Enough!

 New Lockdown, into the third week, Saturday

 

Anywhere else in the world what Trump is doing at the moment would be called out for what it is, a coup attempt.   

     What international reputation has survived the last four years of arrogant contempt for the rest of humanity as expressed by the holder of the office of President of the United States of America, is finally being shredded as the callous egoist drives slowly past unmasked supporters who are wilfully ignoring the overwhelming evidence of a Biden win and are continuing to give voice to baseless accusations of fraud.

     Trump has managed, in his usual ungracious way, to demean and sully the institutions of the country he is supposed to lead and the photo opportunities that he affords are worthy of a tin pot dictator from one of the ‘shithole’ countries that he has racially denigrated.

     His determined denial of reality does no one any good.  At a time of catastrophic numbers of Covid infections and deaths, the story is not one of united federally-led attempts to get to grips with the pandemic, but rather the nurturing of the battered ego of a proven loser; a one term president; a failure in the Electoral College; a massive loser in the popular vote.   

     Trump is a petty criminal turned leader in something of the same way as Brecht’s Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui showed an ironic picture of a 1930s Chicago gangster taking control of the cauliflower market. 

     Trump of course was funded to the tune of millions by his KKK supporting father, he never had to claw his way up – he was born up, and after a string of business failures he is still there.

     I have not known many millionaires, but one vouchsafed his financial wisdom to me saying, “You’ve got to keep your money working.  You’ve got to keep your financial balls in the air, keep them moving.  And the great, the really great trick, is knowing when to run!” 

     Trump doesn’t run.  He offloads his failures onto other people, his smaller creditors; or he manages to finagle finance so that the banks and lenders find themselves unable to let him fail without courting disaster themselves.  What sort of financial genius is able to go bankrupt owning a casino?  Trump did, and still managed to preserve a reputation as a financial wizard as people were taken in by the razmataz rather than a healthy balance sheet.   

     Trump has ruthlessly used his position as president to augment his personal finances and those of his family, he has behaved like an autocrat, a Russian oligarch – but without their style and sophistication.  The vulgarian believes, still, that he is untouchable, that his word creates reality.

     His fairy tale (more Brothers Grimm than Anderson) has gone on long enough, it is time to wake up from the fantasy world that the Orange Outrage lives in.  He has lost the presidency.   

     The New Year is going to be very cold for him as the financial realities that he has managed to deny become an everyday part of his beleaguered existence.

     But, one thing we should never forget, is a list of those Republican enablers who have fed and continue to feed Trump’s delusions.  Their lust for power has swept away their decency and they should never be allowed to forget just how far they fell.

 

On a much more creative note, I have taken delivery of two framed pictures of drawing in ink and pencil by Ceri Auckland Davies – a generous birthday present and I will post pictures of them tomorrow.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 17th – 1st APRIL

A third day of indifferent weather – something that should be of supreme indifference given what is happening in the world today, but in the confined ‘world’ that one inhabits at present, something that is of irritating importance.

     The daily morning tasks being completed (up to and including the Guardian ‘quick’ crossword) it was a pleasant surprise to have a phone call from a Cardiff friend, Hadyn, informing me that he had purchased one of Ceri Auckland Davies’s[1] paintings in a recent auction.  This hawthorn is one from a series Ceri painted of trees in bloom, and a good choice!  The tree fills the picture space and is set against a moody sky-filled background rising from a low horizon – a dramatic and lively painting.

     From where I sit typing I can see two more examples of Ceri’s work: an atmospheric print of a night view of a lamp lit façade of a Venetian palazzo[2] painted in a freer style than the meticulous detailed manner that he usually adopts, and a large charcoal drawing of a rock cleft in which the quasi-abstract depiction of the faceted rock face encourages pareidolia in a busy surface that always engages my attention as it is directly opposite where I usually sit. 

     As a striking contrast to the ‘face-filled’ rocks, the focus of attention is nothing.  Literally nothing, whiteness, blankness.  The far opening of the rock cleft is onto sea or sky and that is a patch of vibrant white, unworked and blank whereas all around it is the detail of charcoal sketching. 

     I am endlessly fascinated by this work and, like the best Giles cartoons (and that is a signal honour of comparison from me!) there is always something new to find in the detail of the draftmanship and the juxtaposition of light and shade.  Each time I look at it, I highlight different sections and let my eye slide through the confined landscape in alternative ways.

     What has all of that to do with the current crisis?  Everything. 

     Our lives have been thrown into total confusion; the economy of the world is in free-fall; our individual freedoms are being compromised; millions are being forced into greater poverty; domestic violence is on the rise; we are being turned into ourselves, a forced introspection; and survival, for most of us in the wealthy west, usually a concept rather than an ever present threat, has now become visible, palpable struggle.  It is exactly at times like these that one needs to consider the worth of a painted tree!

     It used to be said that a society could be judged by how it treats the poorest and least advantaged in a community: the disabled, the imprisoned, the dispossessed, the mentally ill, the criminal, the refugee, the old, the homeless etc.  The point being made is that it is easy to look after those who are already able and keen to look after themselves, but what about the others?  In the same way, bare survival is obviously essential, but we must, we have to be concerned with the quality of survival as well.  It is to the everlasting credit of the wartime government in Britain that, at the same time that it was struggling to keep the effort to free the world of the threat of fascism, it was also working to ensure that there were clear plans for the betterment of society after the conflict was ended.  The 1944 Education Act was a gesture, no, much more than a gesture, of defiance and belief that something positive must come from something so negative.

     The Arts in all their forms are the way that quality of life can be guaranteed, in a way they encourage us to believe that there is something beyond mere survival.

     I am not so idealistic that I believe that a painting, or piece of music, or a good book; a well composed photograph or a well directed film are protection against the vicissitudes of this world, especially when they come in microscopic form, but I do think that the creative arts are there to make the struggle to survive worth it and they do, sometimes, provide the solace to make it bearable.

     That all sounds much more apocalyptic than I meant it to sound: I am warm, comfortable and well fed; I am protected from the elements and media to amuse myself surrounds me; I can write and I can speak.  My ‘prison’ is well appointed and I can take exercise outside the walls (just); I can contact friends and read about others; I am freely confined! 

     And yet, especially in a country when the death rate is rising day on day I do appreciate that I am of an age group where my continued life is dependent on my adhering strictly to governmental guidelines and the following of those guidelines by others around me.  For almost the first time in my life, I am directly threatened by a very present moral enemy.

     But, having talked myself into a state of sombre seriousness and existential angst, I can get out of it by merely (and that word is surely justified here because of the ease with which I can do it) looking at a painting, reading a book, listening to a piece of music.

     And, as far as looking at paintings are concerned, my emails have been filled with various institutions urging me to take a virtual tour or plunge into the catalogues and explore the holdings.  Galleries around the world are offering lectures and guides; things to do; things to make; ways to get involved.  Opera companies are offering performances streamed on their sites; books are being electronically offered – to say nothing of the television shows and films that are freely available on line.

     Now is the time to explore, to take a whim and see how far you go and where you end up.  So much is available and only for the cost of the electricity that drives your Internet access.

     When arid introspection threatens; the digital world is available!

    

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[1] welshart.net; lionstreetgallery.co.uk; www.albanygallery.com

[2] https://www.redraggallery.co.uk/print-ceri-auckland-davies.asp