David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


18 February 2018

Rage, rage, rage




On Rage last night, 
Billy and Zach of Hockey Dad included in their beaut selection Ariel Pink's 
'Dayzed Inn Daydreams'. It's a favourite here, too. 



Clip follows atypical senior citizen through life in Los Angeles

Ariel Pink has always obsessed over the afterlife of Seventies rock, beginning his career with a handful of home-recorded LPs that sounded like lo-fi transmissions arriving 30 years behind schedule. In the video for his new "Dayzed Inn Daydreams," the singer attempts visualizes this effect: Over the clip's five-and-a-half minutes, he shows an aging musician – part glam and part punk – ride the bus, shoot pool, visit a nursing home and perform onstage. At the end, the character hands a cigarette to and briefly chats with a girl named Angel.

Director Grant Singer went as far as to cast an actual aging musician – the former frontman of the L.A. band the Mau-Mau's – for the part. "The video is the story of a man, played by Rick Wilder, who was once the frontman of a band that existed decades ago," the photographer and filmmaker tells Rolling Stone. "Through a series of scenes depicting his everyday life, we tell his story."
 
- Nick Murray/Rolling Stone, January 26, 2015


Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


- Dylan Thomas


Theatre of the Actors of Regard 
Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, but commonly referred to as The Night Watch (De Nachtwacht), is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn. It is prominently displayed in the Rijksmuseum as the best known painting in its collection. 

Overnight, as the Rage Watch slept, Matrix Mitch sent from Rotterdam this poem by Seamus Heaney, from his 1991 volume 'Seeing Things'.

The visible sea at a distance from the shore
Or beyond the anchoring grounds 
Was called the offing.

The emptier it stood, the more compelled
The eye that scanned it.
But once you turned your back on it, your back

Was suddenly all eyes like Argus's.
Then, when you'd look again, the offing felt
Untrespassed still, and yet somehow vacated

As if a lambent troop that exercised 
On the borders of your vision had withdrawn
Behind the skyline to manoeuvre and regroup.


After that, over a late breakfast, comes a tribute on Compass (ABC.TV) to another Irish "searcher for truth", as Peter O'Neill is described on his tombstone. 


O'Neill in abode, un-armoured :


 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something... 
         
 LOGOS/HA HA