'm hooked...



Lots more on Youtube, check her out.

addendum: actually, if you follow the mix, there's a performance from Hiromi earlier on. I didn't notice it at the time as I was working and only listening.

sad to know you're leaving

Friday, being poets' day, I usually catch Last Word on the radio, driving home from work. What is our fascination with obituaries? Next to the puzzle page, they are, allegedly, the most read single page in any newspaper. On the radio, the form expands into a mini documentary featuring audio clips and talking heads. You begin to wonder why they don't put it on the telly!

A couple of Friday's ago there was a piece about the reggae star, Gregory Isaacs. Isaacs had played a small part in my improver's relationship experimentation - a sofa, a girl and a lovers album - around the early 80s. Then reggae seemed to change pace and I lost interest, so it was a jolt to hear his life celebrated on Last Word.

So, last Friday I spent an afternoon listening to a Gregory Isaacs mix on Youtube. This is the first time I've used a youtube playlist. It was really quite good. I don't know why I'm surprised, Youtube is, surely, one of the finest websites on the wobbly web; precisely what the internet was made for.

But this video wasn't in the mix. I post it because it looked like a good gig: a veritable reggae gang show with an extensive, and casual, house band, and Isaacs, smooth and sartorial.

rhyme & reason

Despite the duff ear, my love of Radio 3 is waxing. I may even have to get a t-shirt made.

Recently, the Beeb have improved their iPlayer site and now users can select their favourite shows so these shows are ready and waiting as soon as you enter the site. (Unfortunately, my overseas buddies might not be able to access the shows - which is a pity - but fair, I suppose, as BBC content is funded by UK taxpayers).

I have discovered another gem of theirs, Words & Music. I've avoided it until now because it sounded dry and up itself. Basically, it's a mix of spoken word and music selected for a theme. I feel a bit short changed on the music, it's often only a clip, but the words are the thing, a reading from a novel, or a piece of poetry. It's a wonderful way for a relative illiterate like me to hear poetry and I wonder how it would work on my mp3 player, randomly selected in shuffle mode. I might acquire a few clips and find out.

I was quite taken by the poem, Machines, by Michael Donaghy. It was read on the show by an actor from the Archers (a chronic radio soap where nothing discernible happens to a community of farrrmers) but I discovered that Donaghy was happy to perform his own work in his time and so here he is performing Machines.