Writing and the tranquil mind

At least the ‘Frustration’ poem now has a solid draft.  Concerted effort, achieved by ignoring the blandishments of pop ups and the ever present danger of being sucked into the unending visual carnival of YouTube delights last night, meant that the pages of agonized scrawl became something coherent.  At least to me.  You can try your hand at making head or tail of it at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es – and don’t take the beginning of that sentence as a defining reflection of the sort of English of which I am capable and which I put into my poems!  Usually.

            I have the notes, in my little red book, for an extended poem to be written in linked parts and I might get down to that over the weekend and see what I can make of it.  It will end up being a sort of collection of reflections over a few days; a sort of series of selective diary entries.  Worth failing at, at worst, and putting with the other ‘work in progress’ which may be brought back to life by later inspiration.

            There is something about writing down intentions that does make them slightly more real.  I have few illusions about my capabilities when it comes to application if I am not totally engaged and sometimes the picture of Homer Simpson skipping after butterflies is one which I find strangely attractive, but the satisfying rush that one gets when a poem has reached the AD (acceptable draft) level is hard to beat.  I wonder when poems are, or can ever be, finished?  Each read-through can point up places where you sense a certain uneasiness, and I have had the supreme satisfaction of deliberating about some poem or other and then, after cogitation changing a comma to a semi-colon.  And in true Romantic Poet fashion, collapsed in nervous exhaustion after such an effort!

            I re-read ‘Existential bus stop’ (also in smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es) and had the delightful experience of reading it as thought it was by someone else.  This happens sometimes and that sort of forgetful authorship can give the reader a greater sense of understanding of what is written.  There are connections and suggestions that I read into the poem that I am sure (I should know!) that I didn’t have when I wrote it.  This doesn’t happen with all my poems, but when it does it is like a refutation of the old saw that there is no such thing as a free lunch!

Next week I have to break the back of the next TMA for the OU course.  Frankly, I will be glad when this piece of work is out of the way and I will be able to concentrate on the EMA and the continuing search for the paintings of Alvaro Guevara.  I am well into this piece of work and there is a possibility that my essay may feature in an exhibition devoted to the artist in Leeds.  That is something that I hope that I will be able to make happen and will be an especially pleasing end to the course.

            But, as I said somewhere above, the writing down of intentions is the first stage in making them a reality, or at least what the intentions are supposed to achieve.  All the thoughts are partially in place; it’s just the ordering of them and presenting them in coherent sentences that is required.  And of course all the irritatingly fiddly academic bits which take the real time.  Reading through the comments on the internet forums that we have, I think that more time, effort and heartache is expended on the production of bibliographies than on the actual writing of the body of essays themselves.  I’m sure that it is good for the soul.  Though I am not sure that it is actually very good for anything else!

The second entry on Toni’s blog is about to be attempted as he attempts to bring his entries up by 100%.  Another decent restaurant and another excellent meal at a more than reasonable cost.  Toni has almost decided to develop his acclamation for good meals into informed approbation – leaving himself enough wriggle room to make helpful suggestions.  A fairly simple one in the restaurant that we have just patronised is to provide the items on the menu del dia on a printed sheet menu – not a difficult suggestion to take on board I think!  See what you think about Toni’s blog in its early stages on catalunyaaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es and don’t forget to leave a comment.  And I don’t care if you haven’t been to the restaurant that he has written about, comment on the methodology!

Meanwhile, in the real world (!) I have to go upstairs and get down to work on the poetic series I wrote about a few paragraphs ago.  But you have to understand those were written before lunch and it’s now clearly in the afternoon.

It is now even later.  A draft of the new poem is now in smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and is at least something to work on.  I was amazed at how easily this poem came compared with the work that had to be put in for ‘Frustration’ – it remains to be seen how far either of these remains in the state in which they are written in the blog.  But then looking for changes is one of the reasons for buying the book.

Toni has now completed his second entry for his blog, and he has suggested using the blog to record our experiences when we next do the ruta de tapa in Castelldefels.  This is an excellent suggestion and will give a more lasting memory for our various excursions into the further reaches of places to eat in Castelldefels.

            Meanwhile, I will continue to digest my excellent lunch (see Toni’s blog) and prepare to finish the TMA for next week.

Waiting, always waiting

It is one of the great instincts in modern people that they know when someone is going to be trouble.  Not, of course in a ‘private life’ sense – people seem to make a habit of latching on to those who are woefully unsuitable, just look at the divorce numbers.  No, not in terms of life partners, nothing so trivial.  I am talking about those troublesome people who ALWAYS get ahead of you in a queue.

            Yesterday I had to go to my bank to replace the little device which lurks behind the rear view mirror and which gives me instant electronic passage through the pay stations on motorways.  I parked the car in a space (something worth writing about because these spaces are at a premium for most of the year and are only available to casual parkers in the off-season) and started across the road to the bank when, to my horror, I noticed a woman walking with intent and clutching a sheet of paper in her hand and making for the same door.

            Spain is one of those post-dictatorship countries which, in their democratic version have kept the unholy regard for bureaucracy which is such a shaming mark of the totalitarian, making copies of everything in quintuplicate, stapling them together and stamping the photocopies with official looking marks, demanding other documents to support the documents to support the documents and . . . well, you get the idea.  And all of this takes time.

            She got there first.   Short of running and barging, there was no way that I was going to be able stake a previous claim.  Inside the bank there were two tellers and a gratifyingly small number of people waiting.  The person being seen to was a hapless woman wandering around with a card and bewailing the fact that the machine had not given her any money.  The Woman with the Paper gleefully claimed the other teller and that appeared to be it.  She positioned herself, slumped confidently on the counter and seemed to have settled in for the duration.  The Card Woman left to try the machine again, whereupon the teller who had been dealing with her promptly disappeared into another room.  People arrived asking as is our wont, ‘Ultimo?’ so that they could settle down and do what we all do worst in these situations, wait.  More people arrived.

            The Card Woman reappeared looking lost and waving her card is a pathetic manner.  The other (remaining) teller then left the Slumped Woman and went outside to deal with the Card Woman.  More people arrived.

            The teller reappeared and opened up the back of the hole in the wall machine and returned to the Slumped Woman and promptly started talking on the phone.  More people arrived.  At least I had a seat.

            The other teller reappeared and both tellers then tried to get the printer to work properly.  More people arrived.  My patience had, by this time, become as thin as beaten gold – and let me tell you that can be mere microns thick!

            Eventually, amazingly, the second teller decided that the press of people in the bank needed something to be done before we re-enacted the horror of The Black Hole of Calcutta.  I leapt to my feet as soon as she looked vaguely ready and my business was transacted in bloody seconds.  Truly amazingly she did not ask for documentation as we swapped devices.  And then I was done.  The Slumped Woman was still there.  I left.

Lunch was with two members of the Poetry Group one of whom has agreed to do some drawings to accompany the ‘Autumn Trees’ poem sequence in ‘Flesh Can Be Bright’ (publication October 2015) while I am more than grateful that Caroline has decided to do the drawings I am acutely conscious that I have given her awesome power until they are produced!  I trust her not to abuse it!  We had an excellent lunch and then went for a swing.  And I got high enough on the swing to get to the ‘bumps’ – ah memories!

The poem on frustration is not getting any nearer to completion, which I know is quite ironically poetic, but I am not finding the feeling is feeding into the production of something coherent and in lines.  But it will come.  Probably.  If it does you will be able to read the draft at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es together with my other recent drafts.  ‘Flesh Can Be Bright’ is where the final version of the poems will be and it will be instructive, I think, to see the differences between the drafts there and in the finished book.

But before then, there is the question of the next TMA which Must Be Done.  Soon.

Every little helps!

There is nothing like starting the day with a sense of achievement.  It sets you up in the right progressive state of mind where anything is possible and nothing is beyond you.

            It is sad that this state of achievement comes from sorting my pills into their little containers so that my next twenty-eight days of pill popping can be done in a more efficient way than opening the boxes and pushing out each of my pills from their individual encasements.  I wonder how much extra is added to the cost when pills are vacuum packed rather than sold in a little jar.  And I further wonder how much extra is charged by the pharmaceutical companies for this pointless little service.  Pointless because my monthly task is to take them out of their foil and put them in my own little containers to make the selection easier.  But, however you cut it, this operation is one the effects of which last for a month.  Four solid weeks of morning and evening convenience!

            My task has been made more onerous by the insistence of Irene that I add a vitamin pill and a cod liver oil capsule to my daily intake.  I am assured by learned authorities (Irene) than the vitamin pill is a win/win sort of thing because if you take too much of any one vitamin the body secretes it so you cannot overdose – but it is too easy to under dose yourself.  That is the reasoning and, anyway, a massive container of these things was very cheap when purchased from the last visit to Tesco.

            The other Irene dictated addition is the cod liver oil capsule.  I remember these from my early youth when my parents added them to my daily diet.  Being a somewhat contrary child, my parents were horrified to discover that I actually loved the taste of cod liver oil and used to crunch the capsule to get the taste into my mouth.  I can remember them turning away in disgust whenever they gave me one of the capsules as my chomping jaws and obvious glee perversely reminded them of the taste which they couldn’t stand – even when their own flesh and blood could!

The poem that I am working on at the moment is refusing to work itself out in a satisfactory manner.  This is fitting or ironic, depending on your point of view, as the subject is frustration.  It will not have that word in the title and it may not, eventually, be entirely obvious that it is the subject – but that is what it is about and it will clearly be so to me.  If I ever finish it.  At the moment it is like a car in the garage with the engine on a hoist and other important parts scattered around the workshop some on the bench, others stacked in a heap with one or two parts discarded and waiting for new replacements.  Never let it be said that I couldn’t write an extended metaphor!  Let’s hope that artistic effort releases whatever motivation is needed to get the thing completed today.

            Although today is also the Trip to Barcelona day so there will be other constraints on my time as I make my way to the strange hotel that I usually patronize in Barcelona these days.

            This place trails pretention from another era and is an unsettling mixture of the banal and the extraordinary.  The accommodation is set around an elliptical enclosed atrium/courtyard with suspended plant pots containing trailing vegetation stretching down to the floor.  The ‘courtyard’ area is set with chairs and tables and is lit from the roof and, as it is at first floor level, by ground glass underlights.  A strange and unsettling area.

            The rooms are basic with tile floors, but they are en suite.  The rooms which I have had have usually given out to the ‘courtyard’ area, but one looked out to the back of the hotel and it reminded me of Paris.  Not because of majestic views of world famous iconic landmarks, but rather because of the confusion of buildings and lives that one was able to observe through the open window.  View it was not – but interesting none the less.

            Now for my swim.  The one constant in my day!

            And I got a lane to myself – and believe me, that is an important aspect of the swimming experience for me.  And it gives me the strength to respond to the further revelations which damn the whole basis of society in this country.

There have been revelations about the number and the status of those people in Spain who have accounts in Switzerland.  Our minister for the tax collecting aspects of this debased government is a pip-squeak baldy who has been making purely political pronouncements using his status as a minister to get himself airtime.  As usual this unbelievably corrupt government of members of PP has tried to direct all justified attention from their worthless selves in an attempt to attack the status of the political party Podemos which is threatening the gravy train that they have been shamelessly riding for the whole of their time in power.

HSBC (a bank I am ashamed to admit that I use) had had its list of thieving customers who use their private Swiss bank exposed.  Some countries (not the UK) are prosecuting this bunch of banking criminals for aiding and abetting individuals to evade taxes in their countries.  Anyone with a Swiss bank account who is not a Swiss citizen seems to me to have a case to answer.  It will be interesting to see which individuals (if any) the majority of our timid press attempt to expose to the full light of careful investigative detail.

Every day there is yet more evidence that the ruling classes in this country regard the ordinary people as mere dupes to bloat their already obscene salaries.  At any reasonable assessment of the situation we should almost be at an explosive point in our political life.  I feel that Spain is very much a tinderbox at the moment. 

There is virtually no respect for the normal symbols of authority in this country: politicians are regarded as self-serving scum; the police have sunk in public appreciation as we have seen too many sights of unprovoked beatings of demonstrators and others; the government is bringing in ever more Draconian laws against any form of protest AND has made an offence to film police brutality; justice is an empty concept in this country; judges are under firm political control; the rich are getting richer; poverty is a growing fact of life – and so it goes on. 

Unemployment rates are sky high with youth unemployment being over 50%!  If it wasn’t for the fact that people can ‘go home’ to parents and grandparents for help and support our cities would be burning now.

Thank goodness for art and poetry.  And cheap, decent, red wine!

My poems can be seen at:      

           smrnewpoems.blgospot.com.es

Write at it!

The one good thing about my note making is that I am still at it.  Even when, like this morning, my official notebook was left at home, I still wrote something as I was savouring my weak tea at the leisure centre.  The quality of the tea is lower because there is a new person behind the counter and she has not been fully Rees-trained yet to produce the sort of brew that can dissolve a spoon – or at least stain it convincingly.  That will come in time.

            Instead of the notebook I used the back of two receipts and, although the notes are sketchy, I think that there is something that I can use, especially the sub-Dylan Thomas scrawl of “the strength of a little cough” – I think that has legs, so to speak.

            This comment, if it even merits that appellation, was all a result of a mistimed swallow.  You know the sort of thing, when someone says after a bout of coughing that something ‘went down the wrong way’.  Well, this was a sort of half swallow and I gave a sort of subdued cough.  And felt the effects of that discomfort for hours.  I am now used to sneezing under water, indeed I am really rather good at it – though I have sometimes thought about what might happen if I follow through after the sneeze and take a deep breath of water.  This has never happened and I always consider an underwater sneeze is positively therapeutic in ways that I do not fully understand.

            It didn’t stop with the sneezing however.  My eyes started stinging.  Nothing to do with the quality of the water, which is catalytically salted or something like that, and not, surely in early February some form of pollen?  Over recent years I have become a little more sensitive to spawning trees and plants, but surely not this early in the year!  
          The eye stinging has lasted into the evening but I am determined that my eyes will be fully operational for the double length offering of ‘The Strain’ which starts at ten thirty this evening.  This is directed by del Toro and presumably is another one of his ‘for money’ enterprises that eventually will fund another ‘Faun’s Labyrinth’ for art.  I have to say I rather like his trashy films as well.  And we are looking forward to some honest to goodness hokum this evening!

Tomorrow to Barcelona for the next meeting of my Poetry Group.  This has become an important part of my literary life and my going there usually stimulates me to work on what the writing focus for the evening has been and to work it into something that can go into ‘Flesh Can Be Bright’ when it is published at the end of the summer ready for The Meal in October.

            My bits of the book are almost done.  The cover is designed; the rough format is determined; typefaces and layout settled; indexes in the course of completion and the introduction waiting to be written – but, to be fair that can only be done when everything else is completed.  
          The other aspects of the book are well outside my frantic fingers.  The translations are out there waiting to be completed, though the Catalan translation is in safe hands and I hope to hear that the Spanish translation has been accepted by the person I asked; the drawings are still in my head; one set I can relax about, the others are far more problematical.  I still have to pick my time to ask about one set, and the last set . . . well, if the worst comes to the worst I will simply have to doctor photos of mine in an artistic and pretentious sort of way!  Though I obviously hope that it doesn’t come to that.  I have ideas of whom I can ask.  I think.

            Anyway it’s early February and I have set the end of May for all the stuff to be in and to be ready for me to set up.  That gives me four months to deal with the inevitable problems that will make spacious amounts of time as nothing!  But that is part of the fun of self-publishing anyway!

Lunch was designed to take Toni’s mind off the fact that not only have his books not arrived, but also there has been no response to emails which he has fired off asking where the bloody hell they are.  Or Spanish words to that effect.

            We ate in what we call the ‘Bucket Place’.  This unflattering name is given to a café which is conveniently situated next to a large car park almost in the centre of town.  You have to understand that virtually everywhere where you can park demands payment – except for the lunch hours.  We were therefore able to park opposite the café and then have our usual.

            The USP of this place is that you can order an ice filled bucket of five small bottles of beer and a substantial tapa for €7.  We splashed out and had another tapa of spiced pieces of meat with tomato bread, more bread and coffee with ice all for the cost of €12!  A full meal, delicious, for two and, as Toni only had a single bottle of beer, more than satisfactory!

And there was an email on our return telling Toni that his books would probably be with him by the end of the week.  I will not be holding my breath, in spite of the fact that these books only have to travel about 20 km.

            If and when they do arrive then it will be all systems go to find a fortnight’s holiday in Grand Canaria.  Wherever we go there has to be Wi-Fi, as we will both be doing our courses.  Toni with his new books!

            My own course has an odd sort of momentum to it.  Some parts simply swim along while others are gloopily theoretical.  I think that most of the artists that we are studying would be amazed if they knew (or indeed if they could understand) the pretentious nonsense written about what they might think that they were doing.  I suppose that is a little unfair because I have gained immense insights into the development of twentieth century art during this course and the more I read the more little bits seem to be fitting into place.  Strange that, isn’t it!

            The next TMA will be a real test as it calls for textual analysis as well as a theoretical overview.  It will stretch my ability and capabilities to do it well but I do think that I see a way through.

            The End Of Module Assessment (EMA) is the extended essay or thesis part of the course and this is the part for which I have selected two artists David Hockney (easy) and Alvaro Guevara (difficult) to compare and contrast.  The ease and complexity is not about their art but simple accessibility.  Reproductions of Hockney’s work abound and I can find any number of critics and art historians to use in my analysis.  Guevara is very different.  Although well known at one time, that time was almost 100 years ago and, as the end of his life was nothing like as successful as his early promise, um, promised, his work has sunk, almost without trace.

            There are very few examples of Guevara’s work in public galleries.  He may have been Chilean, but he had his real training and fame in England and more specifically in London on the fringes of and sometimes in the thick of the Bloomsbury Group.  There are paintings of his in the Tate, but I am not sure that they are on display.  I can get to see them in the storerooms of the Tate, but that needs an official application and at least six weeks notice.

            I am trying to track one particular painting of his from his series of paintings of swimmers and swimming pools called, ‘Little Splash’.  I know this exists and it was on exhibition in 1974 in London but as yet I have not discovered where it has gone or who owns it, or even if it still exists!

            My last contact was with the daughter in Norfolk of a man who dealt with Guevara’s estate and who was/is the owner of an art gallery.  This lead might result in my seeing a black and white reproduction of the painting ‘Little Splash’ or perhaps information about its present location.  Sometimes with the sort of research that I am doing the academic journey is the real satisfaction – which will have to compensate for not actually finding out anything of use!

            The great-grand-nephew of the artist, now doing a PhD in Leeds is keen to keep me up to date with a project that he is working on concerning his relative and has even offered to work in my research in some way to the exhibition on Guevara that he is planning!  A nice (in the appropriate sense of the word) linkage I think.

            My file is growing and I can say with a certain degree of confidence that it is likely that I am the foremost expert on Alvaro Guevara (1894-1951) in the whole of Castelldefels!  An expert, I might add, who has yet to see a single artistic work of the artist in the flesh!  My claim of paramount knowledge is unlikely to be disputed – though I would be delighted to find out that there is someone out there with a wealth of information that I would willingly plunder!

            The one bastion of knowledge that I have not yet breached is the Rothschild Collection.  I don’t really know where to start.  But it will be fun trying!