Jackson's Bollocks?

Genius, wallpaper or a product of the cold war? You decide.

"What the fuck's that?" asked Lee, shuffling into the lounge room. "And what's it doing on my fucking sofa?"

"No idea," said Jackson, squinting at the painting and rotating his head 90 degrees anti-clockwise. "Could be a forest I suppose."

"Doesn't look like a fucking forest to me," said Lee, taking a seat opposite the painting. "Looks like a series of poorly constructed telegraph poles while a fire burns out of control."

"Well that's something," said Jackson as he stood up and turned the picture upside down. "Now whatddya reckon? Better or worse?"

"No fucking different. Same that way, same the other way. What the fuck were you doing last night?"

"I'd had a few drinks."

"No shit!"

"And I just started flicking paint at a canvas."

"Hilarious."

"Well it looked a lot better when I was drunk."

"Give us a fucken drink and I'll be the judge of that."

*

It seems the embedding has been disabled for this video but it's worth watching on youtube (once you click on the video a link will appear). Ripper song, boring video that looks like a Windows Media Player auto background.

Art Slam Friday

Depiction of the rape of Small Kraut and Tall Kraut by Perseus, Surfer Joe and Ponygirl.

Not really. It's 'Rape of the Sabine Women' by Picasso.

Here's Ovid's explanation:

It was you, Romulus, who first mingled the cares of love with public games, that far-off day when the rape of the Sabine women gave wives to your warriors who had waited for them so long. No curtains then hung in the marble theatre, nor was the stage made red with liquid saffron. In those days branches from the woods of the Palatine were the only adornment of our simple stage. The people sat on seats of turf, their heads canopied with boughs.

As soon as he had sat him down, each Roman looked about, marking the woman whom he most desired, giving free play to the thoughts that surged within him. Whilst to the sound of a rustic pipe an actor strikes his foot three times upon the levelled earth, amid the unforced applause of the expectant throng (for in those days applause was neither bought nor sold), Romulus signed to his men to seize upon their prey. In a trice, with shouts that made their object clear, they laid their eager hands upon the cowering women. Even as the weak and timid doves flee before an eagle, even as a young lamb quails at the sight of a wolf, so shuddered the Sabine women when they beheld these fierce warriors making towards them. Every one turned pale, terror spread throughout the throng, but it showed itself in different ways. Some tore their hair; some swooned away; some wept in silence; some called vainly for their mothers; some sobbed aloud; others seemed stupefied with fear; some stood transfixed; others tried to flee. Nevertheless, the Romans carry off the women, sweet booty for their beds, and to many of them, terror lends an added charm.

If one shows herself too rebellious and refuses to follow her ravisher, he picks her up and, pressing her lovingly to his bosom, exclaims, "Why with tears do you thus dim the lovely radiance of your eyes? What your father is to your mother, that will I be to you." O Romulus, you are the only one who has ever known how to reward his soldiers; for such pay, I would willingly enrol myself beneath your banners. Ever since those days, the theatres, faithful to this ancient custom, have always been a dangerous lure to loveliness.

**

Here's some more visuals that depict the incident, by Sussman (the photo, which I think is a still from a movie she made), Rubens, Possin and David.

Art Appreciation Wednesday - Kazimir Malevich

The great Russian painter Malevich (1878-1935) was an artistic genius and poineer in many ways who helped give birth to multiple genres and strains of modern art.

By way of introduction to this incredible artist, I present to you one of his most excellent works, Black Square (Oil on Canvass: 1915).




In this instance, the artist has applied black paint to a square-ish canvass. In the corners, you will find black paint and yet interestingly (and most innovatively) the central section of the painting features more black paint. I have prepared a detail image (below), focussing on the upper section of the piece where we can see the black paint in finer view.


(Black Square, detail)

Interpretations on the meaning of this amazing work vary from critic to critic, generation to generation, and the artist himself muttered something about art being something that owes us nothing, but one thing we can say with certainty is that it is black and it always will be black. I see it is a black work of art. It is the old black, and the old black will perennially be the new black (except for 1983 when it was grey) and for this reason the artwork will maintain relevence for countless millenia.

1915 was a watershed year for Malevich and his best works were produced in this, the second year of the great war. Here I present another of his works, Black Circle (1915).



A cursory glance would suggest that this piece is in many ways similar to Black Square, but if you stare it long enough you will notice that in this ground-breaking work, the shape of the 'black' is circular, not square. It surprises and bewilders on several levels. Not only that, the black circle is off-centre which adds to the sense of wonderment. Inspired by Ouspensky who spoke of "a fourth dimension beyond the three to which our ordinary senses have access" Malevich proceeded to develop a stream of art self-called 'Suprematism' that presented geometric patterns in varying guises.

The circular figure represents a 'circle' and the 'black' paint which the artist uses is black, thus cleverly arriving at the title 'Black Circle'.

Black Circle is surely the Magnum Opus of this experimental artform that still resonates today. Before Suprematism we were forced to endure portraits, landscapes and still-lifes that spoke volumes and told incredible stories and inspired great works of music and literature. Suprematism, however, opened up the doors for works such as John Cage's 'Silence' and the Commonwealth Bank logo.

Just like dreams, interpretation is open, buit for the record, I interpret the Suprematism works of Malevich as being both black, and with shape.

I would be interested in your interpretations.

More paintings that rock!!

Jean-Paul Marat is no longer receiving visitors

The Death of Marat is a 1793 painting in the Neoclassic style by Jacques-Louis David and is one of the most famous images of the French Revolution. It refers to the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, killed on the 13th of July 1793 by Charlotte Corday.

As you may recall, I have a particular fondness for large, dramatic paintings with large, dramatic themes and The Death of Marat has all these in spades.

It's also very, very big.

Paintings like these played an important role in spreading the message of the Revolution. For a largely illiterate population familiar with religious imagery the image of Marat, displayed in a pose similar to the dead Christ taken down from the cross, was unmistakable – a Christ like figure, sacrificed for the Revolution. The Revolutionary leaders were careful to make sure cheap reproductions of painting like The Death of Marat were widely available.

After the fall of Robespierre, the painting was removed from public display before finally re-surfacing in 1846.

Fans of Cold Chisel may recognise it as the inspiration of East, with Jimmy Barnes filling in for the Marat figure.

Man Booker winner "not unreadable crap" shock!

In a move that has the Australian literary establishment reeling, the judges of the Man Booker prize have awarded the top gong to a book that isn’t the traditional pile of horseshit they usually give the nod to.

People in black leather jackets and funky glasses across the nation said the Man Booker judges have gone too far.

Independent film maker from North Fitzroy Marcus Hall said he was disgusted by the decision.

“From what I understand Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is an immensely readable, well crafted novel, which is exactly what we don’t want in a Man Booker winner,” Mr Hall said.

“Man Booker is all about books that are so painful they make you bleed from the eyes; books all about dung beetles from the POV of the dung, so you can demonstrate to everybody how clever you are while reading it.

“If we’re going to give prizes to books like Wolf Hall, then what’s the point?

Media personality Marieke Hardy said “I’ve got my hair in pig-tails even though I’m 30, how zany am I? And I’ve got a dog called Bob Ellis. And my grandfather was a famous communist.

“Did I mention I’ve got a dog called Bob Ellis?”

Ms Hardy was later advised to have a nice cup of tea, a lie down and to “get a grip, for fuck’s sake”.

I wish I'd said that

"Step outside and say that, fat boy"

I dip into the Australian these days more in despair than hope, but this piece about writers going the knuckle on other writers rather amused me.

Especially this bit;

A new book of "literary invective" has brought together evidence of how writers really view other writers. It shows that some authors are at their most inventive and scabrous when sinking their teeth into other literary stars.

Take Jane Austen, one of the most revered and enduring English authors. Mark Twain, the American writer, was so irritated by Austen that he wrote in one letter: "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin bone."

Quite.

Although oddly enough, it refers to Kathy Lette as a "novelist", instead of "geological outcropping", which is the correct term when talking about Kathy Lette.

Melbourne Festival, Finally

The Melbourne Festival is one of those annual events I steer well clear of. Everything costs way too much, I've never heard of 99% of the artists, it's elitist and ridiculous and made up entirely of artists that seem to work in some chasm between 'avant-garde' and 'classical', a chasm where only other like-minded artists hang out and there's not an audeince or a fan to be found.

Until now.

I heard yesterday that my favourite band in the whole world, Melt Banana, are playing at The Victorian Arts Centre as part of the Melbourne Festival. Melt Banana are a Japanese 'noise' band... not for the faint-hearted.

I understand that there's many festival junkies who attend these up-market shows, and will trust the festival organisers to provide blue ribbon art acts, like some Russian weirdo in a tuxedo who plays a cello out of tune for some reason. Just as much fun as seeing my favourite band will be the fun I derive looking at these regular festival-goers faces when this act comes out:



And here is a taste of them live:



I shall attend this event and provide a review, which will mainly consist of what comments I hear from the black-tie arts brigade on their way out of the theatre.

An award for bravery in the face of ridicule and scorn (along with silliness and absurdity)

It gives me great pleasure tonight to award the Kingotis Memorial Thread title. The following decoration is bestowed individually upon Perseus and collectively upon all the commenters on TSFKA for their role in pushing Perseus' 'Weekend Wrap' thread to an all-time high count for TSFKA and for reminding all of us of the ancient glory that was TSSH.

Congratulations everyone. Wear this specially-commissioned MS Paint art with pride.



And also for reaching 150 posts, a special display of the inaugural Kingotis Memorial Thread award has been approved.



In other news, I'll be posting a Poetry Slam Friday tomorrow in place of Ramon (if there are no objections).

What-ho, comrades.

The Mrs, who is a woman of rare good taste and breeding, presented me with the complete boxed set of Jeeves and Wooster for Fathers’ Day.

For those of you who are living like bugs in cultural slime, Jeeves and Wooster is a BBC series from the early 1990s featuring Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as his man servant Reginald Jeeves and as such is one of the most prefect television series ever made in the history of the world.

What really makes it is the casting. I can’t imagine a better Jeeves than Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie is exactly how you imagine Bertie Wooster as you read the original stories.

Go out and watch this series now.

Trust me; you don’t want to be lying on your deathbed thinking “I know I’m incredibly rich and famous. I know I was captain of the Australian Test team while simultaneously working as an international porn star but I never watched Jeeves and Wooster when that weirdo Ramon recommended it back in 2009.

“Oh woe, woe and lamentation” and that sort of stuff.

Is that how you want to end your days?

Exactly.

I thought not.

Monday Art Appreciation

A triptych I saw at the Prado in Madrid. The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.

Discuss (because I am lazy).

And as much as I hate to list it as a source, Wikipedia has some interesting close up details.

If you're creative, get stuffed.

And they're not even chainsaws, eh Pers.

This article from the UK satirical website The Daily Mash pretty much sums up how I feel about arts festivals in general.

Sociologist Charlie Reeves said: "The Edinburgh Fringe has become a sort of 'gobshite kettling', a way of temporarily containing viciously self-confident Oxbridge graduates who are nowhere near as talented as they think they are but will still end up getting 500 grand a year from the BBC.

"He added: "If only the Metropolitan Police were there to batter them all with sticks."

Quite.

The Melbourne International Writers’ Festival has recently ended and the whole odious pack of international “celebrities”, schmoozers, schleppers, schnorrers, schmiels, posers, punters, pundits, putzs, bloggers, book club members and Wendy Harmer can now piss off to whence they came.

I like fine literature as little as the next man but there’s something depressing about writers’ festivals with the usual suspects of authors performing like dancing bears to people who are either desperately thinking “Jesus, I really need to have a piss – how much longer will this pompous dickhead drone on” to people who realise with a sinking heart that the author who they loved the most is a monosyllabic bore in real life.

I can think of no finer place for compressed idiocy (apart from Crikey) than a writers’ festival. The attendees (and perhaps the organisers) like to think they’re taking part in the grand parliament of the mind but you get more intellectual banter on an episode of Rove.

What should be something exciting and vibrant becomes an exercise in unit-shifting.

And the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is shit well.

PS. talking about things arty, who’s doing PSF tomorrow?

The Details

I went to the Dali exhibition on Sunday with the Missus and the Kid. The queue was very long but we bypassed this frustrating occupation thanks to my son's ability to whinge at the right moment. A compassionate security guard (yes, they exist) allowed us to use the members' queue. Lovely.

It was interesting, particularly his earlier works which were prima facie unrelated to his more famous surrealist stuff. You know, the melting clocks and so on.

What I found most interesting was my four year old son's reaction to the paintings. I'd been apprehensive. Would he be interested? Would he last the distance as I did the slow, plodding, gallery shuffle? Boy, he loved it. He didn't want to look at every painting - who did? - but chose those that caught his attention such as the self portrait pictured above entitled The Sick Child.

My son saw things, details, that at first I hadn't seen. For example in The Sick Child the first thing he saw were the long fingers. He questioned me about it. Fortunately he's still at the age where he believes everything I say and thinks I know everything (one day he'll be shattered but for now I'm happy to ride that wave) and so I blabbed something obscure which he accepted. Standing before another painting he noticed that the subject had 'pooed his pants'.

"I don't think so," I said, staring closer at the brown mess below the arse of the man on the rocks.

"I think he has Daddy."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe he has pooed his pants."

"He has!"

"Jesus Christ, he has too!"

"I told you."

"Yes but I was looking at the bigger picture."

"I was looking at the poo. Look! He's bleeding from his head."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Look!"

"He is too."

"You're silly Daddy."

Quite. I was looking at the forest. He was looking at the trees.

Take that, you Nazi rotter!

Not a battleship.

When I was ten or so, I saw the 1960 English film Sink the Bismarck – possibly as part of the “cheap films for slow Sunday afternoons” series Channel Nine used to run out many, many years ago.

I remember being powerfully impressed, to the point that I walked around for days after saying things like “hard a-port skipper” and “Nazi rotters”*.

It was therefore with mixed feelings that I watched it again last night and I have to say it holds up quite well. True, there’s not much brooding introspection but like The Dam Busters made five years earlier it’s a ripping yarn of decent chaps whose stern exterior hides a breaking heart, just itching to give Johnny Nazi a bloody nose.

Also, hot chicks in naval uniforms**.

Well worth checking out, if you have access to a movie store specialising in obscure British films.***

* Possibly to the annoyance of my long-suffering parents.

** Did I mention it had hot chicks in naval uniforms? ‘Cause it did.

*** As I do.

A very large painting indeed

Amusingly, the above image is very, very small.

Many years ago the soon-to-be Mrs and I embarked upon a whirlwind tour of Europe and North America (which ended with me proposing in a restaurant in San Francisco – which is entirely by-the-by).

Large parts of the trip consisted of dragging the poor woman to points of interest from obscure aspects of European revolutionary history.

“Ooh look, Inez. It was at this very café in 1792 that the French revolutionary leader Marat suffered from a dose of food poisoning caused by a dodgy snail. Quick, quick, take a photo.”

It also involved us stuffing ourselves with as much culture as we could bare.

Which brings us to the Louvre and The Raft of the Medusa, painted over 1818-19 by Theodore Géricault. It shows the survivors of the wreck of the French frigate Medusa at the point of rescue, having survived being adrift for 13 days and enduring such horrors as starvation, cannibalism and the 18th century equivalent of Gretal Killen.

The thing you should understand about The Raft of the Medusa is that it’s big; very, very fucking big, the size of a large wall with most of the figures painted life size.

This isn’t a nice, polite painting – this is a painting that says “look at me you cunts or I’ll fall off the wall and crush you”.

Same thing with Picasso’s Guernica.

I do like art with balls.

Phoneys?

Have you all read J.D Salinger's 'The Catcher In The Rye' at least once? Good, then. If not, get thee to a bookstore and read it NOW. It's one of those books you have to read before you die, preferably twice. Once when you're a teenager, because the protaganist Holden Caulfield is also a teenager and he speaks beautifully on your behalf, then once as an adult to admire the artistry of the book and also to remember what it was like being a teenager.

The book has been well protected by its author. There was one lame attempt at a movie adaption way back in the late 40's and it was so horrible, Salinger prevented it from ever becoming a film ever again. Even without the weight of Hollywood behind the product, the book has still managed to sell approximately sixty-five million copies worldwide and to this day remains a best-seller, and if you read it, you'll know why. Kinda like 'Grapes of Wrath' and 'To Kill A Mockingbird', it's an American novel that is very readable by both literary elitists and the hoi-polloy, but what gives 'Catcher' an edge (in my mind) on those two is that it is not at all earnest or political - it's introspective and emotional, and has the ability to to prod and tickle your intellect* as opposed to feed it a three course meal.

The reclusive authour of this masterpiece, JD Salinger, is currently very old, very ill and very, very angry right now. See, some bloke has written a sequel to the book, with Holden Caulfield now an old man, and Salinger is quite rightly attempting, through the courts, to place an injunction on the novel.

My initial reaction is to take his side and say, "It's his character, nobody can touch him." But we're in an age of 'interpretations', whether they be re-imagining of Shakespeare's plays, Superhero re-tellings, or Alien vs Predator B-Movies, or fantasy porn or even cosplay. Characters are being appropriated left, right and centre in many guises. I have a book called 'Ahab's Wife' which is a novel about, you know, Ahab's wife, but the estate of Herman Melville aren't suing. George Lucas doesn't sue people who write online Star Wars fantasies or run around town in Darth Vader costumes - but maybe he would sue if they made a seventh movie without him. Disney and McDonalds are very protective of their brand and characters and have a history of suing people who use/abuse their image, and hell, even Tom Waits has sued companies for using music in ads that sound like him.

There's precedents on both sides of the argument. I'm sure the bloke who wrote the 'sequel' was paying homage to Salinger, but it's backfired badly, and I'm sure Salinger is sincere in his love for his character and his lifetime of protection. I doubt there can be a law to settle this, and it's why IP lawyers rake in the big bucks around the world. It's murky.

But as much as I feel sorry for Salinger, I tend to think the 'sequel' should be allowed to go ahead. We drop Greek Gods into our poems and stories. They made a film called 'The Queen' starring Helen Mirren which was a fictionalised story about a real, living Queen who didn't sue. 'Characters' are in the public domain whether they like it or not, whether they are copywrited or not, and maybe Salinger should just accept it, as much as I can fully understand how much this would hurt him.

Perhaps it should simply be settled like this: Wait until the bloke dies. Then it's open slather, and if you make a film or book using his characters, a percentage needs to go to his estate. We can have a hundred lame sequels of Catcher, but on the goodside, hopefully someone (when Lucas dies) will re-do Star Wars episodes 6, 1, 2 and 3 and make them actually entertaining (but please keep Portman in the jumpsuit.)



* Though Mark Chapman took it too far when he shot John Lennon, holding a copy of the book, and reading it straight after shooting him.

Dogma My Arse

Lars von Trier is at it again. His latest film, ‘Anti-Christ’ has premiered at Cannes.

“Charlotte Gainsbourg drills a hole through Willem Dafoe's leg and sticks a stave through it after smashing in his testicles with a piece of firewood. But it is the moment when she apparently cuts off her clitoris with a pair of scissors that has become the succes de scandale of the great French film festival.”

Is there a more over-rated artist in the world than this fuckhead?

“Oh, but he has something to say...” his fans implore. But what? What does he have to say? All these people who protect him don’t know what it is he’s saying, just that he ‘says something’. So let us go to the man himself. When asked by a disgusted journalist to defend his film, Lars said, “...it's a good starting point for a discussion, the fact that you feel something about the film."

A ‘starting point’? What the fuck? Shouldn’t the ‘starting point’ be the reason for the film in the first place, or its story, as opposed to the revulsion felt by the audience? Fuck me – even he doesn’t know what his film is about!

“Oh, but his films are confronting...” say the Dogma groupies.

Fuck off. Anyone can be confronting. I could drug a nun, smear dog shit over her tits whilst masturbating into a tub of lard and that’s criminal and foul, but if I call myself an ‘artist’ first, suddenly I'm 'confronting'.

Just because something is confronting, doesn’t mean it has artistic value, or meaning, or is entertaining, or is any good at all.

It is so easy to be ‘arty’. All you need is no talent, no direction and some money. But to create something of artistic worth? Now that takes some talent. Ay, there’s the rub.

Lasr von Trier is the pinup boy of this mass confusion as to what art has become. Call me old fashioned, but a central feature of great artists no matter what their field, is great proficiency at their art. You may not like Warhol, but he knew what he was doing. There was a meaning behind it. Lars lacks this. All he has is his stupid fucked up ‘Dogma’ which is a set of rules and agreements as to how a film should be made, and because he has stuck to these agreements, he earns the respect of movie fans around the world. But it’s just a mass stupidity as far as I can tell, a mass delusion of sorts, where because one person said, "Oh, he has integrity," his reputation spread like swine-flu.

“He makes films that adhere to his own artistic ethos...” So what? Just because he has a production ethos, does it mean he’s any good?

I can do that!

Perseus Q’s POGMA

*Only make films in black and white
*All films to be shot in real time
*Only one-take.
*Use different actors to overdub all voices
*Only use actors from broken homes
*Real dog shit must be smeared over a nun’s tits in every movie

There. If I make ten films like this with no coherent story purpose, no technical ability, no meaning, no direction, but rigidly stick to these rules, will I go down in history as an artist with integrity? Probably. But did I entertain people? Probably not.

I'd confront them though. Oh I'd be confronting alright. I'd confront them with inane 'shock value', just like Uncle Lars.

It is very difficult to create something that both entertains and enriches, and what we ask of artists is that they do one or the other, or even better, both. Britney Spears at least does one of these things – she entertains millions of kids, and for that, I have more respect for her singing and dancing talent than I do for the entire body of work created by Lars von Trier.

'Shock value' can exist in art. 'Guernica' by Picasso. 'A Clockwork Orange' by Burgess. 'Suicide In An Airplane' by Ornstein. 'Pulp Fiction' by Tarantino even. But what Tarantino, Ornstein, Burgess and Picasso have that Lars lacks is simple - artistry.

'Breaking The Waves', 'The Idiots', 'Dogville', 'Dancer In The Dark'... I mean seriously, did anyone see these films and say, "Wow, that was really good!"?

To quote TISM: “It’s novel, it’s unique, it’s shithouse.”

*

Rant over. Everyone back to Ramon's poem please.

Monday Arts Wrap

(Richmond lost to Melbourne yesterday who are the worst team in the AFL, which now makes Richmond worse than the worst. Sports wrap is on at least a week hiatus. Haitus? Hiatis?)

TSFKA scholars who study my works in great detail may recall that last year, as part of my Ponygirl Rebound Period (Vers. 1) I developed a big crush on a chick called Artemis, who was the older sister of my band's manager (Spud) and our band's bass player (Boz). There were some dates, but it went nowhere, and she ended up hooking up with a guy called Sparky Picasso. But the nice thing about it all is that Artemis and I stayed great friends, and we chat everyday on Gmail, and I have even become mates with her boyfriend Sparky. We all get along famously and hang out regularly.

Anyway, Sparky Picasso is a fledgling artist, and last week he had his first solo exhibition. I attended the opening (free wine and sushi, which is a law in Melbourne - 'wine and sushi at all art openings; no variations, ever'), and anyway, at art exhibitions, if I know the artist, I go all George Costanza and feel compelled to buy something, and, with the help of the free wine, I invariably do.

So I looked at all the pieces, and quickly identified what I thought was clearly the best piece. A close up of an attractive woman looking alarmed at something. It's a pretty big piece, but it was in a really nice frame, the picture was engaging and active, and I knew it would look good in my spare room.

So, knowing you have to get in quick at these things, I ran up to Sparky and said, "I'll buy that one."

He fidgeted a litle nervously. "That one, ay?"

"Yeah, I love it."

"Oh, okay, well, alright then. Umm, okay, that one it is."

And I'm thinking to myself, he appears a little apprehensive. He's always so happy and positive about things! What's happening? So anyway, I pay the deposit, and I turned to my date for the night (Miss Bookworm) and said, "Hey, I bought that painting," and she looks at it and says, "Oh, yeah, that's really nice. It kinda looks like that girl over there."

She was pointing at Artemis.

I took another look at the painting.

Yep. Artemis.

I went up to Artemis and said, "Umm, is that painting of you?"

She said, "Yeah, it's nice isn't it? I wonder if anyone will buy it?"

I said, "Umm, I just did."

Yep, I bought an intimate close-up portrait of the artist's girlfriend, who a year ago was my flame.

Awkward for the next hour?

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

I drank like a fish.

A FISH!

Midweek Mad Geniuses: Vincent Van Gogh

Dear Theo,

It’s a lovely day here today, except some stupid fuck called me ‘Van Goff’ as I strode through the park picking tulips. So I punched her in the head. Her teacher came running out of the schoolyard to remonstrate but I cleverly pretended to be a squirrel and she eventually left me alone. At least the little shit didn’t call me ‘Van Go’. That’s even worse.

Oh the anguish of being alive!

I’m working on a new painting. It’s got a lot to do with flowers (see attached jpeg). However I’m pretty much down to yellow. Can you send me some more paint?





Dear Vincent,

You idiot. This is the last time I send you paint. Why don’t you just buy some, you cheap bastard?

Hey! Guess what? That arsehole Don MacLean wrote a song about you.

Tell that fucking midget Toulouse Lautrec he stills owes me fifty guilders.


Dear Theo,

I heard that song but assumed it was about the Big Bopper.

On other matters, I have some terrible news. I got so bored listening to my girlfriend that I cut my ear off. Turns out it’s the hole in the side of your head, not the flap of skin, that does the listening. Annoying. I also discovered my girlfriend is a prostitute. I guess that explains why she wants me to pay every time we have sex.

Thanks for the paints. Can you remind me again how to make green?

Poetry Slam Friday!

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

My ability to recite this by heart got me more roots at Uni than anything else I can recall.

Poetry Slam Friday, Two!

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

I like to murmur the last line to myself on the train home. I find other passengers giving me a wide berth as a result.

And, by gum, this bloke has certainly got our number.

The paper quotes Islamic cleric Abu Hamza as saying

They think happiness can be achieved by being intoxicated, by going to the casino and blowing your money away, by going from one prostitute to the other.

Uncanny, eh?