About 30 years ago I found myself in a near empty classroom one day a week, learning how to draw ellipses for an airbrush project I’d been tasked with by a local graphic artist. The reason there were only a few people on the course was because computer graphics had already taken over, but there was some value in doing things the old way just to save a few quid and get things done.
The guy who did the teaching was a lovely old fella, he had a twinkle in his eye, he was in his 70s and clearly loved this old knowledge, old students of his were forever dropping in to pay homage to the master.
After a few weeks messing about I decided to redraw my work from scratch, improving on the original artwork to make a full 3d cut away projection, when you have 10 or 15 ellipses drawn close together, they need to look right as the angles get progressively acute – 3d drawing is like reconstructing visual reality – and yet it’s what the human eye does a billion times a second without you even knowing!
After about 6 weeks I completed my work, the tutor asked if I was going to stay on, more time was paid up so I could if I wanted to, it was very tempting! Looking back I remember the quiet tone of that room, you could hear a pin drop when we worked, polite chat took place during frequent tea breaks.
Nowadays, these projections are done by computers, a new version can be displayed at the click of a mouse, unimaginable back then! It could take months to complete one view, there was a middle aged woman on the course creating a sophisticated view of a traction engine, she’d been working on it for over a year, I’m sure she was on that course because she secretly (or not so secret) loved these lessons with this charismatic teacher. 10 years earlier, I was working towards a similar goal to hers, every graphic artist would have samples like that to display, I never got mine done as I simply ran out of schooldays!
What an extraordinary dream I had, I’d got this letter in the post to say I’d got a 1st class photography award and everyone was congratulating me, it was down on the beach at a rough house we were staying the night, perfect location.
In the night I’d been in hospital,there was a beautiful young dark skinned nurse, she knelt beside my bed as she used her camera phone to light up paperwork, I as startled at first because she was so close up and well lit, I thought she’d ducked under the covers!
I realised she hadn’t, it was just using her torch as the light spice reminded m of an oil painting exhibition I’d read of recently, these things come round every 10 or 5 years, oh yes, you heard of carravagio, but have you heard of . . . .
Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768
Anyhow, she did her work, and while she was these I popped out my camera, there was a pop and a fizz, a bit of magic as some flash batteries discharged creating a ready printed contact sheet in the back view, quite effective I thought! I must look into how this occurred, and that my friends is how I got my 1st class, a fluke really, but a topical one worth exploring, when I woke up none of it was true, there’s no such thing as a magical contact sheet!.
I was able to recreate something like it with a whole lot of work, but it was just trickery by now, barely even flattery.
Firstly, in order to make a cream bun into a bomb, you need to consider how to make a cream bun explode, next you need to be able to launch and detonate it from a safe distance, having achieved this, the cream bun becomes a lethal weapon to whoever is on the receiving end. Other questions to consider include can sleeping up against a cream bun become as uncomfortable as sleeping up against an item such as a steel garden roller, or for instance, a bomb? No one said the cream bun was going to remain light and fluffy, soft and tasty, what if it acquires a disgusting unpleasant metallic taste during its conversion into a bomb? In the end it was decided that turning a cream bun into a bomb was a very unpleasant thing to do which no one in their right mind would rise to the challenge and see it through, hence, the cream bun bomb was never properly tested or put into manufacture.
I was sat on a chair in the hospital being wheeled down to X-ray as part of my ongoing cancer treatment, which isn’t really going that well, but that’s part for the course I think – anyhow, I passed a girl of about 26 I’d say going the other way, I noticed her midriff which she was displaying, she’d got some of those tight pants & a black bra top sort of thing. Less than half my age, she’s not a patient, a visitor I should think, on her way to visit someone. There’s all of life in a hospital you could say, there’s those who come for treatment, those who need it, and those who deliver it. It just strikes me how the nurse and doctors work so hard, they’re all in uniforms of course, not casually saying look at my belly, isn’t it an attractive part of me? Not that there’s any harm in it, I’m just thinking look at the differences between what’s going on around you in hospital. Currently, at home, there’s the news, Israel and Gaza & Iran, all the killing and bombing, it’s endless, it’s amazing humans evolved to walk upright, and look how far we’ve come now? In here in the hospital we’re about saving lives, not taking them – the extent to which they’ve gone in this pursuit, building the place in the first place, the discipline and organisation behind humans are amazing here, everyone is focused on the same merciful target, others can just drop into this world, for treatment, or to visit, no one’s going to say you got to wear a visitor’s uniform, you can wear what you like, bring a bunch of flowered or some grapes, perhaps a banana?,
Pain is key to a lot of truth, when you’re in pain arts, music, culture etc means little, it can be a diversion, but the worse the pain is, the less the remedy is useful.
Friends are great, because you don’t know why they care, it’s a mystery, it’s less obvious when it’s a lover,
Lovers lie and cheat to keep your attention, friends do that too but the reason is less callous and often appears close to mutual.
Family is family, many are bent out of shape, many are more like friends, but at the base of it all, family is family, they won’t come unglued.
They say we leave this world alone, I guess that’s true, and all human endeavours, relations, notions are stripped away as we move towards the one truth of minimalism, pain – it’s the first and last you will feel, unless you’re lucky! 😅
I feel like I’m lying about the pain, not just to others but to myself, I explain it to my other self and he says no you’re not lying, it feels empty, why else would you mention it? One ends up coming back to oneself- I wonder where that might end?
Ian Dury said before he dried he didn’t care about posterity, I can’t remember if he talked about legacy, (he was a family man) – he said he couldn’t care less if he was forgotten in a week or a year. Obviously his fame offered him leeway few others had, perhaps he had reached or even passed satisfaction on that subject earlier in his life, very probably I would imagine, and yet the power of fame & peer pressures can never be underestimated. I have no doubt that many go to the great beyond without a single shred of workable knowledge, then you get religion!
Quite pleased to find out I can screen record on iPad, so I just did.
I forgot more than I remembered so I thought I can do something on desktop, Ihave this program called Numerology, you add notes & instruments, synths & so on, I love to play on it, but it’s been a dreadful experience, too strenuous to sit at the desk, I prefer to think about doing things, then dream I already done it, then when I wake up & find my hands empty it’s another project in the bag – I mostly focus on my art rather than these here trifles, witness the void!
In general, I find myself uncomfortable surrounded by modern buildings and dreadful people, I just want to get to the countryside, but oddly, if a place has history, beauty seems to go hand in hand, hence, I’m off to Salamanca, I like a place with a bit of ambience. Later’s yah? 😎
WTAF?! We used to sing it on Sundays back in the day, not really 1900s or 2000s though, no wonder it fell out of fashion! It took me a while to realise how utterly bonkers it is, when you deconstruct it, it could be about superman, or some fantasy perverted schoolmaster, it’s euphoric for sure, dated of course, it it’s from 100+ years ago, we sang it in the 60s &70s, they probably still do in older churches where the dreaded tambourines haven’t taken over! I love quality & always have done, our church singing was pathetic apart from Bob Hayward, he was at the back, I assume he liked church cos it was somewhere he could come and sing loudly, you can’t do it at home, not at that volume – our congregation would be 30 or so miserable sounding wingers well out of tune, backed by an organ that had to play so softly or else drown us out entirely, we were a tuneless mess, we just sounded uninspiring, dying ex humanity, but then Bob’s thunderous voice would come in “Then sings my soul, to thee how great thou art” totally saved the day! 30+ souls accepted into heaven all thanks to one man!🙏
Best (& only reference) I came up with was the film Zulu, British empire circa 1800s! Were we really still there? Many seemed to think we were, no one really gave it thought, no need! We already know the answer!
thing is, no one ever stops to think, who is this superman character you sing of? Today’s politics are crazy, I prefer to look back on past craziness than today’s, it seems safer to think about the past as it’s now so irrelevant, but really it’s the same, I know it, but I still go there for escapism, one day we will realise there is no yesterday or today, it’s all now, but until then, everything is fucked & we may as well carry on!
I love this song, along with all the other uk-subs songs, then one time I was sat listening with my friend who didn’t like them at all, he suddenly piped up singing ‘Go darn pic-a-dill-y!’ We had a laugh, cos singer Charlie Harper had such an accent on him, it was a big part of the act. We both loved riding our bikes to London, Picadilly was always fun, so busy & full of life, I hadn’t thought about the lyrics really before I just liked the freaky sounds & jolly pace & rhythm, Mick liked midd west American music, such as the doobies, it didn’t flip my switch, & the subs weren’t Micks cup of tea, but apparently he’d suddenly he’d got it, not just on the same level, he’d gone into the singers cockney accent – before punk, you hardly ever heard a cockney accent in pop music, or if you did, it was a quirk that helped to sell the song, most bands sang in fake American cos it was considered cool, it was still our version of their music, whereas punk was just us, at last, no fakery, if you sounded American it wouldn’t be authentic, their version was like panto, I hardly liked any amaerican bands, the NY scene was ok, but they always sounded European, from time of Velvet Underground, (John Cale) – so anyhow, Mick come along to the next Subs gig I went to & we had a right laugh, one time I was stood on a chair at the back, everyone was going nuts as Charlie give it some welly, it took me ages to frame my shot, Charlie yelled – Come’ on Day-vid – Bay-Leeey!! another classic memory! (David Bayley was world famous photographer at the time) I still got the photo in a draw somewhere , I’ll try & dig it out,
he may be watching you when you’re out having fun! Have you flipped your switch yet?? 😁🤪😎
I was just reminiscing about when I was younger. I was sitting here, 3.30am – don’t worry, it’s normal – and the song top of the world was running through my mind:
I’m on the top of the world
Looking down on creation
And the blah blah blah blah
The only thing I see,
He’s my friend he’s my guide
and he’ll never leave my side
I’m so happy that my saviour set me free.
Then I thought no, somethings wrong it should be:
The love that I found ever since you been around
Your love’s put me at the top of the world.
At the time, in my dream / thoughts, I wasn’t aware of the other version, I’d been raised in a very Christian house, we went to school and church & that was it, it was a lovely family, at church & Sunday school we sang those religious songs, it was one of the better ones!
Years later I’d hear the original “real version”
Of Top of the world by the Carpenters, and finally it dawned on me the song had been stolen & re-worded in order to suffocate and subdue the children.
I didn’t see it that way at the time, I was just a happy kid, happy in my world, then I met this guy, my school friend Dave, he was so funny & bright & naughty, we got up to all sorts together, he thought I was strange, he liked strange friends, and I knew from some years earlier he was a bit disturbed from when his sister was killed in this dreadful car crash, it had been in all the papers, I never forgot it, cos I knew him as a school boy.
When Dave reached 16 he got this girlfriend & I didn’t see so much of him, we left school and he got married, I found new friends & went on just fine.
It was only years later I came to realise how influential Dave had been on me, he showed me you could have fun without all the boring church stuff, so when I came to really question my beliefs I realised I had no real faith, I hardly cared about religion anymore, and I was quite angry really about all the time wasted being weird and strange to my school friends, they were all getting to learn about love & relationships while I was just telling everyone about how Jesus said this and that, and how wrong they all were, what fools! They had no idea the path that lay ahead was madness & chaos!
Thing was, it was the other way around – I was the one who was going horribly wrong! I had no clue what I was talking about, no one cared what I thought anyhow, and I accepted that people were nasty and didn’t care about anything but their own greed & satisfaction.
Only later did I realise I was wrong and they were right, it was very confusing, people thought I was mentally retarded, or just mad, and I thought I was too, I was quite used to it, if people treated me like a total cunt, I treated them the same way. I remember I met this Christian guy at work, he said Christians go to church to be with other Christians, I just thought he was probably gay and just desperate, I didn’t mind that cos I liked gay blokes myself, they were much kinder that straights, I hardly noticed in fact that nearly all my close friends were gay, or at least a bit suspect, we never talked about it so I didn’t ask.
When I finally realised I really wasn’t gay in the slightest, I still had my gay friends with me, quite a lot of them were still in the closet themselves, they didn’t want to be gay cos of all the abuse they got, also I only realised much later that many of them had been so tolerant waiting for me to “come out” they had been secretly pretending to like me for different reasons than I understood at the time, many had been openly gay and waiting for me to join them, even though I had been such an arsehole for going on about homos and poofs like it was so funny, not realising that must have sounded annoying!
To this day I’m as likely to be humming the Christian version of Top of the World as I am the real version of, and it’s still to this day confusing and irritating! In fact I’m very often singing songs like Onward Christian soldiers at he top,of my lungs, inside I mean, long before I realise I don’t feel that way at all!! Music is weird like that, it stays with you!
exacticablog 