Christmas Art Review!!
Jonathan Jones is attempting to disappear up his fundament in this piece in the paper today .
here's him taking about a Christmas Tree by Tactita Dean.
Unpretentious, melancholy, exact, Dean's Christmas tree lightly brushes against themes of transience, reality and truth that are at the heart of her work
Ms Dean's artistic breakthrough is lighting it with candles, which sounds really nice but the likes of Jones do her no favours with nonsense like this. Surely you can say you just like a Christmas tree without too much guff.
Those pesky artists are at it re-imagining the nativity elsewhere in the paper (as they do) Mr Parr is back on form with his and there's some others including John Squire from T'Roses.
All well and good but if you want the Christmas story interpreted look no further than Family BLTP's latest Auteur Our W. The boy's really got something he just disappears to his room to make these film on his playstation (which is very cool). Look out for the tantrum from king Herod played of course by a robot!
On the grass a Turkish family were playing a young girl (8?) and her older brother were kicking about a football. She was wearing a cycling helmet and inline skates (and dressed in the hues of bad pick ‘n’ mix: flump pink blending into fruit salad orange and then sourz apple green and back to pink). The girl’s skates were aiding her in the latest of clattering tackles, it was completely guileless and her brother (controversially in a Man U top and Arsenal tracky bottoms) was taking it in good heart, hopping around one-leggedly holding his bruised shin making mock howls and laughing his sister giggling away. When he had the ball, he could easily nutmeg or sell her a dummy but every so he would let her win the ball back. Eventually the ball spun my way and for a change I managed not to slice it into the hedge and it rolled back to them and they cheerily thanked me.
The sun was now barely over the top of the new flats and the kid’s mum rounded them up and they wandered off in the lengthening shadows. I hung around a little while longer before the heat of the weak sunlight on my face was defeated by the chill of the stone bench beneath me.
I’m fairly sure all the faff and expense of Christmas is worth it just to ensure the sun comes back every spring!!
Tha’s a reet spinner thee aka Not just lies these are M&S lies.... Listening to the radio this morning, at the half hour up popped the sports news and the discussion turned to the English crickets team’s tour of Oz and look who popped up to comment on our travails, Sir Michael Parkinson.
No big surprise there Parky’s been using the same 5 anecdotes to talk about sport for most of his career. But here’s the thing t’old MP is sunning himself down under and yet and yet before Christmas he was on the TV all the time telling us about the hilarious argument he and their lass were having about what would be on’t t’table chez Parky come Dec 25th. And yet he wasn’t as He and Mary would like us to believe sat in some prefab pensioners bungalow in Stairfoot or Wombwell blanket on their knees sharing a M&S turkey crown dinner for 2 and some mince pies with some squirty cream on top on a tray in front of the popping gas fire watching the horrors unfold on ‘stenders. Nor was He even sat next to the inglenook in his top end gastro pub in Berkshire waiting for the petit fours to come around. No Mr “we were having a reet to do about the smoke salmon starters in Mark’s wet fish section t’other day” Parkinson was sunning himself in Ramsay St. grazing on Barramundi and prawns!
If we can’t trust adverts what can we trust, you’ll be telling me next that Andi Macdowell doesn’t use 10 quid bottles of hair dye next.
Home Fires Me, Dad said that the recycling bin was full or was it something about them not taking shiny paper but anyway we ended up having a fire. I think maybe we just like having them, Christmas and ativism going to together like cold turkey and helmans.
Anyway this all struck a chord and I fished out this cartoon by the majestic Giles. I think my only resolution for the coming year is to post the odd scan from my battered 1957 annual some of the pictures are horribly up to date, some are just wonderfully drawn.
I couldn't find this particular cartoon on the giles site but have a look there's loads to browse through.
Ps. In our case we did wait until the nieces and nephews were out before burning Christmas.
So what have we learnt over Christmas? Things some fancy dan London type heard on’t bus “Tha eats like a reet soup dragon thee!”
“Duz tha see that drive next t’shop, that’s were Our Carol had a slash after town on’t Christmas Eve she were that leathered stoopid cow almost fell ova in it, I almost piss me sen laughin’.”
Modern Education update: That it’s possible to win “Reception citizen of the week” at Primary school nowadays, Good work R! That Ben 10 exists and that he has a watch that turns him into a monster.
Christmas Hamper Update: That’s the world’s a better place for their being a vast variety of Piccalilly That Birkinshaw’s (from Map) still make the best pork pies in the world. That everyone says they like Bounties but nobody picks them out of box of Celebrations willingly.
Arts & Culture: That Harold Pinter plays wouldn’t have had such long silences in them if he’d ever been for dinner at our house. You should always play Morrissey of St Stephens day
And this one is from Donna in Texas...... Well, hows things? It's foggy and dark here in Yorkshire, the rest of the house is pleasantly filled with sleeping reliatives. Mooching around as is my want, I've just had a very pleasant late present; logging on to fiddle with some pictures I took my daily peak at how my little film was doing on youface and it's passed the pleasing figure of 50,000 hits.
Now I was pleased when the people who know me said nice things about it (someo of them on here) but I would be lying as much as the indie star who gets to number five on Top of the Pops and still goes on about "just doing it to entertain themselves" if I didn't admit to being pleased that all these people have had a peek at my film.
It's has had the particular Tubebook specific accolade bestowed on it this week as someone has posted an answer video. It's a female singer doing an acoustic version of LDB, which again is pleasing if it has encouraged someone to do something creative. If we all made and did stuff we could dump rubbish like 'stenders and Holby city and we'd only need Nick Park and the news to entertain us on the BBC!
Anyway I'll let you get back to the bread sauce and Cadbury's celebrations. I need to have think about a new idea for a new film what about a robot version of Brief Encounter....... Hornby 00.......in Spanish........Uncle Joe's Mintballs.......
Dear all, Have a wonderful, peaceful and happy Christmas! Thanks for all you comments, thoughts, links, jokes, tunes,clips, ideas, inspirations, diversions, laughs, tears,beers.......cheers! Anyway have good one all the best C xxx.
Nigella's Christmas kitchen: I decided to skip over the artifice of the whole affair and see if the food is any good; well she started off well with most of the programmes including hard liquor in various forms. Most cooking programmes are content to sniff the odd glass of wine (never beer mind) but Nigella made a martini with the merest hint of lychees liqueur in it which looked good.
Other cocktails just involved pouring booze into jugs excellent. The food was the usual over the top stuff all fairly doable. If you can bare a show with more theatrical winks than Frankie Howerd in summer season and parties full of Nigella's fake friends its harmless Christmassy fun. One thing did start to pall tonight they dubbed the hubbub of a party over the festive shots sadly it sounded more like a staff canteen than the noise the 6 or so people artfully snuggled round N's table would make.
Before Ms Lawson was a repeat of Rick Stein's Christmas food heroes which was the usual stuff Rick goes round the country enthusing about food not much to say really although I could have done without another lecture from Rick about people wanting cheap food, multi millionaire foodies like Rick and Hugh ex Etonian-complicated name going on how the rest of us should order our pheasants from the local wood is just tiresome.
Last up and most annoying is Willie's chocolate starfish Christmas Infomercial: this is one channel 4 annoying lifestyle programmes which is just an extended advert for which ever upper middle class twonk business is on the show. People complain about the poshness of Nigella's faux lifestyle when Willie's and his even posher wife's lifestyle is "real" and therefore even more tiresome filled with semi staged nonsense and shots of his ever so kath kidson aspirational posh people lifestyle (with every recipe with added chocolate of course).
One dodgy point earlier on Rick visited a stilton factory and had to wash and cleanse his hands etc before going in Willie blithely wanders onto his factory and starts doling out homemade mince pies to the his factory staff mmmmm lovely 80% coco butter chocolate with added spit, pastry crumbs and bacteria somebody call the environmental health. Or maybe these are faux eastern Europeans in his faux factory.
To finish off the tosh the film company shipped in a snow machine to gild that bit more the lives of Willie and his spoilt brood, gilded like his un-ironic gold flake encrusted (chocolate natch) cheese cake.
Sorry I'm forgetting myself this is the season of goodwill to all men but can't we make an exemption for poshboy ex ad men and there so called "cottage" industry foodie empires.
Oh and the hilarious killing the turkey story was lovely too.
Why are all modern Christmas films the same? I was sorting things out this afternoon and had my 5 channels on (still no freeview) and there were a number Christmassy films on, Elf on, channel 4 one about skating and reindeer on 5. There were more last weekend and stacks more to come. The depressing thing is that all recent xmas films only have one plot ie. materialistic person who hates this time of year falls in love with it all again usually via some over optimistic type.
Yesterday the Muppet Christmas Carol was on and here lies the problem as this is were they get their stories from and they all suffer from the problem Dickens had which is Scoorge is much more interesting when he's nasty. So they all trun out abit bland which may be the point I haven't seen bad Santa but I bet he doesn't end bad.
How about some new Christmas films how about someone who loves Christmas too much and has to learn to turn it down abit. Or a rebellion in santas toy factory or how about a film about real British christmas not the "love actually version "where people snog in their pants in the show at Borough Market but you know grim office parties, burnt veggie cutlets, queuing in Argos and having your debit card declined, getting cards from people who haven't written in ages, cheery eastend pubs that open up at minutes notice to give lunch to a random assortment of vaguely related shouty market traders (oh that's christmas Eastenders) any how about anew story.
Some tracks take on the feel of this time year without ever mentioning a single bauble or featuring a hint of sleigh bells.
Take this slice of Folk pop melodrama from Paul Simon & Art Garfunkle. It's from their 1966 Lp "Parsley ,Sage, Rosemary & Thyme", which I got on vinyl a year or so ago, mainly because it's got their classic poignant carol "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night"on it .
However "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" has a sense of winter about it ,mentioning frosty fields and cathedral bells and it is ever so dramatic. Please excuse the odd pop and crackle, just think of them as a log fire glowing in the hearth! It's got some lovely guitar on it too.
Lastly being from the 60's its commendably short, lasting little longer than the time it takes a snowflake to melt on your palm.
"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkle
Signs of the seasons: the shops are full of Knock Off Bailey's
I'm never entirely sure that the wise men didn't turn up to Mary & Joseph's gaff with some pringles, some screen wash and a bottle weird "cream" based liqueur.
I do like this sleeve it's manic and festive and it's got a stuffed deer's head. The songs a bit 80's on the clip you have to put up with creaky acting for 2 mins before it kicks in. Anyway I think christmas at Dollywood last for 3 months so things could be worse.
Hot Swedish girls! Well that’s got your attention, as part of a sort out I’ve been scanning photos and postcards and came across these jolly scamps.
Intriguingly it’s from “ the Swedish girls” “Sissi & Kirstin” who were sadly missing from my childhood Christmases, It’s shame I think they may have brightened up things even more!
Speaking of Sweden we must talk about pop and one of my lps of the year.
More Modern Short Stories From...
It’s by Hello Saferide. Which is AnnikaNorlin and some friends , she writes in a poppy rocky sort of way with some mid 80’s big music production like you’d find on Waterboys songs or similar. I think some people might find her singing affected in a mid-atlantic way, but well I like it.
Her songs are mix of personal and broader issues with details of her life eg losing your virginity, waiting for a new boyfriend to turn up, but with added depth for example in the song about her first time she exposes the awkwardness of such occasions and contrasts it with the dullness of her Saturday job in a shoe shop. It could all fall into deepest excesses of singer song writer confidential therapy records but the music and wit save it. Also being Swedish there’s a hint of chill in the air making ideal for this time of year.
The best songs are "Anna" about those a parallels lives we might have lived. and "Arjeplog" (it’s a little town in Northern Sweden) a lovely love song perfect to listen to whilst you imagine that those flakes are floating down.
There's no getting away from it now Christmas will be here soon enough so I'm dusting off the advent calendar to celebrate this enjoyable if occasionally annoying season.
Little Drummer Boy Year 2
Advent Day1: I blame my parents they always encourage us as kids to make Christmas and birthday cards and the habit sort of stuck. So after a few years of making music compilations I was running out of good Xmas tunes and struck on the idea of making a Xmas film. I'd always liked Lows Yuletide EP and after seeing a drummer boy clockwork toy worked up the idea of him being chased by a killer robot initially across a number of famous London venues but eventually settled for things I could make in flat out of tinfoil and wrapping paper. It took a few nights to make mainly because I was using my cheap stills digital camera which could only record a few minutes of film before I had to transfer the shots to my borrowed laptop. Then using Microsoft movie maker I edited it. The whole thing if you excluded the cost of the borrowed laptop and the camera cost around £30 quid in clockwork toys, baubles and tangerines!
Broadcast yourself
When I made it in 2005 YouTube wasn't around (or if it was wasn't well know) so I spent some more evenings burning 20 or so cd's to send out to my family and friends as cards. They all seemed to enjoy it. That was that until last year by which time YouTube had grown to in effect the 6th TV channel in Britain and so I up loaded it.
I have to admit I was pleased after a day or so that 20 or 40 people had watched it, this quickly turned to 100's and by the end of January 20,000. It's many times more popular than any other of my films due mainly to the popularity of the tune.
I do find it thrilling that a film you make literally in your bedroom (mines a studio flat!) can be seen by a fair sized football crowd. Of course I doubt if many of the viewers have watched it all but even so they seen 30 seconds of my film. In fact this does raise an interesting idea if I was making it now would you change it? The opening scenes where meant to be a montage of Christmassy things which would introduce the theme and it takes almost a minute it introduce the main characters of the drummer boy and the robot so maybe if I were re-cut it for YouTube I would literally cut to the chase a bit quicker, but you know what I'm not going to mainly because editing stuff is time consuming and fiddly but also the film fits the song and if some bored Danish teenagers tunes out before the main scenes more fool them!
IMHO
Talk of the audience brings me to the comments underneath; it's not new to say that YouTube comment posts don't show humanity at our best. Even the gratefully received positive ones are less than flattering being the usual "lol" "cool film" variety, the others fall into the cultural differences column with discussion of why there's tangerine in film.
The is also usual boastful pride filled evangelical nonsense as the god botherers storm in as, as the song is religious we get lots of random blessing that and Jesus stuff plus over literal analysis of the song i.e. did Jesus play the drums?
Lastly up is the abuse usually saying how bad the film or that they hate Jesus or Christmas.
I'm not saying the negative stuff doesn't affect me I just don't know why anyone would bother that much, I've seen hundreds of poor film on YouTube but rarely feel need to abuse the maker (or more likely poster) one guy (ivcam1021) recently told me to "next time ask a pro" . Which I didn't understand "ask a pro" what? How to make films but YouTube is all about broadcasting yourself it's about amateur film making or maybe he's a pro and I should email him when I want to film a radar tower and stick some electronica over the top! One thing I will guarantee is that anyone on YouTube who leaves a negative comment if you follow their name tag back to their profile won't have made any films of their own and are effectively anonymous, this sort of thing happens a lot less on flickr where if you slag off someone's snaps there's a good chance they'll swing by you page and could have something pithy to say about your collection of pics.
On the whole I think it's all funny really why do people think anyone gives a toss what some misanthropic teenager in Denmark thinks about a song written by some slow speaking Mormon stuck on a film about clockwork toys by a slight obsessive bloke from Yorkshire.
DO IT YOURSELF anyway my films out there and it looks like because it's a Christmas film it will be watched for years to come all things being equal, already this Christmas 3 or 4 thousand views have clicked on it which brings us back to positive note on which to end.
If you have an idea and small amount of money you can make film and if it's any good people will watch, people however odd all over the world will see your film which is frankly very cool so happy advent I'm off to check my viewing counter one more time.
Become a rubbish wildlife photographer, honestly the finches on the tree outside my flat we great but my pictures are rubbish the only one that's any good every single one of the birds is facing the other way!
Have a little nap.
Get excited about an Amazon parcel arriving it's some *whispers* Christmas tunes
Make a complicated sandwich in this case Hot bacon , thinly sliced cabbage, dill pickle with a splash of mustard in flat bread, with some hula hoops (plain of course) an orange, and 3 coxes, washed down as I'm on my day off a glass of beer(sadly only Kroneburg)
Clean the space where the cooker is going, don't know why as it will be filled with cooker again soon (well let's hope the guy is already 4 hours late)
Put off reading the paper on line because you were going to go out to the market and get a real paper and some bits.
Not start on your Christmas cards as the moment you do the stove will arrive see also have a bath , prune mint and rosemary bushes.
Spend too long trying to get a £2.30 usb Bluetooth dongle to work with your stereo maybe you should have specced the built in one after all but it was £40.
Try not to curse the cut in Vat which would have paid for the Bluetooth module on your new laptop!
Try to not to get too Christmassy listening to your new cd.
Wonder if today is the day the really good films are on in the afternoon unlike the days when you are at work and they show "Brief encounter", "the third man" and "the Colditz story" before Countdown but you're not putting the TV on otherwise you'll watch docs about Hitler, auction programmes and old episodes of ER's all day.
4 and half hours the beggars have not still turned up.............
To Koko with PB to see Low . Now I am wary of this but it was labelled “Christmas Concert”, I’m only wary as I like to keep discussion of Yule to December but I imagine that they wanted to be home for Xmas and so toured the UK now.
We got there at the start of the support who were called Ida and who both agreed where strange support as they were very similar to Low almost like a cover band. They had guitarist, a fiddle player and a harmoniumist and singer. They played very pretty precise folky acoustic numbers very similar to a none electric low songs. They weren’t too bad and the crowd listened intently I just think some variety was needed. One of the reason they were supporting it turns out is that they formed part of Low later in evening.
After a short break Low came on much like Granddaddy without us noticing. As an intro Alan Sparhawk started to dedicate the gig to john Peel and the Obamas but got interrupted by a loud mouth in crowd. That being said Sparhawk has the slowest discourse in the history rock whole seconds go by between words giving pointers to their slow contemplative style.
Big mouth Strikes again The first 40 minutes of the gig was recent material played as a 3 piece guitar, bass and drum and cymbal. Which was excellent with good range of songs from across their lps. Then Ida and another drummer joined them for the trance like Shots and Ladders followed by the Christmas portion of gig to great effect. I’ll even allow them their reggae tinged up beat number (as it’s that time of year) they did a new song called Come Santa which was marvellously mad (and almost metal) in that they made Santa coming seem like threat. After this another loud mouth in the crowd shout out his complaint that Low weren’t the low he knew which was strange as the gig was much like every other I’ve seen and that it did say Christmas show on the ticket any way he was well put down by the band. Anyway they continued with the Christmas songs including Just like Christmas their stone cold classic.
As to why Low work is the way that Sparhawk's and Mimi Parker's voices harmonise and meld to form a continuum, it has a slight stark hymnal quality (which isn’t surprising) and which really like the sparse and the dynamics of the songs bring them alive thus saving them from falling into shoegazing introspection.
Highlight for me: was Canada, Shots and Ladders and One perfect Gift.
Anyway especially after Lambchop the other week Low where excellent it might not have been just like Christmas but it was certainly a good advert for advent. I wrote a bit about miserable Camden pubs but PB beat me to it!
