Posted by Jerry on January 24th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Travel
Amazing! just stumbled across this site while reading Chic Happens’ blog on 20six – the Tate collection online ๐ 196 images online from the general collection and a whole bunch of Turners – stuff we just don’t get to see in Oz unless the National Gallery of Australia scores a tour of a few works. So bouquets to the Tate. In 2000 I went to the Tate modern – great exhibition of Louise Bourgeois’ works in the turbine hall – a stunning steel spider and three towers labelled “I DO”, “I UNDO”, “I REDO” providing a range of perspectives on interiority, exteriority and moving forward. Great stuff!
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Posted by Jerry on January 23rd, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Writing
Spam becomes art at the hands of poets! An article in the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of days ago caught my interest. It seems that poets have been cutting and splicing bits of spam to provide sometimes surreal impressionistic pieces that in a raw way describe an aspect of contemporary society’s obssession with greed lust and aggression. Sometimes with a political edge, and loaded with irony – these pieces usefully hold up a mirror to some of the baser aspects of our culture. The article questions whether these poems will stand as literature in 75 years time. My question is whether any writing taken out of context would really stand – ie read in context, these poems would reveal quite a lot about contemporary culture and a certain kind of mercantilism. Like adverts, these are highly metaphorical and evocative writings.
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 20th, 2004 — Posted in History, Journal, Writing
This morning, my partner Sharon pointed me to a new site from the British Library devoted to virtual exhibitions. The site has some lovely use of flash – tastefully restrained – which livens up the presentation enormously.
I particularly enjoyed the `literary landscapes’ section which marries literary figures with maps and images providing a context for their writing. Having visited Loch Katrine in Scotland (and taken the steam boat ride along its length), I liked the section on Sir Walter Scott despite his highly romanticised view of scotland portrayed in his writings, and the accompanying hand-coloured engraving by FJ Sargent from 1811. The web version has handy navigation icons and a zoom function – which works well on the high resolution images. There are maps too, providing a rich backdrop to a number of Scott’s novels.
Also included are Chaucer’s Kent, Wordsworth’s Lake District, Thomas Hardy’s Dorset, Jane Austen’s Bath (the place, not the ablution), and Defoe’s Moll Flanders.
I had a good poke (okay click) around in the Durham exhibition too – I loved the section on Jarrow Priory.
There is also a great ‘about Collect Britain’ page which talks about the digitisation project and the designers.
All in all a good site, well designed and informative – well worth a visit!
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 18th, 2004 — Posted in Journal
Today (Sunday 18 Jan – in Australia it is anyhow!) is the anniversary – one year to the day since the Canberra bushfires came through our suburb. We were lucky in only losing the garage and front garden and fences – superficial stuff really, but the reminders are there with our neighbour’s house still untouched after a year – the back end still charred. It has taken a year for the insurance to settle with them and they have only recently taken the painful decision to sell up and leave the suburb after 30-odd years. We were in the process of buying our place when the fires came through so the house were were buying was empty, and our old place was packed up in boxes. We fought the fires at the old place – embers falling like a snow blizzard – the darkness like night fall and the sound (the unforgettable sound!) of gale-fanned flames on an enormous scale and roofs clattering like pine boards dropped onto cement and the power poles glowing like candles.
But there are some amazing positives. We now know everyone in the street – I have lived for years in other houses never even knowing the name of our next door neighbour, but here everyone has come together as a community. And the whole district is like in perpetual Spring as new houses are coming into bloom, springing up out of the bare blocks. Winter was Winter – the blocks had been cleared (mostly) of debris and there was a collective hiatus or holding of the breath. I guess this was when those who were rebuilding were getting their house plans drawn up and going through the Council approval processes. Then Spring came and by the start of Spring in October the first sets of foundations were being poured. By mid summer (December) the frames were up and piles of bricks sprouted on pallets, transforming themselves at remarkable speed into walls and windows and then the tiles appeared for the roof and gradually these too took shape. Around ten percent of the sestroyed houses have been rebuilt to the point where the owners have moved in – many racing the last few details to get in by Christmas.
In a street of eighteen houses we lost five, and those whose houses were saved are rebuilding their gardens. Our neighbours have commented on how colourful our garden is – truth is we were desperate for any colour other than “charred brown” so we went a bit crazy with flowering shrubs and trees and loads of pansies and petunias of all different colours, and bulbs – tulips and daffodils and the unkillable agapanthus (burnt to the ground they almost all grew back!). And of course the tree – formerly towering over the house at the front is now stacked, milled into boards, ready to be turned into our new dining table – but that’s another story!
So we are having a street party today to mark our survival and to acknowledge how far we have come in one year ๐ It’s been quite a journey…
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 8th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Writing
er… happy new year folks! just surfacing at last ๐
And I was reading a new edition of Beowulf – as you do – in this case a new verse translation by Michael Alexander published by Penguin – and found two references to middle earth within the first thousand lines! It’s a great tale – half Tolkien half Star Trek Klingon warrior culture… A classic at the speed of videoclips!
And of course I had to see the new Lord of the Rings on the second day after opening – what a great movie – mobile scars, vanishing cloaks and all ๐ The trilogy will live like 2001 a Space Odyssey (also drawing on classical references), and the five movies of the Star Wars trilogy, among the great movie experiences of the new Century – of course Tolkien was a fine linguist and Anglo-Saxon scholar – so I was delighted to see the way some of Tolkien’s langage reflects its Anglo-saxon/Old English roots – check out this list:
Tolkien and Beowulf for a good sprinkling…
I particularly liked Frรณdan as Frodo – the wise!
And for a taste of Beowulf itself – check out:
Beowulf Project Gutenberg Version
Cheers
Jerry
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