I’ve just watched “Paterson” – a Jim Jarmusch film about a bus driver who secretly writes poetry and delights in overheard conversation. It’s a really gentle, observant film with not much action, but a lot of listening. Here’s a really good summary of it by reviewer Mark Kermode, who sums it up as a ‘mood poem”
The Scottish poet Bill Herbert went to work in the Lake District of England for a while… and it rained for a month. He wrote a list poem about rain, finding in it a series of new ways to describe a repeating, unpleasant phenomenon. A tour de force. It’s called “The Black Wet” and begins at 33 minutes into this video, ending 35 minutes 12.
It’s a cliche that in the UK, people talk about the weather when they meet – it’s a safe, neutral topic, it’s polite, it’s everyday. But Bill Herbert’s poem takes that something banal and takes it into unusual wording and similes.
“It is not merely raining,
it’s Windering and Thurling, it’s Buttering down.
It’s raining lakes, it’s raining grass-snakes,
it’s raining Bala, Baikal and Balalaikas…”
As he explains in the few minutes before he reads the poem, a sense of place is important in that poem – the area he was in, was where the English poet William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) famously lived – but Bill notes wryly that in the thousands of poems which Wordsworth wrote, he did not mention the rain, just once “a rainbow”. From this, Bill wonders humorously aloud if WW was “on a backhander from the Tourist Board” (i.e. William Wordsworth was quietly paid by the Tourist Board NOT to mention the constant rain in case it put off tourists from visiting the area).
To get the wide range of language in the poem, Bill asked the local English people how they would describe the rain, put in those sayings, added his own extraordinarily colourful descriptions and topped it all off by titling the poem with his native Scottish phrase for rain: The Black Wet (to distinguish from snow which is “the White Wet”).
What is the most every day, boring, banal occurrence where you live? Might be the traditional conversation opener between strangers meeting at a bus stop. Or a common relentlessly repeating part of the landscape. Or particular weather conditions. Find as many ways to represent that in your art/writing/craft, including the wildest, whackiest ways to describe it, until it become fun rather than humdrum.
Roz Chast takes us through her favourite type of art at the Met – Medieval paintings. She has a distinctive eye and commentary.
Roz brings her humour to the pictures and a strong sense of where the artist is not quite sure if they’re good enough to draw certain parts of the picture – and how they cope with that.
The general effect is of going around a gallery with a witty companion who makes you snigger and yet wonder – but not be overawed by the art – to still see it as paintings done by humans, with very ordinary human concerns, as well as a sense of the exalted (most art of the time illustrates religious, biblical themes).
A salute to the day – a fly past by birds, which goes by the lovely title of “Murmuration” – a naturally occurring phenomenon. Filmed by artist Fiona Watson.
Fiona Watson has made a series of tiny films – lasting simply between one minute and two minutes in length. These are very do-able for anyone who a camera which records video, and some basic editing equipment.
Here is one video recorded out of the train window on a journey, edited and set to music. It seems to tell a small story, with a haunting piece of music and an everyday intercity journey (Edinburgh to Glasgow).
Tatsuya Tanaka has been shaping everyday things into landscapes with miniature people figures…. this video is silent (why not have fun trying different background music to it).
See http://www.miniature-calendar.com for more, many more, and there is a fresh picture (more…)
