Depressing subject, sorry for bringing it up, but I found a poem today while I was sorting through one of the many boxes of junk I have hoarded in various glory holes around the place.

I had scribbled the poem down on the back of a postcard depicting a piece of street art from an artist called Diva, having seen it on my local train, the Dart, while on my way to visit a dying lady in hospital some years ago, and I’ve been blogging today about street art and putting art into the public forum, and I wrote the poem down because it expressed some of my feelings that day, and without it, I wouldn’t have been able to express them correctly, so the whole thing sort of points to putting this poem in a post in case any one else should find it when they need it.

It’s called Looking at your face….

Looking at your face

now you have become ready to die,

is like kneeling at an old gravestone,

on an afternoon without sun, trying to read

the white chiselings of the poem

in the white stone.

Galway Kinnell

Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980)

Check out this brilliant collection of the Cans Festival and other street art on flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cans+festival

http://www.flickr.com/photos/romanywg/sets/72157604852764513/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/romanywg/

Could anyone call this vandalism?

Street artists such as Banksy - and as street artist Vhils says ‘It’s not all about Banksy’ - have been moving graffiti into an art form of its own over the past couple of decades. 

Ever wondered what Pure Evil looks like? …Well, kind of mild-mannered and genteel as it turns out. Here’s Pure Evil talking to the Guardian:

(Short video clip)  http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/video/2008/may/02/cansfestival

The Cans Festival took place in a tunnel in Leake Street, underneath Waterloo Station, London.  The tunnel is officially a public road but owned by Eurostar who gave permission for the site to be used as a gallery for the festival.  The location was kept secret until the last minute.  According to the Cans Website, 28, 544 people visited, with 623 of them adding their own piece of art to the walls, including Peter Chappell whom Banksy cites as a hero. 

One of the most innovative parts of this exhibition is that a wall was designated as an open wall for any visitor to add their piece.  The organisers kept to strict rules to keep the offerings up to standard, it all had to be stencil art and participants must register to be alloted a place to paint, and no painting over someone else’s work.  The results look fantastic.  Every art exhibition should offer a similar wall, talk about audience participation!

The invited artists moved stencil art on to another level.  Don’t think Changing Rooms with Carol Smiley….

 Think chipping your stencil out on a wall, like Vhils does:

I’m not pretending that these artisits have produced something equal in artistic ability to Matisse or Picasso or (insert your hero here) but there certainly is something Dali-esque about the style.

Dali at his Anthromorphic Desk, 1936

The real genius in the street art of the calibre you find at the Cans Festival, the bit that elevates it above others, is location  - can you imagine the sterility of any of these pieces were they hung reverently in the National Gallery? 

Banksy painting on the wall separating Israel from Palestine…

…and on a wall in Bethnal Green, London,

Banksy painting!

Could this be the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel Banksy?  A spokesman for Banksy confirmed the artwork is genuine but refused to admit that the man captured by a passer-by on a mobile camera phone is the artist.  

Street Festivals like the Cans Festival, and temporary installations in general, are not just something fun for the participants and spectators, but they are the future of art - immediately accessible, thought provoking, and perhaps prompting people to examine their own connection with art, be it visiting a gallery or doodling on the pad beside the phone. 

As the public support for some of Banksy’s work attests, it is also the most democratic form of public art.  Councillors commission works of art all the time, and pay high prices using tax-payers money, sometimes these pieces become beloved by the locals, sometimes they irritate, and predictable choruses of ’should have spent the money on something useful like hospitals..’ ring out.  But here you are given, for free, a piece of art, to be removed, left to fade, or maintained, as is public will.

Appreciate the gift.

A quick caveat for the infantile street taggers, though: give it up, mate, you’ve been out-classed.

Controversy!

1968 - Eurovision

Which song should have won?

I can’t choose between the two songs, both are kind of catchy although, admittedly, Cliff has put a little extra work into the chorus lyrics.  How did the panels choose that year?

 

MADRID (Reuters) - Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest after Spanish dictator Francisco Franco fixed the vote, according to a documentary.

Richard was the bookmakers’ favourite to win with his song “Congratulations” however Spanish contestant Massiel pipped him to the title by just one point with “La La La” — Spain’s first of two victories in the competition’s 52-year history. 

“It was a fix,” the documentary’s producer Montse Fernandez Vila quoted Spanish television presenter Jose Maria Inigo as saying. “Massiel won Eurovision with bought votes.”

Spanish TV executives travelled Europe promising to buy second-rate programmes and concerts billing strange acts in return for Eurovision votes, Inigo told the documentary.

Victory was seen as vital to General Franco’s fascist regime in boosting Spain’s image abroad, Fernandez Vila said.

Bjorn Erichsen, the director of Eurovision television, the international broadcasting body responsible for the contest, said:

“Franco was really so keen for Spain to win it? We’re not talking about NATO here or the EU, or political influence, we’re talking about a pop song contest,”  Erichsen said laughing, before adding: “I can’t exclude the possibility it might be true”.

 

Did Franco do it?

 Yep, it was me, I did it, ha ha.

Wild as it sounds, it could be true, because not only was Franco quite capable of anything, but there’s another player in the story of Franco and the Eurovision:

….Spain only drafted Massiel in at the last moment after Joan Manuel Serrat, who was meant to sing at the London event, refused to perform “La La La” in Spanish rather than his native Catalan — a regional language repressed during the dictatorship.

Please enjoy the groovy women fighting over Joan Manuel Serrat - 1968

Joan Manuel Serrat  - Rebel? Freedom Fighter? Well, yes, as it turns out, but ultimately he’s a singer/songwriter.  While on tour in Mexico in the 70’s he spoke out against executions by rifle squad that were happening under Franco’s orders.  He was promptly exiled and remained in Mexico until Franco’s death. His defence of the Catalan language (and his music, of course) propelled him to glory in the eyes of many.  In his native city, Barcelona, the language issue is still close to people’s hearts and many signs are written in several languages.  Museums can’t fit all the languages in, and no English appears, but when they provided Catalan, my school-french came in handy…

Looks to me as if there were many winners in the 1968 Eurovision. 

Congratulations was a massive hit and in a long list of hits for Cliff Richard is one of his best known; Massiel went on to become a superstar in Spain; the world and his wife went on holiday to the Costa del Sol;

and Serrat retained his dignity and principles, promoted the use of native language on the world stage, and went on to win global acclaim for his songwriting skills in that way that is kind of underground and cool, something Cliff and Massiel’s bank balances might not envy, but most musicians would.

Asked if Eurovision would investigate, Erichsen was emphatic: “No! Just to make Cliff Richard a little happier and the Spanish winner a bit more unhappy? I don’t think you should dig up old bodies to prove he was or wasn’t the father. It’s history.”  

I’m pretty sure Cliff Richard doesn’t care.  Afterall, Franco, Massiel and Serrat can’t say this:

“I’m affectionately known by Elton John as either Sylvia Disc or the Bionic Christian.”

 

Cliff can.

Warning: This post is about the film ‘Boy A’ and contains spoilers.

Last night I watched, on Channel 4, the film of the book by Jonathon Trigell, “Boy A”.

http://www.channel4.com/video/boy-a/series-1/

It’s the story of a young man, Jack, and his attempt to lead a ‘normal life’ following his release from prison. 

First, let me pay tribute to an excellent film. 

Every actor was outstanding.  Every role believable.  The acting abilities of Andrew Garfield (Jack) and Peter Mullen (as his probation officer, Terry) were especially in evidence, but all the characters and performances rang true.

The direction and writing of the film were also magnificent. As the story unfolds the audience is brought on a journey with expertise that films rarely achieve.  It was an honour to watch such craft in action.  I recommend the film whole heartedly, even allowing for my criticism that follows, it is still a film that deserves to be put on the must-see list.

I haven’t read the book, but will.  Perhaps the book is different?

Last chance to avoid any spoilers!

The first half of the film was outstanding, the second half good, but left too many questions unexamined, the later scenes lacked the seering insight that the earlier scenes had in spades.

There can be no doubt that, although entirely fictional, this story was written as a parallel to the case of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the child killers of Jamie Bulger, a murder that shocked and sickened a nation.  I came to the film aware that I would draw parallels and so found myself constantly thinking of the case, in fact it’s better to say that I watched it because of the obvious similarity. 

So I was disappointed to see that the murder itself, and Jack’s precise part in it, and lead up to it, was never fully exposed.  We were given a good picture of unhappy circumstances, but as many children have such circumstances, it was not enough to help explain a seemingly sudden choice to murder, although Philip’s story seems better explained.  I was similarly let down that the fictional family of the victim were afforded no role in the film, and that the victim herself was alloted only unlikable characteristics, as if to mitigate the murder or detract from the atrocity.

The screenwriter has said that he attempted to make the audience sympathetic with Jack before revealing any details of the crime.  In this he was successful; aware as I was of the parallel to reality, I found myself caught up in Jack’s often unvocalised pain and Jack’s story. Totally empathetic to Jack at an early point, I was preparing to have the rug pulled from beneath me as I felt sure I was about to be confronted with another reality, that of the victim.  This confrontation never really came.

I suspect that this film chickened out.  Perhaps the writer had spent too long with Jack, and couldn’t bring himself to open up the unpalatable part of Jack’s history. 

Part of me was relieved; I have been pardoned from having to be judge or jury in this case, I was able to leave the film acknowledging, but without being forced to examine, the contradicting moral issues.

And this is where I am angry.  How dare such a promising piece let me off the hook?!!

The film was so brilliantly made, the story of Jack so wonderfully told, that I implore all involved to make the next part of the story so that, like a jigsaw, I may piece together the various aspects of this entire tale, and if I dare to, look at the full picture.

In the real life stories of children killing children, a small handful of people have been required to see the whole picture and make decisions that seem impossible to make, and each of them no doubt found themselves having to rely on standard responses to get through the ordeal; responses such as ‘minimum/maximum sentences’, ‘mitigating circumstances’, ‘campaigning for justice’, ‘unconditional love’.  Perhaps all of them found that they could take just one or two pieces of the picture and judge them in isolation because there was no other way to respond.

This film had the chance to put the ball in the court of each viewer, to say “Here are all the stories - here is the crime, here is the child, here is the adult, here is the life lost, here is the rehabilitation, here is the future: now what should society, and indeed individuals, do?  What is the moral right?”

As it stands, it is an excellent film, examining more than any other film on the subject, brave to take on the story of a killer, and challenging the viewer throughout, just falling at the very last hurdle.

When the producers dare to produce the sequel, perhaps in the form of Boy B’s story, we may just see perfection.

I don’t give a damn how you invented it, Jennings, just pour before I bloody sober up.

Birthday presents that are complete surprises are the best birthday presents in the world.  Creme de Cassis wasn’t on my wish list, but here I am 6 months later utterly addicted to the stuff.  I take my martini glass or red-wine glass, drop in a decent amount of the purple poison - a little bit more than a shot, a little bit less than a gallon - and top it up with anything fizzy & close to hand.  Diet 7up mixed with a little Sprite seems to be the best combination.

And I drink alone!

It’s a light drink, like a kir but less alcoholic, it feels like a soft drink, so you never feel you’re drinking alone. I won’t try to persuade you to try it.  I’m no alcohol pushing lush.  But I’ll leave the idea to swish around your head for a little.  You’ll see.  One day you’ll be passing by the liqueur section at the supermarket and suddenly have the urge to drop a bottle into your shopping trolley.

Afterall, one glass a night does not an alcoholic make.

Size of glass is completely up to you.

Any time I have angelic thoughts I think to myself ‘Hey! What a good person I am’.

But it always passes.

I’m nice really.  Underneath everything and above everything else, I am nice.  I always have good thoughts.

  Look, Ma!  A pig flying by...