Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009
February 2, 2009
Ceri Shaw is a Web Designer and freelance writer. If you remember, he wrote What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?. Ceri is a former college lecturer from Cardiff, South Wales. He wrote this article for us.
Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009
There is an art to constructing social networks. Anyone can join Facebook, start a group, give it a catchy title and invite everyone on their contacts list. But building a true online “community” involves a lot more than that. My preferred tool for this job is the “Ning” platform.
One such project that I am involved in at the moment is Americymru. The site itself is an American Welsh heritage site and it welcomes members from anywhere in the world who are either Welsh, of Welsh ancestry or who have a love of Wales ( Cymruphiles? ) for whatever reason. The site has proved highly popular and is rapidly approaching the 1000 member mark.
The question is, of course, what purpose should such a site serve? Should we all vie with one another in forum discussions for the distinction of being the most enthusiastic supporter of Welsh culture? Should we all devote ourselves to learning the Welsh language? ( not a bad idea ) Or perhaps we should all exchange holiday snaps of our most recent visits to Snowdonia? Of course Americymru is a social network and so it is used for all of the above purposes and a host more besides.
How much better though to put these networks to a novel and creative purpose. In Wales the “Eisteddfod” tradition ( which is basically a talent competition ) dates back to the 12th century. Here is how the Wikipedia defines it:-
‘An eisteddfod is a Welsh festival of literature, music and performance. The tradition of such a meeting of Welsh artists dates back to at least the 12th century, when a festival of poetry and music was held by Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth at his court in Cardigan in 1176 but, with the decline of the bardic tradition, it fell into abeyance. The present-day format owes much to an eighteenth-century revival arising out of a number of informal eisteddfodau. The word eisteddfod is derived from the Welsh word eistedd, meaning “sit”.’
We decided to use Americymru to organise an international “online” Eisteddfod.
We have departed from the traditional formula in several significant respects. There are Welsh Pirate Lookalike and Tom Jones Impersonators competitions along side the standard literary and poetic categories. We feel that these features will enhance the appeal of the “event” and give it a more contemporary feel
All the competitions are open to everyone. Neither Americymru membership nor Welsh origin are requirements.
The poetry and short story competitions are already starting to attract some talented entrants and judges Lloyd Jones ( short stories ) and Peter Thabit Jones and John Good ( poetry ) will have some hard choices to make.
The online Eisteddfod will culminate in a live event in Portland in August 2009. It is here that winners will be announced and prizes awarded. It is also our intention to hold a series of concerts featuring major Welsh and American Welsh artists and performers. In short the “Left Coast Eisteddfod” will be a celebration of all things Welsh and in particular of the American Welsh heritage which has so enriched the history of the American nation. It will also introduce this tradition to a whole new audience and seek to involve the widest possible participation.
It is also possible to build a “constellation” of supporting blogs around your social networking “event”. In our own case we have been fortunate to enjoy the support of artists such as David Western who is probably the worlds finest carver of traditional Welsh lovespoons. He explains the reasons and the means of his supoport for the event in the following quote from his “David Western’s Portland Eisteddfod Lovespoon” blog:-
“To support the development of the Left Coast Eisteddfod next year, I am donating a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind Welsh lovespoon which Americymru will raffle off to help raise needed funds.
I’m proud to be able to contribute to the creation of the Eisteddfod and to help highlight Welsh people and their culture here in North America. Everyone knows the Scottish and Irish and it is through events like the Eisteddfod that people will come to know the Welsh.”
David’s blog has already encouraged others to try their hands at this ancient craft and his work in general is vital in order to ensure that this art form continues and thrives into the 21st century.
It is my belief that the potential for social networks to drive artistic creation and collaboration is immense and I am very excited to be a part of a project which is exploring this potential.
In closing I would urge you check out the online Eisteddfod ( linked and accessible from the home page of Americymru ), consider entering one of the competitions and above all, think of novel ways to utilise your own social networks so that they can become a real spur to human creativity and not merely glorified “chat” rooms.
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Sounds like music and networking
January 4, 2009
Wizzit Magazine interviewed me about Blogging and Social Networking. I have to thank Matti Mattila, the reviewer and open networker. If you remember, Matti wrote A musician story. Here is a short excerpt from the magazine article that you can download here in pdf format.
Sounds like music and networking
Matti Mattila: About blogging, you have an active blog, when did you start writing it?
Manuel Marino: I started ManuelMarino.com in October 2007.
What inspired you to first start blogging?
First of all the idea to freely surf and read everything about anything always fascinated me. I think this is why people love to have many blog feeds to read daily.
Next to this idea is the one to freely write interesting articles for the Internet community. Both gives a kind of freedom that I never felt before.
What is your blog about?
ManuelMarino.com is about music, arts, philosophy, poetry, independent artists, humanities and freedom. I invite experts and sincere professionals and artists to write articles.
I believe very much in freedom, honesty, sincerity and I’m able to feel these when I meet people. There are many good persons in the world, but sometimes we are too much obsessed by everyday life to understand this and find this.
How much time do you spend blogging every week?
Probably I spend too much. I love blogging, read other people’s blogs, surf and find interesting news.
What inspires you to write an entry to your blog?
Usually my ideas about news, culture and art, sometimes my intuition. We need more intuition, people tend to forget the importance of it and uses too much their left brain.
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E-commerce, a cultural fact?
November 1, 2008
E-commerce, online marketing, shopping, globalization, innovation are all linked together. It is becoming a real huge cultural fact, to be studied, to be understood to comprehend our world and where this world is going to in the near future.
E-commerce, a cultural fact?
Global E-Commerce and Online Marketing: Watching the Evolution By Nikhilesh Dholakia is a great book that explains all of this.
Specialists from business and academia present a meticulously researched, compelling examination of the effect that globalization, innovation, and relentless technological competition are having on the development of e-commerce and marketing. The editors offer practical managerial insights, important empirical findings, and new ways to comprehend the intricacies of the fast-morphing world of electronic business.
Another book that really catched me is Cyberpop: Digital Lifestyles and Commodity Culture by Sidney Eve Matrix.
Cyberpop: Digital Lifestyles and Commodity Culture is an analysis of cyberculture and its popular cultural productions. Each chapter focus on a particular cyberfiguration, including Hollywood films (GATTACA, The Matrix), popular literature (William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Scott Westerfeld’s Polymorph), advertising for digital products and services (AT&T’s “mLife” campaign), video games (Tomb Raider). Each close reading illustrates the ways in which representations of digital lifestyles and identities which typically fetishize computers and celebrate a “high tech” aesthetic encourage participation in digital capitalism and commodity cyberculture.
What I’m seeing on Internet and around me is an impressive and crazy explosion of virtual shops, like StreetWear-And-Red.com (also StreetWearAndRed.com). Goal of the shop is providing cool designs for the urban and street fashion along with elegant ideas for the modern gentlemen.
In the same explosion I can put my ebook and also my new CD with Rock and Metal Guitar Solos for Multimedia.
I’ve got just a fear, that all of this is going to result in a soap bubble in the future. How much will we be fascinated by the virtual world and how much can we stay far from reality? (Or virtuality is going to be our new reality?).
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My personal collection of book trade ephemera
March 11, 2008
Benjamin Clark is the Curator of Education for the Oklahoma Museum of History. Benjamin wrote this exclusive and very interesting article for us. He retains copyright of the first image and the text, of course. The second image is in the public domain.
My personal collection of book trade ephemera
My personal collection of book trade ephemera is *supposed* to focus on the book trades of the frontier. I have to remind myself of that every once in a while. But I’m almost always a sucker for beautiful typography. Am I the only collector who gets sucked down tangents? I doubt it.
I’ve had a business card for a while for one FR Aldrich, an agent for Advance Steam Printing Co. in Norman, Oklahoma Territory. The Aldrich card is one of my favorites, because of the frontier association and for the simple beauty of the typography.
Now, Norman was founded and occupied the night of the initial land run into the Unassigned Lands April 22, 1889. Oklahoma became a state in November 1907. That date range was the closest I could get to FR Aldrich and his business. An 18 year gap is a little too big for me for someone really not all that long ago or far away.
I tried Googling the name F.R. Aldrich, thinking Aldrich would be an uncommon enough name to locate easily. I did find lots of Fr. Aldriches, as in Father Aldrich, and I did find a couple FR Aldriches. One was a female college student in the 1940s on the east coast; others had too little info for a positive ID. But one suspect turned up in Kansas in 1913 and 1916 and was a school district superintendent. He (?) could be the same person. Not much difference in time and location, but a little bit of a career shift. Then again, I’ve already uncovered more than one barber/ bookseller. I could see how connections to publishing and printing could be useful as a school superintendent.
I turned my attention to identifying the font used for the main text. I hoped the font would help me date the card. Printers like to use new hip typefaces in their advertisements, an opportunity to show off new faces and technical capabilities. This was truer in the past than it is now. If I can get the actual name of the face, maybe I can track down a date and get closer to figuring out FR Aldrich’s story. Today, thanks to the charter member from Michigan of the American Book Trade Index, I found another example of this cool, odd font in a directory ad for a newspaper in Ann Arbor Michigan from 1892.
The 1892 date of the directory is spot on for the range I had established of 1889-1907. I’ve run through the resources of the Oklahoma Historical Society for FR Aldrich and the Advance Steam Printing Co. without any luck, although someone is chasing one last idea down. I ran the FR Aldrich card through What the Font , a website you can upload .jpg files and the website searches out the closest match for your font. The first time I ran the card through none of the “matches” were even close. Admittedly, the image of the card isn’t very sharp, and there just aren’t that many letters to work with, especially letters that would be totally unique to this type face. I ran the Ann Arbor Democrat ad through, and What the Font matched it very closely to a face called Trapeze Normal. Very cool. Almost.
The problem is that there are several computer fonts called Trapeze. That and computer fonts are not the same as printing typefaces. I can’t seem to find the historic typeface’s name it is based on. It’s a lead and perhaps one more piece of the puzzle. Maybe just a piece of a piece.
But, Emma E. Bower caught my eye. Now, it really was not uncommon for women to be editor/ publishers of newspapers in the U.S. In fact, women had been in charge of presses from the very earliest presses in North America in 1639. However, in many cases, these women were widows taking full control over the family printing business. They would often operate under their husband’s name, or under initials.
Googling Ms. Bower reveals some tempting tangents. First of all, she is Dr. Emma E. Bower, M.D., of Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan. Not only a Democrat, but a Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Michigan, in 1920. She served as Secretary of the Ladies of the Maccabees, an insurance/ fraternal organization for women only, from 1893 until at least 1919. The Knights of the Maccabees claim them as an auxiliary organization at least well into the 1920s. The Ladies of the Maccabees said they started out as such, but had become “wholly independent” after a couple short years. Her name also appears with some mentions of the suffrage and temperance movements, but I couldn’t find any specifics or print sources I could access for more info. She certainly sounds interesting!
So, from the Land Run in Oklahoma to a suffragette in Michigan. Stupid, wonderful tangents…
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Punk music in the late seventies
February 14, 2008
Wade Crawley said me “I propose to write an article about the influence of punk and indie music and culture on a young person (myself) coming of age in England in the late seventies and early eighties”.
I accepted, and Wade wrote this article! I must add also these more lines from him: “I’m quite excited at the prospect of having it published on your weblog because I was very impressed by the quality. It’s a very good weblog and an entertaining read.” Thank you Wade! And I’m sure our readers will appreciate very much your writing.
Punk music in the late seventies
I was still at school when I first heard of the Sex Pistols. The now infamous Bill Grundy interview was only shown on a London regional news programme, so only people in and around London got to see it. For those of us living outside of London, it was the outraged front pages of the tabloids the following day that first made us aware of the Sex Pistols and punk rock.
“The Filth and the Fury” screamed one tabloid’s front page and most of the others had similar outraged headlines on their front pages. The foul language of some of the band members in that interview had outraged people so much, that in one case a man had put his foot through his television screen, reported one newspaper.
Looking at that interview now on YouTube, it all seems rather tame by today’s standards, but it perfectly illustrates just how uptight our society was back then. As a schoolboy going through the obligatory teenage rebellion phase, I found it all very exciting. Even now, I don’t think a music video has ever captured the air of menace and defiance like the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant. Anything that upset parents, teachers and the establishment that much, had to be good, was my attitude at the time.
BBC Radio One was pretty much the only radio station catering for young people at the time as this was before the rise of commercial radio. They tried to ignore punk as though it wasn’t happening. The BBC’s flagship weekly music television show, Top Of The Pops, was a show whose remit was to include the acts that were selling well in the charts and as punk at that time was dominating the charts, they couldn’t ignore it any longer. The show’s DJ’s and presenters, middle aged men like Tony Blackburn and Mike Read who had made no secret of their dislike of punk music, much to our amusement, had to smile through clenched teeth and show enthusiasm for bands they hated.
When God Save The Queen by the Pistols hit number one in the charts, the BBC decided that there was no number one that week and refused to play it. In all of the official chart listings, when you got to number one there was just a blank space! At that time, any criticism of the royal family was treated pretty much as blasphemy!
I went to school in Whitehawk, a heavily working class area of Brighton, on England’s south coast, with a reputation for some of the worst social problems in the city. Many of the bands that were around back then such as Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, etc, were all made up of middle class art students or music graduates with nothing for us to relate to at all. Now, all of a sudden, along came punk rock with bands made up of people of similar age and from similar backgrounds to us. They had songs that we could relate to and expressed how we felt at that time. They also proved that you didn’t have to be a music student who had studied an instrument for many years, to be in a band and write great songs.
In the few years leading up to that time, I had gone to the movies to see ‘Tommy’ by the Who and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Song Remains The Same’ because I liked both bands. However, the films were so self indulgent and pretentious that I came away thoroughly disillusioned. The arrogance of the band members in the live footage of Led Zeppelin in ‘Song Remains The Same’ and their condescending attitude towards their audience, coupled with the narcissistic ‘fantasy’ sequences, not only left me with a foul taste in my mouth but also ensured I never bought anything by them again. After all this, punk rock was like a breath of fresh air.
Britain in the late 70’s was a pretty grim place to be growing up in. Industrial unrest was rife, rubbish was piled high in the streets because there was a strike by the dustmen who had refused to collect it and the ultra right wing National Front were beginning to come to prominence. They were organizing marches all over the country involving large numbers of their union jack carrying skinhead supporters, through racially sensitive areas. Taking advantage of all this unrest, they were targeting working class areas and managing to get members elected to local councils. Many young people were being indoctrinated into their ideology but punk bands were openly coming out against this and using their influence to fight back against the racists.
Many punk bands when they played live had reggae bands supporting them and the Clash famously played at a Rock Against Racism concert at Victoria Park in London to over 80,000 people. When they sang ‘White Riot,’ Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, a band with a large skinhead following, joined them on stage and this was an extremely significant gesture. This really did make a difference to a young and still very impressionable audience. I had friends who were skinheads, some of whom were planning to join a National Front march that was about to take place in Brighton. That Clash gig, along with various interviews with band members in the music press, were some of the main reasons why they thought again and decided not to go. Another factor that helped was the fanzine culture that had sprung up directly because of punk and the ‘do it yourself’ mentality. ‘Sniffing Glue’ was one of the first and more well known. They were magazines written and printed by fans and included interviews with bands, reviews of gigs and political articles expressing the opinions of the authors, many in support of the Anti Nazi League. They started off just crudely photocopied on A4 paper but the ones that became popular ended up being quite professionally printed and presented. They only cost a little pocket change too so anybody could afford them.
Another positive repercussion of punk was the rise of the independent record labels. There would be no ‘indie’ music scene if it wasn’t for punk. In fact, the music scene now would be very different if punk hadn’t happened.
I really believe punk has made a difference to how I think in general and that music really does have the power to change the world.
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Free Nine Inch Nails Album the slip Know what I won't be spending my economic stimulus check on? The new Nine Inch Nails album the slip. Know why? Not because I don't want to spend the money. It's because I don't have to spend the money! Nine Inch Nails is offering their new album for free. From...... - Sony Ericsson Xperia X3 (aka Rachel) • Display: - 800 x 400 pixels/4" - Touch Sensitive • Network: - 2G 850/900/1800/1900 (Quad-Band) - 3G: 900/2100 (Dual-Band) - HSDPA (10Mbps) - HSUPA (2Mbps) • Camera: - 8 mega-pixels (auto-focus) - 8 x Digital Zoom - LED Flash - Image Stabilization - Smile Shutter - Face Detection......
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there is no cost to good health One of the things I come back to again and again in my conversations with family, friends and colleagues is that there is no way to waste money on good health. Organic food can be pricey. A gym membership can be expensive compared to working out at home. Vitamins......
What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?
February 6, 2008
Ceri Shaw is a former college lecturer from Cardiff, South Wales. Currently he attempts to make a living as a Web Designer and as a freelance writer on a range of topics including Literature. He is a regular contributor to Americymru.com. Ceri wrote this article about Anglo-Welsh literature and its exploration of the themes of national, cultural and personal identity.
What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?
As a Welsh ex-pat currently residing in the USA I have noticed a profound disparity between the notion of Wales that many Americans of Welsh descent entertain and the reality that I left behind five years ago. Nowhere is this more evident than in the literary field. The triumphs of yesteryear are rightly held in high regard but modern literary trends and authors are sadly neglected. The legacy of Dylan and R.S. Thomas is , of course, sacred to us all, but Wales has moved on and a new genertaion of writers reflect that fact.In recent decades we have witnessed a flowering of literary culture in Wales and stereotypical Welsh writing so famously satirized by Harri Webb in his poem “Synopsis of the Great Welsh Novel” has been left far behind. We have seen the emergence of Welsh noir ( Niall Griffiths, Malcolm Pryce, John Williams ) which continues to be popular and other major talents such as Lloyd jones, Rachel Trezise, Trezza Azzopardi and Owen Sheers have made their presence felt.
But what is Anglo-Welsh literature and why should anyone care? I would argue that at its best it provides a unique perspective (in the English speaking world at least) on modern ideas of national, cultural and personal identity. As Gwyn Williams once famously said:- “The Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context.” Both Welsh-language and Anglo-Welsh literature have played a prominent role in that process. It is not a literature of rage. At the risk of offending a portion of my audience I will say that English colonial rule has for the most part been far too benign to produce a violent reaction but it is a literature of self-assertion and defiance, albeit sometimes confused and unfocused.
These themes are explored in a number of fascinating works by contemporary Welsh writers. Owen Sheers’ magnificent debut novel ‘Resistance‘ is set in an alternate universe in which the Nazis invade and conquer Britain in World war II. It focuses in large part on the struggle to reinvent oneself, adapt and survive in the face of extreme adversity.
The book ends with both protagonists facing a stark choice which is really no choice at all. In order to survive they must turn their backs on everything they have known and attempt to find personal salvation in a future that is as uncertain as it is dangerous.The novel hints at the special relationship which the Welsh people have with their landscape. The hills of Wales are indeed magnificent but they pale into insignificance, at least in topographical terms, when compared with the European Alps or the North American Cascades. Their special gravity and power lies in the fact that every nook and cranny, every fold and crevice, is invested with some human significance. The sum of history and legend which the landscape reveals is almost an externalization of Welsh identity itself. It is against this backdrop that Sarah, the heroine of this novel, must strive to uproot herself and accept the evolutionary challenge.
A far more extreme adaptation and ‘remaking’ (or failure to adapt) can be found in the pages of ‘Niall Griffiths’ stark and brutal novel..”Sheepshagger“. Here we see what happens when ancient tribal resentments, personal greivance and drug-addled inarticulacy combine to prevent ‘personal growth’. The desperate and bestial acts of violence committed by the novels anti-hero are the products of a sense of loss and a seething resentment directed against those who have deprived him. He is unable to articulate his impotent rage by any other means. He asserts himself as a serial-killer. It should be pointed out that this exploration of the darker side of the Welsh ‘psyche’, whilst magnificent, also contains passages of graphic violence which would make Brett Easton Ellis blush.
The fact that the Welsh are a naturally restless people and constantly searching for a lost identity or fashioning a new one is perhaps more happily exemplified in Lloyd Jones extraordinary “Mr Vogel”. This novel which is by turns baffling and inspiring recounts an epic journey around Wales made by a delusional alcoholic. To say that the narrative is not straightforward would be an understatement but what this novel lacks in simplicity it makes up for in many other ways. We are never quite sure what the nature of the quest is but the journey is perhaps its own justification. Toward the end of the book, when his epic perambulation is almost complete, Mr. Vogel finds himself in a mental hospital where he offers the following observation to one of his fellow patients:-
“When was Wales? Wales has never been, it has always been.” he rambled on to his next victim, Myrddin the schizophrenic, who fortunately) was asleep. “I’ll tell you something for nothing.” he said, “true Wales is never more than a field away, and true Wales is always a field away, like Rhiannons horse in the Mabinogi. Got it?”
Jones’ work is a tribute to the transformative and redemptive power of the imagination and its ability to refashion national, cultural and personal identity.
None of the above should be taken to suggest that Anglo-Welsh literature concerns itself solely with these themes or that other literary traditions neglect them. I would contend howver that owing to Wales unique history,a history in which its cultural identity has constantly been threatened with absorption by that of its much more powerful neighbour,they are much more acutely focused in the Anglo-Welsh literary tradition.
Books Referenced in the Text:
“When Was Wales” Gwyn Williams Penguin Books 1985
“Resistance” Owen Sheers Faber and Faber 2007
“Sheepshagger” Niall Griffiths Vintage 2002
“Mr. Vogel” Lloyd Jones Seren 2004
- Reflections on some well loved Poets Ziggy Olivier wrote this article. He met Dylan Thomas and spent some of his youth drinking whisky with him. He said me: "Everything you may have read about him was true." Reflections on some well loved Poets Approaching my own demise, I was delighted this Christmas to receive from......
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A software that helps you to be a novelist Erick Behymer wrote for us The Djinn Chronicles. Now he is back with the review of MyNovel. MyNovel is a novel writing software. It contains a complete word processor and will get you to think about and plan your characters, settings, and the events that will form the skeleton of......
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Grateful Dead Posters Memorabilia -> G -> Grateful Dead Grateful Dead fans, often called Dead Heads, and music memorabilia collectors can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for items like handbills and Grateful Dead posters. Anyone not familiar with the band or the unique style of images and posters used during the...... - I found this article on several websites yesterd... I found this article on several websites yesterday, but decided to go direct to to the source to get permission to print it. Thankfully, the writer said yes. That being said...I thought it was a pretty well written story about what could be going on in America right now, whether......
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Review: Barely Bewitched by Kimberly Frost By Susan S., Guest Reviewer Barely Bewitched is a fun, “light,” and entertaining read. I’ve read it twice! This is Kimberly’s second book belonging to her Southern Witch Series. It stands alone, but if you’re interested in how Mercutio became the heroine’s cat, I recommend starting with Would-Be Witch....... - The Welsh Terrier Originally, Welsh terriers were bred for hunting rabbits, foxes and badgers, but public opinion and the decline in the lust for blood in general have gone against blood sports and so this native breed of Wales has become a show dog and a pet. Breeders try to outdo each......
Reflections on some well loved Poets
January 16, 2008
Ziggy Olivier wrote this article. He met Dylan Thomas and spent some of his youth drinking whisky with him. He said me: “Everything you may have read about him was true.”
Reflections on some well loved Poets
Approaching my own demise, I was delighted this Christmas to receive from a teenage granddaughter a gift that I will cherish – Richard Burton’s famous reading of Under Milk Wood. More so that she should be aware of the poem and have a liking for it’s hypnotic, entrancing language.
Sensual, beautiful, musical prose with indelible images of people and their behaviour.
Here was rich irony – an ageing man once again enjoying a work in which inevitable death is one of the recurring themes!
I do not have the talent to fully describe my sense of well being as I sipped an ancient Macallan and revisited fond memories from my youth as I listened, with my granddaughter, to the cadence of those words describing our human condition.
Only those who have heard Dylan Thomas reading it himself have known better, for he had a wonderful, rich, appealing voice which enveloped you into his magical world.
‘It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.
Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors Arms.
Time passes. Listen. Time passes.
Come closer now.
Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night.’
This reminded me of Eliot in the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock
‘The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.’
Eliot did remark, somewhere, words to the effect that young poets imitate and mature poets ‘borrow’ ? I can forgive Dylan for pinching an idea for his poetry transports us into a wonderful world of rich imagery.
In the after glow, once the reading had finished,the moment was almost spoilt when she asked if I could help her with an essay she had to write on the poem and I realised she would be researching reviews by critics who would destroy her blossoming love of such song language as they reduced it to comment such as Edith Sitwell writing of his ‘distorted syntax and religious symbolism.’
Critical essays too often review art entirely in terms of life reminding me of Eliot’s
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
Why must we bow to academic interpretations of our emotions?
Robert Frost commented that poetry is what gets lost in translation and Eliot firmly believed that poetry communicates before it is understood.
University almost destroyed my love of literature as we sweated over critical essays trying to explain some masterpiece or another.
Like Joyce, Thomas can be almost incomprehensible but any great writer uses language that is different to the way we speak and because of its intense imagery causes our emotions to provide us with a deeper view of life.
Dry intellect is no match for emotion in driving our soul for it is emotion that stirs us to action.
So I discussed with her ways and means for her to say what the poem meant to her. How she understood it was more important than some critic’s view, for I did not want to destroy that magic that had impacted deep into her young soul.
Ultimately, in a small fictional Welsh town called Llareggub, as the long night approaches, you realise that such critic’s voices do indeed mean ‘buggerall’.
- Travel Writer This is the beginning of the latest writing by Peter George Mackie. Please contact him if you want to know more about his works. The first chapter of his piece of travel writing "Flowers of Zagreb" can also be downloaded at www.authorsonline.co.uk. Travel Writer Dave was pondering over a map......
- Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 Ceri Shaw is a Web Designer and freelance writer. If you remember, he wrote What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?. Ceri is a former college lecturer from Cardiff, South Wales. He wrote this article for us. Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 There is an......
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American Music and Vintage Guitars Mark Weakley is an impressive artist; sculptor, painter, musician. He plays guitar, banjo and harmonica, and has recently recorded a CD of his original compositions. In this exclusive article he talks about himself, about his passions, about his father, about traditional american music, about vintage guitars and banjoes, and much...... -
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The Song Stuck in My Head by Annemarie Hartnett, guest blogger and author of The Company of Fools I have zero musical talent. I never played piano. I only ever mastered Madonna’s “True Blue” on the keyboard. When I was a kid I took ukulele lessons at school and dropped out before the big Christmas...... - Review Hide and Seek by Cherry Adair (Book 3) Hide and Seek is the third book in the T-FLAC series. This book concerns Kyle Wright, the second of the Wright sibs. He is a medical doctor, but like all the Wright brothers, not what he seems. Be warned This book is considerably darker than Kiss and Tell. Personally, I......
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You Never Know What Tomorrow Holds, So Be Prepared James 1:12 - "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." Update: 10/9/2007 - This post is dedicated to "Rich". "Rich" passed away on September 26th. ......
The Elegance of the Art
January 14, 2008
Doug Stahnke is a sculptor. And this is a wonderful exclusive article he wrote for us.
The Elegance of the Art
Let me begin by first defining some terms as I apply them:
talent – I think there is a simple truth here. You were either born with it or you weren’t. But talent comes in many varieties and categories. Many people have talents they haven’t discovered; or they have discovered them but choose not to pursue them. I believe everybody has some sort of talent. It could be painting, drawing, or sculpting. It could be singing, playing musical instruments, or having a special sense of rhythm. It could be cooking, designing fashions or in architecture. It could be in writing, film making, dramatic acting, comedy or magic. It could be one’s business acumen in financial management, marketing, design engineering or in leading a workforce. It could be very clearly in your dreams. This list could go on ad nausea.
passion – The drive to start, pursue and complete your next creation. An Artist without passion is a hacker.
hacker – One who is experimenting or exploring in an attempt to discover and develop one’s talents. If one’s initial experiment is critiqued as having even a modicum of beauty by even one reviewer, passion may start to grow. The downside is hackers can be very critical of their own work, which can kill their passion. This, in turn, may cause the hacker to bury his talents. Some hackers may create a work and then trash it, showing it to no one.
beauty – Is in the eye of the beholder? Many creations, even though the Artist has completed his work, start out ugly. The work can be transformed into one of beauty when just one person openly opines and says, “Now isn’t that a work of beauty!” If those folks who sloughed it off overheard this comment, they will likely take a second look, another taste, or even ask to hear it again. Then, hopefully a second person will soon chime, “I like it!”, with others hearing the appreciative praise. Then three, four, and five, etc., will follow in the appreciative. A work of Art can be transformed from ugly to beautiful starting with one simple, favorable opinion.
ugly – The reciprocal or opposite of beauty. One unfavorable opinion, openly stated, can negatively influence the acceptance of one’s work in a larger group. This can happen and carry many other opinions down with it.
Artist – One who creates something, with at least a modicum of passion, and asks someone else, “Well, what do you think?”
critical acclaim – The one person who stated your work had beauty, influenced another to pay money for your creation, while you were still alive. How frequently can you repeat such action? I don’t ever recall meeting an Artist who wished to reach critical acclaim only after they were dead.
media – Whatever stuff the Artist decides to use to create his work.
The Elegance of My Art
I am basically a sculptor. The roots of my talent go back to my childhood. I always liked to make something or build something. If someone else made something, I liked to take it apart to see how he did it. My current work is to sculpt crafts and pieces of furniture; write about what I’ve sculpted, illustrate it, make it into a “Set of Plans”, then sell the Plans through my Website. I call them ePlanSets. I want to have many people, all over the world, build, or sculpt my projects for their own enjoyment, just like I do.
Do I have any passion? It’s either that, or I am just plain nuts. My media is Plastic Pipe and Plastic Pipe Fittings. You know like PVC or ABS Plastic. It’s actually quite an easy media with which to work… for instance it’s much easier than working with wood. All of my designs are totally elegant. You can clearly see the elegance in my Table CenterPiece, my Candle Holders, the furniture in my Master Bedroom Suite, as well as many others.
One of my favorite, critically acclaimed sculptors is Michelangelo. I know, he was also a painter, an engineer and an architect, too. He would often consider himself a hacker because he was so dissatisfied with his work. I remember hearing a Michelangelo quote about his Angel sculpture, “I could see the Angel in the stone. All I had to do was chip away what didn’t belong to her!” Of course, Michelangelo works have all reached quite an enviable level of critical acclaim… even before he died.
Following the magic of Michelangelo, I frequently go to the plastic pipe fittings section, of the plumbing department, in my favorite home improvement store. There, I hold up some fittings, starting with like maybe a toilet flange, and very quietly say to myself, “I can see a lamp!” Or maybe, “I can see a Candle Holder!”
I am still waiting for my own Critical Acclaim to grow. So, what do you think?
- Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 Ceri Shaw is a Web Designer and freelance writer. If you remember, he wrote What is Anglo-Welsh Literature and why Should Anyone Care?. Ceri is a former college lecturer from Cardiff, South Wales. He wrote this article for us. Social Networking and the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 There is an......
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On Canvas Art Charles Veilleux wrote this exclusive article for us. Charles is the owner of Veilleux Fine Art. On May 31, 2009, Veilleux Fine Art transitions into a private artist studio tour business. Charles has owned and operated contemporary art galleries in Santa Fe since 1993. On Canvas Art Art a term...... - An Artist Portrait (Part One) This is a fantastic article written exclusively for my Weblog by Frank V. Cahoj. Please feel free to comment here or send him emails. He'll be happy of this. An Artist Portrait (Part One) My name is Frank Cahoj and I have been an artist since I was born. I can......
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Shareholders 'Boo' Immelt: GE & 'NBCs' in Bed with Obama WedNEWSday - May 6th, 2009 Recently on Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC, a one-time aspiring actress named Janeane Garofalo offered up the following incendiary comments to describe her view of the real meaning of the nation-wide tax day TEA Parties held on April 15th, 2009. “This is about hating a...... -
Eau de Vetyver Review Continuing to sample the wood and leather scents from Le Jardin Retrouvé. These samples were passed along to me by cpf from LJR. You might be interested in this: In recent years "new" or "parallel" perfumery, or Senteurs as it is called in France, has been making headway in the...... -
The Power of Thought from "Your Heritage" by Walter C. Lanyon Which was first: the egg or the birds? The flower or the seed? You have but to resolve the whole thing into thought to find that first of all, before either flower or seed, bird or egg, was the idea, which rested...... -
Top Travel Places to Go in 2010 reprinted from New York Times 2. Patagonia Wine Country Ten years ago, a group of adventurous winemakers set their sights on an Argentine valley called San Patricio del Chañar, an unusually fertile and eerily beautiful corner of Patagonia. They plowed, planted and waited. The outcome? A blossoming wine country with...... -
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The Emperor’s New Clothes
January 11, 2008
Ananda Sukarlan is an Indonesian composer and pianist living in Spain. This is an article he wrote for a magazine which has been published a few years ago in Spanish. We are very proud to have the original in English which has never been published anywhere, so this is an exclusive writing for ManuelMarino.com. Read his Blog and visit Jakarta New Year Concert page (he is the founder and director). Also, you can listen to some of his music compositions on YouTube.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
“It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the
Mona Lisa. All art of the past must be destroyed.” — (Pierre Boulez)
“I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate
and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this
public world to one of private performance and electronic media.“ – (Milton
Babbitt)
“What happened there is (…) the biggest artwork of all times. That spirits
achieve in a single act what we in music cannot dream of, that people rehearse
ten years long like mad, totally fanatical for a concert and then die.
This is the biggest artwork that exists at all in the whole universe…
I couldn’t match it.” (K. Stockhausen, on the 9/11 attack ) . — All quotes
are from The New York Times.
Those three composers are supposedly “great” composers of the 20th century. Their piano works (in fact, ALL their works) were written “for the future” in the 1950s and 60s, when they were (and still are) a tough nut to crack for both the pianist and the audience. Now, if they were indeed “great”, as Chopin or Bach undoubtedly were, why are their works still not in the repertory of most pianists or other instrumentalists ? And why don’t we members of humanity, no matter how “retarded” we are according to those “great” artists, respect them now as we respect Schumann or even their contemporaries such as Shostakovich or Stravinsky ? When is the “future” they were talking about ? Is 2007 not “future” enough for those works created half a century ago?
The answer is simple. Boulez, Babbitt and Stockhausen are (or were) “great”, because they rely on, and receive huge government subsidies and were leaders of a very small but controlling establishment consisting of academics, critics and art politicians. They are “great” according to their colleagues in this group, but not according to musicians and the public. In fact, their “avantgarde” music is mostly written against musicians and the public. It even goes so far as calling the 9/11 event “the greatest artwork” (see Stockhausen’s quote above) , not only creating a work against people, but even more, killing (how can one be more against people ?) them all, “artists” and audience.
In other words, they write music to gain, and only to gain, government subsidy. What Walt Whitman said, that “Para tener grandes poetas, es necesario además grandes audiencias” is not valid anymore for this kind of “art”. In principle, government subsidies are supposed to be given to marginal artistic activities, and the more “minority oriented” that art is, the more it deserves subsidy ; this subsidy has enabled those artists to stay in their ivory towers without making any contributions at all to the public. Which is alright if one doesn’t think of the amount of taxpayers’ money that is used to subsidize those “artistic” works.
Let’s take one example: the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique) who was built by Pierre Boulez in Paris. It was kitted out with equipment to Boulez’s own specification to compose music for the future. IRCAM also swallowed 80% of the national subsidy for contemporary music of France. It was built at a cost of 90 million francs and thereafter at a cost of 15 million a year to the French taxpayer for its concerts, staff and upkeep. It happened that in 1969 Boulez got Georges Pompidou to build for him a huge high tech underground bunker , beside the site of what was to become the Pompidou Centre. Now, in 2007, shall we look back and reflect on how many masterpieces have been created out of this building ? What I mean by masterpieces are works that the general public recognise as such, like Britten’s War Requiem, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or, coming from the other continent, Copland’s Third Symphony. I don’t have to answer this question.
When I was living in Holland in the 1990s I had several encounters with “ex”avant-garde turned real composers, such as Toru Takemitsu, John Adams or Louis Andriessen. And it was in Holland that I met for the first time my amazing Spanish composer friends Jesus Rueda or David del Puerto (both winners of Premio Nacional de Musica, in 2004 and 2005 respectively). At that time, they were in a “transitional” period after getting out from the heavy influence of their avantgarde teacher, Paco Guerrero. All of them realized then, that our older colleagues had achieved their goals to “impress” the public by presenting them with uncommunicative works, and certainly they have gained a lot by doing that, but that we the younger generations have to pay for it. There have been composers at every corner of the street ever since, given that avantgarde music was designed to give jobs to many who could not compose in the sense of writing “traditional” music. Good or bad quality is not the criteria anymore. But there are simply not enough subsidy for all of them , whose works sound more or less the same.
Fortunately we are in a state of transition to a more audience-friendly kind of music. The avantgardists had achieved in emptying the concert halls, and now we will have to work harder to gain them back and convince them that the word “contemporary” is not equal to “avantgarde” ; on the contrary, “avantgarde” was a thing very much in the past, and not con (“with”) temporary (our time) anymore.
This situation reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s story, about an Emperor who is very fond of clothes. One day came 2 tailors, saying that they can make very special clothes that only good people can see. Naturally the emperor cannot see those clothes, but afraid of being called a bad person, he praises the beauty of the clothes. And if the emperor can see it, everybody in the whole country should do as well. Until comes a very young kid, much too young to be called a bad person, during the festive celebration of those clothes , shouting innocently, “Look, the Emperor is naked!”
- An Artist Portrait (Part Two) This is the Part Two (and final part) of the true life story as artist written by Frank V. Cahoj for our Weblog. (Part One) An Artist Portrait (Part Two) I give an unbelievable amount of credence to these two early periods in my life: one of everlasting creation, one......
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Country Music Star Is Unleashed! Robert Benson (if you remember he wrote An Explosion of Blues Music) this time gave me a review about the next big star in Country Music, Laura Roppe (pronounced ro-pay). She has a Shania Twain-like quality and already is receiving major air play in Europe. Robert said me also that...... - Artists Psychology Here's an interesting exclusive article Roland d’Humières, 56 years old psycho-analyst from Aix en Provence (France) has written for our Weblog. I think it to be a very interesting writing about the artists psychology, or maybe "arts psychology", what's behind an artists mind. Artists Psychology Whatever is his/her Art, painting,......
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Reading for fun
January 2, 2008
This is a nice article from Isaac Marion. Isaac has been running the online textual variety show, BurningBuilding.com, since 2003. He lives in Seattle, Washington, where he works various mundane jobs while trying to make his writing/music/art career take off.
Reading for fun
Recent studies have shown that across the board, in all mediums, Americans are reading for pleasure less than ever before. This isn’t just literature, novels, etc, this is all forms of the written word, including magazines, even the mighty Internet. Yes, that includes blogs. Less than one third of adults reported having read any literature in the past year not required for school or some other assignment.
Sounds shocking at first, but really, who didn’t see this coming?
In fact, those stats seem rather high to me. I think out of everyone I know, only 3 or 4 people would consider themselves regular readers. Sitting down with a book has become a quaint, old-fashioned novelty notion, almost an affectation, like smoking a pipe, collecting cigars, home brewing, bonsai trees, single malt scotch, and Civil War enthusiasm.
This is distressing to me, obviously, since 70%-80% of what I do with my life is based around writing, and therefore, by extension, reading. Am I training in an obsolete trade? Is my dream of becoming a successful writer kind of like my dream of becoming a successful blacksmith?
And, what exactly is causing this decline in literacy? The obvious answer is, not enough “Reading is FUN” posters in our libraries. How are people supposed to know, if they’re not told? I think if the statistics were examined you would find a very clear link between the decline of Elijah Wood “Reading is Hobbit-Forming!” posters and the decline of American reading. But although this is certainly a major contributing factor, there must be others, because I’ve viewed my fair share of pro-reading advertisements, and even I find myself reading far less than I used to. What is going on? Let’s take a look at a few of the elements of modern society that are edging out the written word…
Television
Low cost and ease of production for reality shows featuring attractive, vapid automatons in crude parodies of life situations allows for vast explosion in quantity of TV shows, with each channel boasting dozens of similar shows, each with its own spinoffs, knockoffs, and webisodes, until total psychological saturation is achieved. All available brain space is filled with the televised thoughts of attractive, vapid automatons.
Straight to Video Knockoff Films
Having already watched every other film in Blockbuster, people turn to low-budget, nearly-homemade films released to coincide with similarly named, similarly themed theatrical films, ie, Transformers / Transmorphers, Beowulf / Beowolf
Video Blogs (See Youtube)
Weary of ingesting the inane thoughts of strangers by reading them in written text form, Americans turn to video blogs, or “Vlogs”, where they can listen to the inane thoughts of strangers while watching their faces from an uncomfortably close camera angle, and randomly assigning them celebrity status by public whim.
Sports/Video Games
Competitive entertainments allow bored Americans to work their reflexes and mental dexterity without actually doing anything, feel part of something without actually being part of something. People flock to Sports/Video Games as an outlet for their personal energies and as a general mental anesthesia. Helps relieve pressure of disposable income and time.
Beowulf: the IMAX 3D Experience
CGI animated film hurls arrows, spears, axes, blood, guts, and naked Angelina Jolie directly at the viewers, completely blowing our minds and making us never want to read, write, talk, or walk around ever again.
Youtube
Endless supply of videos where lightsabers have been digitally placed in the hands of people or animals who were not previously holding lightsabers.
There seems to be a trend here. As part of the general movement away from difficulty and towards ease and instant gratification, humanity seems to be trying to avoid even the difficult senses. The popularity of video blogs shows that people would much rather have information poured into their brain through their ears than have to focus their eyes on letters and attempt to comprehend writing. Is the day too far off when even listening to information is considered too much effort? Too dull, too slow?
Probably just in time for the invention of direct-to-brain connections. Entertainment won’t require us to use our senses at all. It will just be dumped directly into our minds in a big, sticky, informationy gob. An entirely new form of blog will appear, not the web log, or the video log–the “brain log”, or….”blog”.
Hmm.
Brlog…?
Brailg…?
Hmm.
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