FiftyFive ~ # 54 (again)

In response to the post on laughing (below) a friend wrote, "I don't think we ever really grow out of that fear [...of being laughed at]. But isn't it interesting that whilst it can be the most devastating, the sound of laughter is also the most uplifting and wonderful?" And of course she is right and indeed I am researching this idea now in a paper with the working title: The Fear of Flying, Falling and Laughing. Is that pompous or what? And I guess being pompous allows us to fend of the fear of being laughed at too - though not so seriously pompous that we deserve to be laughed at. Pomposity by degrees - which is why my kids still call me Professori and Professorus (which is a coded version of Nutty Professor) and how easily they can see the Emperor's New Clothes (thanks Hans for that story). Another friend sent me this quotation (she used it on her son) 'a joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling' (Nietzsche) oh. But the joke is on me, my mother sent me this picture today, its me in my old flat in London - though why I have a Greek fisherman's hat on I have no idea, but I lost it and would love another (and check out the left ear - hoots).

This FiftyFive@FiftyFive idea has taken me through a number of roads, nostalgic byways and highways and it is becoming clear that fifty posts are not going to do it. But along the way I nearly missed this lot - I was a big Poco fan years back and loved playing stuff like this when I was younger than even in the picture above. Look at these guys, still doing it, maybe there is still time for me, mistakes and all - I love it and I love guitars, I could fill a house with them - and in fact the room I am sitting in now has five of them and there are two in the kitchen (its a madness):

FiftyFive ~ # 54

A question I saw written down the other day was, "...what is the fear of being laughed at a fear of?" For most of us it is surely the fear of our adolescent view of our sense of self being ridiculed and dented - or even exposed, ie the self image is revealed as nothing but a daft notion of the self - the bubble is burst. And of course it is that which we eventually grow out of. Or do we; for it occurs to me too that in being beyond reacting to being laughed at (and minding) are we not in danger of reaching a state of complacency, where we are just too old (or arrogant; or stupid) to care? Indeed the other questions that arise are, "...what would have to happen for someone to grow out of the fear of being laughed at?" And indeed, "...is it possible to grow out of that fear?" which circles all the way around to, "...what is the fear of being laughed at a fear of?" Adam Phillips says, "Laughing at someone is - like all real pleasure - a stolen pleasure. But when we laugh at someone they feel stolen from." Though I suppose the level of laughter at us isn't the real test of our fear, that lies in the cause of the laughter. Consider the cause, from mild teasing through to humiliation, which must account for the degree of reaction. A huge guffaw could be from little more than a cheeky smile of an insult, while a tiny smiled hmmm or even a single raised eyebrow could account for a holocaust of life being stolen. Interesting is how I would describe it, without having to comment much beyond saying, I was only saying - thinking out loud... circumlocution of the soul.
That said I found an idea that links this to the Icarus effect the other day, "Life is impoverished, " wrote Freud in 1915, "it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked." When Daedalus urged Icarus to fly the middle way - not too high or too low, he had made life itself the price and the prize. Once he had found his wings, Icarus prized flying so highly that he took the risk. I am going to let this one float too but it will drop into sense at some time, to become real... my favourite song by Capercaillie is Tiocfaidh Leat Fanacht but I couldn't find it on Youtube - though if you buy it on iTunes, turn the lights down, light a candle and sip a glass of very nice wine - you will find the effect intoxicating. However, you could always listen to this instead. Nostalgia is a return to a place that never existed in the first place - but och, these are pictures of a Scotland I recognise (even if they are a pastoral representation)and it wis aye there... an' a' the coos look like that... and its all circumlocution, is it not - are you laughing at me?

FiftyFive - ~ # 53

Sometimes I have no idea where the lines of enquiry are going with Icarus, so I read other things and try to get some focus. For example I am (still) drawn to Baudrillard's idea in the Declination of Wills when he wrote: "...the secret of philosophy may not be to know oneself, nor to know where one is going, but rather to go where the other is going; not to dream oneself, but rather to dream what others dream; not to believe oneself, but rather to... embrace the foreign form of any event..." But as Lacan reminds us there is a paradoxical status in the knowledge of the Other's knowledge. As Žižek has suggested, "Is there anything more humiliating than the situation of a husband who, after a long secret love affair, learns all of a sudden that his wife knew about it all the time, but kept silent out of politeness or, even worse, out of love..." Thus, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell here, I will flap my own not so beautiful but equally foolish arms and take a flier, or write scraps down in my notebook, or look at pictures and gather more Icarus ideas for one day it will take proper shape. After all, Icarus expects. Though as a character I am trying to write, at the moment I do not know what he is thinking or where he is looking or indeed what he is up to. Of course, as we all know, a character cannot see-do-be where the writer cannot, he cannot function beyond my imagination. So you then you can see how, Calvino and Kundera-like, I wrestle with the images and the connections and the hitherto unspoken; unseen, unwritten and unheard, though felt, like a trace or a presence - and I am still listening to Joni singing about Icarus and vapour trails and Amelia Earhart - who was swallowed by the sky, or by the sea (more like Icarus),

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms...

but like me she had a dream to fly through the vapour trails of criss-crossing stories which become as elusive as these starlings in my own home town:

FiftyFive ~ # 52

I have mentioned Picasso's ideas on art and his textual interventions on Delacroix (for example) and I am attached to the idea that art need not seek out the new all of the time. For we have such a strong historical tradition to re-enforce the modern, it doesn't have to be separated and split (see what happened when we did that to the atom - rupture is a better word than split). We are all patchworks, made up of different scraps and nations and races and influences and I am with Jacques Derrida when he describes the future as somewhere we can see in the present with a trace of the past to help guide our way. And as Milan Kundera reminds us, "...the history of art is perishable. The babble of art is eternal." Of course he also said, "What takes flight will one day come to earth.." and we are back with Icarus flying. Therefore, I give a choral past with a textually intervened saxophone to marry the ancient and modernity in musical bliss - I love the liquid textures of this piece, simply for its own melodic sake and I could imagine flying to this sound; in a hot air balloon would be nice. The subtext of this blog is "fragments, traces and grace notes" and it is beginning to make sense to me. Don Delillo said he writes to find out what he knows. I like writing to find out what I am thinking (for it is a noisy world and sometimes my hearing isn't so good).

FiftyFive ~ # 51

A friend of mine was talking about "post-feminism" recently and she said, "I still haven't quite figured out what post-feminism is - unless it's what happens when complacency begins to set in." And to be truthful that is how I feel on the whole "post" idea, postmodernity, end of history (The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukiyama). It was the right wing commentator, George Will, who proclaimed 9/11 as the end of the American "holiday from history" and its an idea that Slavoj Žižek plays with in Welcome To The Desert of the Real. And though Will will be no fan of the feminists (happy international wimin's day btw - I know I was late in saying it but hey, I was multi-tasking somewhere else at the time) his idea of an end to the "holiday of history" rather than Fukiyama's end of history is surely more persuasive. And surely this is a totem for the feminist idea. Its not so much a case that history merely repeats but that the project, the story is ongoing. In my inaugural address I mentioned there is a current debate in art circles that asks the question: is Picasso’s Les Femmes d'Alger a pastiche or parody of Delacroix’s painting of the same name, or indeed something other? Indeed, he painted fifteen variations of Les Femmes d'Alger – and forty-four variations of Las Meninas by Velazquez, so it wasn’t just a whim on Picasso’s part. John Berger has said, “…the majority of Picasso’s important late works are variations on themes borrowed from other painters… no more than exercises in painting…” Is this really the case, are they so postmodern? And if so, then are history and feminism too in this post faze and just mimicking their own past, or is there a future agenda? I am not an art historian but Berger’s analysis worries me. Because are Picasso’s paintings not a re-interpretation – a variation on a theme rather than mimicry – as Picasso himself said: “I am a Spaniard, just like a torero takes his bull through all kinds of passes, I like to take my pictures through all kinds of variations.” Of course, critical analysis can be very subjective, but it seems to me that Picasso’s “variations” and an increasing obsession with art history in his late years was not an exercise nor was it about honouring the past masters through parody, pastiche or plain imitation but is a textual intervention - it was an attempt to understand what art is. Indeed they not only reveal Picasso the artist, but Picasso making connections and a critically creative and creatively critical engagement with a rich artistic past which he can be entitled to be called part of. Should feminism not be engaged in the same kind of debate as it continues to confront its future, from the present, by carrying the trace of its past along with it? Well, its just a notion but surely the textual intervention is still required, surely all fights against all oppressions are ongoing and ever presently engaged in intervening on the empirical narratives that come to dominate. Fight on, sister, fight on! Though as another friend reminds me, occasionally we have to take a break and shout, "fuck art, let's dance" - the picture is by John Brack, Latin American Grand Final, 1989 - I will be doing a Tennessee Waltz, join me?

FiftyFive ~ # 50 (again)

The thing I like about you tube is the way that absolute amateurs can turn stuff into a great movie. I mean from a song and some clips and they clip it together like Mike Leigh and often better than Tim Burton (who I think is over rated). Anyway this is such a clip, a great Bob Dylan song with a twang of the Stones and hey - a damn good film - enjoy (or not) Zzzz!

FiftyFive ~ # 50

This FiftyFive at FiftyFive thing isn't going to work is it, I mean I have already hit posting number 50 so goodness knows where I am going to go - I will have to decide when I hit number fifty five itself. But I find myself in a country mood today. After a week of African music I have had a whole bunch of country tunes running around in my head. And I love playing country music, just sittin' on the back porch, well, the extremely small stony bit, with the pots full of primulas that some might call a patio (only marginally less pompous than calling it a Spanish courtyard, which, if I am not mistaken is what a patio is - hmm). So in today's sunshine (though it is freezing) I pulled out a lavetaria that was too big and turned over the soil, added more top soil and manure and prepared the ground for some pink roses and perhaps some tobacco plants (mmm I can smell them already) and other assorted colourful plants. Then I will pull up a chair on my Spanish courtyard and play slide guitar while the sun shines - all requests will be considered, I have just taught myself how to play the old Elvis standard, Always On My Mind. And I was going to post a clip but decided against it in the interest of good taste because the one I found was mawkish. But on the issue of good taste, I have a very fine collage on one of my walls, it's by G. a modern English artist. He gifted it to me in nineteen eighty-six, though it was some time after that I discovered he had a crush on me. I couldn't say he was in love with me, because I don't actually know if that would be true or not. This picture is not it but in acknowledgement I have included a picture of another collage of his - and I might say, "I wonder what he is up to now," but of course I know because I can email him, for his email address is on his website and I wonder if I will ever write - perhaps I should send him a picture of the picture he gave me, just to say hi and I guess we are old guys now, though I still get checked out, now and then. But what of this issue of love? Aristophanes relates the power of love to the human pursuit of wholeness by introducing a myth, like the myth of the fall, in which humans are divided into male and female. And the search for each other, of soul mates loving, in which the two come together again to become one, to find glorious (re)union in body and soul is such a nice image. Of course Ari would probably maintain that mistakes are bound to get made on the way, wrong turnings, mistaken choices, chance meetings and some same sex dalliances are all acceptable parts of the journey. But I can't help feeling this is a trifle flawed and my gay friends don't seem to feel their search is any different, so I guess with a little tweak, the girl/boy; boy/boy; girl/girl; boy/girl-ness of it all is just fine. For didn't Ari also indicate that the possibilities of human love and the desire for unity with another is symbolic of the desire of unity with the essence of good. And I remember my artist friend G. with fondness and his friend L. whom I was closer to (and it was he who introduced me to G). And if they were here, we could sit in my Spanish courtyard and drink Rioja and I would sing them this - though not in an ironic way:

FiftyFive ~ # 49

I was sitting at my desk just doodling through the morning, drinking Earl Grey tea and listening, almost absent-mindedly, to Hejira by Joni Mitchel, and you know how sometimes a familiar song suddenly takes you over and you stop what you are going to listen. Well that just happened because the track Amelia came on and it slowly tied so many thoughts together. The lines began:

I was driving across the burning desert

When I spotted six jet planes

Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain

It was the hexagram of the heavens

It was the strings of my guitar...

And I was so taken by the image of the guitar strings (for I love playing guitars); and the idea behind the song; and the lines that brought my old friend Icarus back into focus that I knew I would post it here.

A ghost of aviation

She was swallowed by the sky

Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly

Like Icarus ascending

On beautiful foolish arms...

And sometimes when I have no idea where the lines of enquiry are going with Icarus, I flap my own not so beautiful but equally foolish arms and take a flier, or write scraps down in my notebook, or look at pictures and gather more ideas for one day it will take proper shape, Icarus expects. But here is Joni singing:

FiftyFive ~ # 48

Sometimes words are not needed, when Calvino talked about moving an image into words or using words to convey an image how would he have reacted to this wonderous clip, of which I am going to say nothing except - oh!

FiftyFive ~ # 47

"Fabulous artificer, the hawklike man, You flew! Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe, Steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing Icarus, Paiter ait. Sebedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing he..." James Joyce's Stephen Dedalus and the Ovid, Icarus, Daedalus link has long been speculated on. And the connections cannot be ignored for there is plenty to link them together. But this is my blog and I was making a connection of my own, in remembering being a younger man than I am now. When I was a student (and particularly when I was writing my PhD) we, my friends and I, used to travel Newhaven to Dieppe once a month. P. would do so because he smoked Gauloise cigarettes and with a foot passenger crossing costing less than a packet we would cross the Channel for him to stock up. And the memory of those trips linger. And even though it was so close to England it was real France and a real idea of being in France and we spoke French as much as we could, "Besoin d'une préssion s'il vous plait." On the way over we worked, reading, taking notes or reading each other's papers/chapters/ideas in our PhDs, me on Scottish philosophy, Davie Hume and such; him on Chaucer and Bahktin. Funny how Icarus should drop by just as I was thinking about the ferry crossing. P. lives in Istanbul now and me, I am still in Brighton. Newhaven is close by, but I haven't been to Dieppe in a long while. I should go, eat oysters on the quayside, drink Chablis to wash down a side dish of langoustines and mayonnaise, finally quaff a beer to rinse the palette then sip coffee while the ferry slides back into port to ship me home. Nostalgia is a return to a place that never existed in the first place - I guess, but hey, I am allowed to remember what I want and to leave out the rest. Tonight I will raise a glass to Dieppe - and if I see Icarus waving I will wave back, just like the starlings waving in the picture above. This clip is not of starlings but of water and flying and birds and love...