These are just fleeting thoughts from the heartland of the UK's colonial dustbin somewhere beyond the wall of sleep. Odd bits of music and so-called worldly wisdom may creep in from time to time. Don't expect too much and you won't feel let down. As ever AI and old age are to blame. I'll just leave it there ...
Missy the cat keeps herself hidden as we bop along to the vets for some cat maintenance. A sunny pleasant morning today, Edinburgh looking almost good, traffic light and a huge stock of daily newspapers awash in the car. Thoughts turned to far away fish pies, gardens and pathways of great stubborn weeds and occasional sun spots probing the clouds. Saturday mornings don't really last long enough.
On a wall by the vet's surgery this strange graffiti exists, a cartoon warning or celebration or something completely unrelated. Who can every get into any artist's mind and (looking at most modern art) who would really want to? I'm lazy about understanding and appreciating most things but about art I'm more ambivalent than anything, let it just wash over. Nice to have something to say but it's better if you can articulate your basic message enough to allow it to be understood. Then again it may all be some kind of code, not meant for the like of you...and you just don't get it. As for the chattering classes...(three dots in a row will do).
Birmingham daily photo(s): Observed today at the Midland's premier airport. The use of supposed anti-terrorist bollards (why else are they there?) as advertising space. Odd to see these suicide bomber deterrents all set out in a massive line and festooned with adverts for Estee Lauder products. A strange juxtaposition of measures that compliments neither thing; the chronic need to sell anything and everything at airports and the manic need to defend airports against unknown madmen in bomb carrying trucks. If, like me none of this makes any sense to you then perhaps I can feel a little less alone tonight.
Website overwhelmed apparently. Happiness can be pretty strange. Happiness can be addictive but what if they make it compulsory?
Irrelevant historical detail: As you can see the exploitation of religious icons is nothing new, as a fifteenth century T shirt vendor hawks Jesus designs by the side of the M4 near Windsor. She ran low on inventory when demand outstripped supply and shortly thereafter she was taken away and ritually sheep dipped - according to the artist's notes on the rear of the canvas.
On a strangely sunny April day we visited the Jeff Koons exhibition currently running in Edinburgh. The verdict? A bit disappointed with the depth and range of material on display, the steely caterpillar being the most striking piece with the millionaire shortbread and an espresso in the cafe coming in a close second. Art for art's sake, coffee for God's sake.
Meanwhile Ali's back from China (as per the reunion inspired sculpture above), the grass has been cut, M&S foodstuffs prevail and for once the BP station at Echline is cheaper than at Murco, bizarre and unpredictable oil related economics.
Due to an unexpected bout of spring fatigue and over indulgence in homemade soup and fudge (curse you fudge) the creative juices appear to be running low or at the very least are running at about £1.32 per litre therefore rendering them unaffordable. That's my excuse and I'm seriously considering sticking to it. The problem is that I never stick to anything (in creative terms) for too long. A lifetime of untreated span of attention problems are now coming home to roost albeit they are taking their time. That's due to their own inability to concentrate I suppose.
You may well recognise the woman represented here in colored wool. It seems that there is a lot of knitted art about these days unlike in the Renaissance when mostly oil paints, donkey urine, burnt umber, Biblical inspiration and fossilised cheese were used by the old and derelict masters. After that there was a complete descent into insanity followed by periods of war and depravity, this led to the ultra modern modernism and the rest is history. Nowadays artists get arrested just for being Chinese.
It is written that in the last days there will be all manner of signs and great portents in the skies, floods, wars and turmoil and possibly the odd, isolated plague of frog, often turning up in plant pots surrounded by large expanses of relatively dry land. Signs and wonders indeed and there are still at least two toads in the coal cellar.
It's probably true to say that the best music is simple, at least simple in it's construction and the concepts it describes. The thing is that it is really difficult to write songs that work on a number of levels, pack a punch and describe and illustrate the basic issues that we humans grapple with. Songs that say something about common experiences and problems in a few short minutes and stick with the listener in a memorable way. Big Pink, after all these years still works, still communicates, still sounds good. I wish I knew why and how.According to songwriter Robbie Robertson, "The Weight" was inspired by the films of Luis Buñuel, about which Robertson once said:
(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In "The Weight" it was this very simple thing. Someone says, "Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth , that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there." This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like "Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.
Many a good meal cooked on the old range, but not for quite a while. More West Lothian ruins explored and hastily documented before the new season's growth obliterates them. Nice to see nature fighting back here and there.
Funny how skimming stones can all be used up on a beach and then a few weeks later a fine crop of them returns. So whilst the conditions were far from perfect we did manage a few decent skims, into the wind and across the waves maxing at 6 or so. Then there are the swings, rope swings that appear and are maintained by we know not whom, I'll call them the "swing gypsies" for the want of a better name. I imagine that they arrive at dead of night with their knives, ropes and sticks and set up swings, testing and approving them and then disappearing back into the mist. I only ever made up rope swings once, when we lived in the rambling Inchgarvie House I set up two tyre swings on a tree in the garden, not sure if the swing gypsies have adopted them and are still keeping them right, I hope so.
Emily Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel are sisters (OK it's not a common name), am I the only person in the world who didn't know this? You can learn a lot about life, celebrity culture, sex and swearing on Twitter it appears. The dynamic trending statistics open and flow like a form of bizarre cyber beach combing. Strange, random, unrelated facts and opinions wash ashore like strands of DNA seaweed, some stay for days, some disappear in seconds, famous, infamous and trending and then gone away, swallowed into the vanishing clicks and pulses of some sparky oblivion. When the people speak everybody listens... but not for too long.
Meanwhile in Florida a tornado gathers and broods over the Space Centre, the end of the world will most likely follow shortly but at least we have a photo to remember.
