Sunday, December 16, 2018

Naked Ambition: Images & Words Always Matter

I recently misspelt Nature’s Armageddon, it's not the end of the world.



  • When you see 300 people naked in Grand Central Station, or a river of flesh 
  • flowing through the beauty aisles of Selfridges department store, it makes you 
  • think about all sorts of social and political issues...

  • Paul Kelly (@paulkelly) | Twitter



The secret society that influenced famous artworks

ABC ARTS

Fans brave wild weather on Paul Kelly’s Making Gravy tour

Paul Kelly may have been tempting the gods when he titled his latest No.1 record Nature...



How to Make Gravy Lyrics: Hello Dan, it's Joe here / I hope you're keeping well / It's the 21st of December / And now .





One hundred fifty people get naked in Times Square. Seven thousand bare it all in Barcelona. Eighteen thousand pose nude in Mexico City. Even if you don't know Spencer Tunick's name, chances are you've heard about his work



SPENCER TUNICK and Dee Bloggers


Spencer Tunick (@SpencerTunick) | Twitter

Spencer Tunick's Melbourne nude photos released in vivid colour

Spencer Tunick : Media Dragon  

The red, gold or purple  inside this ring was once
the sap of two colliding stars,
a gravitational rippling flower,
a thousand times our local sun,
that flung its nectar on the dark
and silent emptiness, across
the curving light-years to become
a cooling planet with this ore
inside the veins of rock to be
dug out and then refined and formed
to wrap around your finger as
a sign of bond and permanence,
as eons of creation
echo in this familiar token.


Perhaps what it all comes to is this, that I feel your concept of God would be improved by just a touch of wildness.
“Just a touch of wildness” — or, How Evelyn Underhill schooled C. S. Lewis on the ways of God | Carl McColman.

The Incans didn’t write, but they had a powerful, intricate culture that counted (and maybe, recorded history and told stories?) using an intricate series of knots in cords that we’re only beginning to understand 

“Was I a man or was I a jerk?” Saul Bellow inquired on his deathbed. The answer was both... Zachary Leader - Life of saul bellow
Advice From BeatlesImagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
— Joseph Conrad, born on in 1857 
Beyond Eastrod : Polish Joseph Conrad — writing to make you hear,feel and see

Words Always Matter - Oxford University Press Blog: “The run-up to the recent mid-term elections saw commentators across the political spectrum claiming that “words matter.” Much of this was in response to violent acts – in particular the Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre and the pipe bombs sent to Democrats – that some argued was a consequence of Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Words always matter of course. But due to the timing and the stakes – in this instance, an upcoming mid-term election of considerable consequence – it turned into a literal war of words. Language was weaponized to an extent not seen before.  But how do words matter? The White House claims President Trump bears no responsibility for the violent actions of the Pittsburgh shooter or the Florida pipe-bomber, even though both appear to have been followers of the president. It is true that Trump has never directly issued a command, or even a request, for his followers to perform a violent act, although he has sometimes come close, such as when he told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that they should knock the crap out of anyone planning to throw tomatoes and that he’d pay their legal fees.

‘A negative response is rare / When birds are heard to sing’
 – by Wendy Cope

 

Untethered | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself 
Solzhenitsyn, at long last, found his writer’s refuge up a winding road from the town of Cavendish, Vermont. There, he expanded and winterized a Swiss-style wooden house and erected a tower for his library, archives and, on the top floor, multiple tables, where he worked standing up because of sciatica. An underground tunnel connected the two structures. “Now,” he writes, “I had the office of my dreams, spacious, with a high ceiling and bright windows (there were even windows in the roof, and no attic beneath them).” The compound, which he christened “Five Brooks”, also acquired an interior chapel dedicated to St Sergius of Radonezh. The author swam, played tennis, scythed grass and sawed wood, while contemplating the past and future of Russia in “the American wilderness”.




Such Infallible Veracity!'

Writing about the ongoing temper tantrums in France, Theodore Dalrymple makes an observation that reminds me of another writer who was also a doctor: “Many people I know want six impossible things before breakfast.” The line is memorable because it’s homely, and its homeliness carries the truth. This mingling of acuity of thought and intelligent, carefully worded folksiness is a rare balance. Most writers tip in one direction or the other and end up sounding humorless and scolding, or like bush-league Mark Twains.

 

We Begin in Gladness' delves into how poets teach themselves to write their best - CSMonitor.com

This doorstopper would be an excellent Christmas present for the indolent insomniacs




















Killing Your Darlings: How Playwrights Decide When To Cut Passages They Love


“As novelist William Faulkner said about writing, but is applicable to all creative endeavours: ‘You must kill all your darlings.’ That said, killing your darlings can be really painful because you love them so dearly.” Lyn Gardner talks to theatre folk who’ve had to do it about why and how. (One groused, “I wonder if auteur directors are asked to kill their darlings. Does anyone ever say to Ivo van Hove: ‘Could you just cut 10 minutes?'”) — The Stage - Ski-instructor following winter around the world

"I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened."
— Mark Twain