Tago Mago

This is one of the most compelling records I've heard in a long time. I slapped it on the cans (sic) to speed through the complete works of Richard Neutra, two inches of top end Tachen loveliness. But I'm really not sure if I was listening to them or they were listening to me. Weird, but in a great way, those crazy Krautrockers.

The School of Athens (Raphael)

Half an hour before my 9am lecture slot this morning I projected this image of Raphael's 'School of Athens'(1510), sat myself a few metres back, and tried to figure it out. It's a painting (fresco) my old tutor James Madge used to talk about fondly and he probably got his enthusiasm from Colin Rowe when at Cambridge, who had an ongoing upset with the bottom left corner. I remember going to the Vatican to see it in the flesh as it sits in what was Julius II's library, and getting carried away with it's compositional abstractions; which of course (at that stage) I confused with the actual meaning of the painting (look it up). 

Today I noticed fresh things about it; the naked statue with the lyre, for harmony, on the left, equal to the statue with shield, for war, on the right above this seeming cacophony of the worlds great thinkers. I thought I saw a Greek god in the melee (far left) and then I noticed something else: I couldn't work out the meaning of the box Michelangelo (in brown, left centre front) was leaning against. This box became more and more obvious the longer I looked.

Fancifully, I rather thought the box to be Pandora's, prefiguring what romanticism would unleash on this calm classical stage, then I suppose it could be a bit of stone, but it is regularly shaped, and the church around the gaggle of philosophers looks finished to me. So what's inside? I decided modernity lurked within, with all the chaos it brought with it, and perhaps full blown capitalism lurked in there, ready to jump out like a jack in the box and shock everybody. Or could it be his tools, reminding us of physical work and toil? 

It was as pleasant a half hour as you could wish for.

Fireworks

It was always a good idea to propose on November 5th, I've never regretted it, and you can never forget it, and all the fireworks have an extra special meaning each and every year. This year was hardly different; we go out to dinner; bang bang, whizz whizz; this time chewing over fifteen years of married life.
However as we strolled back we found crowds around our rather disheveled masterpiece of a housing block enjoying a spectacularly professional firework display. We could only imagine it was our local drug dealers giving something back to the community. It was certainly quite something, they also (sort of) cleared up afterwards. Whether this was like Keith Richards putting on a special show in Toronto I doubt, or whether it was like the nobles of Venice investing in Titian even less, but it was certainly heartwarming.
Keef is the only thing I know about Toronto; the arrest of my teenage outlaw hero by cops in fancy dress came just at that moment in my life when rock n' roll was immensely significant; where it embodied a whole attitude. One of the reasons I've enjoyed Dave Hickey's critical writing so much is that he promises he sits down at least one a year to listen to 'Exile' all the way through, even if, by now, he probably doesn't.
All this is, of course, a mythology. It was good, if disappointing, to read that the legendary Keef was kept going by a bunch of crumbling aristos; and that his street crimes, unlike those surrounding us, were minimal. A drugged life is hopeless either way; just sadder in the latter. I can always spot our local addicts because they are always in a hurry, and almost always in tears. Life is running out, literally.
So they gave them fireworks, how poignant is that.

Spaceballs

Two space exploration accidents in two days, coupled by 23 degree temperatures at the close of October, should make us realise the need to see to things back home here on Earth. Technological advance for it's own sake seems a mistake in a western world already overflowing with the gratuitous. When your iPhone tells you when to buy flowers, and where, you have clearly forgotten the reason for buying the flowers in the first place.
There is a limit to the consumer economy. Modernism, for the first time in human history, introduced the idea that the humble human dwelling was the subject of architecture, and what did we do? Well we junked it; we made it all about presentation again. In the face of such general need, this seems a hell of a shame.

Riding in to the Sunset

January 3rd, 1984, about 11am, that's me as I set off for Europe; for Santander first, eventually Athens and some Greek Islands. I just found this in my late aunt's collection of photographs. I think it qualifies as something called a punctum; since I can remember almost everything about that morning, I can even unpack my luggage in my head; the tools, the petrol stove, a spare pair of army socks.... I returned three months later.

Slavoj Zizek at the Royal Festival Hall

Well the Royal Box was conspicuously empty for this one, but it was otherwise rammed. Zizek gave a fabulous address on the 'Myth of Western Freedom'. I was so pleased I understood the whole lot; how far I'd come I thought; wow fancy that! It was a pleasure.

That was until about lunchtime today, when the black clouds descended; I've hardly felt so depressed. Comprehension is one thing, but when it sinks in, it's terrible. Nothing could better illustrate that anybody admiring those 'consolations of philosophy' must be a moron. 

Russell Brand Admires My Beard

Well he glanced at it, that was enough. Russell Brand is very striking in the flesh, as he stood there chatting (I imagine he spends almost all the time chatting; it must be very exhausting to leave the house)  by the bread in the Albion. The Albion, Redchurch St, the Bond St of the new East, and there he stood, like a rather obtrusive and very slinky cat, chatting to somebody he clearly hadn't met before but who very much wanted to meet him. I like Russell Brand, I like what he says and the way that he says it (although I would never wish to be caught in possession of My Bookiwookie or My Bookiewookie 2 or any number of Bookiewookies) we are even going to see him do something called 'The People's Question Time' in York Hall (10th Oct) which I assume is his preparation for running for Parliament, or even Prime Minister.
I was just getting some vastly overpriced bread as usual, and had just left the White Horse opposite, (which I do regularly to prepare myself for the ordeal of the bread buying) and within seconds I was kicking myself. Because; if there was one thing that would have made the day of Bryany and Kerry Gold and Foxy and Ruby and Natahlia and Jesse that afternoon it would have been if I had introduced myself to Mr Brand and offered him a mineral water and we had retraced my steps to the hallowed ground and I had been able to say 'Just look what I've dragged in' and presented him to no doubt squeals of delight. In not sure celebrities get much of a chance to mingle in such a way, what with George Clooney closing Venice for the day and so on, and it seems inevitable that they are pestered by twats: how much Russell might have enjoyed a bit of chitter chatter with some real dancers as, or just before, they took they clothes off. That's what you call a missed opportunity all round.

(Above: The White Horse as it was before the pole and the twenty first century. Photo by me)