Freedom Blues / The sadness falls

Robert Frank has been covered a lot in the media this week due to his exhibition starting at the Tate Modern. They interviewed him for the Observer on Sunday. Talking about his artist wife he says, 'I envy her freedom to sit down in front of a blank page and not have some machine get in the way. That is freedom. Photography is not feedom.' Then check this out:

Robert Frank had captured an everyday America, shrouded in an epic sense of
lonliness, a sadness...Some of that sadness was quintessentially American, to do
with the vastness of the continent and the struggle to survive that many of its
ordinary citizens are engaged in, and some of it was to do with Robert Frank,
his outsider gaze. "I think I always had a cold eye. I always saw things
realistically. But, it's also easier to show the darkness than the joy of life.
Life is not beautiful all the time. Life can be good, then you lie down, and
stare up at the ceiling, and the sadness falls on you. Things move on, time
passes, people go away, and sometimes they don't come back...Happy is a big
word...I guess I got where I wanted to get, but it didn't turn out to be the
place I hoped it would be."

Wow... This is an artist's artist. I need to see this exhibition...
art
Robert Frank
Tate

Soldiers in chance of death shocker

Watching Charles Kennedy on Newsnight acting like a complete twat and being told so by Paxman (in so many words). He is asking him why he wants a Parliamentary vote when the British Military Commander has already said that the US request for the redeployment of British troops is both "reasonable and sensible". I don't really understand what the issue is. The decision to go to war has been taken and therefore UK troops exist in Iraq. Why does it matter whereabouts they are in action? Of course there are 'hotspots' where the chance of being killed are higher than in others. And. So. What?. This is the military. The soldiers are fully aware of the risks when they join.

In search of Diz and Bird

I was really impressed with Collateral. Great shots of LA at night. Aerial shots from helicopters, landscape views, simple shots of streets and highways. At one stage, Tom Cruise suggests going to this jazz bar where Mingus played along with all the West Coast giants. He meets the owner, a trumpet player. Subsequent to their chat, you see a jazz band playing. I thought the music was familiar and then realised it was fusion-era Miles. I could hear Joe Zawinul's keyboard lines crystal clear and I thought that it would be near possible to re-create that precisely. I stayed after the film to check the credits and they had simply just played the Miles original and the band were miming. Cheap, but still good. The chat had this guy telling a story about Miles walking into this club and bad-mouthing this well-to-do couple. Then Cruise gives this guy a chance to answer a question to save his life. He asked where Miles learned to play. The owner guy said 'Juillard, NYC'. Cruise shot him and said that he dropped out after a year and went in search of Diz and Bird and learnt his trade through them. I would have said Juillard. Calexico were also on the soundtrack.

Collateral,jazz,Miles Davis,

Peter Kay, Barnsley and Albert Einstein

Was thinking about the over usuage of the word 'genius' today. Seems to be used by students a lot. Indeed, I may have contributed to the phenomenon when I was studying. From where I am sitting I can see a Peter Kay live video (the Blackpool one). On the spine it says 'Genius!'. I like Peter Kay a lot and I have a lot of time for him. I went to see him in 1998 in Barnsley at the Fealty and Firkin pub, upstairs in the function room. About 15 people there. I was with this horrendous girl Neeki. She was a real Manchester girl. She was the only one who would come. Her phone went off in the middle of the show and Peter Kay picked it up and started speaking to her boyfriend. He was great and I went to see him the next year when he played downstairs to a bigger audience. He went down brilliantly and me and my mate Adam met him after the show - he was really nice as was his girlfriend. He is not, however, a genius. I think it's agreed universally that Einstein was one.

Life is a pause before death

I live to destroy time. I don't want to live in harmony with it. Since time is
going to kill me off eventually I want to fuck it up on the way down the drain.
I want to leave it with scars and a limp. I am the monkey on time's back...If
you're going to write, then write. If there's plans you have made, then execute
them or be damned. Time is your wings, the key. If you let it slip by, it is
acid that drips upon your soul...I must maintain this urgency. It is in the
rhythm of life. Life is furious. It explodes in foliage and rots in damp heat.
Jump in to the river that takes you to it. Otherwise life is a pause before
death. I don't comprehend how people have been able to supress their lives
enough to work in the same place year after year while the hate they had for the
place that might have saved them by giving them the push they needed to get out,
dissipates into complacency and they just toughen up and resolve themselves to a
life they don't want. They justify it with things their father told them about
responsibility. It's a strength of character I don't posess. That life reeks of
death. An unhurried, languid death that doesn't walk, but ambles down the hall.
Old footsteps dumbly decaying out of hearing range. The blood thickens and the
world slows down. The blues fade and reds become muddy.

Henry Rollins, 'Smile, You're Travelling'.

Henry Rollins,philosophy,