I write a monthly blog to cover the things I have been involved with, events, and the sorts of things that have passed my way: art, music, theatre, books, etc. It has also evolved into a diary of the changing seasons…
What has been happening in my corner of the globe!
The last vestiges of summer sun and a country that is turning autumnal.
I make for the far West: my home region of Penwith, Cornwall.
Spectacular skies here. Gwithian beach – a favourite:
And , Marazion:
But, soon, I am in an airplane and off to the Isles of Scilly:
It is reputed that once upon, England and this land were joined by the lost city of Atlantis. But, the sea rose. Now they are a collection of five large – inhabited – islands and numerous uninhabited islands – some no bigger than large rocks. Some of these were once the home of hermits, monasteries, etc.
I make for St Martins. Its beautiful bay:
I make friends with the local birdlife. Many twitters come here to catch birds on their annual migration to southern climes.
As always, a church.
And, then a view of the Eastern isles on the way back to St Mary’s and eventually Lands End airport:
The next day, it is a storm force….. such is the Atlantic weather in this SW peninsula.
So, next day, it is fine again: I do a tour of the Wells of St. Just.
Time to visit Mousehole and a favourite view:
So, here we are at the Conclusion of the MeM Project. We have our final AAD VII meeting. As always, Kitchen Craft and Lunch is a feature:
I make it to London to see a stage version of Dr. Strangelove:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
This 1964 film by the Director Stanley Kubrick is based on a story of an American General going crazy and ordering the US air force to drop nuclear bombs on Russia/ Soviet Union. Famed for the three roles that Peter Sellers plays in the film: a RAF Officer, the President of the USA and Dr Strangelove – a wheelchair bound German scientist. Essentially a comedy, it still has a chilling message about the possibilities of nuclear war.
Was the stage version worth? Well, yes, it brings a fantastic film to the stage with a few contemporary twists. Steve Cogan plays the three roles that Sellers played – and a further one of the aircraft pilot. Actually, Sellers was down to play that in the film as well until it became too much for him.
That being said, it does not add much to the film, – it is more a homage than a re-imagining.
CD this month – some lively, crazy music from Mexico.
I have also been reading Joseph Azize’s biography of J B Bennett. Pretty copious and comprehensive, whist passing over certain key issues in near silence.
A busy month of travelling and cultural highlights as Summer tips into Autumn.
First, I make it to Venice – a city I always find enchanting. This is for the Venice Biennale: a large international art festival that is staged every two years. Much art, therefore. It is possible to fill five days but managed to bring this down to 3.5! This year, the curator was Brazilian, and chose for his theme: ‘Foreigners Everywhere’. Of course this was an open door for art depicting refugees, immigrants, emigrants, and multicultural contexts.
However, there was also plenty of exploration of identity, strangers to ourselves, etc.
“One is a stranger in a place where one is not recognized, or one does not recognize.”
Venice has to be one of my favourite places. So, time to visit quiet corners.
Also, found the Church that is featured in one of my favourite films: Don’t Look Now – staring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.
A Nic Roeg film – again, a Director I find fascinating – Walkabout, Man Who Fell to Earth, etc.
Key to the film? As one of the first statement: Nothing is as it seems…
Also visit Burano: touristy but a lovely colourful place.
Back home and a chance to visit Belmont House in Lyme Regis. This is the former home of the author John Fowles. A writer of his age, and there was a time when we waited for his next novel like one waited for the next Beatles’ record. This to know their direction: what were they thinking, wearing, etc.
It was built in C18 and the inventor of ‘false stone’ and terracotta lived there : Eleonor Coede. It was certainly worst for wear when Fowles died and has been heavily renovated to the period. Still, it was possible to visit his writing room, the window where his had his desk, his view.
It also has an observatory built by another owner.
Fowles let the garden go wild – was delighted with the animals that lived there, flowers, etc.
Back in London, I attended a new production of Waiting for Godot – by Samuel Becket. I have seen it several times before but really liked this version. Well acted and personable. I saw how almost each exchange is a philosophical statement in itself – to be unpacked. For me, it also became a play about time. The famous line ‘Let’s go – we cannot – we are waiting for Godot’ is there of course. And then the realization that it does not matter that he will not come : they have fulfilled their responsibility and waited for him.
And, more art: this time the Expressionists: an exhibition of the The Blue Rider (early C20)– mostly – at the Tate Modern in London. This included, Kandinsky, Macke, Delauney, Klee and others.
CD of the month: I have been listening to Malipiero String Quartets – beautiful
Reading. The Eye of the Needle has preoccupied me this month: both as an exercise and the book of wisdom.
I was also invited to contribute a story to the World Bank of Stories. I chose The Wolf by the German author Hermann Hesse, whose work has always meant a lot to me.
The Wolf – Hermann Hesse (1907)
Summer Sojourn
Summer in my garden and the bees are busy on my Lavender bush.
Time for the Beach:
This being UK, storms are never far behind though:
Off to Bristol to see Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I and II. It was supposed to be an extravaganza with leading British actor Ian McKellan. Sadly, he fell off of the stage the previous week and was injured. So, his understudy took over. Still, pretty darn good, though:
Bath and some favourite country side of mine:
I went up on Solsbury Hill….
And, so too to the Proms: a concert of Ives, Debussy, Ravel and Tchaikovsky. A good programme in fact with a suitably dramatic conclusion from the latter. I treat myself with a glass in their Champagne Bar.
July 2024 also marked when I joined The Athenaeum Club. Founded in 1824 and situated in London’s Pall Mall, it provides a range of services: Hotel, Restaurant, Talks, Dinners, Library – and in fact, somewhere just to sit and chill out whilst in London. The ‘London Club’ is well known, but this one provides for a membership known for its achievement rather than social contacts. Put it like this, I now share a present and past membership with 51 Nobel Prized Winners. Members include Burnes-Jone, Churchill, Gore Vidal, J G Bennett, and indeed King Charles III.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenaeum_Club,_London
Lammas – the first stirrings of the darkness – and harvest.
In holiday spirit, I have been listening to some 70s ‘Blues Rock’.
And reading Mike Love’s account of being a Beach Boy: another story of a creative groups tearing themselves apart. Shows art happens despite humans, very often rather than because of them.
So, one of their most sublime tracks:
FRENCH ODYSSEY
TOULOUSE
Le Capitole
Where I worked: Gradation LTD, 5, rue Alsace-Lorraine
I used to watch the French demonstrations from the Office on the second floor.
Door still the same!
St Etienne: One of the strangest Cathedrals I have seen
St Sernan: Probably the greatest Roman Cathedral in the world.
Always a good selection of bookshops and books on display:
Toulouse Station: Leaving
SAINTES
The Roman Arch and River
Demonstrations against the extreme Right who threatened to gain a Majority in Parliament.
Nearby Country:
Nearby seaside!
BORDEAUX
The famous Clock and buildings:
Cathedral:
Large Arab culture:
Spectacular fountains:
Liberty!!
Reading:
So, we move into summer.
Wonders in my garden:
Then, I catch a herd of 40 deer in the forest:
Difficult to catch on film.
For once the Aurora Borealis gets as far as my neck of the woods: wonderful colours in the night sky:
A new MeM AAD begins with some 42 participants. We began seven years ago with 8!!
And, so to Cornwall.
It’s a real art week.
Firstly,is their Open Studio week. An opportunity to visit studios, see work in progress and chat with artists and craftspeople. Lots of interesting stuff: like work with textiles and materials:
I also make it to Tate St Ives for two superb exhibitions.
Firstly, a Brazilian artist of magnificent colour and geometric shapes – Beatriz Milhazes Maresias:
Then surprised to see Rothko’s Seagram murals – a special plate in my heart for these. They have followed me through life and I never expected them here. The effect is always the same – stunning in a way of silence.
Then, onto the Penlee in Penzance and a rather fine exhibition on Harold Harvey – unusual amongst Cornish artists in actually being Cornish. Sometimes considered a bit boring but I was fascinated. He spanned the C19 and C20 – so, began with Stanhope Forbes idylls and ended up with Do Proctor contemporaneousness:
I check out the Bernard Leach grave stone to Alfred Wallis, who somehow and inadvertedly began the whole St Ives modernist movement:
It’s also time to go on the hunt for prehistoric sites and the like.
Courtyard roundhouses – only found in Penwith – 2000 years old:
Standing stones steeped in cosmological alignment – 4000 years old:
The Cuckoo stone intersects with many – and is probably the most elegant I have come across.
It seems it has a relation in a nearby field, uncovered by CASPN Chair James Kitto:
I then stay in a real ancestral home: St. Just
Before moving to another – Mousehole:
Home:
And, then finally another: St Buryan – the church and some screen woodwork affected by a woodworking relative – Abendigo Harvey:
I also visit ‘the Lizard’ – specifically Church Cove and St. Wynwalloe Church:
Glimpses of Parc Garland, the mansion like home of the mysterious Pamela Colman Smith – artist, storyteller, and designer of the Rider Waite Tarot cards. One may well wonder how from this she ended up dying in near poverty in an apartment in Bude. The full story is yet to be told:
Photos of my books on sale in a bookshop in Argentina, South America from my partner Pablo Mandel:
Play at the National Theatre: Boys from the Blackstuff – an iconic piece about the destruction of the British working class. Of course, m it also gave us that dramatic legend, Yosser Hughes:
I have been reading Henry Bortoft and a book on Gurdjieff’s movement/ dances/ ballets:
Music? Well, its summer, so one has to reach for the Beach Boys. This time, Brian Wilson’s 2015 CD Pier Pressure.
This is no Wild Honey or Please Let him Run Wild – still less, Country Air, Surf’s Up or Feel Flows. But, hey, its summer with the ‘mignette’ on your arm, and you are cooling down after a day’s roasting on the beach…..
In truth, most pieces pass in this spirit of the ‘endless’ summer dream.
But hey, then “Last Song”!!!!!!
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=7DO1quz7DF4
Some know that I once argued that the Beach Boys’ oeuvre needed to be understood as an articulation of Heideggerian philosophy:
http://www.michaelgrenfell.co.uk/bourdieu/bourdieu-and-the-beach-boys/
The very wet year continued here with a wet and cold spring. There is light at the end of the rainbow however:
And, the view from my garden has light:
Lots happening one way and another:
I follow up my Truffaut retrospective with Jules et Jim. A classic by any standard, and presenting the actress Jeanne Moreau as one of the greatest Femme fatales of all time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5IAYIUKTaI
I do a little painting/ drawing.
Mike art:
Shiva
The Temple Guardian
Off to London – hooray:
I go to see an exhibition on one of the great fashion houses of the 60s / early seventies: Chic and neat and then exotic as well – touches of the Pre-Raphaelites:
Whilst in London, I also take in the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Tate Modern:
My overall sense is that she offered a coherent and important body of work – conceptual, of course, so some effort needs to be made by the viewer to ‘get inside’ her art. Of course, she became famous by marrying John Lennon, which kind of made her a celebrity but somewhat destroyed her seriousness as an artist.
The Great event – Robert and Guitar Craft in Mendoza, Argentina:
Some of the core team from Salta and Ecuador:
My Pomera partner Pablo, takes some of our new publications to the course:
A follow interview/ Q&A on Transcendent Anthropology with Elvira Wepfer:
http://www.michaelgrenfell.co.uk/transcendent-anthropology/
Meanwhile, I am decorating in the house – tools of the trade.
So, a little competition for regular readers of my Blog. The prize is the final copy of the Deluxe version of my book: Guitar Craft: A Brief Introductory Guide to Practice – only 23 signed and numbered copies, the one on offer here is one of three extra copies printed for the personal use of the author.
The question is, What is this? Clue: it is about 2 centimeters long.
Book of the month is The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson. As the cliché goes, I could not put it down. It is an account of his education and entry into the financial city in London as a Trader. One gets an insight into that world, but one also sees into the core of the financial practices which impoverish us all.
His website is here:
https://www.wealtheconomics.org
Gurdjieff Movement of the month is the Second Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoNkuE7imOs
CDs of the month: two very different ones.
First a collection by Manu Katché. Peter Gabriel’s drummer but here showing that he can do a lot, lot more – cool jazz and more up-tempo numbers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyvQDOtfeJI&list=RDEM-1khjk1yvyRBsk5x0bAH2Q&start_radio=1
I have also been listening to Windsongs by Richard Windfield. These are recording of Aeolia Harps: strung instruments that are played by the wind by placing them on hillsides. Magic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du2KOScEUBU
The month ends with Beltane and May Day eve:
So, the spring develops apace:
Time of year for these:
Hot Cross Buns.
Spring Equinox on the 21st: Half-Light/ Half-Darkness.
To Cornwall and my favourite place near Gwithian. I move in to the shack of friends Susie and Russ for a Robinson Crusoe few days. The expanse here is amazing – and the lights!!
I am down to do a Dowsing weekend on the Mesolithic age: in the UK that is about 8 – 10, 000 years BC. At that time, the sea was about 30 metres lower and England was joined to Europe by Doggerland. Basically, the Stone age.
I am amazed at some of the finds: this is a crude tool but look at its fine workings:
Hunter gathering nomads moving to settlements at the end of this period.
I also do some art whilst in Cornwall. Firstly, Outi Pieski – a Sami artists working in the traditions of hand crafts in her tradition. Quite Shamanistic.
Rare to see some work from Pamela Colman Smith exhibited as well: one of my ‘spiritual’ painters:
Nice to be back in the Tate St Ives:
A little more local was Martina Thomas who painted locally in a fauve style: obviously inspired by Miro and Van Gogh:
And, then back to St Hilary:
Why is this Church filled with paintings from the cream of early C20 British Modernist?
Why did Mary Butts, the Great Grand-daughter of Thomas Butts – one of William Blake’s patrons – make a journey over to the Church on Sundays from Sennen Cove?
What has it to do with mining and fishing?
What is the connection to the BBC and nativity plays?
And, the connection with the Primitive Methodist Chapel in St Ives High Street?
Why was the Church attacked by a band of protestants in the 1930s? Wielding sledge hammers and cutters? Altars were broken, paintings torn down.
Why did the Vicar get imprisoned in the tower? Apparently, parishioners kneeled with candles along the track from the Church door singing hymns as he was released with the Eucharist.
If you do not know the answer to these questions, you need to read my article:
‘The Savage Salvation of St Hilary’.
Cornwall’s very own Rennes-le-Chateau.
On the way back, I visit one of my favourite churches in Temple, with its Knights cravings:
My friend from Toulouse days, sends me further photos:
Yes, folks, this wamm me! A little tense in those days!
Quite a lot of film and culture this month:
An amazing film by Wim Wenders on Anselm Kiefer. I have always been a bit taken back by the sheer scale and scope of his work. But, this film converted me.
An amazing body of paintings and sculpture – with even incidental stamenet here and there on the like of Heidegger and how his philosophy ate away his brain:
By implications, I have been re-reading the poems of Paul Celan:
Also, a lovely book about breathing and breath:
Listening to the amazing String Quartets of Robert Simpson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXwi79lMYE8
25th March: the 39th anniversary of Guitar Craft.
Here are some live video recordings of recent GC associated work with Musica en Moviemiento in Argentina.
http://www.michaelgrenfell.co.uk/musica-en-moviemiento-live/
A new feature, ‘Movement of the Month’: the First Obligatory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbL9-xwj2MY&t=14s
Well, February, and still it rains. We are told that it has been a warm month – one of the warmest – but oh the damp!
People are scared the water table is rising where I live and homes will be flooded. Still, there are those who deny climate change. Admittedly, it is probably too late now to do much about it. Still, we drive on….
Nevertheless, there are signs of spring!!! The birds are chirping and bulbs are appearing:
Notice the wet puddles though!
I reconvene at work: a ‘post-modern’ building:
I do not normally post photos of other here. However, two noticeable events this month: meeting up with an old student friend – Richard – from my time in Toulouse, France – many years ago. He saved my bacon. He saved my bacon. Because I was not officially a student, I had to rent a private studio. I had no money even though I worked for the Aérospatiale, and no kitchen. The room was damp – literally, water coming down the walls, and I heard rats scurrying at night. No heating or sheets on the bed either. I realised in those days how ‘bourgeois’ I was. Despite all this, the thing that bugged me most was having no hairdryer!!
Anyway, my friend used to sell me meal tickets to eat in the University refectory. They had two meals a day and only needed one. Pretty good for a few French francs – three courses of a hot dish, starter and dessert. The French way!
He also suffered my endless talk about French history and philosophy. I was very intellectual in those days!!
Tywi also came to work with me. We did a lot in one day!!
Continuing the French theme…
It being an ‘indoors’ time, I had a bit of a French cinema fest; namely, the Antoine Doinel series from the French film Director François Truffaut. They begin with 400 Coups (1958), starring the then child actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. Great film in black and white with historic shots of Paris at a time of transition. Antoine is a bit of a wayward boy constantly getting into trouble with his parents and school. Yet, seems prone to bad luck: for example, he steals a typewriter but then gets caught when he is talking it back. A great film that announced Truffaut as a leader in the new wave of French cinema:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i89oN8v7RdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVOlu8WP1Q
The next film – Baisers Volés (1968) – catches up with Antoine again when he is now in his 20s and follows him still somewhat mystified by adult life and the opposite sex. My favourite film of the series, with Paris of the day again starring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9d99YymOxk&t=28s
1970 and Antoine is now married but still crazy – Domicile Conjugal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9gGZJdR3yg&t=15s
Finally, in L’Amour en Fuite (1979), he is divorcing his wife. Still confused, however, with his life coming back to haunt him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b-RgvCHQww
The series tells a tale of the troubles of fitting in and finding a stable life. Léaud was the perfect actor to convey this. In fact, he became something of an unofficial adopted son of Truffaut. When the latter died, he went off the rails. Léaud did play other parts but never ever lived down being ‘Antoine’.
Oh, these days of wine and roses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVh3jPtGKjQ
My business partner in Argentina getting the Spanish version of my Guitar Craft book about.
I have been reading the new collection of poetry by David Harsent:
I also picked up a new reprint from the J G Bennett group. The title says it all:
I have also been listening to the romantic sounds of Franz Schmidt thanks to GC Brother Ugo Adam from La Platta, Argentina drawing my attention to him:
Investigating why I have not heard of him, I read that he is the ‘composer that history forgot’. The reasons do not seem to be justified. Certainly worth unearthing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schmidt_(composer)
My return from South America was a shock to the system: like a 30 degrees drop in temperature for a start!!
Winter scenes everywhere:
Even the Dowsing Group have retreated to online Zoom meetings – weather too bad to follow Leylines:
Culture nights especially good:
A highly interpreted account of Shakespeare Othello, which stressed the racist aspect of the way our protagonist is set up.
Then, Top Hat – a film from all the way back to 1935: almost 90 years. Featuring the exquisite Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, legendary dance sequences/ costumes, and the marvelous music of Irving Berlin – someone who incidentally could neither read nor write music!!
January is a funny month. Days of darkness when one’s morale is low; other days where the light breaks through.
Even my mentor William Blake once wrote in his notebook: ‘1807, 20 January, between two and seven in the evening – Despair!’ One of the few personal comments made by Blake.
25th January was also Burns night after the famous Scottish writer. The traditional fare is Haggis, Neaps and Tatties – basically, Haggis with mashed swede and potato – and lots of gravy! And a whiskey of course:
Exhibition in London of the art of Dan Van Vliet – better known as the rock legend Captain Beefheart – one of the true originals and author of the extraordinary Trout Mask Replica record!! Amongst others….
Here’s a glimpse – thank you Steve Lofkin for the photos.
Meanwhile – Storms – Icha and Jocelyn. Rain is never far away these days – a bit like in the Blade Runner films = highly recommended.
31st January and the eve of Imbolc, St Brigid’s Day, Candlemass. Time to take down the last of the Christmas decorations. The first stirrings of the light, and a few flowers peek through the winter beds:
I make for the sea:
Beach art:
Seaside art:
The tourists have departed. This café is normally full!
Lots of music this month. Firstly digesting Peter Gabriel’s new collection the first for 20 years or so – i/o !!. Actually, this was not totally new as he has been releasing tracks one by one over the course of last year – one per month. But, now is the time to digest them in their entirety; individually, set next to each other and as a group.
One has to say, he has honored himself in terms of creating music of a man in his 70s, expressing concerns that are pressing now.
Each piece by him is always worth careful attention to detail. He has moved away from lots of Global inlays in his music (although still present) and accented orchestra and choir. I found myself fixated on various pieces across the month. The upbeat Panopticom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMJGV7GWC5I
And, the terribly introspective So much: a song about mortality – ‘only so much to be done’. Always interesting to listen to his take on the songs. Here is So Much and his account of its creation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urEbRC3PSY4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KJU9zZMzGs
Also, great to get the latest from Madness – C’est la vie : an essentially Pop/ Ska band that have evolved into creating urban folk operas!!
The introspective mood was also enhanced by my reading Ian McEwan’s Lessons. A strange, elegiac book: the story of one boy’s/ man’s life. It contains a series of tableau – for example, his childhood, school, parents, work, etc.. But the background to all this are events we who lived through the second half of the 20th Century would recognize: Suez, Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy assassination, Chernobyl, Iraq wars, Thatcher, Miners strike, Berlin Wall, Brexit, etc., etc. Against this there is aspiration, fear, abuse, misunderstanding, love – just a child’s perplexity of the adult world.
McEwan is always an enigmatic write and, sometimes, it is not sure if the main character is telling the truth or fantasizing. But, again, as with Gabriel, there is something of the mood of loss of innocence of a post-second world war generation – and with it modernist itself. So, a reflective, thought-provoking book.