Last week I attended the launch of Wayson Choy‘s new autobiographical book, Not Yet.
It was too crowded and frantically busy to get a proper word with him this week, but I’m planning on interviewing him for Take 5 soon. Stay tuned.
Month: April 2009
Casually checking my Flickr as a kind of break from mad bouts of transcribing and article surgery earlier this evening, I came across a rather stern-sounding message: YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM THE ABSTRACT PHOTOS GROUP. Oh dear.
Slightly perplexed, a bit flummoxed, but altogether curious, I took a look around the group to see what rules I had violated. Hmm, no porn, check. No photoshopping, check. No borders, check. No people, well… it’s my hand. Does that count?
Perusing one of the Administrator‘s interestingly-labelled “Hall of Inappropriate” sections (I counted three) in which photos rejected by the group can be commented on by other (non-rejected) members, I came across my photo (above), with the following caption, written by said Administrator:
Attack of the hands still here for the month of April 😉
Yes, I like hands. And yes, I’ve posted weird close-ups of my hands before. They’re an ongoing theme for me artistically and personally. I’m fascinated not only by mine but by others’. One of my earliest, most seminal inkling into visual art, before painting, drawing, or anything else, was taking hand traces. This particular shot (or series of shots) was taken during an especially joyous -and very fruitful -sketching session that yielded a lot of good material. I find something weirdly romantic, and deeply moving, about artists’ hands dirtied by their passion. And yes, I do think some of these are abstract. But that’s my opinion.
Alas, I suppose it wasn’t -isn’t -shared by ImaginationAlone. Admittedly, I may have violated the group rules by posting too many, else the Administrator just doesn’t think my work is a good fit for his/her Abstract group. I wonder what he/she would make of Guggi.
Attack of the bowls/jugs still here since 1988! (insert cute winky)
Artists can’t help what they’re drawn to. By the same token, artists can’t help what they’re repelled by, either. It’s all a matter of beauty in the eye of the beholder, of maintaining a degree of respect between artists. Not stepping on toes can be a full-time job; it takes patience, maturity, and a good sense of communication. Holding something you may not like up to ridicule by way of group-think doesn’t strike me as an entirely classy way to handle what you deem to be a poor fit for your collection, even if it is egalitarian in a cold, technological sense.
Alas, I take being banned as a weird badge of honour. Here’s looking at you, Groucho.
My childhood was full of music. As well as taking lessons myself, I was surrounded by the holy trinity of Elvis, Abba and opera (with a good measure of Johnny Cash thrown in too). Classical music, and opera, was, and remains a huge passion of my mother’s; she was a childhood singer who, through circumstance, was forced to move away from singing. That “thwarted soprano” ethos informed and drove her passion for opera throughout her life, and deeply influenced not only her choice of husband (a musician, natch) but the way she chose to raise her only child.
My Saturday afternoon were filled with the sounds of the Metropolitan Opera blasting out of every radio in the house. When portable radio players became the rage, I remember walking around the supermarket, thoroughly embarrassed over her swooning along, past aisles of tinned beans and dried pasta, headphones wrapped around her head, the melifluous sounds of opera tinnily emanating from the tiny speakers. There were also innumerable nights spent watching the “Live From The Met” specials, and trying to figure out how to work the then-new VCRs in order to ensure repeated-viewing rhapsody. Every month or so we’d also go to the O’Keefe Centre to watch the latest German/Italian/English spectacle; I barely knew what was going on sometimes (these were the days before surtitles) but I knew the music, having heard it already all those Saturday afternoons.
One of my mother’s operatic dreams was realized when, in the 90s, we traveled to New York City and saw Luciano Pavarotti onstage. He was in L’elisir D’Amore, the opera that happens to be on my radio this afternoon. My memories around this opera are deeply tied to seeing the Pav perform it live many years ago. Though it’s a silly little piece of pseudo-buffa, it has some gorgeous music, and it takes a real presence to bring any kind of levity to the material. Pavarotti brought it (duh); there was a noticeable, and rather incredible hush that descended over the sold-out crowd the minute he stepped onstage. He wasn’t singing at the introduction – just standing there -but he was fully present, in every sense. And his smile lit up the room. I remember turning to my mother, and she had that same huge smile. Then he opened his mouth, and this… sound came out. I’ve never been able to quite describe it, but seeing him live (more than once) remains a treasured, beautiful memory on many levels.
This clip, with Pavarotti singing the gorgeous (and famous) aria from L’elisir with just a piano is incredible for the way he utterly inhabits the music -not just the words, but the music itself, encapsulating all of its passion and wisdom, making a merely silly little love song into a transcendent meditation for the ages. Grazie, Pav.
Toronto-based writer Julie Wilson has a fantastic site called Seen Reading, where she writes about works she’s observed being read in public places. It’s smart, insightful, and deeply telling about our relationship to words, images, and each other.
Lately, Julie’s also been collecting readings of poetry. To quote from the site,
30 in 30 was created April 1, 2009 to celebrate National
Poetry Month. Thirty Canadian poets were asked to submit two readings: one poem of his/her own, and one cover/tribute. That audio will appear over the course of April.But there are more than thirty poets, poetry lovers, and days on the
calendar. To that end, you, too, can help us build upon this growing
archive of appreciation and performance by sending your recordings to julie[AT]seenreading[DOT]com.
My own recording of Rumi’s Ghazal 441 is included (scroll to the bottom). It’s long been a favourite of mine, and I recited it, spontaneously, by heart one day when I had extra time in a radio studio. Enjoy, and if you have a poem you love, record it & send along to the good Julie Wilson! Share the poetry. Tis the month, after all.