Hogmanay Hill

Not quite Master of the Universe ...

but he won a game of Zertz.

Photos by Mary Ellen Mark

Kathryn Shattuck writes:

In 1968, around the time she was focusing her lens on war protesters and transvestites in New York, Mary Ellen Mark took a job as a still photographer on the set of “Alice’s Restaurant,” directed by Arthur Penn.

More than 100 films later Ms. Mark culled thousands of images, both impromptu and staged, for her latest book, “Seen behind the scene/Forty years of photographing on set/Mary Ellen Mark” (Phaidon). Some of the images will be on view at the Staley-Wise Gallery in SoHo starting Jan. 9.

Here she speaks about photos included in the book.

Way to go Paula, way to go ...

"There's a relief in the falling apart, isn't there? I used to walk up Madison Avenue, and girls really were buying $1,500 purses just because Madonna had one. The purse thing. It had gotten insane. But then, the world is insane. I can't begin to fathom other people. All I can do is keep my own bullshit meter intact. You have to make a concerted effort to keep yourself alive, to be able to feel pain, to stop yourself from getting distanced from things by technology. Some 250,000 protestors walked up Broadway to protest the war in Iraq, and the next day it wasn't in the papers. But will that stop me from marching next time? No, I will be counted."

The Guardian interviews the magnificent Debra Winger

Love lift us up where we belong ... irresistable
.

On reading of the death of Harold Pinter

How strange it seems,
this quiet denouement in the dead of night

brought into being here
(if not into complete awareness of itself)

above the silent tracks
of suburban Sydney's railway lines

running east to west
or vice versa

depending on the inexorable
moment's need to travel.

And so you pause - reflect,
reverberate with hope

you will not stoop to mimic, imitate
or, parrot-like, regurgitate

that other voice,
original,

which being neither sinful
in its own right

nor imbued with saintliness
speaks out (and still insistent) to demand

that each of us speaks too
so that we may be

still heard -
on this morning after.
.

Death of an adjective

There was a pause before we found out in Oz. Not quite Pinteresque but a pause nevertheless.

By the time I studied The Birthday Party at university in 1977 his plays had already been performed for twenty years. That's all of my life so far. They'll still be performed long after I've buggered off.

Michael Billington's obituary in The Guardian

Happy Christmas

Dear Santa

If we were to wake again one early morning,
still in darkness
with frosted window panes, thick snow
like a blanket of silence over
the garden of a child's half-memory
would we still discover that a kind old gentleman
dressed in red
and sporting a large white beard, white whiskers,
had left his sooty finger prints
on a strategically placed china tea cup
before half-finishing a McVittie's digestive biscuit,
perhaps too rushed,
perhaps confronted by one biscuit too many
on that, his busiest night
of the year now risen to its climax;
to be met by a lost boy's hopes, perhaps his expectations
of all he wished for:
a big red fire engine, that dazzling bicycle
(all emerald and gold) and, best of all,
the Airfix model kit of a Saturn VI rocket,
bearing not just Neil Armstrong and all the rest
of the Apollo space programme we grew up with
(their names forgotten mostly)
but also met by other hopes; our expectations
of everything that morning promised it would bring.
.

In case you forgot ...

Thanks Duncan at Mighty Media
.

The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

Wallace Stevens

One of Spike's neighbours

Yesterday's Solstice ... in Ireland

Sent by Shazza from this source
.

Gifts from a friend

Walking with old men I'd never met

When I was still too young to know life's truths
they came to greet me as old friends might meet
somewhere on a quiet country road, near dusk
and after many years apart, roving separately
in search of life's adventures later to be shared,
not quite as tall tales to be told in fading light
as old friends strolled in search of somewhere
welcoming - but not entirely as the gospel either;

not when you've barely crossed the threshold,
barely made your own way into the world
down any road at all ahead of you, where life,
you could still see, stretched out enticingly.

And as we walked and talked, some truths
spoke more than others yet I walked untroubled,
listening less than carefully but certain that no words
that they could say to me that day could sway me
from my purpose or make me hesitate or think again
to wonder what the journey might be worth or cost.
.

Carol Ann Duffy's Mrs Scrooge

Scrooge doornail-dead, his widow, Mrs Scrooge, lived by herself
in London Town. It was that time of year, the clocks long back,
when shops were window-dressed with unsold tinsel, trinkets, toys,
trivial pursuits, with sequinned dresses and designer suits,
with chocolates, glacé fruits and marzipan, with Barbie,
Action Man, with bubblebath and aftershave and showergel;
the words Noel and Season's Greetings brightly mute
in neon lights. The city bells had only just chimed three,
but it was dusk already. It had not been light all day.
Mrs Scrooge sat googling at her desk,

Carol Ann Duffy's Mrs Scrooge in today's Guardian
......................

Some poets ought not to be read unless there’s an adult in the house with you

All it takes is a poet like Charles Wright,
an obviously well-read and erudite man with quite a lot to say,
and any one of his poems from A Short History of the Shadow -
let’s imagine for the sake of a literary argument
...................................................................we might have chosen

IF THIS IS WHERE GOD’S AT, WHY IS THAT FISH DEAD –
read on a close, some might say stuffy while others choose oppressive,
December night not long after a massive electrical storm
...................................................................has passed overhead
leaving sulphurous tones in the atmosphere to challenge some senses

while playing quietly in the background of an almost empty apartment
The Tallis Scholars 25th Anniversary (Disc 2) fills what might be a void
..................................................................with Media Vita for 6 voices
(which I’ve taken to listening to quite a lot, these still surprising days)
and there, I think, you have it - not to put too fine a point on it;

the makings of a contemplative moment or two of introspection,
...................................................................self-reflection perhaps –
although some observers, sitting on one’s shoulder let’s further imagine,
might offer up less generous interpretations of a man’s late night ruminations
by choosing words such as self-indulgent, self-pitying or even morbid.

...................................................................But that’s for those others
to say. Now - nothing seems certain, not even the words one chooses.
But the night’s quiet has finally arrived because at one thirty-three a.m. suburban
trains no longer rattle along the tracks below the veranda window, wide-open
to let in as much of the still night’s air as the darkness will permit.
.........

Necessary noise ... part 12

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
.

Original and best

Maybe me

More than this, I know not
how to say –

I seek a simpler way
to be the man I must become,

perhaps the man I have become
already, without seeing how

it happened, how it was or is
that I’ve become

this somehow different creature
this strange chameleon

- utterly transformed -
this unknown person,

this man I dare not recognise
and barely comprehend

although he must be me
must always have been in me

must always have so wanted to be free
to be at last what he and me - may be.

God bless The New Yorker

The New Yorker magazine

Happy 18th birthday Lucien

Parliament-Funkadelic ... it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

.

Woof Woof

Picture (and cake) by Halimah

Mr Percival

Brilliant evening. Terrific voice, fantastic skill, quickest mind I've seen in operation since I don't know when. Compelling, engaging entertainer. Impossible to stand on the edges observing. You just have to join in.

His myspace site can't even begin to do justice to his skill.

Breakfast in Annandale

The last lavender of the Jacaranda season
litters the wet road outside the corner café
where a French waitress with short spiky hair,
Gucci glasses and an accent to die for
smiles as we enter - remembering our first visit
perhaps - but possibly because she sees love
joining us at the small, square table beneath
a great window through which the sun’s struggle
against the early morning clouds and drizzle
barely disturbs our deconstruction of the menu.

And if it seems that we may be wholly oblivious
to all that the world and this day have to offer -
forgive us – for we have wasted too much time
and risked the loss of everything we hope for
which makes this breakfast, here in Annandale,
not simply a question of which tea to take
and not just about a momentary pause to praise
the cappuccino; nor can it be wholly explained
by the way you lick my honey from your finger tips
or lift a button mushroom to your lips and smile.

But it’s in such small, connected acts of love
that we may once again discover what it was
and is and will forever be - the force that makes
you quiver when we kiss and me grow calm
so that the noise desists inside my puzzled head
just long enough to have no fear and feel no pain
and long enough to learn to trust the sense within
the moment that our pulses race towards the infinite,
where we may find - not just the pleasure of it all
but reach the heart of what it is that we complete.

Thank God your good friend owns a clapped out old Transit van ...

Some have mocked the Transcendental Transit Van but when Sharon and Ken needed to pick up their new kitchen table in Darlinghurst, who were they going to call? Ghostbusters?

I don't think so somehow.

rain falls on a cobbled lane

Standing quite alone near the doorway of a rented room above a quiet, cobbled lane adjacent to the canal in Bruges you watched the rain trickle down a cracked window pane behind which nothing moved except the wisp of smoke rising from a French cigarette held lightly between two fingers of your left hand, trembling almost imperceptibly. Your right hand rested on the glass, pressed against its cold glaze, unable - perhaps unwilling - to wave as you watched her go.

(Sat listening to Indian Summer by Arabesk and these words came. No idea what that's all about!)

We were younger then ...

Saw them live in The Appollo, Glasgow in 1973. It's been demolished but we might be still there calling out for more.

Drenched again

I looked up to the eye of yet another storm,
a force of nature bearing down upon the ground
I could not find my solid footing on today,

although I did not fall and neither did I stumble
in the dark of that redemptive tempest’s winds
which wrapped my bones in shredded nightmares

ripped by all the fears we weave into our hopes
out of the dreamer's yarn we cut as cloth to suit
the fashion of our age, temperament and disposition

as if such styling mattered or might make a difference
to indifferent storms that weather sends our way
regardless of our lack of readiness for wind and rain.

After midnight

The night grows still and quiet,
its oppressive midnight air
tempered by the softest breeze,
no more than hinted at; gently
caressing the perplexed brow
of a man who knows not how
to sleep, although the day’s dead
weight bears down on him,
to hold him between thoughts
of what he might have done
(but differently) and hopes
of what he might yet do, if time
permits and opportunity arises
like the sun, presaging dawn.
.

My story does not end this way ...

Thank you for your submission to Curtis Brown. I'm afraid we do not feel sufficiently confident that we could place this with a publisher to offer you representation with this agency. This a very subjective business and another agency or publisher may well disagree. We wish you all the best in finding a suitable home for your work.

Please excuse the impersonal nature of this note. Due to the high volume of material we receive we cannot write a personal response to everyone.

It just doesn't end that way. Stubborn of me, I know, as well as egotistical and maybe wholly delusional but it simply doesn't end like that.
_

Dreams, doctor?

I am hovering / floating in the air, high above a snow covered landscape looking down on winter scene that might be a Nordic country (not that I’ve been to any). Maybe it’s Alaska. There is a large forest of firs to the north east. To the north and west there is vast snow field with what might be a frozen river heading off to the horizon; hills to west.

There’s a snow covered raised area below me. It has the proportions of a postage stamp but it is huge, the size of a football field. There are spectator stands around three sides of the raised area. The snow is pristine, without a mark upon its unbroken surface which, for some reason, is significant. Something will happen on this virginal space, something unpleasant, like a sacrifice maybe or public executions. There is an air of foreboding about the scene. Don’t know why.

A group of skiers appears from the river valley. They are dressed in huge parka jackets with hoods and fur fringes. All are dressed in white jackets except one who is wearing a blue parka. The group ski onto the raised playing field. They ski backwards and forwards, round in circles, up and down, all over the formerly pristine surface. They are obviously intent on messing up the perfection of the untouched area. As they plough through the snow they churn it up revealing a sickly looking yellow substance below. It has the colour and consistency of custard but it could just as easily be puss spilling out of an infected wound.

As they totally destroy the surface shouts, wails, horrified angry cries break the silence. The skiers stop, look beyond the stands then at each other. They seem satisfied that they have achieved what they came to do. They speed away pursued by irate, evil blond haired people – the Midwich cuckoos, maybe, grown up into their mid-twenties.

The skiers head up the river which is frozen solid. Beneath the thin covering of snow there is jet black ice, as smooth as glass, thick and strong. They ski as fast as possible pursued by the Miwdwich adults who are demonically angry. The river opens up into a vast frozen lake. The skiers head for the shore. Upon reaching the frozen water’s edge each skier throws him or herself into the tufts of frozen bracken style grasses bordering the lake. They vanish into / underneath the land. Their pursuers are incensed.

I’ve become one of the skiers, maybe the guy in the blue parka. I leap into the bracken but I don’t vanish. I’m about to be discovered by the evil pursuers – I think they’re human flesh eaters by this time – when I’m grabbed from beneath the earth and pulled down to safety.

I find myself in what looks like an underground caravan or mobile home. It has formica topped tables and cheaply veneered walls. There is a double bed recessed into one part of the caravan. I take refuge there, naked beneath a huge pile of brightly coloured, patchwork blankets. I'm sharing the space with a young woman. We watch Dr Who on a portable black and white television while drinking hot chocolate and tea, eating cheese and tomato sandwiches. Go figure.

Australia

I'm almost speechless. This could be the worst film ever made, although I can't be certain about that. i have no doubt, however, that I detested every minute of it with greater intensity than it has ever been my misfortune to know before. Some films can be so bad one feels a perverse fondness for them. This deceitful, dishonest, racist crap is simply so bad all one can do is weep that so many obviously talented people so spectacularly fucked up to create such a horrible, deadly mess.

Quiet, soul

Is it in silence that I find out
who I am, just who it is

I think
I am;

this man before you now,
unknown to him,

himself - confused -
not as an affectation

nor an exercise
in self-effacing, false

humility (which hides
itself within an easy hubris)

but in this old frame: this simple
man with little noise to make?

Necessary noise ... part 11

the planets do, from time to time, align

Perfect Tuesday

Jo Shapcott's Muse

When I kiss you in all the folding places
of your body, you make that noise like a dog
dreaming, dreaming of the long run he makes
in answer to some jolt to his hormones,
running across landfills, running, running
by tips and shorelines from the scent of too much,
but still going with head up and snout
in the air because he loves it all
and has to get away. I have to kiss deeper
and more slowly - your neck, your inner arm,
the neat creases of your toes, the shadow
behind your knee, the white angles of your groin -
until you fall quiet because only then
can I get the damned words to come into my mouth.

Some days, a man needs a little help.
_