Geoff Nicholson's Blog, page 55

WALKING AWAY

The Hollywood Walker is away, walking (among other things).

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Published on February 29, 2016 16:07

<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJBZ0NTmz4..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJBZ0NTmz4..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So, this happened. I was invited to a pre-Oscar party given by German Films and the German Consulate General at the Villa Aurore (yep, I’m THAT well connected. That's it above).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Villa is a splendid place, right on the edge of the Topanga State Park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were told to park in Los Liones Drive, which is the road where the State Park hikers leave <i>their</i> cars, and then board a shuttle bus to get to the Villa. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">There were a few hundred guests, and who knows how many hikers: not a single bit of parking was to be had nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ended up parking a good 20 minute walk away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VbCOCCNi8Z..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VbCOCCNi8Z..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a walker, right, so I told myself that this was a good thing, but once I’d parked. I had to schlep up a substantial hill to the place where you signed in and got your wristband and then waited for the shuttle.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’d spruced myself up a little for the event – jacket, proper trousers - and it was a hot day and, walker or not, halfway up the hill I was feeling it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Now I’m not one usually one of those writers who listens to conversations and writes them down in his notebook – but here I happened to overhear a fellow in shorts doing some mansplaining to the girl he was with, thus “Bowie was Bowie because he WAS the Starman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was so unique.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That almost made the walk up the hill worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qi-sqd6ls4..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qi-sqd6ls4..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And at the party there were quite a lot of women in “limousine shoes” – I have no idea how they got there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m pretty sure they didn’t walk up that hill.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on February 29, 2016 14:54

WALKING WITH LEE AND ECO

<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s a bad week when we lose both Umberto Eco and Harper Lee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s because I’m English that I don’t have the affection <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a Mocking Bird</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that I feel I’m supposed to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EcGUWx9G9t..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EcGUWx9G9t..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqJg1eeFuL..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="418" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqJg1eeFuL..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A few honest Americans I’ve talked to aren’t sure whether they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>like the book or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was drummed into them at an early age that this was such a good book, and such an important book, and they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> to like it because.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many it seems to have been the first "serious" book they ever read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZl5o66w3A..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZl5o66w3A..." width="270" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HgR9JD19CD..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HgR9JD19CD..." width="560" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Of course most of us in the English speaking world had never heard of Umberto Eco until <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Name of the Rose</i>, which first appeared in English in 1983.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was obviously a very good thing, but also really hard to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The movie made everything easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4raXLMGm-O..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4raXLMGm-O..." width="400" /></a></span></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPgmZCkrsG..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="410" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPgmZCkrsG..." width="640" /></a></span></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’m actually much fonder of the essays in Eco’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Travel With a Salmon</i>– and elsewhere he did an analysis (and a take down) of James Bond plots that even as a fan of Ian Fleming I find just wonderful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I can’t swear that either Lee or Eco was a great walker but Lee did write this: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a little bit Hannibal Lector isn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we have only understand people by climbing into their skin and walking around, we’re never going to understand many people at all. Which is of course a completely reasonable point of view. Here's Harper Lee on the movie set.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIrEUED6Tb..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIrEUED6Tb..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Eco wrote a book titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Six Walks in the Fiction Wood</i>which contains this passage: </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; letter-spacing: 1.0pt; line-height: 200%;">"There are two ways of walking through a wood. The first is to try one of several routes (so as to get out of the wood as fast as possible, say, or to reach the house of grandmother, Tom Thumb, or Hansel and Gretel); the second is to walk so as to discover what the wood is like and find out why some paths are accessible and others are not. Similarly, there are two ways of going through a narrative text." </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." width="610" /></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That strikes me as just dumb – surely there an infinite number of ways to walk through a wood, and an infinite number of ways to go through a text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is Fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the joy of literature, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can love and admire writers, and in some metaphorical way walk with them, but we don’t have to agree with them about everything, or in fact anything.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on February 25, 2016 10:34

THE DANGERS OF PEDESTRIANISM

Typical bloody Birmingham.

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Published on February 18, 2016 08:22

WALKING INTO THE SUNSET

Life, being as it is, I open the latest issue of the London Review of Books, and there’s Jonathan Meades in full flight, reviewing Hitler At Home and Speer: Hitler’s Architect. It’s illustrated with this painting by Luc Tuysmans, titled The Walk in English, originally De wanderling in Dutch – Tuysmans is Belgian.

Meades writes, “Luc Tuymans’s painting The Walk shows Hitler and Speer silhouetted in early evening light on the Obersalzberg. The photograph that the painting is based on is mute. Tuymans’s manipulation of it is anything but. His Hitler, the Führer, the guide, is indeed guiding, just. He is stumbling awkwardly towards the last of the light while the upright Speer holds back, following certainly, but cautiously, tentatively, allowing his idol and besotted patron first dibs on divining the future – which may prove to be less golden than the sun’s shafts seem to promise. What if the guide has lost his touch, can no longer read the entrails?”
Well, this is good stuff, of course, and only a fool would get into an argument with Jonathan Meades, but I think I’ve found the original photograph, or a very close variant (on the website reichinruins.com), and I don’t find it mute at all.

Let’s face it, Ayrian dreams aside, most walkers look good pretty good and picturesque when walking into the sunset. For that matter most people look pretty good when walking among snow covered peaks. And I do find it interesting however, that in the painting Speer has grown to be a head taller than Hitler, compared with Hitler. Does that make the painting pro-Speer? Meades is virulently anti-Speer, as he's absolutely entitled to be.

Speer, as we know, was quite a walker, and he didn’t let incarceration in Spandau slow him down. In his native Heidelberg there remains the Thingstätte,an amphitheater which he designed for the Nazi party, built in 1935. It’s a great place for walking these days apparently. ”Carry a map and watch for the labeled rocks” is the headline on Tripadvisor.

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Published on February 09, 2016 18:46

WALKING WITH YOU

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mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} span.HeaderChar {mso-style-name:"Header Char"; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-locked:yes; mso-style-link:Header;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXbMcjyiSo..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXbMcjyiSo..." width="640" /></a></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A man walking down the street – sometimes it’s a woman, but more usually it’s a man – and as he walks he talks, and points at things, and it seems that he’s talking just to you, explaining those things that aren’t obvious, that don’t immediately meet the eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sometimes this “talking” may be in book form – a text, a narrative, a guide book, and often it’s on video, whether a serious documentary or travelogue or just some wobbly fetish footage shot on somebody’s cellphone and destined for YouTube and an amazingly low number of views.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And of course this person almost certainly doesn’t know you, may be addressing an imaginary you, a big audience of “yous.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there may be a whole army of intermediaries between you and him – publishers, editors, a film crew, programmers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of these intermediaries aim for a much higher degree of invisibility than others.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lBmXxRNqPa..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lBmXxRNqPa..." width="435" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’ve been thinking about this while reading two versions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Survey of London</i>, two very different versions of what are in some ways the same book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Stow’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Survay </i>(sic)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> of London </i>was first published in 1598, and he revised and expanded it for a second edition published in 1603, two years before his death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I did not, alas, read the version below: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yaSheH1vlg..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="560" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yaSheH1vlg..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Posthumous editions continued to appear after Stow had departed, often containing maps and illustrations. Some of the editing was wayward, but there was a “perfected” or at least unlikely to be improved upon edition by John Strype, often referred to as "Strype’s Stowe," published in 1720.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was several times longer than the original, incorporating all kinds of new material, much of it necessitated by changes and growth in London, some of it dictated by Strype’s own personal preferences. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FLCIxLhvCG..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FLCIxLhvCG..." width="522" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">John Stow 1525-1605 was a tailor by trade but more passionately he was a historian, antiquary, collector of books and manuscripts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was also a great walker, an urban explorer, a psychogeographer some centuries <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avant la letter</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was therefore an ancestor of a whole tribe of writers and historians and TV presenters who use walking as a mean of investigating the geographic, historic and cultural landscape.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_1tN35G5xa..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_1tN35G5xa..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sometimes this seems a bit old hat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Alan Whicker was the first on-screen walker and talker I ever saw – and he began presenting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whicker’s World</i> in 1958.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And </span>I’m sure there were earlier ones too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s a tribe that shows no sign of dying out: think Anthony Bourdain, think Mary Beard, think Simon Sharma, think Jonathan Meades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qqtjmCelWa..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qqtjmCelWa..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zujur-vyx0..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zujur-vyx0..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2GSAanujSK..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2GSAanujSK..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Edmond Howes, Stow’s literary executor wrote that Stow never rode, but always traveled on foot when he visited historic buildings or sought out historical documents. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William Drummond reports Ben Jonson as saying, “He (Stow) and I walking alone, he asked two criples (sic), what they would have to take him to their order.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Stow protested too much about his poverty: he left his wife and daughters enough money that they could erect this elaborate monument to him in the Church of St John Undershaft in EC2. Think you or I will get one like that?</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P7xU1VQJld..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P7xU1VQJld..." width="428" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Stow’s prose style is chatty and he writes as though you’re “there,” walking along with him. He’s your guide, pointing things out, telling you stories and anecdotes, but he’s not uncritical about what he sees and knows. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like many an observer he regrets some of the changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“In the East ende of Forestreete is More lane: then next is Grubstreete, of late yeares inhabited for the most part by Bowyers, Fletchers, Bowstring makers, and such like, now little occupied, Archerie giving place to a number of bowling Allies, and Dicing houses, which in all places are increased, and too much frequented.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That’s right, you know the neighborhood’s on the skids when the archers move out and the bowling alley moves in.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_W9jmWkG_X..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_W9jmWkG_X..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John Strype’s</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> edition of Stowe is titled</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster</span></i><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">, and he adheres to Stow’s notion of exploring the city as though on a walking tour, and he adds</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">a </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">few “perambulations” or circuit walks of his own.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s very hard for me to see that word “perambulation” without thinking of Nikolaus Pevsner and his Buildings of England series. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He perambulated all over the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was he consciously echoing Stow and Strype?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He must surely have been aware of the Survey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, Pevsner’s work, just like Stow’s, is now reedited and revised by subsequent diverse hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7sEDyiXsQ..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="416" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7sEDyiXsQ..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’m one of that generation who finds it impossible to walk round an English church or churchyard without noting and mentally cataloging the features in a Pevsner-esque way<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- rhenish helm, blind clerestory, nodding ogee arch – etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure that this is a necessarily good thing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AcIakenPDu..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AcIakenPDu..." width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Perhaps Jonathan Meades is similarly conflicted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pevsner Revisited </i>he says that while other disaffected youths were off demonstrating and smashing the state, he was exploring English architecture clutching a volume of Pevsner.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">There’s plenty of footage of Pevsner himself walking around looking at buildings, and he was seen on TV once in a while, but he never had the popularity or that “posh but with a common touch” thing that John Betjeman had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a certain rivalry between them, but Pevsner just wasn’t cuddly, he wasn’t televisual, and he wasn’t loved - possibly his German origins had something to do with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Betjeman was a London lad, born in Gospel Oak, though that surname is Dutch, originally with two n’s – changed precisely because it sounded German.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mu9Q9-vFBQ..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mu9Q9-vFBQ..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And I remember that at some point in my not especially misspent youth, I used to walk the streets of my hometown of Sheffield, fantasizing that an imaginary camera crew was following me as I wandered among the treasures of the Sheffield urbanscape – not that I knew much about the Sheffield urbanscape.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, just occasionally, in my role as walker, writer, pontificator, and god knows I've been called a "cultural critic," I do get called upon to wander around, talk and point at things, usually not in Sheffield.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S1qNxL5ihb..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S1qNxL5ihb..." width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sometimes there’s even a camera crew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s never as much fun as I once thought it would be, but I do always try very hard not to look or sound like Alan Whicker.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CrKswMzyPS..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="466" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CrKswMzyPS..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><span id="goog_1301842332"></span><span id="goog_1301842333"></span><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on February 05, 2016 17:35

SOME DEGREES OF WHATEVER

<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PRl1NYyn_r8..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PRl1NYyn_r8..." width="480" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Like a lot of people, I’ve been playing my David Bowie albums since the great man died, especially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scary Monsters</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no doubt it’s because I make some claims to be a pedestrian that I’ve been fixating on those words, “She could’ve been a killer if she didn’t walk the way she do.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d48uip52mj4..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d48uip52mj4..." width="484" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s a great line but does it mean anything? I’m not sure that it does, and I’m absolutely sure it doesn’t matter whether it means anything or not, but I have been wondering what style of walking prevents you from being killer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect there are no easy answers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">One of the more interesting pieces written after Bowie’s death was by Steven Kurutz, in the New York Times, titled “David Bowie: Invisible New Yorker.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently there was a time about ten years ago when Bowie and John Guare would get together once in a while to talk about the possibilities of collaborating on a theatrical project.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It never happened, but Guare is quoted as saying, “We would take walks around the East Village and I was always praying somebody would run into us so I could say, ‘Do you know my friend David Bowie?’” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was understandably disappointed that never happened either.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qr37LPpIw..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qr37LPpIw..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The article claims that Bowie could pass unnoticed even among the crowds of New York. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guare again, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He traveled with this cloak of invisibility - nobody saw him.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I’m here to tell you: not always.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">About 15 years back I was in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, on a Sunday morning, and there, large as life, and very conspicuous, walking through one of the galleries was Mr. Bowie, accompanied by an entourage of half a dozen young men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were looking at paintings and every now and again Bowie would say stop and say something about the art, and the young men would hang on every word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before long everybody in the gallery was looking at Bowie and it became impossible to look at any of the art on the walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iman and an all-female entourage were in the adjacent gallery but they were much less compelling.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6rz9F-oFKYE..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="594" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6rz9F-oFKYE..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This was on my mind last Sunday as I walked along West Temple Street in Los Angeles, on the way to see a “sound installation" by William Basinksi, in a storefront gallery called South of Sunset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was work by <span style="letter-spacing: 1.0pt; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">Chris Oliveria, and Steve Roden in there too.</span></span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VTNJ8teip5s..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VTNJ8teip5s..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Basinski has said in interviews that he changed from clarinet to saxophone because he wanted to be more like Bowie, and as a member of a band called the Rockettes he supported Bowie on the Serious Moonlight tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course he’s somewhat influenced by Bowie, because what modern musician isn’t, but I think he’s rather more influenced by the people who influenced Bowie: Eno, Steve Reich, John Cage.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_5nSb_sYhOI..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="468" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_5nSb_sYhOI..." width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Anyway, one has heard grander – and god knows louder - sound installations than the sound at South of Sunset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basinski’s music was more than minimalist, being played quietly on distinctly low-fi reel to reel tape recorder, but somehow the extreme modesty of the event was part of its charm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yg5R0t3O-4k..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yg5R0t3O-4k..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">West Temple is a bit bleak, a bit rough at the edges, but hardly the meanest of streets, and after the gallery I was wandering, taking the occasional photograph, including this one:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3dLzqb27Aws..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3dLzqb27Aws..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">As I took the picture, a tough-looking Hsipanic guy who was out washing his car in the street yelled at me “Hey, why are you taking a picture?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I said, calmly, “Because I like the mural.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he said, not much less aggressively, “Who are you taking the picture for?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I said, “For me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, rather unexpectedly, seemed to satisfy him, though it left me thinking there must be some story there I didn’t know about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was the guy simply fed up with hipsters photographing his neighborhood, or did he think perhaps I was a man from the city, come to inspect and maybe order the painting over of his mural? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when this was over, a much older, very benign-looking Hispanic guy who’d witness the exchange, he to me in a very friendly way, “Yes, it’s a great mural, isn’t it?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And I agreed that it was, though I think maybe I like this one better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it’s the juxtaposition of the Virgin Mary and the Bud Light ad.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span> <style><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hIkAhAmiQgY..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hIkAhAmiQgY..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> In fact I can't even tell you the title of the installed Basinksi piece. It wasn't this one, but this one's good too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/william-basins..." target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/william-basins... src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on January 25, 2016 19:10

BENEATH THE BEACH ....

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Geneva; panose-1:2 11 5 3 3 4 4 4 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 147 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bqXL2H35GIY..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bqXL2H35GIY..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And so, I went up to San Francisco and headed for North Beach to walk along Via Ferlinghetti, the street named after Lawrence of that ilk, poet and begetter of the City Lights Bookstore.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rspsx23TaBI..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rspsx23TaBI..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s a short street and it’s a dead end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared with the orgy of street art in Kerouac Alley, Via Ferlinghetti is an oasis of calm and restraint, and also seriously lacking in glamor, which is not necessarily a bad thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It looked like this from one end:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-URBwZNNU9uI..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-URBwZNNU9uI..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And this from the other:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JudWhYgtWDs..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JudWhYgtWDs..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And like this in the middle:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rv4NXW_5yeE..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rv4NXW_5yeE..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A stroll along Via Ferlinghetti was not the greatest walking adventure, but on the way there I walked past Kenneth Rexroth Place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s6-1pvmL5UE..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s6-1pvmL5UE..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'd never heard of that, and I can’t say that Kenneth Rexroth is an open book to me, but I do know he was a poet and probably a “good thing,” though until I came to write this post, I’d never read any of his poetry – I thought it was time I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His poem “The Silver Swan” contains the lines:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;">… I go out  </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;">Into the wooded garden  </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;">And walk, nude, except for my  </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;">Sandals, through light and dark banded </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;"> Like a field of sleeping tigers.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Personally I’d say that if you’re going to walk nude you should probably ditch the sandals, but I can see this is a personal matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3RymDFjjn_s..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3RymDFjjn_s..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kenneth Rexroth Way looks like a reasonable place to walk (that's it above) but I don’t suppose many walk there given the heavy gated arrangement (below). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W9qo1zlQEh0..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W9qo1zlQEh0..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Go to the website for Zephyr Real Estate and you'll discover there's a two bedroom condo for sale there, for $1,186,00 which for all I know may be a bargain by San Francisco standards. "Walk score of 100!"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And then drifting around the area I came to Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard, named after what they say is t</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">he world's longest-running musical revue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a hard name to live up to, obviously.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFRgT9pDjqM..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFRgT9pDjqM..." width="480" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The show looks a good deal livelier than the street.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQtDoT1z1g0..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQtDoT1z1g0..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on January 20, 2016 19:01

GIVE A STREET A GOOD NAME

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is much in the news at the moment: he’s 96 years old and has recently published his travel journals, and his letters to and from Allen Ginsberg. So I decided to read his 1958 poem “Autobiography.” I’m not sure if it’s a very good poem but I like parts of it a lot. It starts out really well:
I am leading a quiet life in Mike’s Place every day watching the champsof the Dante Billiard Parlor and the French pinball addicts.
But then it gets a bit too “poetic” for my tastes – there seems to have been a point in literary history when few Americans could write a poem without name-dropping Ezra Pound. But the part of “autobiography” I like best, for obvious reasons, runs as follows.
I am leading a quiet lifeoutside of Mike’s Place every day watching the world walk byin its curious shoes.I once started outto walk around the worldbut ended up in Brooklyn.That Bridge was too much for me.
That’s nice isn’t it? And funny too – and of course you could walk around the world and still end up in Brooklyn. And obviously it begs the question of which side of the bridge was he when he found it too much.
I’ve walked in Brooklyn, and certainly walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, and I’ve also walked in the alley than runs behind Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookshop in San Francisco - Kerouac Alley. Ferlinghetti worked hard to get the name changed.

And Ferlinghetti also has a street named after him, Via Ferlinghetti, less visited than Kerouac Alley I’m sure, but now on the list of places I have to visit next time I’m in San Francisco.
Mr Ferlinghetti is a much photographed fellow, but the only picture I can find of him actually walking, is this one, where he’s with Jack Hirschman.

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Published on January 08, 2016 14:28

THE XMAS WALKER

One of the things about walking in my neighbourhood immediately after Christmas is that you see more walkers than usual. I suspect part of it may be that people have relatives staying with them and don’t know what else to do with them. Some no doubt think it’s a good for the soul to take a walk at least once a year. Maybe the odd one has got a new puppy for Christmas and is swiftly realizing what a terrible responsibility that is.

However, my unscientific observation is that this year there were far fewer walkers than usual. And a man who had acquired a new camera lens for Christmas pretty much had the streets to himself, which was fine but just a little surprising.
Of course Christmas decorations persist for a while after Christmas – not sure if that Santa is breaking into that upstairs window or breaking out:

And just because a Santa is small that doesn’t mean he isn’t security conscious:

This presiding demon stays in place whatever the season:

But the spirit of good cheer is not universal. This sign appears on the door of the last house before you get to one of the entrances to Griffith Park, and you can understand the guy’s sentiments whatever the time of year:

And you can never quite escape the John Cage influence, nor would I want to. Whereas he had mycological expeditions that involved walking deep into the woods, I found these beauties by the side of the road, just a few hundred yards from my own front door.

I took a couple home, tried to identify them, couldn’t altogether, though I suspected they might be the evocatively named Funeral Bells, and even if they weren’t, and even though I’m generally all in favor of Cagean chance operations, I really didn’t want to take a chance on these. I left them where they were. Next day walking the same route I saw they were half eaten, though not sure by what – possibly one of the new, though unseen, puppies.

But I think the best thing seen while walking over the holidays was this electronic keyboard left out for the garbage men. And I wonder what the story was there. Had Santa brought a brand new one, or had the owner made a resolution, 2016 will be a year without electronic keyboards?