Christmas 1972 on flickr
"Two of my sisters, my brother-in-law Rik, and I descended on Charleston, SC, just before Christmas 1972. I flew down from Nashville with only the clothes on my back and gifts for my family. And a tin full of untested marijuana brownies I'd made the previous night from an ounce of high-quality Jamaican weed."
Composer Says Beijing Olympic Committee Ripped Him Off
"Peter Breiner, who arranged more than 200 national anthems for the 2004 Olympics, has accused the Beijing Olympic Committee of stealing those works for this year's Games. He says he is "100 percent sure" that his arrangements are being played at medal ceremonies -- and the Washington Post's culture critic couldn't agree more."
How to write a hit sitcom according to Graham Linehan
"Make your own rules and stick to them. On Father Ted he and Arthur Mathews vowed never to show Ted at work, leading to a raft of jokes about his very short Mass in one episode that worked because the actual ceremony was unseen. ‘Rules like that focus the mind. They force you to think in more creative ways to get around things."
It's time to update our what-celebs-order-at-Starbucks list
"Renee Zellweger ordered a half caf pumpkin spice latte at my store. Daryl Hannah ordered organic milk for her drink. Jackie Mason orders something different (but something plain) each time. I can't remember what Bruce Willis ordered because I was too busy thinking what a rude wanker he was. (I didn't recognize him.)"
Also: The good news about coffee
iPhone 3G - already with pictures !
"Not sure if this is or is not the 'norm' but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalise with a photo) already had a photo set against it !!!! [...] It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun - has anyone else found this ?"
Up close and personal: BBC Four to screen series of legendary music films
"Starting with the iconic film about the brilliant and tragic British cellist Jacqueline du Pr̩ Рand continuing with portraits of Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin and Nathan Milstein (two films) Рthe BBC Four series culminates in the debut screening of Nupen's latest film Karim's Journey. "
Bargain basement 'art' from eBay goes on show at Hayward Gallery
"Tom Morton, the exhibition's curator, amassed the ephemera after typing "conceptual" into eBay's search engine. The display, due to open on Thursday, is likely to reignite the debate on the line between "conceptual art" and pedestrian, everyday objects, which has raged since the birth of the Young British Artists' movement in the 1990s."
Watch the Olympics? You must be off your box
"Five Live's commentators do what the TV can't: bring the world's greatest sporting spectacle to life"
Beijing Olympics Stadium: about 30 min. before Men's 100m Final
Britney Spears Live!
"This is the feed from her live microphone... and only her live microphone."
Batman 3 Poster - Riddler
Artist's impression of what David Tennant would look like in the role. Seems like perfect casting to me.
How to lose favour with Kirsten Dunst: ask if she's in love with you yet
Video blog with Simon Pegg from the set of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. He likes Kirsten Dunst very much: "She is the product of that odd collision between wisdom and youth. An actress since she was three years old, she demonstrates experience and professionalism, coupled with a healthy understanding of the nature of the business. She is also one of the most instinctively gifted actresses I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I'm a fan. Does it show?"
No more now.
Sport Lucy Wainwright came seventh in a time of 1:53.102 in the Women's kayak single K1 500m final. Well done to her for making the final, not coming last, and good luck to Lucy for the future. I was screaming for you, and sorry I was such a jinx.
De-Lurky
About Three things before watching tonight's film:
(1) Since broadbanding myself (is that even a verb?) I've installed a Twitter client (is that what they're called?). Twhirl sits in the windows taskbar and whenever someone tweets, a little box appears with the content. It's great -- I feel very much more connected the web collective and its just fun to read about the minutiae of the lives of others. Plus, since its more accessible, I'm also tweeting on a more regular basis. You can follow me here.
(2) Since I'm not Gawker Media I'm obviously not concerned about these things, but I've just noticed that the readership of one of my feeds at Bloglines has dropped by five in the past twenty-four hours. Now, I'm assuming that its because you're using some other feed software or following the Friendfeed instead. I'd be interested to know if that's the case. Comments please.
(3) I've not asked this for a while, but have I any readers who've only recently joined? I'd love to hear from you. How did you find me? How long has it been? Any questions?
(1) Since broadbanding myself (is that even a verb?) I've installed a Twitter client (is that what they're called?). Twhirl sits in the windows taskbar and whenever someone tweets, a little box appears with the content. It's great -- I feel very much more connected the web collective and its just fun to read about the minutiae of the lives of others. Plus, since its more accessible, I'm also tweeting on a more regular basis. You can follow me here.
(2) Since I'm not Gawker Media I'm obviously not concerned about these things, but I've just noticed that the readership of one of my feeds at Bloglines has dropped by five in the past twenty-four hours. Now, I'm assuming that its because you're using some other feed software or following the Friendfeed instead. I'd be interested to know if that's the case. Comments please.
(3) I've not asked this for a while, but have I any readers who've only recently joined? I'd love to hear from you. How did you find me? How long has it been? Any questions?
Superlambanana-on-and-on #8
Passing through Lime Street Station tonight, look what I found. It's Lovemedoodle, the Superlambanana which has been at Euston for the past few months. I had thought about visiting London especially to photograph it, but ever the nerd decided to buy that external hard disk instead. I know I probably missed an adventure, but spare a thought for these people. If only they'd waited a month or two, they might have done their work even more quickly.
First time I heard his song 'Crap Shag'.
Life An in-situ production of Henry IV, Part One which ended in what seemed like the square where all the winos lived and when one of the characters died, one of the tramps approaching him and giving him a kick and asking 'Is he dead?' and the bloke playing Falstaff IN CHARACTER trying to pay the bloke to leave us alone in pennies.
Seeing a production of The Crucible in front of a set which looked like it had been painted by a nursery school in which the lead actor had been taken ill and the director read in his role from the text, him being apprently being replaced in the role of a pensioner by a sixteen year old, with the audience slowly walking out but a core ten of us sticking it out to the bitter end.
Arguing with a stand up comic during his rubbish show (he spent a good five minutes of it insulting the obvious critic) about the number of Police Academy films there were. Never before and since have I found myself bellowing the words Mission To Moscow at midnight.
Pitching up for a mostly nude midnight performance of the musical Hair and find an audience filled with families. Leaving the theatre and literally bumping into a post-Shooting Stars, pre-Little Britain Matt Lucas dressed as a pink bunny rabbit, removing the head and saying 'Fuck me, it's hot in here...'
Seeing A Comedy of Errors for the first time, in a production which was imagined as being in a lunatic asylum so the actors all hung around in a cage and the lookalikes were achieved by having the same actors offering the dialogue as though they had a split personality and having no idea what was going on from about ten minutes in.
Seeing Mitch Benn who I went to school with for the first time in ten years and unsuccessfully trying to get myself invited to the after show party. I've seen him since, now and then, and he only seems to recognise me 50% of the time. First time I heard his song 'Crap Shag'.
My second favourite production of Measure for Measure was at Edinburgh. It was in the intimate atmosphere of the C venue, with a tiny stage area and small cast. One of the few I've seen that's understood the tragedy and scent of fear which pervades the piece and that convincingly explained why The Duke would disappear amongst the populace in disguise.
Watching the first The X-Files film on the opening night sitting between two fan girls in Scully t-shirts at the back of the main screen at one of the Odeons only subsequently realising that I was there so that they would concentrate on the film rather than each other. Watching The Avengers film alone in another screen later in the week, realising that it was a bit shit.
Another midnight show, this time featuring two women pretending to be transvestites being women. Clearly it was supposed to be a feminist statement and the singing was good, but most of the audience (which included three men dressed a vikings) sat suitably confused.
Attending a performed script reading at the Filmhouse Cinema for a film called Bad Blood introduced by Tim Roth. I maintain that David Tennant was also there, but that could be just my memory playing tricks. Taggart's Bythe Duff definitely played an old vampire though. I was late, but managed to buy a ticket from someone outside and ended up sitting on the front row. In my Trainspotting t-shirt. Which might have been a bit distracting for Kelly MacDonald who was sitting directly in front of me and playing the lead role. I hadn't meant to. I didn't even know she was going to be there. I don't think the film was made in the end.
Ten years ago this week, I was at the Edinburgh Festival. With perhaps the exception of Paris, it was the best holiday I've ever had, simply because every day was different, nothing was prearranged, and I genuinely felt like I belonged. It has been on my mind as it always is every year and when I mentioned it to a friend whose moved to the city lately in an email, I began a stream of memories and I actually had to stop myself from writing for hours ...
I tend to be the quiet one.
Soderbergh In The Park To Stage Production Of 'Ocean's Twelve'
I think this is probably even funnier if you really do, like me, thing Ocean's Twelve is a work of experimental genius.
Extroverts, please speak up!
This seems to work for me on a case by case basis -- in some cases I can be very open and hello and how are you total stranger, but at other times, often if there I sense that everyone knows everyone else, I tend to be the quiet one. Museum private views are a nemesis. House parties are better.
Watchmen DVD May Be Even Longer Than 3 Hours
It's a Lord of the Rings style double dip.
Manchester and Liverpool: A different dimension
Simon Calder traverses the canal. Spends an entire paragraph extolling the virtues of Sefton Park, and he's right, it does look like an ear, even from where I'm sitting.
Countdown Launches Search for new Arithmetician
Seems as though they want to nurture another mathematician -- apparently they originally found Carol through a newpaper job add so they're trying the web equivalent. Application forms asks potential number pickers to describe why they they'll be the best person for the job in less than fifty words. If they google for an answer (it happens) they'll no doubt find this. Yes, that'll probably do it.
Bookstores in Tokyo
The Olympics with MST3k
For Neil. Not a spoof either judging by the comments.
Blonska thrown out of long jump
Old news just twenty-four hours later (the relays!), but I still love Kelly's attitude which is basically 'I told you so, nyer-nyer-nyer.'
Mobile phones go all superspy in Spooks Code 9
I can just about rationalise that after that kind of attack even the security services would be using whatever technology they can get their hands on, except the production team clearly want us to think that its all hi-tech (so therefore dated within five minutes).
Interview: Blockbuster CEO: Skeptics Aside, Confident Of Physical’s Digital Future
Or Blockbuster CEO: can't understand why people would want to watch old movies, and spends most of the interview demonstrating why Blockbuster are losing traction against Netflix in the US and Lovefilm in the UK. It's sad. He uses phrases like 'the long tail' but doesn't really seem to know what they mean and misunderstands the fact that these days it's so expensive to rent a film for a single night in his stores/shops that people are just going out and buying the things instead or happy to have the random alternative.
3, 2, 1 ... blogs relaunch!
Announcing some exciting changes to blogs and commenting
The Guardian reworks its blogging platform and finally updates its RSS feeds so that everything goes through the same pipe -- no need to subscribe to two or three different feeds for the same writer and looking stalkerish in the process.
Meet Leland Chee, the Star Wars Franchise Continuity Cop
Following on from my rant of the other day, here's an interview with the very man. His reaction to the question about Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (written before the Endor Holocaust and in which Luke and Leia become very, very good friends) is priceless. I came away with the impression that actually it's not a useless job and that its a good thing that Lucasfilm at least pays some attention to this stuff even if there'll always be the spoddy uberfan who'll find something to complain about. 'But it's been established that the X-23b Land Fighter has four guns, yet in the new novel Engagement on Loobo Shopa (that title's copywrite me) it's described as having two. Fail.' etc.
LJ Kruzer > Since I Took A Taxi
Strange, dancie, techno but soothing. Thanks Robin.
No consumer advice is available for this work
Though I've not entirely forgiven the BBFC for giving The Dark Knight a 12A rating (really? the knives? the bit with the pencil?) this report page for a classification confirmation of Robert Altman's The Player placates me a little bit for the satirical usage of the words "The cast for this work includes" before going on to list what looks like every cameo...
I think this is probably even funnier if you really do, like me, thing Ocean's Twelve is a work of experimental genius.
Extroverts, please speak up!
This seems to work for me on a case by case basis -- in some cases I can be very open and hello and how are you total stranger, but at other times, often if there I sense that everyone knows everyone else, I tend to be the quiet one. Museum private views are a nemesis. House parties are better.
Watchmen DVD May Be Even Longer Than 3 Hours
It's a Lord of the Rings style double dip.
Manchester and Liverpool: A different dimension
Simon Calder traverses the canal. Spends an entire paragraph extolling the virtues of Sefton Park, and he's right, it does look like an ear, even from where I'm sitting.
Countdown Launches Search for new Arithmetician
Seems as though they want to nurture another mathematician -- apparently they originally found Carol through a newpaper job add so they're trying the web equivalent. Application forms asks potential number pickers to describe why they they'll be the best person for the job in less than fifty words. If they google for an answer (it happens) they'll no doubt find this. Yes, that'll probably do it.
Bookstores in Tokyo
The Olympics with MST3k
For Neil. Not a spoof either judging by the comments.
Blonska thrown out of long jump
Old news just twenty-four hours later (the relays!), but I still love Kelly's attitude which is basically 'I told you so, nyer-nyer-nyer.'
Mobile phones go all superspy in Spooks Code 9
I can just about rationalise that after that kind of attack even the security services would be using whatever technology they can get their hands on, except the production team clearly want us to think that its all hi-tech (so therefore dated within five minutes).
Interview: Blockbuster CEO: Skeptics Aside, Confident Of Physical’s Digital Future
Or Blockbuster CEO: can't understand why people would want to watch old movies, and spends most of the interview demonstrating why Blockbuster are losing traction against Netflix in the US and Lovefilm in the UK. It's sad. He uses phrases like 'the long tail' but doesn't really seem to know what they mean and misunderstands the fact that these days it's so expensive to rent a film for a single night in his stores/shops that people are just going out and buying the things instead or happy to have the random alternative.
3, 2, 1 ... blogs relaunch!
Announcing some exciting changes to blogs and commenting
The Guardian reworks its blogging platform and finally updates its RSS feeds so that everything goes through the same pipe -- no need to subscribe to two or three different feeds for the same writer and looking stalkerish in the process.
Meet Leland Chee, the Star Wars Franchise Continuity Cop
Following on from my rant of the other day, here's an interview with the very man. His reaction to the question about Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (written before the Endor Holocaust and in which Luke and Leia become very, very good friends) is priceless. I came away with the impression that actually it's not a useless job and that its a good thing that Lucasfilm at least pays some attention to this stuff even if there'll always be the spoddy uberfan who'll find something to complain about. 'But it's been established that the X-23b Land Fighter has four guns, yet in the new novel Engagement on Loobo Shopa (that title's copywrite me) it's described as having two. Fail.' etc.
LJ Kruzer > Since I Took A Taxi
Strange, dancie, techno but soothing. Thanks Robin.
No consumer advice is available for this work
Though I've not entirely forgiven the BBFC for giving The Dark Knight a 12A rating (really? the knives? the bit with the pencil?) this report page for a classification confirmation of Robert Altman's The Player placates me a little bit for the satirical usage of the words "The cast for this work includes" before going on to list what looks like every cameo...
At Beijing (or whatever I'm calling this now).
Lucy's made the final. As the BBC reports:
"In the women's K1 500m, Britain's Lucy Wainwright also qualified for the final, finishing second in semi-final one in a time of 1:52.580secs. [...] Wainwright, 30, made a slow start but was impressive in the closing stages."She goes at 09:20 on Saturday morning.
"Oh yes! Yes! I'm a huge fan of the Moomins. Have you read the Moomins?"
TV Wonderful interview with one Rona Munro, writer of Survival from one David Darlington. On the lesbian subtext:
"Anywhere is the place for a lesbian subtext! And again, it was the eighties, and we were all really conscious that there were certain elements missing from mainstream culture and, as far as possible, if you got a chance to chuck them in there, you were duty-bound to do it. The same as having an Asian character – it looks a bit clunky now, but at the time you actually had to fight for those things, and you could only do it – Alan Plater told me this trick later, and I'd inadvertently done it – he told me that basically if you say "This character's Asian" they won't let you have that character, but if you give a character an Asian name, a name they can't assume won't be anything else, then they'll get you an Asian actor, or a black actor, or whatever. And what's that? Fifteen years ago? Seventeen years?"
She wants to write another one ... [via]
"Anywhere is the place for a lesbian subtext! And again, it was the eighties, and we were all really conscious that there were certain elements missing from mainstream culture and, as far as possible, if you got a chance to chuck them in there, you were duty-bound to do it. The same as having an Asian character – it looks a bit clunky now, but at the time you actually had to fight for those things, and you could only do it – Alan Plater told me this trick later, and I'd inadvertently done it – he told me that basically if you say "This character's Asian" they won't let you have that character, but if you give a character an Asian name, a name they can't assume won't be anything else, then they'll get you an Asian actor, or a black actor, or whatever. And what's that? Fifteen years ago? Seventeen years?"
She wants to write another one ... [via]
Superlambanana-on-and-on #7
I don’t walk. Well, clearly I walk, I just don’t do it much for pleasure, and particularly up and down hills. I don’t have special shoes or much of a sense of scale. I’m too much of a city dweller I think, so though I’m ok on the flat, put a gradient in front of me and I'm a pathetic sight. Today, I walked. I walked up Moel Famau in North Wales, something I certainly wouldn’t have done unless, as you can see, there was a Superlambanana at the top. And I found out why I don’t walk. It nearly killed me. Photos at flickr.
That’s an exaggeration, hopefully for comic effect, but though I was relatively relaxed when I began, by the time I was half the way up the hill I was reduced to baby steps, desperately looking for the stones buried into the pathway rather than the shale lying on top just so that I wouldn’t slip. I’m unfit, I know, but this was serious, I was gasping. We’d taken the difficult route for speed and I decided that this had been a mistake. Then, surprisingly, my feet stopped hurting, I found out what passing through the pain barrier actually meant.
All very dramatic. But of course, every so often you turn around and see the view, the trees crashing through the landscape, the heather shimmering in the wind and you realise why you’re walking and you keep one foot moving in front of the other. People are constantly walking towards you and you greet each other and you decide that you’d really like to see what they’ve seen and it gives you a lift (even though its an actual mechanical lift you’d probably want more, Stannah or Schindler).
Sure enough, at the top of the hill, with the rest of Denbighshire unfolding around me I knew it had been worth the pain, I’d done the right thing. And there was the banana, just on the edge of the summit, its technicolor designs contrasting against the green of the ground and the greys and blues of the sky. My Uncle and I sat on the edge of the Jubilee Tower nibbling a Snickers and taking in the view, at which point it really dawned on me why we’d taken the difficult, direct route to the top, the satisfaction of really having achieved something.
We took the same route downwards and saw other city dwellers making their way up a hill for the first time. Families with push chairs, teenagers in tracksuits, all of them, like I'd been still unaware of the danger ahead. One girl was lighting a cigarette, surely something she’d be regretting within minutes. Wwe greeted them all in a way which you simply wouldn’t or couldn’t in the city and I decided that's why people like to walk do it. The views are great and everyone is just so much friendlier than in town.
Whilst we're on the subject...
Anna and Bobbie are moving to San Francisco. Good luck, Guardianistas.
Anatomy of a panarama
Liverpool photographer Pete Carr has produced a typically atmospheric vista for the new Pizza Express at the Albert Dock. Here he tells its story. Many early morning starts.
La, lalala-lala. La, lalala-lala. La-la-la-lalala. La-la-lala-la-la-la.
Investigative preteens in a big red bus coming soon to shiny-disc.
Blonde Alanis.
The more I look at this photo, the more I feel as though reality as we know it is imploding.
Snopes: CNN/MSNBC News Alert -- Real Virus.
Why couldn't I have read this a week ago?
Crazy Like A Fox
Dippy title for a short interview with Rachel McAdams which explains something of the post-2005 drop in acting work. She simply didn't want to. Warning to fellow fan club member John -- the accompanying photos make her look like a feminised Gary Newman. Meanwhile, Juliette Binoche likes to dance.
I Sense a Disturbance in the Star Wars Canon
Of course in my short kvetch about Star Trek spin-off fiction I almost completely obscured the mess which is the Star Wars expanded universe and vitriolic debate thereof, which judging by this linked Wired article inspired by the new Clone Wars cartoon makes the discussion we Who fans have regarding UNIT dating look like a quick decision about where to buy a sandwich at lunchtime. As complex as a the plans for the Death Star, the Expanded Universe has levels of continuity from the films downwards that have suddenly been disrupted by the introduction of a new interim level to deal with this new cartoon and its successors. There's a whole weblog dedicated to this stuff and the detail involved is just scary. As I said in the comments there, in Who, everything is canon unless we don't want it to be -- there is enough temporal anomalies and timey-wimeyness to allow for three different reasons for Atlantis to fall or the Marie Celeste to sink or Sarah Jane Smith to clearly not be from 1980, even though sometimes she has to be.
Whilst we're on the subject, watch this:
Then this:
Which is rather like discovering the thing about Father Christmas. Either way, thanks to Damon and Iain for pointing it out. Possibly.
Anatomy of a panarama
Liverpool photographer Pete Carr has produced a typically atmospheric vista for the new Pizza Express at the Albert Dock. Here he tells its story. Many early morning starts.
La, lalala-lala. La, lalala-lala. La-la-la-lalala. La-la-lala-la-la-la.
Investigative preteens in a big red bus coming soon to shiny-disc.
Blonde Alanis.
The more I look at this photo, the more I feel as though reality as we know it is imploding.
Snopes: CNN/MSNBC News Alert -- Real Virus.
Why couldn't I have read this a week ago?
Crazy Like A Fox
Dippy title for a short interview with Rachel McAdams which explains something of the post-2005 drop in acting work. She simply didn't want to. Warning to fellow fan club member John -- the accompanying photos make her look like a feminised Gary Newman. Meanwhile, Juliette Binoche likes to dance.
I Sense a Disturbance in the Star Wars Canon
Of course in my short kvetch about Star Trek spin-off fiction I almost completely obscured the mess which is the Star Wars expanded universe and vitriolic debate thereof, which judging by this linked Wired article inspired by the new Clone Wars cartoon makes the discussion we Who fans have regarding UNIT dating look like a quick decision about where to buy a sandwich at lunchtime. As complex as a the plans for the Death Star, the Expanded Universe has levels of continuity from the films downwards that have suddenly been disrupted by the introduction of a new interim level to deal with this new cartoon and its successors. There's a whole weblog dedicated to this stuff and the detail involved is just scary. As I said in the comments there, in Who, everything is canon unless we don't want it to be -- there is enough temporal anomalies and timey-wimeyness to allow for three different reasons for Atlantis to fall or the Marie Celeste to sink or Sarah Jane Smith to clearly not be from 1980, even though sometimes she has to be.
Whilst we're on the subject, watch this:
Then this:
Which is rather like discovering the thing about Father Christmas. Either way, thanks to Damon and Iain for pointing it out. Possibly.
"Art is the daughter of freedom. " -- Friedrich Schiller
Art I finally managed to see the Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool or as they rather poetically describe it, Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design & Modern Life in Vienna 1900 (a title I’ll be returning to shortly). I’d been putting it off despite rave reviews -- this has been the gallery’s most successful show, with according to the attendant in the cloak room, fifteen-hundred people a day going through its doors. I hate busy exhibition and museums because you notoriously end up seeing all human life but not the art, yet with this closing in a couple of weeks I knew I had to just grit my teeth. In the end, the show wasn’t too busy, mostly because visitors might have stayed away since Tate Liverpool doesn’t traditionally open on a Monday. Still there were a fair few people trudging across the exhibition’s darkly carpeted floors but for the most part they behaved themselves and I found, at least for the time I was there, a good atmosphere.
Tate Liverpool’s flagship Capital of Culture exhibition might not be the best Klimt exhibition you’ll ever see, simply because that will never exist. His theoretically most famous painting, The Kiss, something which would naturally be the crowning finale of this kind of retrospective, is too expensive and fragile these days to be moved from its usual home of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna (not to mention that museum’s reluctance to loan out its most famous tourist attraction). So despite being the first exhibition to concentrate on the painter in our nation’s history, it’s necessarily incomplete and I wonder how many visitors will have been aware of the reasons (and I’m sure I heard someone in the gift shop, the only place The Kiss is on display, wondering why that painting wasn’t in what they’d seen before).
With that in mind, Tate have repositioned the focus of the show to not simply present a history of a single painter's technique but also the context within which he was working, the music, architecture, fashion and attitude of Vienna circa 1900. In reality that means lots of furniture and models of buildings, dresses and photography. It’s fascinating stuff; the ambition of the Viennese Secession movement of which Klimt was a part was to create a kind of ‘whole art form’ in which no single media had precedent and all blended into one another, from the painting that hung in the house, through to the cutlery to the house itself. Wagner was the musical proponent -- in producing The Ring, he didn’t simply want to compose the score but also design the sets and costume and direct the actors.
Within the exhibition we find a desk in the shape of box with a section that pulls out to become a chair; cutlery which mirrors the detailing of the walls of the house in which they’re used, a tea set with handles that allow for coffee and milk to be poured comfortably and efficiently at the same time. It’s the reason that many of Klimt’s canvases are square, both portraits and landscapes, it’s because they fit better within the overall interior design of a room. I’m reminded of the scene in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters when painter Max Von Sydow’s agent brings along some potential clients who want to buy his work. They want it by the yard so that it can fit best within the scheme, an idea Von Sydow’s none to pleased about because it insults his artistic integrity. Klimt on the other hand, understood market forces and created his work to fulfil them, at least initially.
This, then is not an exhibition to visit if you’re looking for wall to wall paintings by a particular artist, or for that matter to see an unbroken sequence of his work so that you can see how aspects of his style changed and developed. If there’s something I still came away not really understanding, it’s how he shifted from the earlier more pre-Raphaelitian courtly style through to the bolder, erotic images which he's perhaps most famous for. Clearly a decision was made by the curatorial team based on what was thought to be available which is fine but given the name on the poster I simply would have liked a clearer through line (though given that I was very tired when I finally dragged myself through the doors and could well have simply missed it amongst the labels and information boards).
There’s an earlier painting, Fable, which looks like the work of a completely different artist -- sight unseen you might guess it was by Collier or one of the British late Victorians. His heart clearly wasn’t in it, but there’s something of leap from that to the Beethoven Frieze with its imagery that crosses a randy Charles Rennie Mackintosh with Maurice Sendak's picture book, Where the Wild Things Are. That’s probably why I like his work so -- other painters often keep the same style but then apply it to different subjects. Klimt kept much the same subject but changed the way he represented it. One constant is hair. He seemed to be obsessed with it. In his early paintings he diligently worked to make sure every strand appeared convincingly, in later paintings the shapes became more abstract but the tresses flowed.
About the only proper connection I can make is that as time went on, Klimt became something of a lathario and the eroticism of the imagery certainly increased in tandem with the number of models which hung around his studio. The finale of the exhibition is series of drawings of ladies in a variety of positions giving themselves and each other pleasure. Despite only being simple line drawings, they were enough to have the painter branded as the pornographer of Vienna (even though the majority only came to light after his death). Other works, such as The Three Ages, alone might mark him as something of a misogynist with their wiry representations and Judith II/Salome (reputed to have ordered the beheading of John The Baptist). But I don’t think anything could be further from the truth, he was an interesting chap but I think he was just interested in showing women, good, or bad, or very, very bad indeed.
What ultimately pulls the exhibition together is the audio guide. A couple of pounds hire provides you with an iPod Touch loaded with a tour, this tour in fact available to download from the Tate website. Often these guides don’t work, either because you have to lug around a cd player dangling around your neck or one of those tall black wands which often crackle and can’t be heard over the din of the other visitors. The Klimt guide almost puts the visitor inside an Andrew Graham Dixon documentary, mixing audio-only explanations of the exhibits with related photographs (showing some of the paintings in their original context), music and video interviews with curators at the gallery of origin or family owners. The text is finely balanced too, intelligent without being sonorous, knowledgeable as well as humorous.
I did like the design of the exhibition too. The walls have been painted submarine grey which has the effect of making the colours within the paintings even more luminous. An earlier work, Two Girls with Oleander, with its golden back drop looked like the artist was achieving in a paint what he’d later do in genuine metal. The whites of Portrait of Marie Henneberg’s dress and Salome’s skin pop out too. If nothing else I’ve come away with a renewed appreciation of just how luminous a painter Klimt was; like medieval artists he understood that it was possible to be subtle even with the boldest of colours and that in the darkened rooms and hallways were some of his paintings would ultimately hang, it’s those qualities which would make them unforgettable.
Along with the nudity and scary eyes.
Tate Liverpool’s flagship Capital of Culture exhibition might not be the best Klimt exhibition you’ll ever see, simply because that will never exist. His theoretically most famous painting, The Kiss, something which would naturally be the crowning finale of this kind of retrospective, is too expensive and fragile these days to be moved from its usual home of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna (not to mention that museum’s reluctance to loan out its most famous tourist attraction). So despite being the first exhibition to concentrate on the painter in our nation’s history, it’s necessarily incomplete and I wonder how many visitors will have been aware of the reasons (and I’m sure I heard someone in the gift shop, the only place The Kiss is on display, wondering why that painting wasn’t in what they’d seen before).
With that in mind, Tate have repositioned the focus of the show to not simply present a history of a single painter's technique but also the context within which he was working, the music, architecture, fashion and attitude of Vienna circa 1900. In reality that means lots of furniture and models of buildings, dresses and photography. It’s fascinating stuff; the ambition of the Viennese Secession movement of which Klimt was a part was to create a kind of ‘whole art form’ in which no single media had precedent and all blended into one another, from the painting that hung in the house, through to the cutlery to the house itself. Wagner was the musical proponent -- in producing The Ring, he didn’t simply want to compose the score but also design the sets and costume and direct the actors.
Within the exhibition we find a desk in the shape of box with a section that pulls out to become a chair; cutlery which mirrors the detailing of the walls of the house in which they’re used, a tea set with handles that allow for coffee and milk to be poured comfortably and efficiently at the same time. It’s the reason that many of Klimt’s canvases are square, both portraits and landscapes, it’s because they fit better within the overall interior design of a room. I’m reminded of the scene in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters when painter Max Von Sydow’s agent brings along some potential clients who want to buy his work. They want it by the yard so that it can fit best within the scheme, an idea Von Sydow’s none to pleased about because it insults his artistic integrity. Klimt on the other hand, understood market forces and created his work to fulfil them, at least initially.
This, then is not an exhibition to visit if you’re looking for wall to wall paintings by a particular artist, or for that matter to see an unbroken sequence of his work so that you can see how aspects of his style changed and developed. If there’s something I still came away not really understanding, it’s how he shifted from the earlier more pre-Raphaelitian courtly style through to the bolder, erotic images which he's perhaps most famous for. Clearly a decision was made by the curatorial team based on what was thought to be available which is fine but given the name on the poster I simply would have liked a clearer through line (though given that I was very tired when I finally dragged myself through the doors and could well have simply missed it amongst the labels and information boards).
There’s an earlier painting, Fable, which looks like the work of a completely different artist -- sight unseen you might guess it was by Collier or one of the British late Victorians. His heart clearly wasn’t in it, but there’s something of leap from that to the Beethoven Frieze with its imagery that crosses a randy Charles Rennie Mackintosh with Maurice Sendak's picture book, Where the Wild Things Are. That’s probably why I like his work so -- other painters often keep the same style but then apply it to different subjects. Klimt kept much the same subject but changed the way he represented it. One constant is hair. He seemed to be obsessed with it. In his early paintings he diligently worked to make sure every strand appeared convincingly, in later paintings the shapes became more abstract but the tresses flowed.
About the only proper connection I can make is that as time went on, Klimt became something of a lathario and the eroticism of the imagery certainly increased in tandem with the number of models which hung around his studio. The finale of the exhibition is series of drawings of ladies in a variety of positions giving themselves and each other pleasure. Despite only being simple line drawings, they were enough to have the painter branded as the pornographer of Vienna (even though the majority only came to light after his death). Other works, such as The Three Ages, alone might mark him as something of a misogynist with their wiry representations and Judith II/Salome (reputed to have ordered the beheading of John The Baptist). But I don’t think anything could be further from the truth, he was an interesting chap but I think he was just interested in showing women, good, or bad, or very, very bad indeed.
What ultimately pulls the exhibition together is the audio guide. A couple of pounds hire provides you with an iPod Touch loaded with a tour, this tour in fact available to download from the Tate website. Often these guides don’t work, either because you have to lug around a cd player dangling around your neck or one of those tall black wands which often crackle and can’t be heard over the din of the other visitors. The Klimt guide almost puts the visitor inside an Andrew Graham Dixon documentary, mixing audio-only explanations of the exhibits with related photographs (showing some of the paintings in their original context), music and video interviews with curators at the gallery of origin or family owners. The text is finely balanced too, intelligent without being sonorous, knowledgeable as well as humorous.
I did like the design of the exhibition too. The walls have been painted submarine grey which has the effect of making the colours within the paintings even more luminous. An earlier work, Two Girls with Oleander, with its golden back drop looked like the artist was achieving in a paint what he’d later do in genuine metal. The whites of Portrait of Marie Henneberg’s dress and Salome’s skin pop out too. If nothing else I’ve come away with a renewed appreciation of just how luminous a painter Klimt was; like medieval artists he understood that it was possible to be subtle even with the boldest of colours and that in the darkened rooms and hallways were some of his paintings would ultimately hang, it’s those qualities which would make them unforgettable.
Along with the nudity and scary eyes.
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Plugoo
I've installed this fancy chat box widget to the sidebar of the blog so that you can talk to me directly if I'm online and logged in to ICQ/AIM. No log-ins necessary.
So You Wanna Be a Track Star?
British sprinter Jeanette Kwakye 's colourful blog. Congratulations to her for qualifying for the 100m final and then managing a 6th place with a PB.
What Michael Phelps listens to on his iPod.
Not as unpredictable as you'd hope. Outkast and Eminem. So much for my "It's all about The Carpenters..." theory.
Kevin Smith Has Seen Watchmen: “It’s F**king Astounding”
Meanwhile, is it too long? It does seem odd that we live in a decade were Lord of the Rings can be as leisurely as a walk in the Pennines and TV boxset watching is the norm, yet studios get the jitters over the length of a superhero film, one which is in no way for kids. Why would anyone finance something on this scale and then not want its potential audience to see everything?
New scandal hits British Comedy Awards
Tape delay meant people were still paying to vote for an award even though it had already been presented.
Boring weekend ahead for Netflix users
"The company said it shipped no DVDs on Tuesday, some on Wednesday and none on Thursday." That sounds like my Lovefilm experience every week lately. The loss of the Sunday post means that if I post a dvd back on Saturday afternoon, it won't be picked up from the postbox until Monday which means it'll hopefully turn up at Lovefilm on Tuesday, they wait their usual day before send a new one out which means something might turn up the following Thursday, which too close to sounded like a Craig David single for comfort. And that's assuming that the post office deliver the thing the next day in both directions. One week, I posted something on Saturday then didn't get a replacement until the following Saturday...
No Penn students, ever.
Disappointingly I'm linking to Gawker. But it is a very good post explaining why a US magazine would not hire from a particular university. I wonder if there are any UK magazines with that attitude. "None from DeMontford, ever." etc.
The left side of my face seems to be melting off of my skull.
Actor Dane Cook isn't at all happy with the look of the poster for his film, My Best Friend's Girl, and not entirely because it looks like promo art for pretty much every film comedy Jason Biggs has every co/starred in. It's a funnier evisceration, though he has to hope that it's not more grinnable than the actual movie.
The AV Club interviews Naomi Klein
Klein's one of my favourite writers and the book is on the list; the comments from readers are fairly amusing at least at the beginning since most of them can't understand why the website is interviewing someone with an opinion about something other than whether the last film/television show they were in was actually any good.
Philip French reviews Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Mainly it's a synopsis, but the final line is classic French.
Synopses and Final Cover For Star Trek: Destiny Trilogy
I link just to make the point that given the criticism that Doctor Who's had recently for all the crossovers and spin-offs, that when the show went off air, with only a few examples it largely went to ground and produced a range of stories in keeping with what went before and were very circumspect about crossovers and 'fanwankery' and generally ignored the Daleks. To quote said synopsis:
This trailer for the next chapter of Heroes shows that Kring and the gang have decided to start making a different, better programme (with the characters actually using their powers). Though I always remember how good The Phantom Menace looked in the B-Trailer so these things are designed to deceive.
I've installed this fancy chat box widget to the sidebar of the blog so that you can talk to me directly if I'm online and logged in to ICQ/AIM. No log-ins necessary.
So You Wanna Be a Track Star?
British sprinter Jeanette Kwakye 's colourful blog. Congratulations to her for qualifying for the 100m final and then managing a 6th place with a PB.
What Michael Phelps listens to on his iPod.
Not as unpredictable as you'd hope. Outkast and Eminem. So much for my "It's all about The Carpenters..." theory.
Kevin Smith Has Seen Watchmen: “It’s F**king Astounding”
Meanwhile, is it too long? It does seem odd that we live in a decade were Lord of the Rings can be as leisurely as a walk in the Pennines and TV boxset watching is the norm, yet studios get the jitters over the length of a superhero film, one which is in no way for kids. Why would anyone finance something on this scale and then not want its potential audience to see everything?
New scandal hits British Comedy Awards
Tape delay meant people were still paying to vote for an award even though it had already been presented.
Boring weekend ahead for Netflix users
"The company said it shipped no DVDs on Tuesday, some on Wednesday and none on Thursday." That sounds like my Lovefilm experience every week lately. The loss of the Sunday post means that if I post a dvd back on Saturday afternoon, it won't be picked up from the postbox until Monday which means it'll hopefully turn up at Lovefilm on Tuesday, they wait their usual day before send a new one out which means something might turn up the following Thursday, which too close to sounded like a Craig David single for comfort. And that's assuming that the post office deliver the thing the next day in both directions. One week, I posted something on Saturday then didn't get a replacement until the following Saturday...
No Penn students, ever.
Disappointingly I'm linking to Gawker. But it is a very good post explaining why a US magazine would not hire from a particular university. I wonder if there are any UK magazines with that attitude. "None from DeMontford, ever." etc.
The left side of my face seems to be melting off of my skull.
Actor Dane Cook isn't at all happy with the look of the poster for his film, My Best Friend's Girl, and not entirely because it looks like promo art for pretty much every film comedy Jason Biggs has every co/starred in. It's a funnier evisceration, though he has to hope that it's not more grinnable than the actual movie.
The AV Club interviews Naomi Klein
Klein's one of my favourite writers and the book is on the list; the comments from readers are fairly amusing at least at the beginning since most of them can't understand why the website is interviewing someone with an opinion about something other than whether the last film/television show they were in was actually any good.
Philip French reviews Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Mainly it's a synopsis, but the final line is classic French.
Synopses and Final Cover For Star Trek: Destiny Trilogy
I link just to make the point that given the criticism that Doctor Who's had recently for all the crossovers and spin-offs, that when the show went off air, with only a few examples it largely went to ground and produced a range of stories in keeping with what went before and were very circumspect about crossovers and 'fanwankery' and generally ignored the Daleks. To quote said synopsis:
"On Earth, Federation President Nanietta Bacco gathers allies and adversaries to form a desperate last line of defense against an impending Borg invasion. In deep space, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Ezri Dax join together to cut off the Collective’s route to the Alpha Quadrant."To echo some of the comments at the linked article (a) since when was Ezri Dax a Captain? (b) the bloody The Borg again (c) I know shared universes often plough ahead and ours did but I don't see anything in here which hasn't already been done a hundred times by that franchise. It looks like I got out of Star Trek at just the right time. There really is something to be said for being monogamous about these things.
This trailer for the next chapter of Heroes shows that Kring and the gang have decided to start making a different, better programme (with the characters actually using their powers). Though I always remember how good The Phantom Menace looked in the B-Trailer so these things are designed to deceive.
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