tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032825149937386532024-03-07T11:00:30.891+00:00The Controversial VeggieExploratory WritingsThe Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comBlogger726125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-82156586219411752002024-03-07T11:00:00.015+00:002024-03-07T11:00:00.139+00:00The Problem of Being<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtSjI1j_cIzFBgDwvjVzyg_tQHaYT6hQ50FpMYWWn0eglAIROjVdz5LmkVOo20ZLc12B_d-WhyphenhyphenMqXTPJraRs_gI8sc_-qyrzyPAvnvAW-0Vl6cFHAlxIqPCdq6m5L86wVD3I5CFiZcPDTj6Jj-fVYRRl2PRXdk7mWIP8XRBpnXLTueIy7RgQs0vw2/s750/guardian-of-desert-1941_Nicholas%20Roerich_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="750" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtSjI1j_cIzFBgDwvjVzyg_tQHaYT6hQ50FpMYWWn0eglAIROjVdz5LmkVOo20ZLc12B_d-WhyphenhyphenMqXTPJraRs_gI8sc_-qyrzyPAvnvAW-0Vl6cFHAlxIqPCdq6m5L86wVD3I5CFiZcPDTj6Jj-fVYRRl2PRXdk7mWIP8XRBpnXLTueIy7RgQs0vw2/w200-h126/guardian-of-desert-1941_Nicholas%20Roerich_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The
problem of being a dreamer, a reader, a writer is fantasy. Most other
people live in the world, whereas the dreamer, the reader, the writer
is carried out of it, either involving themselves in the true or
fictive tale of strangers, or dreaming for themselves the impossible,
the miraculous, even to some degree believing this reality could
happen, or at the very least feeling these delusions to be safer.
There is no possibility of being really hurt or causing pain to
someone else, and any perceived deficiencies and inadequacies don't
matter – they can more easily be overlooked or overcome. And
illusions, well, they have none of the humdrum, as they naturally
take place in a different world than the one inhabited; these two
realities are separated, one inside the mind, one without. Although,
of course, if this line grows blurred, converges, sanity may depart
or the closely observed discipline of isolation may be more and more
strictly exercised. In isolation – circumstantially or self imposed
– starts fantasy and self-denial, such as pledges to perhaps admire
those persons who are “wild” or less meek or have a geography, a
personal and public history. Those who were born in one place and
ended in another; those who in exile found their voice or talent, and
perhaps too the “home” they failed to see when they lived there;
those who like our ancestors are forever moving, making, </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>and
marking</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">,
their territory by naming their “things” in it; those whose
instinctive sense of direction is not like the dreamer, the reader,
the writer blunted by settlement and rootedness.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Picture credit: Guardian of Desert, 1941, Nicholas Roerich (source: WikiArt)</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>From journal, September 2022.</b></span></span></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-90150222950889222922024-02-29T11:00:00.029+00:002024-02-29T11:00:00.163+00:00Irish Roots<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ig8ri3NEUR7WDO-PS-mNZgqoaszysCcov25hBka_mSzHv9KKRDbZKyNwA9-YydQuyrLGsGoQR_bfc9j0-7-BISSxDULwJ0G9kicmPt6Ej-F0KZxqozd3AiyUUw_R46v76XYBmmPTvC4f4vY-GhHSWKJhLDJVX_C-tN7GkJ0LbL1erJ-vEBSh1icE/s742/o-malley-home-achill-island-county-mayo-ireland-1913_Robert%20Henri_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="742" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ig8ri3NEUR7WDO-PS-mNZgqoaszysCcov25hBka_mSzHv9KKRDbZKyNwA9-YydQuyrLGsGoQR_bfc9j0-7-BISSxDULwJ0G9kicmPt6Ej-F0KZxqozd3AiyUUw_R46v76XYBmmPTvC4f4vY-GhHSWKJhLDJVX_C-tN7GkJ0LbL1erJ-vEBSh1icE/w200-h162/o-malley-home-achill-island-county-mayo-ireland-1913_Robert%20Henri_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>As
the nation pays their respects to the late Queen I reflect on my
Irish sides, my ancestry through both lines: paternal and maternal,
the former being stronger than the latter. Driscoll and Healy and
Connors. A gentle melancholy takes possession, an inherited yearning
for Ireland, the old country, though in what parts my Irish roots are
I do not know. My ancestors left long long ago, set up new roots in
Wales and in England; and yet from time to time the old country draws
me. The accents, the stories.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written September 2022.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>O'Malley</b><b> Home, Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland, 1913, Robert Henri (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-77934804460809232562024-02-22T11:00:00.019+00:002024-02-22T11:00:00.376+00:00One German, One British<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHaUjiFk0300AR7IVXy9U0vWubtQDgPRgueRhpBYxqFVE-HbmAIS6zotCVMoULCKMCkev03SJtSUUz2xRabnnueXyEqbfbUVJucz9dRWSn4kycQRNC7NNshbTjCcmt3A2ZS7DnJpsKeMkKg9RPjnUzwbRhyj2oyfKxFN3W7_XCNGw0f-uyO2cF9vU/s600/Spring%20in%20the%20Trenches,%20Ridge%20Woods,%201917_Paul%20Nash_Imperial%20War%20Museum,%20London_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="496" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHaUjiFk0300AR7IVXy9U0vWubtQDgPRgueRhpBYxqFVE-HbmAIS6zotCVMoULCKMCkev03SJtSUUz2xRabnnueXyEqbfbUVJucz9dRWSn4kycQRNC7NNshbTjCcmt3A2ZS7DnJpsKeMkKg9RPjnUzwbRhyj2oyfKxFN3W7_XCNGw0f-uyO2cF9vU/w166-h200/Spring%20in%20the%20Trenches,%20Ridge%20Woods,%201917_Paul%20Nash_Imperial%20War%20Museum,%20London_WikiArt.jpg" width="166" /></a></div>The
same trench life, the same trench warfare in the same savage
landscape. The same iron messengers with their hissing song. The same
injured routine: dressing-stations and military hospitals, then back
to the front, returned to their unit, their division, their regiment,
their platoon, their troop. The same variety of words with the same
meaning used. The same tiny imponderables – a chance meeting, some
random thing – determining one's fate, one's position in the same
war. Nothing (experience-wise) between them: Jünger and Blunden, one
German, one British.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From
journal, September 2022. </b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See </b><i><b>Storm of Steel </b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>by
Ernst J</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>ü</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>nger.</b></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Picture credit: Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Woods, 1917, Paul Nash (source: Imperial War Museum, London / WikiArt),</b></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-18080866604994431002024-02-15T11:00:00.038+00:002024-02-15T11:00:00.142+00:00The Road to Byron<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiERaVsy_0dGisPJllatkJ3M7oZ9M-INjKe37TEB8X4J9nrjDSAcBiJY5OT38WPyGeO9tBv60vbu9vABcPnhDN7DrVJ6sT4LhvKhQbUkWs-EA4FQGMSLEzvdzBDNhSXgC_Ws43Ysb5qvywsixUjDmWt40Z8rhmj0KG4e_sXG-YEF-y2Y5Exc_DDPF0/s448/Robert%20Byron_goodreads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="328" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiERaVsy_0dGisPJllatkJ3M7oZ9M-INjKe37TEB8X4J9nrjDSAcBiJY5OT38WPyGeO9tBv60vbu9vABcPnhDN7DrVJ6sT4LhvKhQbUkWs-EA4FQGMSLEzvdzBDNhSXgC_Ws43Ysb5qvywsixUjDmWt40Z8rhmj0KG4e_sXG-YEF-y2Y5Exc_DDPF0/w146-h200/Robert%20Byron_goodreads.jpg" width="146" /></a></div>Intrigued
by Bruce Chatwin's mention of his spineless and floodstained copy of
Robert Byron's </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>The
Road to Oxiana</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">,
and of how he attempted to ape Byron's itinerary and journal style I
obtained my own well-bound, less marked library volume. While I have
no wish to follow Chatwin following Byron's actual footsteps I could
at least try to understand, I thought, why </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>Oxiana
</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">is
considered a masterpiece of 1930s travel writing, and compare too
Chatwin and Byron's two journal entries: 5 July 1962 and 21 September
1933. Of the first it's too soon to say if I agree with the masterly
verdict, though it's certainly enjoyable; of the second the
similarities are all too obvious.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">However,
Byron moves in circles unknown to me. His companion Christopher is
not explained. In Palestine Christopher is 'received as the son of
his father.' </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Who
is his father? </span></i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On
the next page I gather his father is Sir Mark Sykes. Still a blank,
that is, it means nothing, but at least it's a name.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who
is Rutter? Perhaps a fellow correspondent for a London newspaper if I
presume Byron was in that line already or knew associates in it? </span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who
is Herzfeld? I'm left with the distinct impression he must be an
archaeologist, or at the very least has a keen interest in
archaeology, who, 'it seems, has turned Persepolis into his private
domain.'</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Names
and networking. What </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Oxiana</span></i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
doesn't provide I </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">must
</span></i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">research.
Alternatively, I could, I suppose, accept my conjectures.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
continue to read with one eye on the journey and one eye gathering
information: Christopher breadcrumbs. Christopher is fond of Persia.
Christopher has friends in prominent positions. Christopher reads
Gibbon; he must therefore like history. Christopher's hero is a
German soldier called Wassmuss. Christopher told the Tabriz police
(in French) he was a philosphe. (Byron said he was a painter, whereas
Wikipedia lists him as an author, historian and art critic.)
Christopher is liked by biting insects, particularly fleas.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christopher
Hugh Sykes, English writer, second son of Conservative Party
politician and diplomatic advisor Sir Mark Sykes. (I failed to take
note of his mother, not even her name, for which I now feel ashamed;
his sister however did raise sufficient interest for me to jot
'Sculptor'. A clue perhaps to more I possibly thought but didn't
follow up.) Christopher led a full and active life, stints here and
there – in the Foreign Office and British Embassy in Berlin where
Harold Nicolson was counsellor, before switching to Oriental Studies
and pursuing other adventures. He married too (with issue), though
again I didn't note who or when, and so the legacy of Sykes'
continues.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christopher
explained, though the information gained unsupported by any other
source other than Wikipedia.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
Herzfeld breadcrumbs grow but remain unsolved. At a lunch Byron
introduces him as 'Professor', and Herzfeld speaks, to dissipate the
boredom, of his domesticated porcupine. There it stops...then, some
pages later, I think to turn to the index...Aha! Professor Ernst
Herzfeld.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who,
though, is Noel?</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
will never know who Noel is, who the Noels were – a party (of
Noels) was mentioned, but I have verified from an unreliable source
that Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist,
who was appointed Professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology in Berlin
in 1920. He surveyed and documented many historical sites, but was
later forced to leave his professorship in 1935 due to his Jewish
descent.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another
Byron-dropped name is demystified.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From
journal (from a series of Byron entries), August-September 2022. </b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See
</b><i><b>The Road to Oxiana </b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>(Vintage
Books) by Robert Byron.</b></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Picture credit: Robert Byron (source: Good Reads).</b></span></span></div><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-37334757569299676662024-02-08T17:32:00.016+00:002024-02-08T17:32:00.127+00:00One House, One Person<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHbio3zjf91v0n5n5ZvULARwc_-XZAqoiSuAckdoGlU8KV07TqlnMBtnhWJWjKCUQgBBGtwlEeTIuoC4wg_MLvpVjiENBlhlu8KNJK2lhuCkmknw5nxSwATn13xWXK7Zm6t1nOgonOGHI1Nx_5JTKa6RnbyfJAjXPtmqUYbTzNRdg6TogVPsf986Jt/s900/empire-of-light_Rene%20Magritte_www.ReneMagritte.org.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="900" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHbio3zjf91v0n5n5ZvULARwc_-XZAqoiSuAckdoGlU8KV07TqlnMBtnhWJWjKCUQgBBGtwlEeTIuoC4wg_MLvpVjiENBlhlu8KNJK2lhuCkmknw5nxSwATn13xWXK7Zm6t1nOgonOGHI1Nx_5JTKa6RnbyfJAjXPtmqUYbTzNRdg6TogVPsf986Jt/w200-h159/empire-of-light_Rene%20Magritte_www.ReneMagritte.org.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Things
fade; time grows. Mechanics obey and alternatives – </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>other
possibilities – </i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">are
excluded. All that is passed or lost is dreamed of. All that did or
didn't happen, or can never happen now. The loss of a house, the loss
of a person, though both in their own way still living. Perhaps still
standing but disguised; perhaps solely existing in the mind, as was.
One house, one person to which the waking and sleeping mind return,
no link between them.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Picture credit: Empire of Light, Rene Magritte (source: www.renemagritte.org).</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Written August 2022.</b></span></span></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-86370614535429381172024-02-01T11:00:00.024+00:002024-02-01T11:00:00.156+00:00Om<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFNj8mg6QoV5206-5fKotPKz7fxFrje5KLDZkjXrFSSi3ON7wynHy4pLBrotLEfhYWnQghBpBTBwh4keogd2fEWjPorMikngX-lfYIHM9xFuRoMQo21mZDVZx1PNGOmvNUzLB3-Xr9A3umTswIc4uy8quEdUFqXFIJRNhcO5RoaNhbyrsBe8FDKoc/s847/me-and-my-parrots_1941_Frida%20Kahlo_www.fridakahlo.org.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFNj8mg6QoV5206-5fKotPKz7fxFrje5KLDZkjXrFSSi3ON7wynHy4pLBrotLEfhYWnQghBpBTBwh4keogd2fEWjPorMikngX-lfYIHM9xFuRoMQo21mZDVZx1PNGOmvNUzLB3-Xr9A3umTswIc4uy8quEdUFqXFIJRNhcO5RoaNhbyrsBe8FDKoc/w151-h200/me-and-my-parrots_1941_Frida%20Kahlo_www.fridakahlo.org.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>The
inward eye, the bliss (and the woe) of solitude, enclosed within the
cult of self, literally scratching at wounds, fictionally beating the
old heirloom, the dinner gong. Session begineth; session endeth.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A
figure sitteth (on the sofa), head bowed, fictionally covered by the
matriarch's (Nan Miriam's) black lace mantilla, eyes closed,
inhale...exhale...Buddhist breath, Buddhist count, and inner voice
chant: empty mind om empty mind om.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But
no, a jungle of noises (from outside) creeps in, and bright mental
images flash – a parrot, a hummingbird – in and out of the
canvas. Word thoughts, often unconnected, destroy its silent
blankness once and for all. The parrots now talk politically: 'A
democratic “free” country does not exile divisions nor unite
them; they exist just the same.' GONG!</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written
under the influence of Salman Rushdie, </b><i><b>The Moor's Last Sigh</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>
</b></span><b>just prior to the news breaking in the UK of Rushdie
being stabbed, 12 August 2022.</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Me and My Parrots, 1941, Frieda Kahlo (source: www.fridakahlo.org)</b></span></div><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-46373706472265863642024-01-25T11:00:00.022+00:002024-01-25T11:00:00.134+00:00Other<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdeXUv89hlZeZpYqv-Ke6oiCBt9Z53796cm3tATbMUZhp9r14skWXJPJ6FmXyBx0vwlWTEUL8J2zQTXArE0QDfqzx6qLY_K0AY1k6LqSAeCvsLVmPemASSfm7eAt4j34h37UoIH7ZilYUdtAKzcwi2vkLi3i5Gmko9GQiTuF1u5DIRmdvXcEtRXuc/s600/Other-Voices-1995_Jamie%20Wyeth_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="483" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdeXUv89hlZeZpYqv-Ke6oiCBt9Z53796cm3tATbMUZhp9r14skWXJPJ6FmXyBx0vwlWTEUL8J2zQTXArE0QDfqzx6qLY_K0AY1k6LqSAeCvsLVmPemASSfm7eAt4j34h37UoIH7ZilYUdtAKzcwi2vkLi3i5Gmko9GQiTuF1u5DIRmdvXcEtRXuc/w161-h200/Other-Voices-1995_Jamie%20Wyeth_WikiArt.jpg" width="161" /></a></div>I
read Toni Morrison – her essays, her speeches, her meditations –
and my mind roams over the people I have known who were Other to me.
This Otherness as it's now classed is a relatively new language. I
didn't see these neighbours, these friends, these colleagues as Other
at the time I knew them; now I would, because this Otherness has
permeated language. I cannot now not see it (or past it); I cannot
now not censor myself in any exchanges there might be or reflect on
my part in them afterwards. Our racial discourses have damaged my
natural inclination to want to know and to befriend people, all
different types of individuals. It has, within me, created barriers.
I cannot now engage on any deep level because there is always a risk
of being misunderstood; I cannot express myself as I would to someone
who I know to be “safe”, that is, we are already known to each
other, we have history. There is only the page, yet even here I do
not say explicitly what I want to say, for the page is now Other too.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See Mouth
Full of Blood by Toni Morrison. <br /></b><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From journal, August
2022.<br /></b><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Picture credit: Other Voices, 1995, Jamie Wyeth (source: WikiArt).</span></b></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-5747649876521453782024-01-18T11:00:00.019+00:002024-01-18T11:00:00.145+00:00Master / Slave<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIqOzI3br4o1w0Ugz6PxgcdZ0lXc61MgNpMqb8U3PzYpPq0lRzplnbZ96hEnJjSeD6R8krvZqEHpAfdJ9dC5hO3P5ByQLO26LLLKEva23t0HWz8yldQTxocGC2gznHjDrDeogSoRNRtUFxkXslRoHDE-eghdrPn_MsJPmmwLOFMDFE3JDu7jJyvPy/s600/chained-prisoner_1806-1812_Francisco%20Goya_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="425" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIqOzI3br4o1w0Ugz6PxgcdZ0lXc61MgNpMqb8U3PzYpPq0lRzplnbZ96hEnJjSeD6R8krvZqEHpAfdJ9dC5hO3P5ByQLO26LLLKEva23t0HWz8yldQTxocGC2gznHjDrDeogSoRNRtUFxkXslRoHDE-eghdrPn_MsJPmmwLOFMDFE3JDu7jJyvPy/w142-h200/chained-prisoner_1806-1812_Francisco%20Goya_WikiArt.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>Master.
Slave. Is it harder to live life as a free man, a free woman than as
a slave? An ancient idea, but is there still some kernel of truth in
it? Truth perhaps that we daren't voice, daren't consider? We are
“free and equal by law.” Are we? And even if we are or feel we
are lawfully as compared, say, to slavery times or more snobbish
eras, is being free – and knowing ourselves to be free and at
liberty – not just a feeling, one which can be suppressed or
explored as the mood takes or as our own circumstances change or
demand? Does being a free man or woman, in the modern age, mean
having the ability to impose – to impress upon ourselves – the
conditions of our own freedom?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
am, in effect, Freedom's master and as its master I can usher in as
well as abandon old laws. Freedom chained; Freedom controlled.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>A thought
which occurred when reading </b><i><b>Deceit, Desire & the Novel
</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>by Ren</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>é</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>
Girard, w</b></span><b>ritten July 2022.</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Chained Prisoner, 1806-1812, Francisco Goya, (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-75066334271104357852024-01-11T11:00:00.033+00:002024-01-11T11:00:00.140+00:00Ye Gods<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyecl4ZjgL3vzU-2LUTpgn085XjTC3AGwEV4J43MWsWL5Slml99DWfBlF7j-7FlNlCBwCrvIg6HbhsBstFIrJcSO6Rwu6IJyGqErsHMAQLb_hXQ8zSDJ8Y1zkbZ5sAWYvRSBDLersRZBpKO3-7Rc-WiZ3t622C-5RS8IgiZv3KrKzvvO8ezrJ34Bru/s1080/View%20of%20the%20excavation%20of%20the%20ship-burial%20at%20Sutton%20Hoo,%20Suffolk,%20England.%20c.1930's_British%20Museum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="702" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyecl4ZjgL3vzU-2LUTpgn085XjTC3AGwEV4J43MWsWL5Slml99DWfBlF7j-7FlNlCBwCrvIg6HbhsBstFIrJcSO6Rwu6IJyGqErsHMAQLb_hXQ8zSDJ8Y1zkbZ5sAWYvRSBDLersRZBpKO3-7Rc-WiZ3t622C-5RS8IgiZv3KrKzvvO8ezrJ34Bru/w130-h200/View%20of%20the%20excavation%20of%20the%20ship-burial%20at%20Sutton%20Hoo,%20Suffolk,%20England.%20c.1930's_British%20Museum.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>Down
into the belly of the ship. Ye gods! Where must the burial chamber
be? Dig, dig, dig. A pyramid, tiny and gold (a piece of jewellery?)
with very intricate clorisonn</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">é
work. Ye gods. Grave goods. Gold and more gold, everything gold.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A
sceptre! Ye gods. The grave – or memorial – of a king.</i></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See </b><i><b>The Dig</b></i><b> by John
Preston.<br /></b><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From journal, written July 2022. <br /></b><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-style: normal; text-decoration-line: none;">Picture credit:</b><b style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration-line: none;"> </b><b>View of the excavation of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England. c.1930's, British Museum.</b></span></div><p align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration-line: none;"><br /></p><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-53834491591342756212024-01-04T11:00:00.039+00:002024-01-04T11:00:00.157+00:00I Am A Story<p></p><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsc7gZc3xk_mf391dQ5DfyzksoPx4Gib4Wrcq4FNZseWudpg4sd-O8-ZwpwGSXE7HmNnGmft0CfewaM_TXvrP4nDmi2KISQmpm55uo7xkvNAke-a5N_0xQU_kcPuJJxXSX_2qt_WeMT8S_T4O3L6GJ8wOsHOvDc9zfJrnJdQDOmBiUHqaC176oC_4x/s750/Receding-Waves_1883_Claude%20Monet_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="750" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsc7gZc3xk_mf391dQ5DfyzksoPx4Gib4Wrcq4FNZseWudpg4sd-O8-ZwpwGSXE7HmNnGmft0CfewaM_TXvrP4nDmi2KISQmpm55uo7xkvNAke-a5N_0xQU_kcPuJJxXSX_2qt_WeMT8S_T4O3L6GJ8wOsHOvDc9zfJrnJdQDOmBiUHqaC176oC_4x/w200-h158/Receding-Waves_1883_Claude%20Monet_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>NEVILLE:
Bernard says there is always a story. I am a story.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All
of the Waveses are: a story in themselves. Distinguishable from each
other; and yet I sometimes forget whom is speaking. They are all
waves of the same sea, flowing and curving. I am Jinny; I am Susan; I
am Rhoda. I am in my school uniform, the rich green, the dark blue; I
see the various mirrors I have looked into: where in the room they
were placed, what they showed, what they cut off; I am absorbed in a
day-dream as scenes of life flash past car windows.</span></div>
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
</span></p>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">JINNY:
There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe.</span></span></div>
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
</span></p>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Time
flows forwards, backwards; memories rise, fall.</span></span></div>
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
</span></p>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">BERNARD:
There is a wandering thread lightly joining one thing to another.</span></span></div>
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
</span></p>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
am Jinny; I am Susan; I am Rhoda.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
am now Bernard: too complex; I float, unattached. Now Neville, with
some fatal hesitancy in my make-up. Now Louis; even Percival. I am
all.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See </b><i><b>The
Waves</b></i><b> by Virginia Woolf.</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Receding Waves, 1883, Claude Monet (source: WikiArt)</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written</b><b> June 2022.</b></span></div></div><br /><p></p>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-22487486645065514102023-12-28T11:00:00.033+00:002023-12-28T11:00:00.251+00:00Sparrows<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhktzjHJWpAjCsk8LCGg06VBkAA-t37cXrKThgNj-SMgXYBZ08iT-ELTvaSn9PGnkmA6l-Qlml5dQCV21_DqLhm2EaLMrLFGAl-W-YKjzcx7hT8SF9Ch5asqDqiCCPc37m_6m5wnGNnejBT5gbQbW1UYGWh7dDUkNjItJW3wyisYPfVnWZyc69v3FOJ/s600/Sparrows-and-Camellias-in-the-Snow-1838_Hiroshige_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="288" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhktzjHJWpAjCsk8LCGg06VBkAA-t37cXrKThgNj-SMgXYBZ08iT-ELTvaSn9PGnkmA6l-Qlml5dQCV21_DqLhm2EaLMrLFGAl-W-YKjzcx7hT8SF9Ch5asqDqiCCPc37m_6m5wnGNnejBT5gbQbW1UYGWh7dDUkNjItJW3wyisYPfVnWZyc69v3FOJ/w96-h200/Sparrows-and-Camellias-in-the-Snow-1838_Hiroshige_WikiArt.jpg" width="96" /></a></div>Sparrows
dart round these chambers, never knowing what they will do: where
will they fly or perch? The nostrils prick at odours, the mouth
tastes flavours. Memory singed long ago. How boring other people's
sparrows seem when they're not your own, when magnified – as they
usually are – to a stature they may not deserve. It's the same with
thoughts, with loves. Never in the same room, always someplace else.
Recalling; thinking; questioning: what would van Gogh have made of
the sunflowers in Italy? Of Italy itself – the Italian countryside?</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Read
and write...wonder...sparrows perch, fly.</i></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-style: normal; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Sparrows </b></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>and Camellias in the Snow, 1838, Hiroshige (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Attributed
to reading </b><i><b>White Egrets</b></i><b> by Derek Walcott.</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Written June
2022.</span></b></div><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-63554197359570980432023-12-21T11:00:00.023+00:002023-12-21T11:00:00.169+00:00City<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QDAGJta7X5ljs5JREpR7FIZTS_ehA3oIHZiYyzHLjOAYyiuOvGtDP21Hul4p0Szy1_FdiNHDePUpdMrvXNyBReKPeL_wR1Ktq3sC5tDpA-nL3KLdaR-iS_Romh9nUvdNX5K7m14Pg_AYjbnCWXJvrz3X9ob9mwBReVFWvToncs5WbiBNbyfExnH7/s750/Venice-with-the-Salute-c.1840-c.1845_J.M.W.%20Turner_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="750" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QDAGJta7X5ljs5JREpR7FIZTS_ehA3oIHZiYyzHLjOAYyiuOvGtDP21Hul4p0Szy1_FdiNHDePUpdMrvXNyBReKPeL_wR1Ktq3sC5tDpA-nL3KLdaR-iS_Romh9nUvdNX5K7m14Pg_AYjbnCWXJvrz3X9ob9mwBReVFWvToncs5WbiBNbyfExnH7/w200-h132/Venice-with-the-Salute-c.1840-c.1845_J.M.W.%20Turner_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A
city low on nightmares (though with a fondness for mythological
monsters), of dreamlike beauty, of love and betrayal, of rumour.
Twilit and dangerous, described as having damp, cold, narrow streets
through which one might get lost, or find oneself in an abandoned
palazzo, which must surely be a Venetian principle, just as
honeymooners in gondolas are another.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A
city of dust, of time, of fog. A city ceased to be seen, that in
winter chooses invisibility, all the while crying (in an echo of
JB's) “Depict me! Depict me!”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Venice with the Salute, c.1840-1845, J M W Turner (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See
</b><i><b>Watermark: An Essay on Venice</b></i><b> by Joseph Brodsky.</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Written June 2022.</span></b></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-51092770514415439752023-12-14T11:00:00.014+00:002023-12-14T11:00:00.142+00:00Language, Observation<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXITfNlzJqmtX7btTLm8ReAixhhGU6gknLD9N7o4C8mx662wH6SoR49tu9SvfTAPuDIy9k2ovB9oht_AUqFIrSXa5-kwqpwtMy8MRoDrAz1n3oeOi8OdwKxGFIDOYx3bH246IeUV_mTWOJCaUwzqepRcytsRdddb2z45xMNtkqIBBsazdpgfvnjtm/s600/Seahorses%20in%20Morecambe_Eric%20Gill_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXITfNlzJqmtX7btTLm8ReAixhhGU6gknLD9N7o4C8mx662wH6SoR49tu9SvfTAPuDIy9k2ovB9oht_AUqFIrSXa5-kwqpwtMy8MRoDrAz1n3oeOi8OdwKxGFIDOYx3bH246IeUV_mTWOJCaUwzqepRcytsRdddb2z45xMNtkqIBBsazdpgfvnjtm/w133-h200/Seahorses%20in%20Morecambe_Eric%20Gill_WikiArt.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>In
my book-burdened heart I see coincidence, everything linked. Books,
passion-filled, contain vivid image and smell; a late sunbeam gilding
their spine as my mind is carried away, far away to the land of the
book or to my own past. African villages, shacks roofed with tin,
hills a Chinese scroll, gulls circling inland. A wood-pigeon's coo
disturbs such imagery and takes me to Middleton-On-Sea. Language,
observation; that's what characters – real and fictional – are
made. Affliction, wounds stitched into them and questions curled like
sea-horses; sunken galleons rumoured – with skulls and treasures –
to be there but never found, too many fathoms deep.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Seahorses in Morecambe, Eric Gill (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>After Derek Walcott, written June 2022.</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-65454091390652638462023-12-07T11:00:00.017+00:002023-12-07T11:00:00.134+00:00Ma Kilman's Bar<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLsAcTkKF6V2fCprL-UL8dTstxiIz9xwr2K0fZPu6UGRpg8UpFd2YjgUwp9kG6omJoVoWixSruDfWwEaJHWagS0RuSm00OqkuUwhqIWWnUzMH9LhAJZ5mcEX0Dxn7y6SBBakgZBZEbq96R2YIwie-OX3Dj_yLq88W-2_CC3T6JHDidM7AKvP_KsbD/s750/west-india-divers_1899_Winslow%20Homer_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="750" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLsAcTkKF6V2fCprL-UL8dTstxiIz9xwr2K0fZPu6UGRpg8UpFd2YjgUwp9kG6omJoVoWixSruDfWwEaJHWagS0RuSm00OqkuUwhqIWWnUzMH9LhAJZ5mcEX0Dxn7y6SBBakgZBZEbq96R2YIwie-OX3Dj_yLq88W-2_CC3T6JHDidM7AKvP_KsbD/w200-h138/west-india-divers_1899_Winslow%20Homer_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I cannot see the island's geography as clearly as I can Ma Kilman's
bar: NO PAIN CAF</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">É
ALL WELCOME, with its wrinkled paint, bead curtain and neon sign
endorsing Coco-Cola. Blind Monsieur Seven Seas sitting on a crate
outside speaking in old African babble to his sharp-eared dog;
shifting as the day ages his box to the shade. Philoctete, a wounded
fisherman with foam-white hair, in the rumshop window staring out to
sea, periodically anointing his itching, tingling shin with ice or
Vaseline.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Picture credit: West Indies Divers, 1899, Winslow Homer (source: WikiArt).</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See
</b><i><b>Omeros </b></i><b>by Derek
Walcott. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written June 2022.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-51583654639193610692023-11-30T11:00:00.020+00:002023-11-30T11:00:00.150+00:00Jigsaw<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAgEzdTIhk3OVAVndCe6uHZneVMz7YlRJzaLKeAsJfpHyHKzT7eGbG7di4hCVC7BIKeaR2RUEp6vB9tzozjrG5KIaoi1MLPY9nYgPG4ko3h-zSFFaxD3b2owKagC3jSRQMwTcZfmTfH01luSAzge8T_jI7t940sB2Y6HDQ42tHN_jnaH_E4-MHbka/s500/The%20Tower%20of%20Babel%20after%20Pieter%20Brueghel_(Gordian%20Puzzles),%202007_Vik%20Muniz_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="500" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAgEzdTIhk3OVAVndCe6uHZneVMz7YlRJzaLKeAsJfpHyHKzT7eGbG7di4hCVC7BIKeaR2RUEp6vB9tzozjrG5KIaoi1MLPY9nYgPG4ko3h-zSFFaxD3b2owKagC3jSRQMwTcZfmTfH01luSAzge8T_jI7t940sB2Y6HDQ42tHN_jnaH_E4-MHbka/w200-h148/The%20Tower%20of%20Babel%20after%20Pieter%20Brueghel_(Gordian%20Puzzles),%202007_Vik%20Muniz_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The
sleep of reason (war), the reptilian brain awakened. Peacetime,
innocence restored; all is possible, life is trivial. Imbued with
meaning or seeming meaningless; saturated with or depleted of
experience. Any significance acquires in time, with second thoughts
and afterthoughts, rehearsed, then executed. Tiny pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle collected then assembled to perfection.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: The Tower of Babel after Pieter Brueghel, (Gordian Puzzles), 2007, Vik Muniz (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From Journal, May 2022.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-86713571380195197382023-11-23T11:00:00.033+00:002023-11-23T11:00:00.140+00:00While Reading Pushkin<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm41al715JJhu8z8izUnMfADhmacn15_tYRjIKQK2cFwYFnXCcEw5uUTZ7oCqYfEdsWNAHPjw3bgh06Wi-pdk0OMc6qAQNGNxgT8Jcgt_BjRIcmd7kW4gj0kOJzpxeATqHOE4yBu_pQYBY4xacu9rJT85fYUIXjTTfyNki7U0NxxvIzkFml_MlQyF0/s674/pushkin-at-the-mikhailovsky_Pyotr%20Konchalovsky_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="674" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm41al715JJhu8z8izUnMfADhmacn15_tYRjIKQK2cFwYFnXCcEw5uUTZ7oCqYfEdsWNAHPjw3bgh06Wi-pdk0OMc6qAQNGNxgT8Jcgt_BjRIcmd7kW4gj0kOJzpxeATqHOE4yBu_pQYBY4xacu9rJT85fYUIXjTTfyNki7U0NxxvIzkFml_MlQyF0/w200-h163/pushkin-at-the-mikhailovsky_Pyotr%20Konchalovsky_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A
single sentence, a short paragraph, an economy of words, disciplined
prose, and imagination triumphs over my own reality. Fiction and
history blended together, towered over by Pushkin's figure.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see Russia, as does Ibrahim, the Tsar's negro, as 'one huge work-room
where only machines were moving and every worker was occupied with
his job in accordance with a fixed plan'; and wonder if under Putin
it is the same?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see a ball-room, ladies and gentlemen in two rows, curtseying or
bowing low repeatedly to each other to the strains of melancholy
music, and Korsakov, fresh from Paris, wide-eyed and biting his lip
at this 'peculiar way of passing the time'; and then flouting the
rules of Russian etiquette humiliated and forced to drain the Goblet
– filled with malmsey wine – of the Great Eagle; and wonder if
that scene was as entertaining to write as it was to read?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see Kiril Petrovich Troyekurov's kennels with over five hundred
hounds – though that number seems inconceivable somehow – and
hear them 'singing their praises in their canine tongue'; and wonder,
though it's wrong, if the Russian military do the same – whine and
lick Putin's hand?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">A
pause...and then my imagination is struck again.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see a cat saved from a blaze; officials trapped inside, the roof
falling in, their screams stopped. Nothing but charred remains.<br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;"><span lang="en-GB">I
see a daughter with the run of her father's extensive library,
choosing which French writer of the eighteenth century to read; and
wonder about her father's favourite the </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;"><span lang="en-GB"><i>Perfect
Cook</i></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;"><span lang="en-GB">
– what sort of book was it?<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see dispossessed officer Dubrovsky's pact in the post-master's house
with the French tutor; see his transformation from officer to brigand
to teacher to brigand again; and wonder if it's true that we always
miss what's right before our eyes?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see the Volga with loaded barges floating on it, and 'little
fishing-boats, so aptly called smacks', flashing here and there, and
the hills and fields and small villages stretching beyond it; and
wonder if those with such a landscape as a view know how fortunate
they are?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see many-coloured lights flare up, whirl about, and fall in 'showers
of rain and stars'; and am, like Maria Kirilovna, 'carried away like
a child.'<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see, from a distance, an airy shadow approach a trysting-place and
meet a bolder shadow, and then, some time later, one disappear among
the trees.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Time
flies...lost in a dream.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see a red-haired boy stealing a ring from a hollow oak, and caught
see him dragged to and locked in a pigeon-loft with an old poultry
woman as his watch, and then brought before the police-captain; and
wonder how it feels to be a prisoner, for your fate to be decided?<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see a pistol drawn, one that wounds, one that threatens; and consider
how a moment can change everything.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
see two winning cards, three, seven; and wonder nervously, unlike
Hermann, if the third will be...? Three, seven....<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">These
idle thoughts, sensations, escape me while reading Pushkin.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Pushkin at the Mikhailovsky, Pyotr Konchalovsky (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See </b><i><b>The
Queen of Spades and Other Stories </b></i><b>by Alexander Pushkin
(Penguin Classics, translation and footnotes by Rosemary Edmonds). </b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written 9-10</b><sup><b>th</b></sup><b> May 2022.</b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-46112941940139087582023-11-16T11:00:00.024+00:002023-11-16T11:00:00.175+00:00Anointed<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-tpGo4i8MFL-_nM453G-Eusf_8xSd5HMO3HDtL_tIjjsaxaAUScvAidLjunGa3qPD66sZP5oxIAVWTvt0cA-thALheiYAV3Fu13fZ6IVQCP9FyCssKFhovqSFoQZJzMN_9LDlFVDXf1-uPOBsKR9p5_6dgKj-womsdjpZFYHTaT47SGXuxozcp1e/s600/Joan-of-arc-at-the-coronation-of-Charles-vii-%20in%20the%20Cathedral%20of%20Reims_1854_jean-auguste-dominique-ingres_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="443" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-tpGo4i8MFL-_nM453G-Eusf_8xSd5HMO3HDtL_tIjjsaxaAUScvAidLjunGa3qPD66sZP5oxIAVWTvt0cA-thALheiYAV3Fu13fZ6IVQCP9FyCssKFhovqSFoQZJzMN_9LDlFVDXf1-uPOBsKR9p5_6dgKj-womsdjpZFYHTaT47SGXuxozcp1e/w148-h200/Joan-of-arc-at-the-coronation-of-Charles-vii-%20in%20the%20Cathedral%20of%20Reims_1854_jean-auguste-dominique-ingres_WikiArt.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>False
king, false prophet; false claims, enchantment. Heavenly voices,
humanly fabricated stories. A restorer of peace and a channel to it;
disturber of peace and an obstacle to it. Divine justice itself in
the form of a person; or, evil-thinking, evil-speaking, evil-doing.
Tests of battle, victory; interrogation, heresy. Right at the time,
wrong years later. A blazing rise, a dying fall; a burning death, a
risen star. Human, Saint; the human person dies, the saintly being
shines. History rather than memory igniting interest.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII in the Cathedral of Reims, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>See </b><i><b>Joan
of Arc, A History </b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>by
Helen Castor. </b></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written May 2022.</b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-46384291359738870762023-11-09T11:00:00.014+00:002023-11-09T11:00:00.138+00:00Embrace<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixuI-J6OtflXB23Qe2D4YFQwN5WXPBWllqNADCT2qJqfrGJ7DA5UnpA0_TYP-IuVsSLgP39S_497_KHFL5ywArba-vgnLF78GFNkHAOKpU8TgaFR0porR2LWt_jpQTA-YNbFBXNKIElgmbpBYtaOS1NdzhjUFCByty2pg3w-o9R1XpFbmVlA6zY9s6/s640/shadow-of-the-teacher-1932_Nicholas%20Roerich_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="640" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixuI-J6OtflXB23Qe2D4YFQwN5WXPBWllqNADCT2qJqfrGJ7DA5UnpA0_TYP-IuVsSLgP39S_497_KHFL5ywArba-vgnLF78GFNkHAOKpU8TgaFR0porR2LWt_jpQTA-YNbFBXNKIElgmbpBYtaOS1NdzhjUFCByty2pg3w-o9R1XpFbmVlA6zY9s6/w200-h132/shadow-of-the-teacher-1932_Nicholas%20Roerich_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Released
from the embrace of art and clasped again in an embrace of politics
and history, that of my own country, that of another's, and that of
the fifteenth century. History told forwards and learnt backwards.
Individuals placed in context of the events that unfolded or are
still unfolding – still felt or are of now and may yet be felt by
generations to come. Of what are we made? Resistance and violence;
joined and severed hands; ill-starred, ill-advised negotiations,
enemies-turned-saviours and bogus declarations of peace on which the
future stands or falls.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Shadow of the Teacher, 1932, Nicholas Roerich (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From journal, May 2022.</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-69707127927089528212023-11-02T11:00:00.021+00:002023-11-02T11:00:00.177+00:00Jazz<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqOkQ4AjcKGHgIbWEx1q4y_DoN6nF4fILX-z5b5yHhmC4EINv1PClC0Rfx53a9reZ323OeoRg3Hnjs3-o45C6rH81cpLuB2_43uy1Nt9DlfjeZnr2Hymx21EqTI2AfcTESBK4MiCEO_NHMfYx-mGV35G-fcY0xLd2p5FxfrbQF0N6AhXXYnKdy9tg/s624/dp1983.1009.8.R.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="414" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSqOkQ4AjcKGHgIbWEx1q4y_DoN6nF4fILX-z5b5yHhmC4EINv1PClC0Rfx53a9reZ323OeoRg3Hnjs3-o45C6rH81cpLuB2_43uy1Nt9DlfjeZnr2Hymx21EqTI2AfcTESBK4MiCEO_NHMfYx-mGV35G-fcY0xLd2p5FxfrbQF0N6AhXXYnKdy9tg/w133-h200/dp1983.1009.8.R.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>A
final decade, a second life. Things reduced to the simple, yet made
profound; resurrected – from death – as a reductionist. Brushes,
pencil and charcoal abandoned in favour of coloured paper and
scissors. Cut paper like jazz music – improvisational, spontaneous;
scissors like a bird in flight, knew what line to take. 'Circuses,
folktales, and voyages'; Icarus, a black silhouette, burnt by the
sun, with a red circle or star or dot for a heart, tumbling, as myth
dictates, to his destruction. Icarus' fate but not Henri Matisse's.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Icarus, Henri Matisse (source: www.metmuseum.org).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">From a
larger work I call 'The Magician', written May 2022.<br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">See Henri
Matisse, A Second Life by Alastair Sooke.</span></b></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-44096777663659600682023-10-26T11:00:00.015+01:002023-10-26T11:00:00.160+01:00Image<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMneXrlfFppzN96S0R1NG1MDqQz3RSdProXi1XDjmEUFBz5GpuYaD7iH5PkslstRqK4nDpSZBt5i_qhS6uXh2Tu_Qt-HCEEGdZO0qm36EB4Uc2eXB4YR1mPAvnTwLHscOq7izD6AhL4yk_7LmkG7hY3_Qr7zOQguo7w1aBnoCqWWwwGw4VIR1nGtIa/s600/Annie%20Miller%20as%20Helen-of-Troy-1863_Dante%20Gabriel%20Rossetti_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="506" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMneXrlfFppzN96S0R1NG1MDqQz3RSdProXi1XDjmEUFBz5GpuYaD7iH5PkslstRqK4nDpSZBt5i_qhS6uXh2Tu_Qt-HCEEGdZO0qm36EB4Uc2eXB4YR1mPAvnTwLHscOq7izD6AhL4yk_7LmkG7hY3_Qr7zOQguo7w1aBnoCqWWwwGw4VIR1nGtIa/w169-h200/Annie%20Miller%20as%20Helen-of-Troy-1863_Dante%20Gabriel%20Rossetti_WikiArt.jpg" width="169" /></a></div>Name
on every tongue; figure held in every eye. Lizzie Siddal. Annie
Miller. Representing in a painting not themselves but some other
female beauty; the painter inspired by their looks also using them as
a study – the shape of their face, their hands, the fall of their
hair. Forever possessed, forever caught.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Annie Miller as Helen of Troy, 1863, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written May 2022.</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-34166420919327496702023-10-19T16:30:00.001+01:002023-10-19T16:30:00.165+01:00Man Ray<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YYETms_6O5-Uft7Ll2DQrO5ZrkZqtnLXihablY0-rCtjVsLa431BX-br_f9_KzCit-6kFvvR1U6fBkqBzoKhSbDPfLyFyTWJluI-T4H4TThRe6IqwxK2ezOn2ScHrWBs7Ly8ZnAXAVXuScaYjzkq414nHrX6YD5koGk9q8WkhKp8j0zoTao1mtXq/s2232/Man_Ray_-_(watercolor)_Landscape_(Paysage_Fauve)_1913_Smithsonian_American_Art_Museum_Wikipedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2232" data-original-width="1612" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YYETms_6O5-Uft7Ll2DQrO5ZrkZqtnLXihablY0-rCtjVsLa431BX-br_f9_KzCit-6kFvvR1U6fBkqBzoKhSbDPfLyFyTWJluI-T4H4TThRe6IqwxK2ezOn2ScHrWBs7Ly8ZnAXAVXuScaYjzkq414nHrX6YD5koGk9q8WkhKp8j0zoTao1mtXq/w144-h200/Man_Ray_-_(watercolor)_Landscape_(Paysage_Fauve)_1913_Smithsonian_American_Art_Museum_Wikipedia.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>The
attempt made to crystallize thoughts on the page; the thoughts of
years. The language simple, the punctuation sometimes mystifying; a
resemblance at times to Gertrude Stein: on lecturing and teaching
(page 353): 'the goal was the same: to make people think. I [Man Ray]
have made some of my listeners think, and it has sometimes made them
angry, but I have also made others angry and it has made them think.'
The author aware of his own contradictions in behaviour, in thought,
in speech, in art; and nowhere are these contradictions more apparent
than in autobiography; for in writing of oneself – one's life,
one's thoughts retrospectively – it cannot be helped.
Contradictions will occur whether one is aware of them or not. It is
a problem of autobiography as is chronology; one snapshot leads to an
earlier or later remembrance, thereby distorting, confusing time, and
the reader's sense of the lived life and the experiences it
contained. The author explores the finished and the unfinished areas
and hopes the reader follows. The reader considers her own unfinished
areas – the not seen through, the not taken up – and wonders if
they are just as valid? Or even if perhaps their unfinishedness was
somehow intended? A blank on her canvas.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Written April 2022.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: Landscape, (Paysage Fauve), 1913, Smithsonian American Art Museum, (source: Wikipedia)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Reading Recommendation: Self Portrait by Man Ray.</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-38659285967233624502023-10-12T11:00:00.014+01:002023-10-12T11:00:00.148+01:00A Scroll<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfBkSb-3W1V3f8N4JKOYzBZTuhxAunNbrK_8vVaIEZ0fDdRr4S-rE75jenDsIz3ebiMls0ji2_-r8YUhSDpHytXUm4MeZtYFLgaYyjByS3AFuueR8a5vz4UzbbP3BEmFxCKbGFYv7dLuH2mF6rOyAhOHX1o_9p3L3M9RBpWYcgrMveQBAMcXvPkwAu/s1365/The%20Joshua%20Roll_Vactian%20Library_An%20illuminated%20scroll_circa%2010th%20century,%20Byzantine%20empire_University%20of%20Arizona_Wikipedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1365" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfBkSb-3W1V3f8N4JKOYzBZTuhxAunNbrK_8vVaIEZ0fDdRr4S-rE75jenDsIz3ebiMls0ji2_-r8YUhSDpHytXUm4MeZtYFLgaYyjByS3AFuueR8a5vz4UzbbP3BEmFxCKbGFYv7dLuH2mF6rOyAhOHX1o_9p3L3M9RBpWYcgrMveQBAMcXvPkwAu/w200-h150/The%20Joshua%20Roll_Vactian%20Library_An%20illuminated%20scroll_circa%2010th%20century,%20Byzantine%20empire_University%20of%20Arizona_Wikipedia.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A
scroll opens, life – to this point – unrolls: images, faces,
questions. The still living, the long or recent dead. Memory battles
with itself, for who else could verify these impressions? Dormant,
they have risen; a resurrection, in the here and now.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: The Joshua Roll, Vatican Library, an illuminated scroll, circa 10th century, Byzantine Empire, University of Arizona (source: Wikipedia).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Written April 2022.</b></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-54717153775212954232023-10-05T11:00:00.022+01:002023-10-05T11:00:00.144+01:00Dove<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtsi9DpDBSrbGl2F0a0oF9Ps2Yo8HYINZP4IW5bJVhoLc7wndNSPM4u4QNT0Xhrljv1438jCZ9Chki0TFOi72QhpqRhPxYaOLInRmZN9UUKqJmAbeOWYIahrt2PY5ptAoXrHd1Sx7Cuf9QsBHGqJ1KQlUXiT-Mfi7r3JloVJf_NL-UFYvUIekQJ0Q/s600/beata-beatrix-1864-1870_Dante%20Gabriel%20Rossetti_Wikiart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="465" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtsi9DpDBSrbGl2F0a0oF9Ps2Yo8HYINZP4IW5bJVhoLc7wndNSPM4u4QNT0Xhrljv1438jCZ9Chki0TFOi72QhpqRhPxYaOLInRmZN9UUKqJmAbeOWYIahrt2PY5ptAoXrHd1Sx7Cuf9QsBHGqJ1KQlUXiT-Mfi7r3JloVJf_NL-UFYvUIekQJ0Q/w155-h200/beata-beatrix-1864-1870_Dante%20Gabriel%20Rossetti_Wikiart.jpg" width="155" /></a></div>Dante's.
Her soul never to bloom, her bright hair to fade. I paraphrase.
Ruskin's “Ida” after Tennyson, “a noble, glorious creature”;
might have been “a countess”, Ruskin's father. A beautiful tree
Ruskin wanted to save, a piece of Gothic he wanted to support. He
tried... But Lizzie S. was always caught been life and death, earthly
and heavenly love. Dante, her sickness </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>and</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">
her medicine; laudanum, her familiar.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Picture credit: Beata Beatrix, 1864-1879, Gabriel Dante Rossetti (source: WikiArt).</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Book
recommendation: </b><i><b>Lizzie Siddal </b></i><b>by
Lucinda Hawksley.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<p align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Written
April 2022.</span></b></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-33219429385372924032023-09-28T11:00:00.015+01:002023-09-28T11:00:00.139+01:00The Puzzle of Stein<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSgAI4ouaiiqx5JEQMzH35L_omC5Fy7AlIh-ji7z3-Acd_BMJPpqmiyqIkoC83u2zuGBdt-7jCTVeN1c52J7p_Ysd_upOlGuswgjfY4avDzOEJqvgSv0-0d1hozPLKyEa7Zq8Qy9kcAZV0AElHn37E2xZd4yKlGmP0T89kozPhhBAr6ZjmB6_ETy-I/s6102/Gertrude_Stein_sitting_on_a_sofa_in_her_Paris_studio_-_Library_of_Congress_Wikipedia.tif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6102" data-original-width="4942" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSgAI4ouaiiqx5JEQMzH35L_omC5Fy7AlIh-ji7z3-Acd_BMJPpqmiyqIkoC83u2zuGBdt-7jCTVeN1c52J7p_Ysd_upOlGuswgjfY4avDzOEJqvgSv0-0d1hozPLKyEa7Zq8Qy9kcAZV0AElHn37E2xZd4yKlGmP0T89kozPhhBAr6ZjmB6_ETy-I/w162-h200/Gertrude_Stein_sitting_on_a_sofa_in_her_Paris_studio_-_Library_of_Congress_Wikipedia.tif" width="162" /></a></div>The
puzzle of Stein: why did she write the way she did? Well-read – she
shared Woolf's love of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans – and yet
her writing suggested to publishers and newspapers – and still
suggests to some readers today – that she had no knowledge of the
English language, was perhaps not an English speaker, and was
imperfectly educated; or if none of those applied was perhaps not in
possession of a sound mind. Well, none of those did apply, so why?
Why write as she did? Was it deliberately experimental, deliberately
original? She was – as she seemed to think, and to often imply –
a genius! Was it not deliberate but authentic? She was writing in
English as she thought, and so disregarded other people's plead for
commas. Why should she instruct her readers when to take a breath,
they can decide for themselves. Her writing may have been appalling,
but the newspapers she said always quoted it and what is more quoted
it correctly; they don't quote those they admire. So, she was
different; judged unreadable, but different. A new literary movement
with very few followers; and yet she believed totally in her ability
to write. You have to admire that if nothing else. She amused
herself, and that really is the whole point of creativity. Although
it's hard not to say when reading her, particularly </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><i>The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB">,
“What an ego!” and “Where is Alice?”</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Picture credit: Gertrude Stein sitting on a sofa in her Paris studio (source: Library of Congress, Wikipedia).</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>From journal, April 2022.</b></span></span></span></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-803282514993738653.post-21680480487725168422023-09-21T11:00:00.015+01:002023-09-21T11:00:00.143+01:00Tide<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqUn9oNV-NJERX36ucVy2EolgWVUrp5SRAP-c9RtsxCluiIejToftVR0ZbZaIYROsZu4nUCqU3hG5Atehb62UzlOGfg6nYgzkXKJoN9LbmGQoJtRxCzMCEjvaDkyQeqlnkSWh5qLTQ8YLUUGAjnl3qFyTO1j_0G-blr2g45PK9O1Vryv9U5CXDDdce/s750/the-inrushing-tide-1895_David%20James_WikiArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="750" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqUn9oNV-NJERX36ucVy2EolgWVUrp5SRAP-c9RtsxCluiIejToftVR0ZbZaIYROsZu4nUCqU3hG5Atehb62UzlOGfg6nYgzkXKJoN9LbmGQoJtRxCzMCEjvaDkyQeqlnkSWh5qLTQ8YLUUGAjnl3qFyTO1j_0G-blr2g45PK9O1Vryv9U5CXDDdce/w200-h97/the-inrushing-tide-1895_David%20James_WikiArt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Poetry
washes over one, born as I was in an age where it was not learned,
much less recalled, and little read for pleasure. Instead it was
dissected, line by line, stanza by stanza – never any talk of
metres – for its meaning must be found, and enjoyment destroyed. No
time was given to how to recite – perform – it; to locate its
beat, its rhythm. It was not drummed into one and I feel the lack, as
words of verse, including those much admired, come in...then go
out...like a tide. A feeling might remain for a poem or the poet, but
the poetry itself does not survive.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Picture credit: The Inrushing Tide, 1885, David James (source: WikiArt).</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>From journal, April 2022.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The Controversial Veggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18271636393344907703noreply@blogger.com