Author: da5idk
VideoPoetry
Goodbye to the Normals
Do you know what the problem with television is? There’s too much of
it. There are no limits. Too many possibilities. So what happens?
All the resources already dedicated to quantity, few – or at least not
enough – are dedicated to quality. This is not to eulogise a heyday of
four – three – or even two national channels when the competition
between ‘venue’ brought the very best out of the pioneers. But who
would deny that most TV these days is awful?
The best paintings/stills are simple: portrait, stil life, landcape.
The best music obeys the strictest of accepted forms: concerto, symphony, song, 12bar….. even jingle.
All the very best in literature – the art of the written word – is in carefully crafted poetic form: the haiku, the sonnet.
The moving image combined with music and the spoken word has given us
some of the greatest works of history: the shamanic dance; the
transubstantiation mass; jacobean tragedy. That its launch onto the
celluloid stage has struggled at times with form, born as it has been in
a time of play with form, is perhaps not to be wondered at, in such
early days.
The very best in film, right now, is the short : sometimes driven by a
commercial intent that funds it, yet from which constraints its
liberating parameters are born, the advert is the haiku of film; at its
very best mimicking the style but with something different to sell…..
Here’s an example of the best……..
Bye Bella
Goodbye Bella x
Why I Hate Orange
It is sad thing, but I have a geek need – I am an early adopter and I
want my iPhone now. I wanted it on Friday, when they shipped in the UK.
But Orange have me locked into a contract – an 18month contract – that
does not expire until February. Therefore they will not release my
number – which i have had since 1999 – until then. Without an new
18month contract I cannot get an iPhone from 02. So I have to wait.
When I really don’t want to. And resigned though i may be, it makes me
hate Orange, who I have been with since 1999.
Rimbaud
Well it passes a quiet hour at home at the end of a long week. Here is my favourite poem. Indeed, this is my favourite poem, by my favourite
poet – the young boyfriend of Paul Verlaine, another mid19th century
French poet. They were both hounded by French society of the time, once
their relationship became very public through some rather more baudy
poems than this one.
I ran away in 1985, at the age of 21, and arrived in Boulogne with 34p
in my pocket, and spent 5 months begging and hitching around Europe,
with one book in my rucksack – the poems of Arthur Rimbaud.
The full text is here.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/719774_poem5.html
The video of me reciting it is Genie by Arthur Rimbaud.
Trip Downunder Sept 07 – Entry 14: Sydney
Back to Sydney! Delightful dinner with fellow Kaotician (and its original founder) Phil Morle and his wife at their lovely home overlooking the bush in Hornsby, followed by a day out in the City seeing the sights, drinking tea outside the Opera House – and several beers in Sydney’s gay village, Surrey Hills. A lovely day indeed. And then back to Sean’s for the weekend – to make him a new website!
Trip Downunder Sept 07 – Entry 13: Last Day NZ
The last day’s drive was long and exhausting, from Queenstown all the way north east to Christchurch. Lake Pukaki on the way in the bright sunlight was in one of its very bright blue moods, according to the lady at the tourist stop, who sold me a breakfast bar with a smile. Lunch in Fairlie’s award winning bistro was really delicious, reading through the local paper with an excellent coffee and a warm chicken salad worthy of a town a good deal larger than little Fairlie. And finally Christchurch – initially a very unappealing and seemingly endless strip of low-rise warehouse-style industrial and commercial buildings beside the road, and then suddenly, at the centre, a veritable Upper Stratford-in-the-Wold (if such a place can exist) more typically English than you’re likely to find anywhere outside the nether regions of Shropshire or Herefordshire, utterly quaint, whilst at the same time circled with enormous modern high-rise towers, in the lake of industrial units. A very strange city indeed – all at once picture-postcard English village, international windy city, and highway strip town. The Heritage in Cathedral Square – like all the Heritage Hotels I have stayed in in New Zealand, was lovely, and the restaurant here, in the old Government building next to the hotel tower, particularly good. Last but not least, the Antarctic Centre at Christchurch Airport is an experience not to be missed! – though I should have left longer than an hour to get round it all. And so goodbye to New Zealand, and hopefully see you again!
Some views of the picturesque centre of Christchurch – with the memorial to the suffragettes who succeeded in making New Zealand the first country in the world to extend suffrage to women:
### sadly the tag-based slideshow I created in 2007 is no longer supported by Flickr ###
Please visit the Flickr album to see the Christchurch photos.
Pictures of the penguins at the Antarctic Centre:
### sadly the tag-based slideshow I created in 2007 is no longer supported by Flickr ###
Please visit the Flickr album to see the penguin photos.
Trip Downunder Sept 07 – Entry 11: South Island
So today I arrived in the Scotland of the southern ocean. And it really is that. The scenery, as you fly in over the snowcapped mountains down into Queenstown, is what can only be described as gobsmackingly spectacular. I was blessed today with brilliant sunshine and deep blue skies – a blue only rivalled by the blue of the rivers and lakes that sit in the dips between the mountains. It really is stunning.
Having flown from Wellington to Christchurch, and then from Christchurch to Queenstown, in the final leg of a rather non-sensical itinerary, I then drove to Dunedin, via Alexandra and Milton. The scenery, however, made it well worth it – including such sights as Roaring Meg:
and a host of amazing vistas, courtesy of the mountain ranges of the south.
Trip Downunder Sept 07 – Entry 8: Into the National Park
Well today has been pleasantly slow and quite lacking in excitement – a welcome respite after yesterday’s highlights. I stopped off to take a walk down to the better lookout of Huka Falls, and another round the Taupo Museum, had a rather nice Clam Chowder in an eatery in Taupo, then took the long way round (and more scenic route) down the west coast of Lake Taupo to the National Park, and on up to Mount Ruapehu and the
Grand Chateau hotel – which is splendid.
Here it is time for a relaxed dinner in their splendid Edwardian style restaurant, while the rain pours down outside.
On the way down from Rotarua to Taupo, I passed this amazing installation making excellent use of the local volcanic conditions to power today’s society:
At the Taupo Museum I was treated to an award winning garden, and the portraits of two 19th century Maori chiefs:
On the way down from Taupo to the National Park – taking the scenic route down the west of the lake – I was blessed with some incredible vistas, worth stopping for a few minutes to breathe in the view, and take a snap:
