I was given an unexpected early birthday present last
week.It had been tied up in a gold ribbon and tucked away in a corner in the local charity shop.Honestly, when Mr SDS pulled it out of the
tatty recycled Sainsbury’s bag and I laid eyes on its crumpled edges and yellow
age spots (it happens to the best of us)… well, the neighbours would have been within their rights to complain
about the noise.
Oohh! Ahh!
That was just at first sight.Once I’d snipped off the ribbon and excitedly delved
into the contents,things just got
better and better.
See if you agree...
It was a bundle of familiar children's comics from the late '60s.
As if it wasn't about as good as it gets to include my favourite Pogles, there were The Herbs too...
...and things just carried on getting better with every turn of every page... Oh Bizzy Lizzy, I wanted to be you.
Better and better! I was in love with Joe. I've only ever met one other person who remembers him, though. Fab illustrations. Ooh!
Ooh ahh...
Ahh!
And then there's this... But, aged six, I liked him so much, he was an artist and an animal lover and he could have taught me to swim, I wanted him to be my Dad. I know, I know.
Does that mean I can take the day off to celebrate? Oh if only! I won’t be hanging out the
bunting and baking a special cake because I’m far too busy freelancing.But still, time for a quick shout-out to all my fellow
freelancers and perhaps we can blow our own trumpets for a brief moment (especially if you're a freelance trumpeter.) Because freelancing is
about so much more than what you actually freelance at.
Me, I’m a full-time freelance illustrator but in order to provide what clients pay me for I also have to be my own unsalaried Bookkeeper / Materials Buyer / Mail Clerk / Credit Controller / IT Manager / Packer / Secretary / Head of PR, Customer Service and Personal Development / Administrator / Building Maintenance Manager, and Office Cleaner. And Boss. (I might have to sack the Cleaner...)
There are of course far harder and much more important/responsible jobs but ultimately it's immensely satisfying to know that you've done it all on your own, in spite of the inevitable precariousness of a fluctuating income and those frequent 7-day working weeks. Plus there's no commuting! So to my fellow freelancers (6% of UK workers) and your devoted self-reliance, whatever your field: toot toot!
Austin Osman Spare.What a name!Sounds like a
classic car part. Is/was he real?What is/was he famous for?Hey – STOP what you’re doing– step away from your phone!Don’t go looking it up
on Google or any other search engine.Because ‘Google’ and ‘search engines’ don’t exist.The internet does not exist.Home computers are no more than futuristic
fantasies.You use typewriters and a big plastic phone with a curly lead, that plugs into the wall. You have no way of finding out anything at all about a character you’ve
never heard of before, other than asking around your more cultured friends.
“Ever heard of this
guy? He’s featured in this song - Austin Osman Spare.”
“No, sorry.Can’t
help you there.”
Or you could try looking him up in the town library, home to
thousands of hardback books with little ticket envelopes stuck to their title
pages, but where would you even begin? All you know is that Austin Osman Spare apparently
“painted daydreams”.He also “painted
nightmares” if those lyrics you made a note of are to be believed.Do you go to the section on Art? - Dewey
Decimal classification somewhere round the 700 mark? – peruse the spines of dozens
of oversize tomes on the subject in the hope that one might mention him, even
if only briefly.It might at least give you a starting point. You’ll need your sandwiches with you and a
flask of coffee… you’re in for the long haul... running your finger down the
tiny index listings in the back pages until your vision blurs into
kaleidoscopic patterns. And even then
your search could be utterly fruitless; Austin Osman Spare might not even be
real.
We just had to suck it up once upon a time, safe in
the knowledge of our lack of knowledge, accepting of the fact that there
were somefacts we’d never find, at
least not until the internet was invented one day in the future by which time we had probably forgotten what it was we wanted to know anyway. And of course even that was a fact we couldn’t know. It was back in the era of typewriters and curly leads when I first heard a song entitled 'Austin Osman Spare' and was intrigued by the person written about in the lyrics, yet unable to discover a single thing about
him because of all the above.We take so
much for granted now.
The song was by the Bulldog Breed, a British band who were sort of part psych / part pop / part prog I suppose, and who were around in the late sixties – a musical period I was
delving into nearly twenty years after the event, having been too young first time round - but only much much later was I able to find
out that Austin Osman Spare was indeed a real person. I do like this song with its phased vocals and psychedelic vibe.
As for Austin, he was an artist and occultist, best known for his dark and often sexual
imagery and his figurative linework,not
dissimilar to the work of Aubrey Beardsley (I really like it). He was interested in Black
Magic and a friend and associate of Aleister Crowley. Born in the late 1800s, he lived until 1956. Type
his name into your favourite search engine and pages and pages about him and his pictures appear.
The artist
The art
The song
Suddenly I find myself doubting all that I have written
above about not knowing who he was for years. How can there ever have been a
time when you couldn’t find something out immediately?You hear a name, you don’t know who it is, you look it up online, your question
is answered along with dozens of other questions you didn't even ask and you move on, whilst those oversize art books in the town library quietly gather dust.
I guess someone somewhere, who wasn't even born in the '80s when I first came across Mr Spare, might be doing that right now
after hearing a Bowie song for the first time.
“Every heard of this guy? He’s featured in this song – Andy Warhol."
"No, sorry. Can't help you there. Have you Googled him?"
Maybe it’s weird, but I’ve developed a bit of a thing for police
sirens. I know it’s not a sound you
really want to hear most of the time but I can’t help finding it very exciting.It must just be tapping into something deep,
an association with danger and illicit thrills. It conjures up flashing lights and cityscapes, neon signs, speed, edginess, exhilaration, a rush of blood and a racing
heart. That must be it….
There are a good few songs with sirens in that I like
too.The Clash’s ‘White Riot’, of
course, and the Equals ‘Police On My Back’ spring to mind, but both are from the
time before we here in the UK replaced our rather reserved ‘nee naw’ sirens with the far more rousing American
style wailing ones.It’s those wailing sounds that really get me now though, especially when they speed up. Ohh! This would explain why a song by Jungle has
become a bit of a personal indulgence, because whenever I want that little sonic thrill, something to make my eyes flash and
my skin tingle, I no longer need to go out and smash the window of the local jewellers. I can just listen to The Heat and tune my ears into the
siren in the background instead.Ah, if only it was much higher in the
mix and went on for longer!
What’s this – I haven’t blogged for weeks and then when I do
it’s about lipstick?We’re living in shitty times and I was so tempted to just post a picture
of Nigel Farage with the title Oh Fuck today but I feel a strange, possibly
slightly deranged, need to write about the waxy stubs I occasionally smear across my lips instead. Is it symptomatic perhaps? The Bet Lynch form of therapy: “There’s nowt a bit of lippy couldn’t solve”.(Oh, if only.)
Anyway, I do like to pop on a little bit of lippy when I go out.I’ve a
nice orangey-red one right now.I choose lipstick purely by the colours I think will suit me, like a
pink that goes with my ears or a blood red that matches the veins in my
eyes, that kind of thing.
There’s no need to give each shade its own
personal name as far as I’m concerned, that’s not a selling point.I might vaguely see the labels on the rack
when I’m buying thembut they don't really register; they’re generally names derived from flowers or French words or fruits (strawberry,
cherry, not so much kumquat). Yesterday I realised that this orangey-red one I’m
currently into could be called anything from Toxic Rust to Prickly Rash for
all I know - so for some reason I decided to find out
for sure and actually read the label. I appreciate this isn't the mind-blowing info anyone else will be gagging to hear but if you've read this far then you may as well hang about for the answer.... It's called Man Hunt!I know, it's so 1972!
I am of course strictly anti-hunting for a start.... the only things I've ever hunted have been words and, in the past, some rare records and a house. And as for the supposition that my quarry would be a man rather than any other variety of human...well, exactly - how very retro! (It would
be, but one should never assume, should one?)
Seems to me someone’s having a joyous time in whatever department it is
that comes up with these less flowery names. I want to work there. Ah, imagine the whiteboards in the meetings. It’s
like those names they call house paints, especially from brands known for going beyond the realms of Antique Cream with titles such as Elephant’s
Breath, Arsenic, Earthworm, Sulking Room Pink, Down Pipe. (Only one of those five isn't a real Farrow & Ball shade. Can you guess which one?)
Whatever, I do rather like my
lipstick’s non-politically-correct kitschy vibe, and I can’t help imagining an equally
non-politically-correct 1970s advert for it featuring Valerie Leon and an E-type Jag - but I just don’t think the manufacturer's intended market for a lipstick they call Man Hunt is women like me who are old enough to remember both...
I was so tempted to call this post ‘Just Another Phallic
Monday’… but that might have suggested it was going to be the start of a new
series and I’m not sure if I could, erm, keep it up. However I can’t resist mentioning this once because it's tickled me...
I had coffee with a friend the
other day who is not long back from a fantastic trip to Bhutan. I know very little about Bhutan, but it
sounds like a fascinating, peaceful and unusual place. Talking to my friend is always an education when it comes to travel. I enjoyed looking at his photos of the dramatic mountainous
scenery, people in national costume, the beautiful wildlife, and then he
explained how there was so much decorative art everywhere, intricate carvings
and detailed embellishment in the architecture, etc. – all the things you might perhaps expect from a
remote kingdom deep in the Himalayas.
What I hadn't expected, though, was to hear about the proliferation of
imagery of a particular fertility symbol which here in the West we tend only
to see scrawled on public toilet walls and concrete underpasses by less accomplished artists before being hurriedly removed by the authorities…. In Bhutan, however, it is normal to have it painted with great skill and finesse on the outside
of your house, without embarrassment or censure, to bring good luck and protection.
I have to say, I do rather like the way they embrace it! But I don't think my local council would approve if I did the same.
I’ve walked up this pathway a thousand times, I’ve photographed
the trees before: their mistletoe baubles, pollarded boughs, the shards of
trunks struck by lightning – I’ve even shared them on these pages.But every time I walk this way I swear I see
something different.Once it seemed to
be a ghostly shape emerging from the mist.Another time, a leaf was magically suspended in mid-air, twirling and
spinning for ages without visible means of support until I realised it must be hanging
from the finest thread of spider’s silk.This is the place just to observe and when you do, you simply never know
what you’ll find.
And that’s how, as I walked up there a couple of days ago, I
came across the devil.
Although distant, he caught my eye immediately.Why haven’t I seen him here before?I can only assume he is also a shape-shifter,
his form ever changing as the wind and the rain and the sun sculpt his features
each week, each month.But the moment I
saw him, I recognized him, from this:
19th Century illustration
Well, actually, more from this:
My photo below doesn’t do him justice but, believe me, he had
perfect white eyes, small dark horns and the bulbous hindquarters of the
Sabbatic goat. And then there's that whip - the way he was wielding that
whip!
I walked around him very cautiously, and came home with my soul intact. Dare I go up there again tomorrow and see what has become of
him, though?Perhaps by then he will have
changed form once more, and all I’ll find is benign old broken tree stump
sprouting a long, thin branch.
I loved it so much I tuned in to i-Player and watched it all
the way through twice in less than a week, and now I’ve ordered the DVD too. If that isn’t a reason to pull on my patent
lace-up blogging boots and finally write something here again then I don’t know
what is.
It’s the film Arcadia.
Did you see it? I missed it on
BBC Four when it aired a few weeks ago but thanks to the spot-on recommendation
from a good friend who has the measure of my tastes, I turned out the lights, settled
back into my chair at my desk under the stairs (the suitably quirky and shadowy
cubbyhole from which these posts emanate) and treated myself to it on my PC. By the eerie blue glow of the modem I let it
take me into its part-dream, part-real landscape – one inhabited by the monochrome
ghosts of our distant past and the colourful eccentrics of our more recent one,
a place that could only be Britain. Oh I loved it. It’s so far up my street it’s in the front
door and helping itself to tea and biscuits.
I didn’t really know what to expect; none of the reviews I’d
read beforehand could really give me an accurate insight, and so I realise I probably can't give one here either. Perhaps that’s part of the beauty of this film– its
inability to be easily categorized. I
was trying to persuade Mr SDS to watch it with me the second time and found
myself struggling to answer his queries.
“What’s it about?” he asked. I couldn’t explain that one
easily. The British countryside? Nostalgia?
Nature? The changing
seasons? Life and death? Folklore?
Any one of those themes would have put him off, and all were too simplistic, so I had to choose my
words carefully.
Arcadiais about all of those things, but in a glorious, eccentric mash-up. It’s a collage of existing footage, seemingly quite random and yet crafted in such a way as to deliver an unspoken narrative about
past, present and future. It’s arty, but
not arty-farty. And it taps into
something that I can imagine only those of us who were brought up in Britain
could really, truly get, if you know
what I mean. That could sound worryingly
jingoistic; in these horrible times of racism, the rise of the Far Right and Brexit madness I’m almost
afraid to mention ‘Britishness’ as a thing – it’s feels almost shameful. But this film somehow gets to that ‘quintessential’
stuff we all recognise, without passing judgement – an innate identity we can’t
help but have because of our experience. It’s the Britain of BFI Public Information
films, Nationwide, maypoles, Alice In Wonderland, foxhunting, the North/South
divide, the Wicker Man, Stonehenge, punk. Mystical,
prosaic, carefree, dark, beautiful and brutal - all these contrasting things and more. Actually I was quite surprised to find that
its creator,the Scottish film-maker Paul Wright, is only 37, because it’d be easy to presume it came
from the experience of someone with a few more years under their belt. (I’m thinking: my age!) I was also put in mind
of Julien Temple’s style of montage, which I’ve always enjoyed in his
documentary films such as The Filth and
The Fury and Oil City Confidential –
his characterful way of peppering his work with odd little archive clips.
At least one thing I could tell Mr SDS was that within the first five minutes we'd see some black-and-white footage of the village just up the road from us, where cows were wandering through the deserted main street and where happy-faced women waved to each other across the road from their cottage windows. Like most of the film, there is something deep and dreamlike in this sense of familiarity now so warped by the passing of time. There might even be something from your neck of the woods - if you check out this BFI page for it, you can access the sources from which the clips were taken and it's a fascinating selection - I was deeply side-tracked by this later so be warned...
Enhancing it all too is a rather brilliant soundtrack which
comes courtesy of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory and folk
singer Anne Briggs.
Here's a sample of the music to whet your appetite.
Anyway, what am I doing, taking up your time reading this waffle when you could be watching it?! There’s only 7 days left on i-Player.
