If my heart
was enough
I'd reel
you in
© Angela Jooste
Nobody Really Cares...
Love this—thanks Courtney Barnett!
Paris
Jimi Hendrix: “ When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know Peace.”
Imagine Peace by Yoko Ono
Image: Yoko Ono's instagram message 15/11.15
Peace and love—we need them like air...
For Paris
For Paris—thoughts, prayers and love
Isobelle Carmody: on finishing the Obernewtyn journey
I've been wondering how Isobelle Carmody must have felt finishing the last Obernewtyn Chronicles book, The Red Queen—a 30 year epic writing journey! In an interview with The Guardian to mark the release of the book, Carmody reveals she wrote The Red Queen while staying at a friend's place, and when she finished, she packed her things and took a bus and train journey home:
“I arrived home in the night and it felt very symbolic, that journey. It was a lovely feeling of blissful separation, of floating away into the future.”
The Red Queen
FInally!!! The last of the Obernewtyn Chronicles has been released—The Red Queen. And it's a doorstop! I'm very excited to see how the journey ends, and also slightly daunted at the 1,100+ page length. I came late to reading this series (read Obernewtyn a few years ago), so I can't imagine how it must feel for readers who have been there from when the first book was released in 1987!!!! Truly epic and mind boggling.
A Yoshitomo Nara Day
Kind of sleepy, kind of dreamy...
evolution
Evolution...huh!!!! Stencil work near Melbourne University (no coincidence...).
The Assassin
Just saw the movie The Assassin—haunting, beautiful, visually stunning—a quiet heartbreak permeates the film, never heavy, but powerful. A film about love, honour, dignity and the choice to follow one's own sense of what's right. To find one's own path.
Grimes/Aristophanes: Scream
For anyone with the urge to rip free a horror-flick worthy howl—Grimes and Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes' song Scream, from Grimes' soon to be released album Art Angels is kinda perfect. Been listening to it quite a bit lately—yep—says a lot for my current headspace!
PJ Harvey: songwriter & poet
Poetry and song are entwined.
Historically the Greeks had two types of poetry: epic poetry such as Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, and lyric poetry which was a song accompanied by a lyre.
Ballads have been sung since the Middle Ages and are simply ‘story songs’, passed on from singer to singer. The ‘ballad stanza’ is a common verse structure (the quatrain or four-lines of alternating rhyme) present in both poetry and song lyrics. Interestingly, many of Emily Dickinson’s poems are in ballad form, although her influence is said to be that of the hymn with its similar meter.
Lyrics and music are bound by rhythm—beats. Rhythm and movement go hand in hand, hence the notion of “measure” or “meter” in poetry.
Some argue for a distinction between songs and poetry, with an emphasis on poetry being printed and self-contained as an internal dialogue, while songs require voice and performance to be fully realised. Bob Dylan is often called a poet, but he’s remarked: “Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem.” Yet it can be said that the roots, structure and purpose of both forms seem inextricably connected.
Leonard Cohen wrote poems before writing songs, navigating the genres of fiction, songwriting and poetry throughout his career, much like Patti Smith who doesn’t see much difference between songs and poetry. Many songwriters quote poets as inspiration, and many have written poetry distinct from their songwriting.
So, it’s not much of a surprise that the wonderful songwriter PJ Harvey also writes poetry.
Harvey is about to release her first book of poetry, The Hollow and the Hand. She wanted to explore the people and places of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington, so between 2011 and 2014, she went on a series of journeys collaborating with friend, Seamus Murphy, who took photographs to accompany her poems. Previously the two collaborated on Harvey’s album Let England Shake, with Murphy taking photographs and producing 12 short films.
Here is PJ Harvey’s poem The Hand:
Baby Guerrilla
Image: street art by Baby Guerrilla, Melbourne
Another of my favourite Melbourne street artists: Baby Guerrilla. Her floating, flying people are gorgeous to come across unexpectedly.
On Baby Guerrilla's website she describes her street art saying:
'“My mission is to liberate art from just the gallery or the picture frame and make it accessible to everyone. I love the idea of setting art free, setting our souls free to dream and imagine and go floating across a wall…I see drawing on walls as a beautiful challenge…the challenge of space and constraints. Defying gravity, dancing with gravity. The love affair continues…”
Check out her work here: http://babyguerrilla.com/street-art
Salvador Dali & Alice Cooper
Artwork: Salvador Dali, Hologram: First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain (1973)
A pretty wild, and yet strangely cool pair—Salvador Dali and Alice Cooper.
In a recent interview in The Guardian, Alice Cooper tells this amusing tale when asked what was it like working with Dali, who created the bizarre (and appropriate), Hologram: First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain (1973):
“He’d say one word in Portuguese, one word in French, then one word in Italian, as well as some weird surrealistic language. We worked with him for three days then afterwards, at a press conference, a journalist asked me the same thing. I told them: ‘It was great, but I didn’t understand a word he said!’ Then Dalí goes: ‘Perfect! Confusion is the greatest form of communication!” And I look at him and I go: ‘You speak ENGLISH? After three days of BABBLING?’”
Salvador Dali and Alice Cooper—like two worlds colliding!
All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun
It's a beautiful spring day, so here's something sublime.
This song by Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack) has been kicking around the internet for awhile. First time I heard it—loved it! Fraser isn't too happy that it's out there because it's not finished, but despite that, it's something special.
Two of the most gorgeous voices imaginable.
Light the Dark
Image from one of this week's 'Light the Dark' candlelight vigils held around Australia, protesting Australian immigration policies and showing support for refugees worldwide:
We can always do more. Check out the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for campaigns, services and how to be involved: http://www.asrc.org.au
be free
Image: Street art by be free, Melbourne
I love finding work done by Melbourne street artist, be free (@befreeart). I smile every time I see them.
St Vincent & noisemakers
Image: St Vincent at Roots Picnic, Philadelphia, photo by Colin Kerrigan
Musician St Vincent (Annie Clark) made a great comment in Mojo magazine (August 2015) about playing her guitar:
“I feel kind of irreverent about the function of guitar in song. I've never been that interested in just chords that strum. I'd rather it be a beast or a monster or a ballerina, and have things feel kinda bubbling and lava lamp-style rather than static. It's nice to just look at things as noisemakers.”
The Bird King
Recently, I was flipping through Shaun Tan's book of sketches The Bird King looking for inspiration. Namely, a character for a story I've been writing has this thing about illustrating and he ends up pasting his drawings on street walls. Also, I was looking at Tan's sketches because I simply love his work.
Inspiration is a tricky thing, and Tan makes some great comments about it in his introduction—about where he gets ideas for his work. Then there is the challenge of facing a blank piece of paper with no idea what to do. To get past the horrid “block”, Tan just starts drawing. And the outcome may or may not become part of a book, animation or finished artwork.
It's similar to writing. Sometimes the best thing to do is just write. It's the Nike philosophy of “just do it”. Write without any sense of the end result. It's all about process and flexing those muscles—imagination, the act of creating and then actually getting something finished!
The first Shaun Tan book I came across was The Red Tree. I was immediately entranced by the images and the simplicity of the words. Tan captured the essence of the girl's loneliness; her sadness and sense of not fitting in. And the wonderful unfurling of hope! Since then I've avidly engaged with his other work, but I keep returning to The Bird King.
Tan speaks of the unselfconscious nature of these small sketches, how perhaps they capture a spontaneity that more polished work lacks. I wholeheartedly agree with this, yet I think I keep coming back to this book because it gives me some insight into his creative process. And when you're looking for inspiration, seeing someone else's process can be exactly what's needed.
At the end of the introduction, Tan comments on these sketches as evidence of the creative process by saying:
“There are few better expressions of the impulse to draw, an instinct that lingers from childhood, with all its absurdist daydreaming and playful seriousness.”
And looking at Tan's work is akin to letting the imagination out to play.
leaf graffiti
Leaf graffiti, Collins St...