A Thousand Shades of Twilight

Bye for now!

 

(Image of Leslie Caron and her "fun" friends from "Lili", taken from 'Gotta sing, gotta dance - A pictorial history of film musicals' by John Kobal)

Tomorrow, Dear Patient M and I are off to hit the States. Finally!

Needless to say, it is all extremely exciting! I have never been to the US before, and am naturally all aquiver. I am also extremely excited at the prospect of seven weeks away from the office. I will not be blogging much in that time as I suspect that I will not have anything to wail and gnash my teeth about, as is my usual custom of a Sunday evening.  Barring unmitigated catastrophe (and believe me, potential catastrophes of every stripe have been running through my brain on a loop)(time to change the tape, I feel), we should be back in late October.

Until then, stay safe, stay nutty, dance and be gay!

And, in parting, here is something you will rarely see on this li'l blog:

:)

Yes. It is an emoticon. Yes. It is a happy emoticon. Yes. I am a very, very happy fella!

Adieu, my sweeties!

Overture, cut the lights...

(Clip from Ingmar Bergman's 'The Magic Flute' posted on Youtube by Americobottone)

I have exhausted the neuroses from last week, and am letting myself enjoy a delicious sense of nervous anticipation. Lozenges disappear as last coughs are coughed, programmes are rustled and the orchestra warms itself up...

(Only 16 more sleeps until the big trip. Hoorah!)

The hissing of dampened squibs

  

(Detail from World Record Club album 'Philharmonia Fireworks' designed by Guus Van der Heyde)

I know that someone famous said that there is nothing more boring than hearing about other people's dreams. That has, however, never has, and never will stop me. So, here goes: Last night I had a very annoying dream. It woke me up early in the morning, all full of fretfulness, my mind on a loop. I think it was a travel dream. Did I mention that I am going overseas soon? No? Only 22 days to go. I am beginning to bore myself talking about it. Other people must be stupefied (it has, after all, been about five years in the planning. And saving). That has, however, never has, and never will stop me.

Anyway, in this boring, annoying dream, I was watching a fireworks display. But all that happened was a bunch of little worm-like forms whizzed up into the sky, without actually exploding. When some of these worms finally did explode, they were always frustratingly at the periphery of my vision. Turn my head as I might, I could only catch a glimpse of the afterglow. I felt cheated.

I realised that I have been putting so much store in this one little 5 and 1/2 week holiday. It is what I do. I am a very good anticipator. I divide my life into 'befores' and 'afters'. The 'afters' are usually not as much fun as the 'befores'. So I have learned to cherish the 'befores'. The fact is, that plans do go awry. Awful, unfair things happen to people all the time. Why should I be immune?  

I have been so wary of tempting fate in these last few weeks. I keep imagining absentmindedly driving into someone. I imagine being blindsided. I imagine that every phone call will bring unthinkable news. A trip to the hardware store today had me gripping the wheel with white knuckles. These neuroses are, of course, just a necessary form of self-protection. But I know that the real reason is that the closer I get to happiness, the more likely it is that all my dear old neuroses will rocket to the surface. I will be eternally grateful if they do not explode.

Images so grim that they are amusing #11

 

This is a still from Carl Dreyer's 'Day of Wrath'. It is a film about a stoic woman who gets burned at the stake as a witch. Dreyer's style has been described as one of "burning frigidity". And, did I mention that the film is called 'Day of Wrath'? Fun times.

Shopping troubles me

 

(Poster for Au Moine Saint-Martin in The Poster in History by Max Gallo, Hamlyn 1972)

Whatever happened to shopping? It used to be fun.

These days, my enthusiasm for shopping has dwindled to almost zero. I am sure I am not alone in saying that I find clothes shopping particularly demoralising. My actual size is usually something like the secret floor in Being John Malkovich, mysteriously stuck somewhere between L and XL. And the dreaded change-room experience is something like the last scene of All About Eve, but even more chilling, and with added love handles.

Last weekend I set off with gritted teeth, clenched fists and an optimistic wallet, determined to buy myself some sort of goddamn treat. I have been a good boy of late, keeping my head down, working hard and staying off the turps. I have been squirrelling away my pennies for a forthcoming overseas jaunt (Only 36 sleeps to go. I should know. I have been scratching them on the wall in crossed fives, with my own blood, like a delusional convict). I demanded some instant gratification, some distraction from creeping time, and convinced myself that I deserved it. Needless to say, I was thwarted. Instant gratification was nowhere to be found on the boulevards of Adelaide.

I looked at all manner of objets but felt disappointed and paralysed with indecision.  I have learned my lesson about impulse buying. Consequently, something as simple as buying a cucumber could involve at least five reconnaissance missions. I soon resigned myself to the fact that I may well go home empty handed. It also takes a lot to drown out the austere voices of my childhood which admonish that objets will not, or, more accurately, should not make me happy. I was always haunted by the Bible Story of the Rich Fool and his silos of grain. That said, I liked the bit before he died and went to hell and all that.

Lest I sound like I am on a high horse, let me say that objets can and do make me happy. The frippery I surround myself with helps me construct a comforting little retro fantasy that distracts me from the fact that my life is far from the glamorous, world-conquering existence I dreamed of as a child.

The day was not entirely a wash out. As I traipsed, stoop-shouldered under grey skies, a whole raft of happy memories started to filter into my consciousness. I wandered into dusty corners I had not visited since I was a tyke. I thought about when shopping "in town" was something to look forward to. Travelling in on the bus with Mum or a sister on a Saturday (everything was closed on Sunday). Getting dressed up for the day in my 'trendiest' outfit. Having a cappucino or maybe even a cheese roll or something fancy like a quiche at a cafe. Maybe even seeing a film at a cinema long since demolished. Mum buying dresses that I was told not to tell Dad about. Lustfully fingering coffee table books stacked up on remainder tables. It was not often that we bought them (unless they were drastically reduced), but just knowing that they were there was comforting. Buying posters. Incense. Singles. Badges. All those book and record shops which have disappeared or been taken over by chains. What does "in town" mean these days? It seemed then that anything could be found "in town". Now it seems the opposite is true. It seems that anything can be found on the net. Which is not as much fun. And, alas, does not involve cheese rolls.

The long day closes

Clip from Terence Davies' The Long Day Closes posted on Youtube by Rongart)

I have been waiting for this clip to appear on Youtube for some time, and, presto, there it was today. The very clip.

I have had a real affinity for this film ever since I saw it (in the suitably art deco surroundings of The Capri Cinema), with my mother, on its first theatrical release in the early 1990s. I guess the 1990s were not all bad, then. Given that affinity, I am unable to be too objective about it. Although I did not exactly grow up in the Liverpool slums in the 40s and 50s, so much of this film reminded me of my childhood - the way that church life permeated everything and the concomitant guilt-fest, the escape from school life that family, music and cinema provided,the closeness with my mother, jealously watching the older siblings go out and being left to entertain myself, my burgeoning gay sensibility.

I remember reading a review at the time which, while positive, said that the film strayed into chocolate box sentimentality at times. But to me, what made this film even more moving is that it was deliberately dealing with a relatively happy period in Terence Davies' life when his brutal father (as depicted in Distance Voices, Still Lives (which I have never got around to seeing, but the clips I have seen on Youtube are plenty harrowing) was absent.

So, I hope you enjoy it. Who knew that Debbie Reynolds could be so moving?

Back to the old house

(Photo by Robert C Cleveland in 'The Architectural Digest', Spring 1962) (Needless to say, somebody else's family home)

On bleaker mornings like this morning, when the spectre of Monday creeps up, Nosferatu-like, earlier than it has any right to, I lie in bed wide awake (while Dear Patient M, unsuspecting, snores gently beside me), conducting a virtual tour of the house I did most of my growing up in.  I approach the house, as it was, a rambling, run-down bungalow on a busy road, like a mist, seeping under the door, and then I swoop, twisting and laughing and spying through every room. It is, indeed, my "happy place".

I am the only one of my immediate family left in Adelaide. The rest have all fled to sunnier or loftier climes. That house is the one tangible reminder that we ever lived together at all. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed the whole thing. I miss them all terribly. I am not sure if they know that because I cannot bring myself to let on in front of them. My schtick is to pretend to be wounded that they forsook me.

My parents never owned a house when I was growing up. My father was a Man of the Cloth and we lived wherever The Church would put us up. In this instance, we were accommodated beyond our means in a neighbourhood we would never been able to afford to live in otherwise, and which I could not afford to live in now. We were very lucky, I guess, that The Church was very shrewd when it came to buying and selling property. I am sure that they made a killing when they booted us out of this house after about 11 years. I remember visiting other Pastor's families in similar settings  - ensconced (with their crappy old furniture, their frumpy make-do clothing, their potplants grown from cuttings) in drafty unrenovated Manses in nice leafy suburbs.

The neighbours were unlike the Church people that we exclusively associated with up until that point. One one side, there was an English family, who seemed quite posh. If the father was not a professor of some sort, he certainly seemed like one. He had a kindly face, and spent a lot of time pottering quietly in his unruly garden. We called him Puddleglum. The mother was friendly, gossipy and loud, had grey wiry hair, smoked Woodbines in the house and would blithely chat to my bemused mother about things like The Family Silver, not thinking for one minute that Mum might not have any Family Silver of her own. On reflection, I think the English Mother was probably bored out of her brain. On the other side was a more glamorous couple in a more 'modern' house who were rumoured by the English Mother to have made 'millions' in their furniture business. Awful child that I was, I started a baseless rumour that the Furniture Father was a transvestite. Fortunately for everybody, 'The Children's Hour' did not ensue.

The house was bought as a deceased estate from an elderly lady called Mrs Holmes. Her presence subsisted. I am not just talking about the soiled pair of cotton tails that my sister and I found stashed in a cupboard. I am not talking about a ghost (although there was one bedroom that always spooked me). No, despite Dad's knee-jerk protestations, Mum had the foresight to buy the entire contents of the house for a few hundred dollars. In the late 70s, the original early-to-mid-20th-century furniture seemed heavy, dull and unfashionable. There was the original grey floral carpet, grey linoleum in the kitchen, crazy paving out the back. Everything was tatty and there was a distinct dearth of anything resembling a mod con (it explains alot about the Adult Me).And everything was filthy. There was also crockery, cutlery, and a multitude of vases. I do not think that any of it was made after the 1950s. It was almost as if Mrs Holmes had not changed anything, Miss Haversham-like, since her wedding day. 

Of course, I would give my right eye for most of that stuff now. But apart from the odd item which has been transposed to Queensland with my parents (where, to be frank, it makes little sense), it is all since long gone.

The memory I most cherish about that house is not a specific memory at all. Rather, it is a memory of that sense of the house being full. Of us kids, off in our own worlds, doing our own thing. Sleeping. Fighting. Trying to lose weight. Smoking. Dripping candle wax in elaborate patterns. All of that lying on the floor with oversized headphones on.  I also remember my parents, probably looking for a corner of respite, from us kids and each other. But all of us doing whatever we were doing under one roof together. I miss that.

I have often thought about wheedling my way into the house for one last time. I continue to stalk it in the real estate pages, but it never comes up. When feeling particularly anxious or blue, I have driven to the neighbourhood, parked around the corner, and walked past, darting furtive and bashful looks in the general direction. In fact, I did it today. It works like a charm. It grounds me.

But I never linger. I cannot even bring myself to begin to let on.

Three Bits of Flotsam #2

Segment from 'Paris, Je t'aime' directed by Alexander Payne, posted on Youtube by Jaxn 27

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'His innocence was accompanied by an infallible flair, and his feeling for truth was only exceeded by his obstinacy. He was an absolute mule! A friend of his once told me the following story. He had got engaged to a girl whom his father did not consider a suitable wife for him. She came of a very good family and was what is called a good match, but old Monsieur Champagne had already made up his mind. After a furious altercation Pierre went out on to the balcony of their fifth-floor apartment and put a leg over the balustrade announcing that he was going to jump. 'Since I can't live without Mimi, I may as well put an end to everything. That would solve the whole problem.' The sight of that body hanging over a five story drop attracted notice in the street and before long a crowd had gathered. Women screamed, and one even rolled on the ground as though in an epileptic fit. The objection to Pierre's marriage to Mimi was promptly withdrawn.'

Jean Renoir, on his good friend, Pierre Champagne. From 'Jean Renoir - My life and my films'

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Images so grim that they are amusing #10

 

(Photo of Ryszard Cieslak in After Dark Magazine, September 1970, by Max Waldman)

Above is a depiction of my customary reaction upon being extended an invitation to the theatre. Make that 'live performance of any description'. In fact, it happened just today. I blurted out 'I have a million things to do' which was a blatant lie (just look at me idling here!) before coming clean and explaining that it just is 'not my thing'. Besides, the show in question is part of a festival. No need to re-open that particular festering wound here, other than to say that festivals and me are like oil and water.

I know, I know - I am a churlish Philistine.

I blame it on having to attend so many church services as a child. Something about ritualised group responses to spectacle causes me to shudder. My worst nightmare is having to attend a performance of a stand up comedian and feeling compelled to laugh on cue. I will elaborate on that at some point no doubt. But tonight it is yet still too raw...

Opening an article with an apparently apocryphal quote from Stanislavski, 'You must suffer if you are to be an artist!',is for me, a massive neon sign blinking, 'This way to Funsville'. Here is what the rest of the accompanying article says about this delightful little slice of angst:

'As a man, he is made to suffer an intense, extended, choreographed, orchestrated orgy of physical and vocal involvement. As a symbolic figure, he becomes like a Christ, absorbing into his body and his spirit all the angers, rages and frustrations of a frightened, frantic humanity which...oh, stop it.

Please.

 

'

 

He rhymed "kith" with "with" - Dreadful compositions by an alleged poet

 

The title and photo above are lifted directly from the overwrought pages of that esteemed journal of all things bizarre and deliciously ill-fated, 'Parade' magazine.

The career of Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate from 1896 to 1913 'was a hilarious interlude of parody, mockery and laughter unrivalled in literary annals.' According to 'Parade', 'Malign Fate' and 'A cynical Prime Minister who could think of no one else' conspired to get him the job. Every morning when I awake I give thanks to the Lord that I am not a Poet Laureate. It does not sound like much of a job and from all accounts is still poorly paid. Who would be a Poet Laureate, then? Alfred Austin would! So much so that he threw in a legal career to pursue his dream.

Many of us would be deterred from such a dream if our first volume of poetry only sold 17 copies. But not Alfred. When his second volume, a satire of the Mayfair marriage market, was slated by the critics, he responded with a 'pompous bad tempered pamphlet called 'My satire and its critics'. He always came out swinging, did our Alfred. He decided Browning was 'muddy', Swinburne produced 'mere babble,' Tennyson would be 'handed over to the dust as soon as the generation came to its senses'. Dickens was 'surrounded by a flimsy brood of servile admirers.' Although Alfred clearly recognised that bunch of ne'erdowell flybynights for what they were, they were not impressed. Swinburne referred to Alfred as 'that creature' while Tennyson went one better by ignoring him completely.

That said, once Tennyson, despite his obvious literary shortcomings, somehow managed to become a peer, Alfred decided his friendship was worth cultivating. So he 'tried' to give Tennyson a leaf. Always works for me, I have found. Ok, it was not just any leaf. It was allegedly a 'laurel leaf from the ancient Greek shrine of Delphi.' You will note that 'Parade' is enigmatically silent on whether or not Alfred actually ever succeeded in his leaf-giving attempts.

Alfred's next project was a long narrative poem (is that the tinkling of alarm bells I hear?) entitled 'The Human Tragedy'. It took him a good twenty years to complete and is by all accounts, unreadable. Its apt title should not remain unremarked upon.

He also embarked on a career as a failed Tory politician before deciding that the 'hurly burly of the hustings' was too much for his 'rare spirit'. Thankfully for us, he chose instead to concentrate instead on his deathless poetry and pamphleteering, proceeding to churn out '20 volumes of atrocious verse in the next 30 years.' Somehow, he managed to win friends in high places, with Queen Victoria declaring his work 'delightful'. He dedicated a poem to her, mystifyingly called 'Prince Lucifer'. Perhaps it reminded her of Albert.

Then, after Tennyson dropped off the perch, there was a vacuum of three years where no suitable Poet Laureate could be found. Eventually, given his presence in the good books of the Queen and his unimpeachable reactionary politics, he was appointed Poet Laureate by Lord Salisbury. Lord Salisbury remarked that the only reason why he suggested Alfred for the job was that 'he wanted it'. It may have also had something to do with the sonnet Alfred penned for the Lord:

'Great, wise and good, too near for men to know, til years shall pass, how good, how wise, how great.'

Dear Alfred, with customary insight and modesty, was not at all surprised by his appointment: 'It is simply recognition of my place at the head of English Literature', he responded.

As for the rest of English society, it greeted Alfred's appointment with 'a chorus of mingled contempt, derision and ribald laughter.' The laughter grew louder when Alfred published a patriotic verse drama all about - who else- King Alfred the Great. It was called 'England's Darling'. To say, as 'Parade' does, that the critics seized on it with delight is, no doubt, an understatement.

Alfred then banged on for many more years, inciting all manner of racial hatred with his jingoistic doggerel and 'flatulent odes'. He never achieved the peerage he so brazenly craved, and his ultimate and inevitable decline in popularity almost led to the abolition of the post of Poet Laureate altogether.

In closing then, a fitting tribute would be a few words from the man himself. And if you can make head or tail of it, you are a better person than I am:

Will you, I round it willingly can guide you;

Unless-and told, shall fully understand-

Wander you rather would with none beside you.