The Cultural Alternative!

 

“I was losing so much money that in desperation I turned to Shakespeare,” so said Lilian Baylis when she was looking for ways to keep the Old Vic going – High Culture as a Way Out!

While I am not trying to found a ballet or drama company, I am trying to keep my sanity in a world (or at least the bits of it that form my construction of life) that appears to be going mad with a manic intensity.

Every day I make a vow that I will not listen to the Today Programme on Radio 4 (courtesy of my Internet Radio) and gnash my teeth in impotent fury at the latest idiocy of the so-called government of my country, and I will certainly not find out what the latest inanity, insanity or impertinence of the so-called POTUS might be.  Each day I fail, and each day I feel the same (or perhaps growing) fury about a series of situations that are (at least to me) patently the result of fatally flawed ideas and characters.

So, much like Lilian, I turn to (sometimes) Shakespeare, but more often art and music to keep myself sane.

Over the last week I have visited two art exhibitions (in mental self-defence) and done my 'homework' for an opera that I am going to next week.

Both the exhibitions are on at the Caixa Forum in Barcelona.  The first that I saw was “Toulouse-Lautrec and the spirit of Montmartre”[1] a large exhibition that has a range of material to consider.  It is not merely an exhibition of paintings and drawings, but, as befits the period, it has a range of posters, magazines, advertising pamphlets, shadow puppets and photographs.

The music, theatre, music hall, club scenes are all covered and for me the main interest was in finding out how many of the art movements, at least the more progressive (and transgressive) ones!

It is perhaps easy to take a person like Duchamp and then go looking for precursors, and find them in the febrile atmosphere of the fin de siècle demi monde of late nineteenth century France, especially the bohemian art centre of Montmartre.

This is an exhibition worth visiting - and searching for your own illuminations in the history of art!

The second exhibition was “Velasquez and the Golden Age”[2] which is built around the loan of seven Velasquez from the Prado in Madrid with each painting being set in the context of other works from a range of artists to give some sense of where the paintings of Velazquez could have taken some of their inspiration.

The themes are Art; Learning; Mythology; The Court; Landscape; Still Life and Religion.

This is an important exhibition.  It is not often that one gets the chance to see this number of Velazquez outside of Madrid and we must be grateful to the Prado that they have given the whole of their quota (no more than seven Velasquez to be loaned at any one time) to the Caixa Forum for this exhibition.

I have to admit that I have only been to see the paintings on a fairly quick trip that was more to get the catalogue and look through it to gain some background knowledge so that I can make a more leisurely trip later.  As the catalogue is only available in Catalan and Spanish, it is a labour of mild misery to read through it!  But, the catalogue “Velázquez Y El Siglo De Oro” is a large format publication and gives excellent reproductions of the paintings and of details of those paintings (all 59 of them) and that is the most important aspect!

This is a major exhibition and I will have to steel myself to hack my way through hordes of school children to get to see the paintings in the future.  I was lucky that I went to the exhibition the day after it had opened and, as the lady in the shop told me, “That is the first catalogue that I have sold!”  When the trips and visits schedule gets under way then quiet contemplation of Great Art is going to be impossible.

But that is a good thing.  For kids to see it.  I am more than prepared to wait for people to pass, if there is the slightest chance that the artistic attitude of the young can be formed by a school trip!

There are certainly paintings in the exhibition that will have an immediate appeal to the young and, with one painting in particular, I would love to hear it explained to junior school kids!  This is by the artist Alonso Cano, is in the section devoted to Religion and has the innocuous title of “San Bernardo y la Virgen”[3].  Look up the painting on line and think about how you would explain it.

This is an exhibition to revisit!

While you are here, you might like to consider visiting my poetry blog:

https://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com/2018/11/daily-run.html

where I have posted a new poem.

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[1] https://caixaforum.es/barcelona/fichaexposicion?entryId=544677

[2] https://caixaforum.es/barcelona/fichaexposicion?entryId=644601

[3] https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/san-bernardo-y-la-virgen/25b83887-3b11-4a99-a9b1-3b3050733d6a

O God The News!

 

Never let it be said that the bloody awful weather dictates my attitude towards life.  However, I am in a bloody awful mood to match!

The news from Britain as the shambolic ‘government’ of talentless Conservative (have you any idea how difficult it was for me to put a capital letter at the start of that word) lower than vermin, self-seeking, inept, traitorous, bastards descend lower and lower into the farce that is their approach to Brexit.

And my contempt for May grows.  And, no, I have no sympathy for her as she is savaged by the liars and cowards with whom she has surrounded herself.  Whenever I see her robotically defending the indefensible and fell a smidgeon of sympathy, I only have to remember her tenure at the Home Office and the heartless and ILLEGAL processes that she put in place to banish any fellow feeling for her ‘suffering’ now.  Her on-going failure at least gives a re-reading of the “all politicians’ careers end in failure” as hers has been failure in its more continuous manner.  To say nothing of her dancing.

It is a sign of desperation and picking through the dregs that Pixie Cheeks Gove has been asked to take on the barbed wire rimmed, poisoned chalice of Brexit Secretary.  But he will only accept if he is allowed to renegotiate!  What world are these people living in?  Are they so secure in the foreign investments that they can look on with equanimity as the rest (the large rest) of us suffer?

I know that I do not command a great deal of sympathy as I spend my retirement by the side of the Med here in Castelldefels – but my pension is paid in pounds sterling and when I first came to Catalonia a Euro was 70p; now a Euro is 87p which means that my pension has been reduced by 20%, a fifth of my buying power has been wiped out largely because of the stupidity of a discontented electorate listening to the lies of the Brexiteers and believing that those Brexiteer had access to whole herds of magic unicorns who would make all manner of things well!  Rubbish.  Just recite the names of the most prominent Brexiteer and then ask the age-old question, “Would you buy a used car” from any of them?  Of course, you wouldn’t, so why entrust the future of your country to the sick imaginations of these failures?

And that scum that has resigned . . . and I paused there because my dictatorial watch informed me that I had been sitting for too long and I needed to move about for a minute!   

Perhaps its is just as well I walked away from the keys.  What do I achieve by venting my spleen?  I suppose it could be considered cathartic, but apart from keeping my blood pressure within the green range, cui bono?

It is, however, ironic that the “onlie begetters” of Brexit are generally not in government any more and therefore are not dealing with the mess that they have made!  Nothing like denying responsibility, but I suppose they have the superb example of Cameron to take as their guide for thoroughly selfish irresponsibility!

And the back wheel of my bike has been punctured or something because it was thoroughly flat when I attempted to ride it to my Catalan lesson this morning.  And now I have to go and pick it up in the pouring rain.  Again.  Much as I like the bike, I have to admit that I have been singularly unlucky with the damn thing.  I have barely gone more than a fortnight riding the thing without some reason to take it back to my bike man.  The broken spokes have become a running joke and the suspension is suspect too.

I am now thoroughly regretting that I have ordered the updated, fat wheel version of the bike that I have.  It will have improved brakes and gears, with a sexy paint job (sigh!), a full colour display and a back pannier, or at least a framework to put one on, and the thing will have a sort of brake light as well.  As you can see, I am easily persuaded with the trivia and don’t really care about the important engineering of the thing!

The new bike should/might arrive in time for Christmas and will give me something to worry about, while not being able to ride the thing because of poor weather.  It is all in the anticipation and not the reality!

Anyway, to finish off a near perfect day, after I have collected my bike, I then have to return to the centre of town for a dental appointment.  If a day is going to be bad then it does make sense to concentrate all the badness so that you can enjoy it a schadenfreude sort of way.

To keep my sanity, I have not gone out of my way to find what new infantile lunacy the so-called Head of the Free World has been up to.  That can wait until I am stronger!

This & That

 

Just Speak

It’s a simple injunction - though not quite so easy when you have to do it in a language that you do not, to all intents and purposes speak!

Our relief Catalan teacher takes a very different approach to the learning of the language than our previous teacher, who at present is ill and cannot take us.  Our previous teacher has a methodical, textbook-led methodology that works through language via the grammar and selected vocabulary.  As we are all beginners we lack grammar and vocabulary so conversation is not a realistic option.  This does not stop our present teacher urging us to talk, talk, talk!

He does not really care if we substitute English or Spanish for words that we do not know, as long as we are making an effort to use what Catalan we do!  As he is quite keen on making us take turns standing in front of the class to stutter out our illiteracies, this becomes a terrifyingly exhilarating experience!

Our learning is not made any easier by the fact that the composition of our class is something of a moveable feast with hard-core regulars numbering about 7 or 8, out of an initial membership of over twenty.  The classes start at 11.00 am but students drift in until almost 11.30 am.  I realize that this is a class of adults and there may be a whole range of problems and situations that make prompt arrival difficult - but still!  I would be incandescent if it were my class!

The conversational approach will only be for the next couple of lessons as our normal teacher should return next week, but our supply teacher has certainly made an impression and, as will all temporary replacement teachers, he will be used as a measuring stick against whom all future and past teachers will be assessed.

-oOo-

Tomorrow I am going to a meeting of the Barcelona Poetry Group.  This will be a special meeting as the organizer, now resident in the US of A, will be making a ‘guest’ appearance and hosting a meeting where the topic will be ‘Memory’.

I used to go regularly to these meetings, but when the locations changed to more difficult to get to places, I let my attendance slip.  With my present physical circumstances, the number of floors that I would have to ascend (without a lift) in one or two of the locations would make my appearance difficult if not terminal!  But this meeting is in the centre of Barcelona near the Cathedral and I not only know how to get there without fear, but I also know that there is parking (expensive parking to be sure, but parking nevertheless) within easy walking distance of the flat where the meeting will be held.

I will not have seen many of the people there for some time, so there will be a certain amount of catching up to do - as well as a certain amount of writing, as there is a practical aspect to the meeting as well.

I shall wear one of my lurid pressure stockings.  If nothing else it will be a focus of shocked attention and disbelief, giving me the opportunity to recite my well-practised tale of hospitalization and life change!

It will also be an opportunity to find out how changed the others’ lives have been by the passing of the years.  Perhaps I can take some copies of Together Apart to share and distribute!  Though, thinking about it, all the poets represented in that book need to have equal treatment, so perhaps just a few copies to show what the Group has achieved in concrete written form!

-oOo-

The young girls from the family next door have thrown themselves, with much screaming, into the waters of our communal open-air pool.  Indeed it is not cold, but it is certainly not the weather in which I would ever consider immersing myself in any water that has not been artificially heated to something approaching blood temperature!  Well, perhaps a few degrees less.  I admire their determination, though worry about the noise levels: if they are prepared to face the elements in the middle of November, when exactly will the waters of the pool be off limits, so to speak.  Are we condemned to hearing high-pitched enthusiasm for the whole of the year?

I did go into the sea in December, Christmas Eve to be precise, in Sitges.  It was a beautifully warm day with bright sunshine.  That temperature had not transferred itself to the water, which I entered gingerly and exited expeditiously.  Nevertheless, I did ‘swim’ in the sea on Christmas Eve.  And that is an achievement of sorts.

-oOo-

I am at present writing a poem based on observations written in my notebook from this morning.  There is an amazing backlog of ‘notes towards poems’ waiting to be written up and, with my imminent visit to Barcelona and the Poetry Group, now seemed a good time to get back into the swing of things and start drafting.

As is usual for me, I have written the body of the poem and have come up against a blank sheet of paper for the ending.  I sort-of know what it is I want to say, but the ways in which I have phrased it so far are depressingly trite or mawkish.  That is why I am typing this, as displacement activity to rest the part of my brain that isn’t finding the appropriate ending, in the hope that I can trick out a suitable phraseology when I go back down stairs and try again!

-oOo-

I have been doing my musical homework and my knowledge of Katya by Janacek has now reached the level when I am identifying tunes and indeed am humming along in certain parts.  Admittedly those are the parts most closely related to Janacek’s use of folk tunes, but it is progress.

I don’t know what language Katya is going to be sung in at the Liceu, though I doubt that it is in the original language, especially given the nationality of the soloists, still that will be something to weigh up when I get to the theatre and start enjoying the performance, there are always sur-titles to keep me on track and I have read the libretto in English and see productions of the opera as well.

Now back to the poem and the hope that the ending has sorted itself out in the depths of my mind.  Time to go fishing!