Let's do it

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=FU55GLAa-Uw


Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain, the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it - think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means, do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams,'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me"shad roe"

In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

If the birds and the bees and the trees do it
the educated and uneducated fleas do it
the Beatles and the Animals, Sonny and Cher
Elizabeth and Richard, him and her
and if 007 James Bond can do it too
Well we can do it - let's fall in love

etc

The chimpanzees in the zoos do it
Some courageous kangaroos do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it
Even eagles as they fly do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The world admits bears in pits do it
Even Pekingneses at the Ritz do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The royal set sans regret did it
And they considered it fun
Marie Antoinette did it -with or without Napoleon

etc.


Ella Fitzgerald sings Cole Porter




To the Virgins, to make much of Time




Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.


The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he 's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he 's to setting.


That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.


Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.


Robert Herrick. 1591–1674


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=DAmEkT58ps0&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzgBJ13vro

Freedom

" I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system"

G W Bush 17/12/2008


"Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake."

"Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it."

"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

"I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me."

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."

"I used to believe in forever . . . but forever was too good to be true."



Words of wisdom from Winnie the Pooh

The other side of silence

"Humankind does advance by small steps as well as great ones, does it not?
I must believe that.

I sometimes wake very early, and go out alone,
and imagine I can hear the cries of all the scurrying creatures in the grass
– there’s so much suffering in the world.

I think of it as a kind of muffled cry on the other side of silence
– if our senses were sharp enough to apprehend it all,
I think the pain of it would destroy us.

I think we should be glad we are not too sensitive.
And work in any small way we can to help our fellow creatures. "



Dorothea in the BBC's Middlemarch, by George Eliot.



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVXjrteyM4&feature=related--

Money

Performance v. art - where do we draw the lines?


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=n92Ilwh9DQA

Quiet love
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q&feature=related

Money

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=4hkjkTe5kZE

Floyd

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=TOdtG0L9Alk&feature=related

Beatles


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPSZiE0OAs

Empty Sky

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=HAGZaAe6Wa4

I woke up this morning
I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky
Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Blood on the streets
Blood flowin down
I hear the blood of my blood
Cryin from the ground

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky
Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

On the plains of Jordan
I cut my bow from the wood
Of this tree of evil
Of this tree of good
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Child of the Universe

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

» John Donne »from Meditation XVII

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tD-2mSg92so

Something

19 when he wrote and produced this, multi-tracking 20 instruments (which he played himself) in groundbreaking style, launching a major record company, staying 5 years in the British charts - who says men can't multi-task?

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=t9A60e16SvM&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=OwctZz6wwT0&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=MaygITgll80&feature=related

El(l)iots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVXjrteyM4&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5Dza0nr6c&feature=related







http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=NvTCO8-pWLI
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGBTFFxOpY

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0VQ_qfKL5qU&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxBFRfYiDNE
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A2khDhfwsoE&feature=related





The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero
Sensa tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
‘That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.’

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock

Painting of Ms Heller (?) by Mrs Heller

Hope

As someone said on the radio this afternoon - "It's enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end - even though I'm not Welsh, I don't particularly like rugby, and I don't have any hairs on the back of my neck".

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtIlaHIqrs


Also on the radio today:

"Optimism? It's not a question of optimism, it's a question of hope. I am not an optimist, but I am always a prisoner of hope".

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Photo of Gareth Edwards

Myth of Tomorrow

http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/english/html/about-mingeikan.html


http://www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp/exhibition/exhibition_e.html


'Myth of Tomorrow', by Taro Okamoto, presently in Shibuya train station, depicting the moment of the Hiroshima bomb.

Shipwrecked

It was a bit blowy the other morning, Friday, at the bus stop. Spray shooting over the harbour wall.











Friday night I noticed a few police around, waving their luminescent wands. Thought perhaps the Emperor was staying down the road - I note he's been feeling under the weather lately.

Turns out a large platform thing had gone adrift and landed up on the rocks outside my flat.













Rollocks












The best laid plans of mice and men....











Went to the supermarket and on the way back along the beach pondered the recent bits and bobs I've read on neuroscience - it seems that scientists are making giant leaps in understanding how the brain works. For example, the other day there was a piece in the paper reporting some new neuroscientific research which has revealed the startling truth that if you are happy then people around you tend to be happier too.

Seems to me that a group of blokes sitting round a fire 20,000 years ago probably worked that one out. In fact the more things I read or hear on such brain research the more it seems that scientists are finding physical evidence for what artists, poets, philosophers, old wives have known for millenia.




















http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=dV4t1rZEYnA&feature=related


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YepyPRCfQ&feature=related


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ZON2rv5XKzo

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJmGpaL18k&feature=related

Earthrise

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/ingrid-betancourt-columbia-freedom-interview


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/nov/30/apollo-8-mission

These Ithakas

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992) http://www.cavafy.com/search/list.asp Cinema Paradiso

Some people

Some people make it look so easy.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LXrTg4m6_MI

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=oh8jaMwNWl4&feature=related



















Painting by Akino Fuku

God bless 'em all

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ja35dyPxE74

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=TXRGdElsm14&feature=related

Little Boxes

I am now getting sent a German word every day by email, and an example sentence.

The first is "Kartons":

Möchten Sie gern wieder verwertbare Kartons?

Plus I have worked out how to listen to German lessons on my little ipod type thing on the way to work. So I can now say: "Good day. Would you like some recyclable cardboard boxes?"



The view from my bus stop.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=nXtHLn0FlYc&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=QB0ordd2nOI&feature=related



Lyrics to To Build A Home :
There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls and window sills...
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust...
This is a place where I don't feel alone
This is a place where I feel at home...

Cause, I built a home
for you
for me

Until it disappeared
from me
from you

And now, it's time to leave and turn to dust...

Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the color of green
Ground had arose and passed it's knees

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me......


Cause, I built a home
for you
for me

Until it disappeared
from me
from you



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=aXM-34m5yak&feature=related

Siblings

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBOMvT19DlA&feature=related

Luka Bloom and Christie Moore - Brothers

Painting of sisters by Akino Fuku

Cover

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=betZWo0gZrc

The times are tough now, just getting tougher
This old world is rough, it's just getting rougher
Cover me, come on baby, cover me
Well I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me
Promise me baby you won't let them find us
Hold me in your arms, let's let our love blind us
Cover me, shut the door and cover me
Well I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me

Outside's the rain, the driving snow
I can hear the wild wind blowing
Turn out the light, bolt the door
I ain't going out there no more

This whole world is out there just trying to score
I've seen enough I don't want to see any more,
Cover me, come on and cover me
I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=tiNVy5nfbcQ

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though they never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear
That th'eyes of busy fools may be stopped there:
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now 'tis your bed time.
Off with that happy busk, whom I envy
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown's going off such beauteous state reveals
As when from flowery meads th'hills shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet and show
The hairy diadem which on you doth grow.
Off with those shoes: and then safely tread
In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Received by men; thou Angel bring'st with thee
A heaven like Mahomet's Paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these Angels from an evil sprite:
They set out hairs, but these the flesh upright.

License my roving hands, and let them go
Behind before, above, between, below.
Oh my America, my new found land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my Empery,
How blessed am I in this discovering thee.
To enter in these bonds is to be free,
Then where my hand is set my seal shall be.

Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee.
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are as Atlanta's balls, cast in men's views,
That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem
His earthly soul may covet theirs not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus arrayed;
Themselves are mystic books, which only we
Whom their imputed grace will dignify
Must see revealed. Then since I may know,
As liberally as to a midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea this white linen hence.
Here is no penance, much less innocence.

To teach thee, I am naked first: why then
What need'st thou have more covering than a man.

John Donne


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=w6MXhemCOIY

You are right - weird film.

How about this one?

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VMrUMLCeOnw&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Xql99I1VSdI

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we'll be there and we'll see you
Ten true summers we'll be there and laughing too
Twenty four before my love you'll see I'll be there with you

Yes

A classic in our time:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/dermot/ram/winehouse.ram



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ayzhJKy8H_A

Four guys, two guitars, and a drum kit;

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=N9i2fqxSjTI

I want a whole lot of love

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=V_hxCJYbUXo&feature=related








Painting by Akino Fuku

11/11

As I listen to the memorials - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we shall remember them, they died protecting our country, etc. the 108-year-old who as a teenager was forced to take part in a bloodbath in Belgium - I wonder why it is we focus on these teenage victims' sacrifices, rather than on the evil, ignorant misguided morons, the politicians, who sent, and continue to send, millions of young men and women to their certain agonising and premature deaths, rather than use what wit they have to engage in diplomatic discussion with their 'enemies'.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen, killed, aged 25, one week before the Armistice, 4th November, 1918.

Dulce et Decorum est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

The title and the Latin exhortation of the final two lines are drawn from a poem of Horace (Odes iii 2.13):

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:

mors et fugacem persequitur virum

nec parcit inbellis iuventae

poplitibus timidove tergo."

"How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country:

Death pursues the man who flees,

spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs

Of battle-shy youths."

Wikipedia

Mama Africa

I was lucky to see this amazing and lovely lady a couple of years ago at a festival in Italy. She died today - God rest her soul.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mwh9z58iAU&feature=related


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=TwNk-5enrfM&feature=related

Einstein

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein


http://www.lifeinitaly.com/tourism/tuscany/imgL/Battaglia%20di%20Costantino.jpg

Piero della Francesca

Dogz Bollox

The human voice is the most sublime instrument.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=MpxRMxBTjWw


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=GI5Ac5D3IZE&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9K2EA8SWhh8

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jZL3POaATn8

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPSZiE0OAs

Sea and sky

Spent the afternoon in a late semi-abstract Akino Fuku painting in the middle of Sagami Bay - the sea and sky merged into one silvery-blue wash with only the shearwater gliding low across to let us know which was which.

Thence to an onsen and sauna, and then a great Sicilian restaurant, then walked home along the beach, still seeing those sparkling eyes in the wash...

Silvio

Jacubis, seguro que recuerdes anche estos (chotto mixed up a couple of languages there):

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=tCbgNFGsw1s


Rabo de nube

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=sl5sx8q4EuA&feature=related

Sueno con serpientes

Bit of culture

Gracias, Jacobus, for your illuminating observations and welcome culturally-enhancing contribution to dekoboko life. Coincidentally, that was the first opera I ever went to, at the age of 16. I clearly remember how, as we had cheap seats up in the gods, we could see the stage-hands wheeling the statue of the Commendatore forward, like Morecombe and Wise.

So, anyway,I hereby attempt to compensate for the overly 'jipi' tone of the previous blog:

Mozart: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_P0Jkhafc&feature=related

Manitos de Plata: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6V1lT3ASs

Mercedes de Sosa: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JlVB9erD-Vw

Silvio Rodriguez: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=N1s1_DpuvdE&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=KALJ94yhsO4

John McLaughlin, Paco De Lucia, Al Di Meola: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ypeZ6R-t0&feature=related

Special AKA: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=o3NJwyzFlTE

Madness: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=eir3-omjMVQ

Morecombe and Wise: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=q1bJHr8t1xA

Bonzo Dogs: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=DMvkLAXTWPc

Monty Python: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY

Girls and Boys

Girls

Jewel Foolish games http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=L9abuQVho5I

Patti Smith: Because the Night http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=0brHGJ6xqbk

Horses http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=c3coSfks4rQ&feature=related

Maria Callas Puccini: Un bel di vedremo http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=WLaY2VcIEqo&feature=related

Tina Turner http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ipOz_k9zvzo

Carole King http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=zT4qUIf59d0&feature=related

Hiromi Uehara (and Chick Korea) http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=BRU1o-sCnqY&feature=related

Billy Holliday http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs9P-pfqF6Y&feature=related

Edith Piaf http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=8YGXsw3XK9I

Aretha Franklin http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=STKkWj2WpWM

Dionne Warwick http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=0R-ZE-gFcBA

Gladys Knight http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=8FT5QF4JZUA&feature=related http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=sgmz93k8Loo&feature=related

Janis Joplin

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JjD4eWEUgMM

Shirley Bassey http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=dDUatw-7eMM

Sweet Honey and the Rock http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=n0HWwOUIzKk

Boys

Hendrix http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=wCQBbgb_Lvo&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=aoKWRgDWUvI

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=22eubaCUNJU

The Who http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AHblQ3_oM

Joe Cocker http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=6FMq0iDX1yE&feature=related

Led Zep http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=QANPvHCqsjY

Pink Floyd http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAydj4OJnwQ&feature=related

Atlanta Rhythm Section http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=WpPdLb69-qk

Marshall Tucker Band http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VEOV5vWfSgI

The Doors http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=dbI5K0AzNHI

John Martyn http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LOi_wxypeGc

Tenores di Bitti http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=caNoshxc0b0

v=n0HWwOUIzKk

Vysotsky http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=hWEOaosGDi0

Bruce http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=KngiJUNdsu0

Omoshiroi

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=XtT9r9ovLps

Untitled, Harvest

Robin Rhode

2005

For free

There's a sea wall at the end of my street, where I can sit and watch one of the greatest shows on Earth, every night, for free.
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http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=HmzN1p5q2sY





http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=wFle2YoQwWg
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They were all taken just now, from the same spot, while I drank my can of beer, and the local ladies took their Dachshunds for a evening stroll.

Touching souls

Art

Back in the summer I experienced real happiness, and realised I was doing it, and finally learnt how to let it flow over and through me (it’s actually easy – you just let it happen), and enjoyed the sensation of feeling happy – no drugs – and finally learnt a trick in life. Just enjoy the happiness that you have. And then enjoy the enjoyment. Accept that you will always have to work, one way or the other, whatever you do.


Today I walked along the beach to a world class art gallery, 5 minutes from my door - along the beach. World class in the sense that it puts on exhibitions on world tours before they go to Tokyo – in July there was a major Matisse and Bonnard retrospective drawn from major galleries across the planet. Today was the last day of a retrospective to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Akino Fuku, and I almost fell in love again. It was the first time that I have felt the need to cry my way through an art gallery, overwhelmed by their beauty, and by some deep connection with a lovely lady, who died in her 90s 5 years ago. The blurb, describing a woman born in the Taisho (Edwardian) era at the beginning of the last century, who lived through the war in her 30s and then found herself drawn to India, Africa and Arabia in particular, where she painted the people, their buildings and landscapes in rich earthy tones and muscular tenderness, along with a photo of her in her 80s among a group of young rural Indian women outside their simple houses, was enough to get me going. The very first painting was a large diptych screen, roughly 2 metres by 2, of a young woman holding her baby facing a trellis of Morning Glory. I was stopped in my tracks immediately. She was in her mid-twenties when she painted it, and I suppose it could have been a self-portrait. The woman’s back is to us, dressed in a dark kimono, while the baby’s head is facing us over her shoulder but turned to one side, and not especially happy. There was something about the love and tenderness, of the delicate blue flowers, the multiple leaves, the tendrils reaching out to the corners of the canvas, and the way the mother cradles her son, with her head to one side, as if listening, clearly sensing, feeling, and yet at the same time a sadness or fear or disquiet, that was so touching. I could not pull myself away. Do Morning Glory flowers only last a day? (This was 1938 – the height of Japanese military imperialism, xenophobic hysteria, fascist indoctrination and mass murder of civilians (in China) on an unprecedented scale.)

What an emotional experience it was – the first time I have felt that way in an art gallery – like watching a great film, or reading a beautiful novel or poem, or listening to a sublime piece of music. I don’t know what it was exactly – at first it felt like she was painting what I would like to paint, singing my song, reading my thoughts. Or allowing me to read hers. From the somewhat mournful, wistful yet beautiful early portraits, her work becomes perhaps simpler, less defined, but immensely rich and joyous – a real celebration of life. She shows us that she loved the simple complexities of life on earth, and the complex simplicities – the beauty of nature and our natural place in it, if we want it. Some of her last works, painted in her 90s, are perfect, as far as I’m concerned. I noticed this with Matisse, that the two of them became more abstract over their lifetimes, until some of their works appear almost entirely abstract, requiring the title or other explanation to fill out the picture. My favourite is of some cattle swimming across the Ganges river. It’s roughly 2 metres by one, and almost entirely a mix of yellows, (the photo gives a little idea) with a patch of white sky – one imagines it is sunset, and a dark cloud is coming up from the left. The cattle are swimming away from it, to the right – we can’t see their bodies of course, just their heads, nose up, trying to breathe, their legs struggling away, we imagine, beneath them, unsuited to swimming, inefficient. Why are they swimming? The current so strong, the river so wide – why are they determined to cross, to reach the other side? What is there over there that they are willing to risk their lives for? The promise of something better?
And the group is so touching – the main group together, purposeful, sorted, while the two lovers got a little waylaid, distracted earlier on, but over-lapping, so they are lagging behind; while further back is the loner, the dreamer, the one who missed the starting gun – but they are nonetheless a group, determined to survive and stay together, united in fear but also hope. And somehow we know that they are going to make it – they are almost there, the end is in sight, they can see the other side, although we can’t, yet.


Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely, and found myself stuck in front of one or two paintings for quite a while, and then not being able to leave the room – just one more time round. The last room I think I went round 5 or 6 times.

It was about touching souls – she was touching mine through her work, her view of life, and I was touching hers through my eyes.

Science versus the arts.

Scientists can help us live longer and more comfortably; artists can help us learn how to be happy with what we’ve got.

Visual art - Visual music.